"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (152 page)

23.
Law of April 22, 1933,
RGBl.
I, 217.

24.
The Law on the Admission of Tax Advisors of May 6, 1933 (
RGBl.
I, 257), withdrew all licenses of Jewish tax advisors without exception and prohibited new admissions in general.

25.
Neumann, “Vom Kaiserhoch zur Austreibung,” 8 ff., from whom the following information is taken.

26.
Ibid., 10; Neumann had been a member of the German Democratic Party and took his appeal to be readmitted in the capacity of notary as far as the
Reichsgericht
. Since no lawyer was prepared to take on the case before the
Reichsgericht
, he applied for ex officio counsel. The
Reichsgericht
refused, since the appeal was hopeless.

27.
Weniger, “Die zahlenmäßige Entwicklung der Anwaltschaft seit 1933” (1937); according to H. Frank, based on data from the Reich Ministry of Justice in
DJ
(1934): 950, and in his
Nationalsozialistisches Handbuch für Recht und Gesetzgebung
, introduction, xviii f., the following departures occurred between promulgation of the law on April 7, 1933, and May 1, 1934. In Prussia 1,084 non-Aryan lawyers and 280 lawyers “for other reasons” (death, voluntary departure, political reasons, etc.) departed, a total of 1364. Of the 6,226 notaries practicing in Prussia on April 7, 1933, 2,051 (33%) of whom were non-Aryans, 1,199 had left the profession by May 1, 1934, 1,055 of them through revocation of their license or dismissal by virtue of the Professional Civil Service Code and 144 for “other [i.e., political] reasons.” See also the statistics, which are sometimes contradictory, of the Reich Ministry of Justice for Prussia, in Lorenzen, “Das Eindringen der Juden in die Justiz vor 1933,” with full tables categorized by State Superior Court district. According to details in
DJ
(1939): 966, a total of 11,814 lawyers (6,226 notaries) were registered as of April 7, 1933, including 3,370 non-Aryan lawyers (1,210 non-Aryan notaries); 1,364 non-Aryan lawyers (1,199 non-Aryan notaries) left the profession between April 7, 1933, and April 30, 1934; on May 1, 1934, a total of 10,885 lawyers (5,216 notaries), including 2,009 non-Aryan lawyers (825 non-Aryan notaries) were registered, who had also left the profession by November 30, 1938. At the end of 1933, a total of 18,053 lawyers, 2,900 (16%) of whom were non-Aryan, were still registered in Germany. On January 1, 1938, a total of 17,360 lawyers, including 1,753 non-Aryans, were registered (
Mitteilungen der Reichsrechtsanwaltskammer
[1938]: 134). Thus between 1934 and 1936 some 1,150 Jewish lawyers must have left the profession.

For the Reich see also data from the Reich Ministry of Justice in
JW
(1934): 2967, according to which a total of 19,500 lawyers were registered in the Reich on April 1, 1933. The licenses of 1,494 of them were revoked by virtue of the law of April 7, 1933, and 774 departures occurred as a result of death, voluntary resignations, etc. There were still 18,053 lawyers, including 2,900 non-Aryans, registered by the end of 1933 (number of new admissions, 794). According to information from the Reich Ministry of Justice in
JW
(1935): 758, there were a total of 18,432 lawyers on January 1, 1934, whereas 1,016 had left the profession (because they were non-Aryans or for other reasons); as of January 1, 1935, there were a total of 18,780 lawyers, 2,736 of whom were non-Aryan (approx. 15%).

28.
RGBl.
I, 522.

29.
RGBl.
I, 1258, with official explanatory notes from the Reich Ministry of Justice,
DJ
(1935): 6.

30.
DJ
(1933): 142 (
DJZ
[1933]: 130).

31.
Second Implementing Order under the Law on Admission to the Legal Profession of October 1, 1933 (
RGBl.
I, 699), under the terms of which every lawyer and patent agent who remained in the profession not only “maintained full enjoyment of his professional rights” but also had “a claim to the respect due to his professional status. No lawyer or patent agent may be hindered or restricted in the exercise of his profession in conformity with the law.”

