"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (150 page)

48.
Huber, “Das Reichsbürgerrecht,” 22 f., 27.

49.
Stuckart and Globke,
Reichsbürgergesetz
, introduction, 15.

50.
Kluge and Krüger,
Verfassung und Verwaltung
(1941), 167.

51.
Nuremberg doc. NG-894, in BA, All. Proz. 1 XVII B 30, 3 ff. (substantiation of the draft, BA, 42–87). As the basis for the intended new nationality regulations, Mommsen,
Beamtentum im Dritten Reich
(1966), 369, names the decree by the RFSS/Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of German Nationhood of September 12, 1940, “regarding revision and segregation of the population in the incorporated territories,” which provided for four levels of nationality for the inhabitants of the Annexed Eastern Territories (BA R 43 II/137). See also Broszat,
Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik
(1961), 124 ff.

52.
Thus was the summarizing note of the Reich Chancellery to the draft of February 23, 1936 (Nuremberg doc. NG-894).

53.
The draft had the approval of the Reich and Prussian minister for ecclesiastical affairs; see his note of March 8, 1938, to the Reich Ministry of the Interior (Nuremberg doc. NG-894).

54.
BA R 43 II/137.

55.
See the decree of the RFSS/Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of German Nationhood, September 12, 1940, “regarding revision and segregration of the population in the annexed territories” (BA R 43 II/137), according to which the following people should in future live in the Annexed Eastern Territories: Germans with or without the right to Reich citizenship, “persons reinstated as Germans,” “persons of German descent,” Poles with simple German nationality, “valuable aliens … [Ukrainians, Great Russians, White Russians, Czechs and Lithuanians],” “German renegades” with German nationality unless countermanded, and “members of foreign nations” who were “protected members of the German Reich with limited indigenous rights.” A German Ethnic Classification List with four sections should be set up to establish nationality. See also Broszat,
Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik
, 124.

56.
Note of June 19, 1941, BA R 43 II/137.

57.
BA R 43 II/137; the draft concerned the loss of nationality on leaving the Reich territory during resettlement.

58.
See note of December 6, 1942, on a meeting in the Reich Ministry of the Interior of November 21, 1942, in which the three levels of nationality (normal, conditional, and protected state subject status) were discussed (BA R 43 II/137, Bl. 1).

59.
Reich Chancellery note of June 19, 1941, BA R 43 II/137. Introduction of the groups “protected nationals” and “conditional nationals” should be delayed on account of too short a testing time for the Altreich.

60.
Twelfth Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law of April 25, 1943 (
RGBl.
I 268); Decree on Citizenship unless Countermanded of April 25, 1943 (
RGBl.
I 269); First Decree on Protective Citizenship of the Reich of April 25, 1943 (
RGBl.
I 271). For more details see section 1, IV, 5, “The Constitutional Status of ‘Non-German’ Inhabitants of the Reich and the Occupied Territories,” below.

61.
See the preceding note.

62.
For the declaration of statelessness, see RFSS/RKF decree of September 12, 1940, BA R 43 II/137 (quoted in
Doc. Occ.
5:144 ff.), and Decree on Protective Citizenship of the Reich of April 25, 1943 (
RGBl.
I 271). Also RGZ (Supreme Court for Civil Cases) 167, 274. Draft, December 1940, with notes from the Reich minister of the interior to the highest authorities of the Reich (Nuremberg doc. NG-2610), and Reich Ministry of the Interior communication (Stuckart), January 12, 1941, to the Reich minister and head of the Reich Chancellery (Nuremberg doc. NG-2610): it was impossible “to treat Jews, who are of alien blood, better than non-Germans of related blood.”

63.
See file note of December 17, 1939, from the Reich Chancellery (Kritzinger). See also Reich Ministry of the Interior letter of April 7, 1941, to the highest competent authorities of the Reich, in which the recipient is informed that the Führer considered it sufficient to strip Jews living abroad of their nationality and to confiscate their assets. Similarly, the RMuCHdRkzlei memorandum of late December 1941 to the Reich minister of the interior (all three documents in Nuremberg doc. NG-2610). On the role of the Reich Chancellery in the drafting of the Eleventh Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law, see Mommsen, “Aufgabenkreis und Verantwortlichkeit,” 369 ff., 387 ff.

