The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy 1933-1945 (62 page)

"' Herbert, Fremdarbeiter, 33'ff. See also Wolfgang Jacobmeyer. Vom Zwangsarbeiter zwn heimatlosen Auslander: Die Displaced Persons in Westdeutschland (Gottingen, 1985), 48f.

Christoph U. Schminck-Gustavus (ed.), Hungern fur Hitler: Errinnerungen polnischer Zwangsarbeiter im Deutschen Reich 1940-1945 (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1984), 120ff. See also Barbara Kasper et al.,Arbeiten fur den Krieg: Deutsche and Auslander in der Rustungsproduktion hei RheinmetallBorsig 1943-1945 (Hamburg, 1987), 92ff.

"' Von Staden, io6ff.

" See the report in Meldungen aus dem Reich. 4266ff. (Oct. 1942).

' Adrian Lyttelton may be right to maintain that in Italy the State police constituted 'the central and dominant instrument of control', but he is on less firm ground when he adds that 'in Germany, the police administration fell into the hands of an ideologically inspired elite. originating in the ranks of the party. In Italy, it remained under the control of trained bureaucrats. and this was a fact of decisive importance.' The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy 1919-1929, 2nd edn. (Princeton. 1987), 297. There were differences in the terror systems. but the personnel in the political police of each regime do not account for them alone. For a critical introduction see Geoff Eley. 'What Produces Fascism: Pre-Industrial Traditions or a Crisis of the Capitalist State:% in his From Unification to Nazism: Reinterpreting the German Past (Boston, 1986), 254ff.: MacGregor Knox. 'Conquest. Foreign and Domestic. in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany', Journal of Modern History. 56 ( 1984). 1-57.

2 Hoffmann, 5i.

Herbert, Fremdarbeiter, 124.

R. Mann, Protest and Kontrolle, 295.

Andre Halimi, La Uelation sous ('occupation (Paris, 1983). 7. suggests that between 3 and 5 million letters (signed or anonymous) of denunciation were sent to various authorities in Vichy France. Even if he exaggerates the number, his examples make clear that this kind of denunciation was far from uncommon in France, that the motives of the writers were not always 'systemloyal' but frequently'instrumental'. and that the regime reaped the benefits in terms of surveillance and control. See also Sweets, 246.

' Anti-Semitic measures could not be enforced nearly as 'successfully' in Fascist Italy. Nevertheless. Susan Zuccotti points out that at least some assistance from civilians was received, and that some Jews were betrayed by Italian informers-individual citizens motivated by general anti-Semitism and pro-Nazism. private quarrels and vendettas, their own personal involvement in illegal activities, or just plain greed. The Nazis offered rewards for information leading to the arrests of Jews, and several Italians collected. More often, the Germans received anonymous letters': The Italians and the Holocaust: Persecution, Rescue, Survival (New York. 1987), i ;6-7. Meir Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews: German-Italian Relations and the Jewish Question in Italy 1922- 1945 (Oxford, 1978), 389, adds that 'while it is true that at least four-fifths of the Jews living in Italy succeeded in eluding the grasp of the SS and that most of these were saved by Italian Aryans of all classes, it is no less true that such successes as Bosshammer [Eichmann's expert in Italy] was able to achieve were largely due to (willing and unwilling) Italian collaborators.'

See Klaus-Jdrg Siegfried (ed.), Rustwigsproduktion and Zwangsarbeit im Volkswagenwerk 19391945: Eine Dokumentation (Frankfurt, 1986), 92 f., and his Das Leben der Zwangsarbeiter im Volkswagenwerk 1939-1945 (Frankfurt, 1988), 61 ff.

See R. Mann, Protest and Kontrolle, 582, 24",-25-2, 294, 296.

v This is analysed in more detail in my 'Surveillance and Disobedience: Comments on the Political Policing of Nazi Germany', in Francis R. Nicosia and Lawrence D. Stokes (eds.), Opposition and Resistance to National Socialism in Germany, 1925-1945 (Berg Publications, forthcoming).

" See esp. Herbert. Fremdarbeiter. 336ff. Cf. Herbert Obenaus. "'Sei stille, sonst kommst Du nach Ahelm!" Zur Funktion der Getapostelle in der ehemaligen israelitischen Gartenbauschule von Ahlem (1943-194.5)', offprint from Hannoversche Geschichtsbldtter, NF 41 (1987), 1-32. Note also Klaus B5stlein, 'Die Akten des ehemaligen Sondergerichts Kiel als zeitgeschichtliche Quelle'. Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fur Schleswig-Holsteinische Geschichte, 113 (1988), 157R•

"' See HStA D: RW 58, 25283, 1-12.