32.
Circular of May 26, 1933, from the
Gauobmann
(the official responsible for a
Gau
) of the League of National Socialist German Jurists in the
Gau
of Greater Berlin (transcript BA P 135, 6334, fol. 153) to the Reich and
Land
director of the League of National Socialist German Jurists, all League of National Socialist German Jurists members, the Berlin Lawyers Association, the Prussian Ministry of Justice, the president of the Prussian Supreme Court and State Court of Appeals, Berlin, and the directors of the Amtsgericht, Berlin.

33.
H. Frank at the Party rally on September 14, 1934: the “unswerving aim” would remain the “removal” of Jews from legal practice (cited in Steiniger and Leszczy
ski,
Das Urteil im Juristenprozeβ
[1969], 203).

34.
Decision of the Prussian Ministry of Justice in a special issue of
DJ
(1933): 127, according to which the State Superior Court presidents had until May 5, 1933, to report and to request information on the reliability of the applicant, from the courts and chamber directors, the Police, the
Gauobmänner
of the League of National Socialist German Jurists, and “other … organizations that appear appropriate.”

35.
See the ruling of the Reich Chamber of Attorneys in EGHE (Decisions of the Disciplinary Court of the Lawyers’ Chamber) 28, 166: “In the overall judgment it should furthermore not be lost to sight that as a Jew the accused had to be particularly conscious of his acceptance by the German judiciary and that this gave him particular responsibility not only to behave impeccably but also to respect the standpoint of the German people as expressed in the race legislation.” A Jewish lawyer who got excited about a remiss debtor and made “remarks hostile to the state” on the record was struck off; no allowance was made for the fact that his irritability resulted from a previous illness (EGHE 29, 88). A Jewish lawyer who had mocked various National Socialist leaders was also banned. The Disciplinary Court of the Reich Chamber of Attorneys furthermore stated, “Evaluation of the accused’s conduct must be based upon the fact that he is a Jew. Permission to practice his profession of lawyer in the National Socialist state carried with it an obligation to exercise the greatest discretion, especially in political matters. It was incumbent on him to avoid all remarks that could be seen as a criticism of existing conditions or which might hurt the feelings of German citizens” (EGHE 28, 166). A lawyer was also suspended for not having disclosed that his grandfather was a Jew, although he had known this to be the case since 1933 (EGHE 31, 122), as was one who in 1935 had married a Jewess who had supported him financially for years and in 1930 had saved his life (EGHE 30, 65). A later cause for dismissal was simply that a woman lawyer had eaten and walked together with a Jewish doctor who lived in the same boarding house as herself (EGHE 33, 123), and that a Jewish lawyer had written letters to a prominent emigrant (EGHE 28, 233 ff.).

36.
Breaches of professional discipline included, for example, the sale of the practice through a Jewish lawyer, who was given a warning; a lawyer was reprimanded whose father had represented him on the board of the local Chamber of Attorneys in his absence and had kept quiet about the fact that the lawyer’s mother was a Jewess (EGHE 29, 83). Acquiring a Jewish lawyer’s practice and taking over the clientele, on the other hand, did not yet constitute an offense in 1933 (EGHE 28, 176); in 1934, however, such action was considered highly dubious (EGHE 28, 125). A lawyer who had had intimate relations and since 1935 only friendly relations with his Jewish secretary was fined 300 Reichsmark and reprimanded (EGHE 31, 62).

37.
General instruction of the Reich minister of justice of December 19, 1935 (
DJ
[1935]: 1858); Neumann, “Vom Kaiserhoch zur Austreibung,” 11.

38.
Cf. the exclusion on May 24, 1934 (
JW
[1934]: 1509), of Jewish lawyers as advocates for the poor at the Oberlandesgericht, Frankfurt; Kammergericht, January 25, 1935 (
JW
[1935]: 1039); State Superior Court, Hamm, March 23, 1935 (
JW
[1935]: 1446); State Superior Court, Naumburg, July 5, 1935 (
JW
[1935]: 2216 f.); the refusal to admit Jewish lawyers as official defense, State Court of Appeals, Berlin, June 20, 1935 (
JW
[1935]: 2393). The State Labor Court of Appeals, Berlin, banned all non-Aryan persons from practicing law and rejected both Jewish lawyers and Association representatives as a matter of principle (decision of July 27, 1933 [
JW
(1933): 2788]); similarly, the Labor Court, Berlin, June 20, 1933 (
JW
[1933]: 1794); Labor Court, Magdeburg, May 25, 1935 (
JW
[1935]: 1895), and August 1, 1935 (
JW
[1937]: 275).