64.
Transcript of this discussion between representatives of the Reich Ministries of the Interior, Economy, Justice, Finance, and Foreign Affairs, the Security Head Office, and others on the “regulation of nationality in the Greater German Reich,” January 25, 1941, Nuremberg doc. NG-300.

65.
Ibid.

66.
Personal note from the Reich minister of the interior of April 22, 1941 (Nuremberg doc. NG-299); the disadvantages connected with statelessness were, however, to be regulated by a decision of the Reich Ministry of the Interior in consultation with the RFSS only in individual cases; see also note 85 below.

67.
Memorandum of April 8, 1941, from the Reich Ministry of the Interior (Pfundtner) to the RMuChdRkzlei, Bl. 17 (Nuremberg doc. NG-299, also quoted in Mommsen, “Aufgabenkreis und Verantwortlichkeit,” 385 n. 54), in which the Reich minister of the interior states that if German nationality is withdrawn from indigenous Jews, they “would then be stateless and subject to the law for foreigners. This obviates the politically awkward situation in which measures to be taken against the Jews, such as deportation, etc., have to be taken against state subjects.” The situation must not be allowed to arise whereby, as a result of statelessness, Jews “were to be in a better position … [than German nationals—Author] under certain aspects of the law.”

68.
RGBl.
I 1053, 1067; by virtue of sec. 7, par. 5, deportation was permitted when, among other things, a prohibition of residence had been decided against foreigners, including stateless persons, or their residence permit had expired.

69.
Though in his letter of April 8, 1941, to the RMuChdRkzlei (Nuremberg doc. NG-299), the Reich Ministry of the Interior quotes the July 14, 1933, Law on Forfeiture of Citizenship (
RGBl
I 480) as the basis for the seizure of assets, the relevant sec. 2 referred only to Reich nationals living abroad. Since the Reich Ministry of the Interior supported the withdrawal of nationality from indigenous Jews, the law of July 14, 1933, on the Seizure of Assets of Enemies of the People and State (
RGBl.
I 479) was the determining factor for confiscation of the assets of indigenous nationals. The Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and the Party leadership from 1942 on in particular supported treating all Jewish assets generally as “assets of enemies of the people and state” without proof in individual cases; see section 1, VII, “Commercial and Property Law,” for more details.

70.
Note of April 22, 1941, from
Ministerialdirigent
Kritzinger to the Reich Chancellery (Nuremberg doc. NG-299, Bl. 5 f.), which, however, expressly approved the withdrawal of nationality in the case of foreign Jews; for details of the different points of view, see Mommsen, “Aufgabenkreis und Verantwortlichkeit,” 386.

71.
Content of the “Führer’s decision” communicated by the RMuChdRkzlei to the Reich Ministry of the Interior in a letter of June 7, 1941 (Nuremberg doc. NG-1123).

72.
Nuremberg doc. NG-2499; this document superseded earlier drafts by the Reich Ministry of the Interior and was completely rewritten compared with the original version of December 1940 on account of the contentious question of mixed marriages (Nuremberg doc. NG-2610). The latest text was sent to the Reich Chancellery with a covering letter from the Reich Ministry of the Interior of October 22, 1941 (Nuremberg doc. NG-2499). See interministerial discussion of July 7, 1941, in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, note by Ficker, Reich Chancellery, of July 15, 1941 (Nuremberg doc. NG-2499).
RGBl.
I 722; the contents of the decree are discussed in detail by Mommsen, “Aufgabenkreis und Verantwortlichkeit,” 381 ff.

73.
Law on the Revocation of Naturalization and the Deprivation of German Citizenship of July 14, 1933 (
RGBl.
I 480); see section 1, IV, 1, “The Law on the Revocation of Naturalization and the Deprivation of German Citizenship,” above; cf. also Kaul,
Geschichte des Reichsgerichts
(1971), 77.

