The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy 1933-1945 (35 page)

After the pogrom of November 1938 across the country, maintaining contacts with Jews became more difficult and downright dangerous. The tailor Alfons Mantel from Hassfurt (born 1879) had made suits for thirty years for his Jewish business colleague and neighbour, Julius Goldschmidt. Until shortly before Goldschmidt was arrested in November as part of the pogrom, he and Mantel had split the cost of a daily newspaper. Mantel had been a supporter of the Catholic Party (the BVP) and was known to have little time for the Third Reich. The police were told that in addition to this 'undesirable' contact with Goldschmidt, Mantel avoided using the 'Heil Hitler!' greeting 'as far as possible'. Mantel explained in his own defence that he had begun to curtail his business associations with Goldschmidt ever since 1933, 'as the Jewish question grew more acute'. Here, in all likelihood, an old friendship was brought to a close as local police, with the co-operation of an 'ordinary' citizen, intervened to enforce the spirit of the law-for there was nothing in the statutes against this kind of socializing."

Flight from the country and suicide were the ultimate forms of yielding to pressures to comply with Nazi anti-Semitism. Many couples hoped that big cities, such as Berlin and Frankfurt, might provide anonymity and a modicum of protection from denunciations. Others left the country altogether, and some of them were later overtaken by the conquering German armies. One pair, who left for Paris in 1933 and were married there (in 1938), were subsequently tracked down in mid-1942, whereupon the man was sent back to Germany and gaol. It is not clear what happened to the Jewish woman, although, if apprehended, at the very least she would have been placed in `protective custody'.12

Not all personal bonds across the ethnic boundary dissolved under pressure, but all of them had to adjust. 'Mixed marriages' between Jews and non-Jews, still possible before the Nuremberg Laws prohibited any further-such unions, presented in microcosm the dilemma of living in a country where 'racial mixing' was anathematized. Mixed marriages were of two basic types, the 'privileged' and 'non-privileged'. Precisely who could qualify for which status changed in the years after the promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws. In general terms, a Jewish partner in a privileged marriage was not subject to most anti-Semitic laws, whereas a Jewish person in a mixed marriage that was labelled as non-privileged was treated as were all other Jews. In September 1941, when Jews in Germany were forced to wear the yellow star, those living in privileged mixed marriages were exempted, which in turn meant
that the Jewish person was less vulnerable to daily chicaneries and harassments. More importantly, such persons were not (initially) subject to the deportations which began with the 'star' decree. This decree gave special status to a Jew in a mixed marriage on condition that children born of the marriage would not be raised as Jews; it continued to apply if the marriage dissolved or if an only son was killed in the current war. In a childless mixed marriage, a Jewish woman, but not a Jewish man, would enjoy the 'privileges' for the duration of the marriage. The decree only incidentally favoured a Jewish woman and only so long as the marriage lasted; its effect was to protect the 'German' man in a childless mixed marriage from the pain associated with his spouse's having to wear the yellow star. It also ensured that a 'German' woman living in such a union would not be shielded from this indignity. In practice, a Jewish woman legally entitled to 'privileged' status, none the less found herself vulnerable.'
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By early 1943 there were sixty 'privileged' mixed marriages in Lower Franconia.14
In Germany proper (the 'Altreich') there were still 12,117 privileged and 4,551 non-privileged marriages."
The Gestapo monitored them closely, and a revealing record of what was involved in such relationships has been left by Lotte Paepcke, the Jewish partner in a mixed marriage. She was 'fortunate' because she had a child who did not count as Jewish under the law; even if her marriage had disintegrated she would, in theory, have been exempted from wearing the yellow star.