' See Adalbert Ruckerl. The Investigation of Nazi Crimes 1945-1978: A Documentation, trans. D. Rutter (Hamden, Conn., 1980), 112-13. By the same author see Nationalsozialistische Vernichtungslager im Spiegel deutscher Strafprozesse, 3rd edn. (Munich. 1979): also Herbert Jager, Verbrechen unter totalitdrer Herrschaft (Frankfurt. 1982) 22ff. For similar outcomes in the postwar trials see Adolf Diamant. Gestapo Frankfurt a.M. (Frankfurt. 1988), 299ff. He could find evidence of only 7 accused having served any sentences, out of a total of 18o persons who were members of the Frankfurt Gestapo at one time or another (p. 300). This book arrived too late to be included in my analysis as a whole, but Diamant's reconstruction of the workings of the Gestapo, including its organization and methods of operation, its relatively small numbers especially of those actually engaged in police work, and the absence of a purge, supports my conclusions. For an introduction to the role of denunciations in the denazification of Germany see e.g. Kruger, 97. 101-2; Niethammer. Die Mitlduferfabrik, 593ff.: James F. Tent, Mission on the Rhine: Reeducation and Denazification in American-Occupied Germany (Chicago. 1982). 91. See also Edward N. Peterson, The American Occupation of Germany: Retreat to Victory (Detroit, 1977), 138ff.; Dietrich Gustrow, In jenen Jahren: Aufzeichnung eines 'hcfreiten' Deutschen (Munich. 1985(. 30-I, 96-7.

Table of Contents

List of Maps

Abbreviations and Glossary

Introduction

i. The Emergence of the Gestapo

2. Local Organization of the Gestapo and Police Network

3. Wurzburg and Lower Franconia before 1933

4. Anti-Jewish Actions in Lower Franconia after 1933

5. The Gestapo and Social Co-operation: The Example of Political Denunciation

6. Racial Policy and Varieties of Non-Compliance

7. Compliance through Pressure

8. 'Racially Foreign': Racial Policy and Polish Workers

Conclusion

Epilogue

Bibliography

Index

i. Bavaria, 1933 (excluding the Palatinate)

2. Lower Franconia

i. Proceedings of the Dusseldorf Gestapo 1933-1945

2. Causes of the Initiation of a Proceeding with the Dusseldorf Gestapo (1933-1944)

3. Causes of Initiating Cases of `Race Defilement' and `Friendship to Jews' in the Wurzburg Gestapo

4. Accusations of 'Race Defilement' and 'Friendship to Jews' in the Wizrzburg Gestapo Case-Files (19

EVEN to some astute political observers in Berlin, Adolf Hitler's grasp on power seemed at best tenu

Reich has risen, sanctified with blood. Fourteen years of work have been crowned by victory. We have

Like other Nazi leaders, Goebbels fully believed that real changes were possible. As Hermann Goring

There was a determination to Nazify Germany, but, given the `anti-practical nature' of Nazi ideology

Even if the new holders of power were not as united as sometimes supposed, they could in general a

The `new order' was hammered out in part by the use or threat of violence, and accompanied by an ava

In 1933 there was also the much smaller and more elitist SS under Heinrich Himmler (the Schutzstaffe

Although in time the SS proved to be the ultimate victor, it grew to be too unwieldy and lacking i

Arguably the most important cog in this new machine' inside the Reich was the Geheime Staatspolizei

Prinz Albrecht Strasse 8, the Gestapo became the key link in the terror system and police state, and

The literature which has appeared on Nazi Germany since 1945 is vast, but the Gestapo, and particula

David Schoenbaum's innovative social history provides detailed treatment of the state and touches on

z Even in many of the recent books to appear on the 'history of everyday life' (Alltagsgeschichte)

extensively? These experiences ought to have marked memories indelibly.14

While it is reassuring that the Gestapo and the Nazi Party (in its policing function) turn up in s

There has been a tendency to suppose that the 'police state' relied on an extraordinarily large poli

6 Still, a detailed study of the local distribution of the Gestapo shows that the number of those

Moreover, it is fair to say that, given the increasing reach of the regime into social life, the eve

Overestimation of those involved seems to have been a widespread contemporary misperception, in so

forward, more or less voluntarily, for all kinds of reasons, not necessarily or even primarily becau

Only rarely have historians and political scientists offered suggestions as to how the Gestapo, in s

E. K. Bramstedt touched on several important aspects of the problem, and suggestively pointed to t

Martin Broszat's renowned account of the Nazi state never mentions the problem of enforcement as s

In a neglected short essay on the political denunciations he discovered while working in local arc

Various sections in the standard work on the SS delineate the institutional evolution of the polit

While Arendt exaggerates the role of agents in the operation of the political police, she highlights

'Collaboration of the population in denouncing political opponents and volunteer service as stool

If, by 'specialists' here, Arendt meant to suggest the full-time members of bodies such as the Ges

propaganda was above all effective where it was building upon, not countering, already existing valu