39.
Circular from the Reich minister of the interior of October 17, 1938 (
MinbliV
[1938]: 1722), according to which youth agencies were forbidden to “propose” Jews as guardians, trustees, counselors, or advocates in a clearly defined domain.

40.
Neumann, “Vom Kaiserhoch zur Austreibung,” 14, with examples.

41.
Ibid., 12, 11 f.

42.
Reich Ministry of Justice general instruction of December 19, 1935 (
DJ
[1935]: 1858).

43.
Grimm, “Das Reichsgesetz über die Zulassung zur Rechtsanwaltschaft” (1933): These were “not everyday laws … involving the organization of our legal profession in some way, but laws that constitute a central element of a completely new order, which penetrate to the very depths of our jurisdiction” (651).

44.
Law of July 20, 1933 (
RGBl.
I 522) (Measures in Favor of the Overcrowded Legal Profession), which amended the rules for admission in the Attorneys’ Code (secs. 5, no. 7; 6, no. 4; 5, 14a, 21a); a further law of December 20, 1934, amending the Attorneys’ Code (
RGBl.
I, 1258), extended the grounds for refusing admission by way of a boundless general clause; see Ostler,
Die deutschen Rechtsanwälte
, 253 ff., for more details.

45.
RGBl.
I, 107; for the early history and content of the Attorneys’ Code, see Ostler,
Die deutschen Rechtsanwälte
, 257 ff.; the relevant commission of the Reich Ministry of Justice agreed that admission should be brought into line with the judicial qualification system. But a number of quite bizarre demands were also made, such as the dismissal of all unmarried lawyers on attaining the age of forty years, those who had not fought at the front, etc. (257). The admission requirements of the new Attorneys’ Code of 1936 (
RGBl.
I, 107) did not provide for formal refusal of claims, but admission was to be based on a “selection principle,” for which above all evidence of National Socialist attitude and thinking was instrumental (see Ostler,
Die deutschen Rechtsanwälte
, 258, 260). This was expressed in a bland provision of the Attorneys’ Code, new series, sec. 15, par. 2, whereby no more lawyers “should” be authorized than was “appropriate for orderly jurisdiction” (whereas according to sec. 2 of the old series, admission of those qualified to be judges was obligatory); thus an appraisal of need replaced the free practice of law. “No claim to admission can any longer be made. Admission is rather based on a free decision of the state. A plea against refusal is not receivable” (Noack,
Kommentar zur Rechtsanwaltschaftsordnung
[1937], sec. 15, note 17).

46.
In addition to the regulations cited in the next note, see the Law on the Directors of the Chambers of Attorneys, January 6, 1934 (
RGBl.
I, 21); the Law on Amendment of the Regulations concerning the Legal Profession Disciplinary Code, March 28, 1934 (
RGBl.
I, 252); the Law Supplementing the Attorneys’ Code, June 20, 1935 (
RGBl.
I, 749); the Law on the Payment of Attorney’s Fees in Matters of the Poor, December 13, 1935 (
RGBl.
I, 1469); the second Law Amending the Attorneys’ Code, December 13, 1935 (
RGBl.
I, 1470); and the Law on Prevention of Abuse in the Field of Legal Counseling, December 13, 1935 (
RGBl.
I, 1478).

47.
RGBl.
I, 1403; implementing regulations quoted in
JW
(1938): 2797 ff.

48.
On the decree of September 27, 1938, see Noack, “Die Entjudung der deutschen Anwaltschaft”; for the effects of the decree in detail, see Ostler,
Die deutschen Rechtsanwälte
, 265 ff.

49.
Ostler,
Die deutschen Rechtsanwälte
, 266.

50.
RGBl.
I, 1478.

51.
Noack, “Die Entjudung der deutschen Anwaltschaft,” 2796 ff.