Paepcke discusses the fate of her friend Lilli, like herself a Jewish woman in a mixed marriage. Lilli and her husband Erich, both medical doctors who married during their university years before 1933, moved to the country, opened a practice, built a house, and had five children. As they lived far from the nearest city, they looked forward to occasional visits from other local notables, such as the pastor, medical colleagues, and the cultivated estateowner down the road; for culture there were trips to the city, vacations abroad, and so on. With the year 1933 much of this way of living began to change: the local SA band surrounded the house at one point and sought without success to place Lilli in 'protective custody'. Paepcke says that the villagers, while not abandoning the doctors overnight, were not entirely unhappy to see some of the 'high and mighty' taken down a peg or two. One day the estate-owner dropped by to say that in future ('no insult intended to you or your spouse') he and his wife would be avoiding all contact: 'In my exposed position, I simply cannot afford the risk,' he explained. Soon afterwards their medical colleagues made similar statements, and in six months
the pastor had to admit that he dared not visit any more because he had already been warned three times by the Party. This kind of popular accommodation, the result of formal and informal pressure to comply, had an unfortunate impact on Lilli's husband, a man who desperately wanted such things as security, peace, and honour; unwilling to do his part to maintain the marriage, he was more than relieved when Lilli took the children and moved to the city. However, upon registering with the authorities, she neglected to add 'Sara' to her name, as the law then demanded. This oversight was reported to the Gestapo, before whom she was repeatedly ordered to appear. After a fourth visit she served a gaol sentence, and worked in a factory; she was eventually sent to Auschwitz, where she perished. The adjustments of the husband, neighbours, and colleagues had contributed to Lilli's death. This is just one example: the story of the mixed marriages remains to be written."

2. SCRUPULOUSNESS IN POLICING RACE RELATIONS

Many of the allegations that turned out to have some basis were of a trivial nature. Anyone reading through the Gestapo files will inevitably be struck by the scrupulousness of the police in relentlessly following up information on the pettiest accusations.

A 33-year-old servant, Margareta Steinmetz, did not have the courage to appear at Gestapo headquarters herself, but an acquaintance with whom she discussed the defiance of the racial code which she had witnessed brought it to the Gestapo in May 1937. It seems that the tax-inspector Rudolf Schafer was seen by Steinmetz shaking hands with the Jewish butcher's wife, Renate Mai, on his way to playing chess at the Alhambra Cafe. Steinmetz was convinced that on another occasion Mai was about to let Schafer into her apartment, but had stopped when spotted. As it happened, Schafer had known the butcher and his wife for twenty-five years, and there was nothing more to the case than that he greeted Frau Mai from time to time while passing in the street. The charge was eventually dropped, but not before it was turned over to one of the town's most feared Gestapo officers for his personal attention."

Another case illustrates how far local authorities carried the enforcement of racial policy. On her rounds at various times in the course of 1941, nurse Bettina Werner of the Nazi Welfare Association (the NSV) in Unteraltertheim had on several occasions observed Jewish people in the homes of patients she visited. Suspecting there was more to it than met the eye, she decided to report the matter, incriminating both Jews and their non-Jewish associates. One of those she denounced was an elderly Jewish woman, Frau Julier (born 1876), who, it turned out, had recently helped a family at the time of the potato harvest, and had done some other chores. Irmgard Junge, a widow (born in 1876), who had accepted help from Julier as well as from a Jewish man (born in 1878), claimed in her defence that no other labour was available. After lengthy investigation by local police the case was forwarded to the Gestapo in Wiirzburg, where it was regarded as a serious matter. The case ended with the following note from the Wurzburg Gestapo official:

I request that Irmgard lunge, whose behaviour is by all events to be considered as a disregard of government regulations, sign a document relating to this matter in which she is warned under threat of the most drastic state police measures... Furthermore, I point out that Jews are only permitted to be employed by Aryans if beforehand the relevant [Nazi Party] Kreisleitung is informed."

Others denounced by nurse Werner in this case were also interrogated, and, though nothing happened to any of them, Werner was responsible for getting six different people into trouble with the law on the flimsiest of grounds. Her denunciation of the Jews came after the deportations to the east had commenced, so that she could hardly have been unaware of the grave implications of her act. The scrupulousness with which the Gestapo enforced racial policy was shared by others outside police ranks.

The reach of the anti-Semitic newspaper Der Sturmer was considerableit was read not only by hardened Nazis or the Gestapo, but also by local policemen in small towns and villages. Maria Keller, a chemist living in Aschaffenburg from mid-1936, was a candidate for a position with the local administration there. It was necessary to investigate Keller's background in order to make a 'political evaluation'. The police office in town concluded that 'the reputation [of this person] cannot be termed one without problems. She appears in regard to morals to be pretty decadent, because before the National Socialist uprising she entertained relations with Jews about which at the time even the Sturmer reported.' Here is a case where nothing was suggested about Keller's behaviour after January 1933, let alone after the promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws. There is nothing more in the file, and she probably did not get the job."