74.
RGBl.
I 83.

75.
Lichter,
Das Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht
, notes 5 and 6 to sec. 2 of the Eleventh Decree.

76.
The term
Aufenthaltsort
(literally, the place where one is staying or residing) had a broader interpretation than
Wohnsitz
(domicile) (Civil Code, sec. 7) or
Niederlassung
(intention to settle permanently at a given place).

77.
Implementing decree of December 12, 1941, from the Reich minister of the interior (
MinbliV
[1941]: 2179). Being “normally domiciled abroad” applied under sec. 11 of the decree of November 25, 1941, when a Jew resided abroad in circumstances “that indicate that his stay there is not merely temporary”; for more details, see Lichter,
Das Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht
, 146 ff., esp. notes 1–3 to sec. 1.

78.
Official grounds for the drafting of an eleventh decree (Nuremberg doc. NG-2499).

79.
The Annexed Eastern Territories and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were not considered foreign countries (sec. 12), the latter being an integral part of the Greater German Reich; according to the Decree on the Loss of Protectorate Citizenship of November 2, 1942 (
RGBl.
I 637), however, the Eleventh Decree applied also to Jews of the Protectorate.

80.
See letter of October 22, 1941, from the Reich Ministry of the Interior (Stuckart) to the RMuChdRkzlei (Nuremberg doc. NG-2499), according to which assimilation of the General Government to a foreign country should not be included in the Eleventh Decree, “since it does not appear appropriate to treat the General Government as a foreign country in a decree.” This contrasts with the letter of January 7, 1942, from the government of the General Government, which states that “Jews evacuated from the Reich to the General Government do not automatically lose their German nationality. This is possible only on deportation from the German state or on deprivation of German nationality. The evacuated German Reich Jews are subject to the special regulations on Jews, which are generally applicable in the General Government” (ZS, Poland, binder 257, Bl. 62, and Poland 317, Bl. 6).

81.
Unpublished decree of December 3, 1941, from the Reich minister of the interior (Nuremberg doc. NG-5336); see Lichter,
Das Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht
, 147 ff., note 4 to sec. 1 of the Eleventh Decree.

82.
According to the decree of November 25, 1941, sec. 3, subpar. 2, the assets of Jews who were stateless when the decree came into force and had last possessed German nationality were also forfeited if they normally lived abroad. This applied to Jews who had fled or emigrated before the decree came into force. Jewish assets in the Łód
ghetto, which was within the borders of the Reich, were confiscated by a secret decree of June 25, 1942 (Reich Ministry of the Interior), in accordance with the Law on the Seizure of Assets of Enemies of the People and State of July 14, 1933 (
RGBl.
I 479).

83.
The principal case was a wife of “German blood” and the child common to both (cf. Lichter,
Das Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht
, note to sec. 6).

84.
Ibid., 147, note 1 to sec. 1 of the Eleventh Decree.

85.
The representatives of the RFSS/RKF and the Party Chancellery had presented their points of view at the meeting of state secretaries of January 15, 1941, at the Reich Ministry of the Interior (Nuremberg doc. NG-300). After prolonged interministerial discussions, the Reich minister of the interior proposed a new draft of a decree with implementing order on April 8, 1941 (Nuremberg doc. NG-299, Bl. 11 ff.), which did not provide for any
general
exceptions to the loss of nationality for
Mischlinge
but did contain
individual
exceptions through a decision of the Reich minister of the interior in consultation with the Reich Chancellery. Jews in privileged mixed marriages would be excluded from the regulation if the children issuing from the marriage were not considered Jews (draft implementing order, Nuremberg doc. NG-299, Bl. 20). For further details, see Mommsen, “Aufgabenkreis und Verantwortlichkeit,” 383 f.

86.
Eleventh Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law, sec. 8.

87.
The only detailed discussion is to be found in the commentary by Lichter,
Das Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht
.