By 23 September 1937 Blockleiter Treu, in Wurzburg's Goethestrasse, was determined to catch the widow Frau Cacile Heim (born 1888) and the Jewish merchant who lived across the street from her, Albert Kuppel (born 1873), in the act of `race defilement'. Blockleiter Treu, like these two neighbours of his, was a merchant, and they had all lived in the same vicinity for many years. Treu asked his immediate Party boss to request the Gestapo to put the couple under surveillance. Initially a secret agent of the Gestapo was sent (agent number 512 7A), on both 16 and 17 November 19 3 7. This person's meticulous journal survives; it records everyone's movements, their coming and going, opening and closing of curtains, switching on and off of a certain light (both thought by Herr Treu to be possible signals, for Heim and Kuppel lived in buildings facing one another). While carrying out this surveillance, from 8.oo a.m. to 6.oo p.m. daily, the agent learnt a great deal from cooperative neighbours, especially from Treu and his wife. The two people had been close before 1933, it was said, and Kuppel had helped settle Heim's estate when her husband died in 1925.

From 1933 both began adjusting their behaviour; visits to each other's apartments had been reduced and had now virtually stopped. Treu's unstinting efforts had been unable to unearth a single instance when anything compromising happened between Frau Heim and Herr Kuppel. The Gestapo, unwilling to let the case rest on the investigative talents of a mere agent, sent two full-time officials-admittedly not very senior ones-on 2 1 November to see if they could do any better. They were able to see Kuppel actually enter Heim's store. The police decided to wait a spell before breaking in to catch the couple in the act, but within a few minutes Kuppel left the store again. The officials could only report that they had overheard what sounded like an argument. Both agents returned on 22 and 23 November. The surveillance ended when Kuppel died suddenly of natural causes.

This allegation was pursued by the Gestapo to great lengths even though a genuine fear of 'race defilement'-producing a child of mixed ancestrywas out of the question, given the advanced years of both persons under suspicion. The file reveals the remarkably dogged and sometimes ridiculous efforts of the Gestapo and the associated police network
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Hardly less ridiculous was a case involving Walburga Grafenberger (born 1900), who had worked for a Jewish firm as its bookkeeper and, until the emigration of its owner in late 1938, was a loyal employee who helped in the 'Aryanization' of the business. On 12 June 1939 Otto Leucht of the railway police telephoned Gestapo headquarters with the 'news' that 'in the last little while' Grafenberger had been observed 'frequently travelling in the direction of Frankfurt a.M.', and in addition was seen in the company of a man of 'Jewish appearance' at the railway station. The Gestapo had her letters investigated for three months. Eventually it came out that she visited one Harry Meister, 'a student' from Hanover, who was not Jewish, the Gestapo deduced, for in one letter he asked her to help out with the harvesting of the crop. The assumption was that Jews did not work as farmers."

When it came to enforcing racial policy, the Gestapo did not stop at the border. Indeed, even after one trial for 'race defilement' was concluded and
the man (a Jew and Polish citizen) was deported, the 'German' woman was denied a passport when the authorities, informed by the woman's mother, found out that she planned to join the man, whom she had known for ten years, in Poland. The mother apparently approached the Party leader in Laufen (May 1937) in order to 'save' her daughter. (At a trial that had been held back in October 1935, incidentally, no sexual relations could be proven to have taken place after the Nuremberg Laws, so the couple had adjusted to the situation sufficiently to avoid the worst consequences.)"
In another case a woman from Amberg (born 1915), who in early 1936 applied to emigrate to Chicago to work as a servant to a Jewish family, was prevented from leaving; brought to Gestapo headquarters in Wurzburg, she admitted having known a Jewish man who had left for Palestine in mid-1934 (that is, before the Nuremberg Laws). The police suspected that she wanted to join him, and so refused permission on the grounds that it had to prevent 'prohibited relations'.23
One far-fetched Wurzburg case from March 1942 was initiated by an anonymous letter, which spoke of a person's connections with Jews in Basle; that case was checked repeatedly until io February 1945, at which time not only were the charges found to be false, but the identity of the original complainant uncovered. The Gestapo said of the latter that 'here was a case of an intriguer'.''