Racial discrimination and persecution in Germany 1933 – 1939
This is what will hopefully be the first in a long line of mini-essays which are really designed to firstly make me do the readings for my course and secondly provide some structure and purpose as I do them. This one is about the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany based only on the two books I have available (having left things to the last minute again). They being Michael Burleigh’s ‘The Third Reich, A New History’ and Christopher Browning’s ‘The Origins Of The Final Solution’.
posted by Benjamin Nakizo at 3:00 PM
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Key Dates:
January 1933: Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany
April 1933: Boycott of Jewish goods and services in Germany
July 1933: Nazi party declared only party in Germany
October 1933: Germany quirts the League of Nations
June 1934: ‘The Night of the Long Knives’. A violent purge of the Nazi party’s SA (the Brown Shirt paramilitary operation) of all those who did not support Hitler and were still had loyalties to the other factions that made up the Nazi party.
August 1934: Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany
September 1935: German Jews stripped of all rights under the Nuremberg Race Laws.
November 1938: The Night of the Broken Glass, a pogrom against German Jews. Homes and businesses were ransacked, Jews beaten to death and 30,000 Jewish men were taken away to concentration camps. 1668 synagogues were destroyed through Germany and parts of Austria (which had earlier that year announced its union with the German people).
Background:
Opinion is divided on how exactly Germany, more so than any other European nation came to become so anti-Semitic. A distrust of Jews existed throughout Europe ever since, in my fair opinion the Bible was written which was designed to portray the Jews as ‘Christ killers’ for not joining in with their new Christian revolution and for remaining true to their roots. Ever since the Jews have been used as scapegoats whenever change has swept over Europe. Particularly around 1000AD with the first emergence of modern states, and then later around the 1700’s with the French Revolution and enlightenment. In Germany it might be seen that with their resentment of Napoleons invasion they developed a sort of anti-modernist streak. Thinkers like Nietzsche for example attacked modernism and longed for a more traditional and authoritarian past. Along with this distrust of modernism came an equally large distrust of the Jews. Anti-Semitism was used to rationalise the changes that were undergoing Germany and unsettling its traditional power structures.
“By the turn of the century German anti-Semitism had become an integral part of the conservative political platform and had penetrated deeply into the universities.” (Browning, p7) Yet it was still really on the fringes of German political life. It took the events of 1912 – 1929 to disrupt the normal political fabric and allowed this fringe belief its chance in the public limelight. Anti-Semitism and the Nazi party whose leaders embraced it did not win over the hearts and minds of the German people. Not all Germans suddenly became anti-Semites but instead they came to favour a more authoritarian style of government. Providing this model were either the Communists or the Nazi party and its Conservative Allies. As we know the Nazi party won out partly because it appealed in many ways to many people, the very title is of course a catch all title looking to include as many different doctrines and supporters as possible. So not all Nazi voters were anti-Semitic but what is clear is that all those that voted Nazi were not put off by its anti-Semitic rhetoric, which is of course understandable if you take into account what was mentioned previously and realise that anti-Semitism had long been an accepted and respectable attitude amongst the academic elites.
Central to the escalation of the anti-Semitic program however was of course Hitler. Not only did Hitler seek the end of European Jewry but the style of decision making he oversaw within the Nazi party led to his followers attempting to outdo one another in proposing ideas to Hitler that they believed he would like. In effect his ministers competed with each other over who could devise the most outrageously anti-Semitic policies in order to win Hitler’s favour. Indeed in many cases, due to the bureaucratic workings of the German state under the Nazis, it was not proposals for future action that his advisors used to impress him, but using their independence over their own ministries it would be direct action, implemented without Hitler’s consent that they hoped would win his favour when he eventually came to hear about it.
Missing from the key dates above are a series of small scale, yet devastating laws that prohibited Jewish persons from working in one profession after another. Jews in the civil service were forced to retire, and then doctors and then dentists were excluded from professional bodies and no longer allowed to practice. University professors and artists came next. “Of an estimated eight hundred Jewish academics in Germany – including men and women of major international reputation – two hundred left the country in 1933 alone. Twenty of these people were Nobel laureates; the eleven physicists included Albert Einstein.” (Burleigh, A New History, p285). Of course not all those that fled Germany were from the elite classes in Jewish society but it is these professions that have produced figures easiest for historians to obtain and digest.
Jews reacted in different ways depending on their outlook and ability. Many believed that they had seen this type of anti-Semitic action before and were of the view that once again all they needed to do was sit tight and ride out the storm. Hitler had risen to power on a platform of anti-Semitism yet many believed he was just a demagogue employing the rhetoric to win popularity, not a true believer. Once his supporters had vented their rage Hitler would bring their actions to hell, after all were not the Jews economically vital to the Germany economy? The same economy that he had attempting to revive? Besides, many German Jews had been German for countless generations; many had fought in the Great War and had no desire to give up their identities. Others however left and in 1933, 40,000 Jews left Germany. Usually they were young, urban and single. Those of age, or with families or living in rural areas often felt they had no alternative but to stay.
Actions against the Jewish population came from all areas, not just top down directives. Often SA groups looking to increase their reputations implemented their own ad hoc pogroms against Jews. Gangs of twenty or thirty uniformed SA youths would set upon bathing spas, smashing teeth and half drowning children as parents looked on. Similar groups would descend on market places upturning the stalls of Jewish traders. These groups rarely ran foul of the local police who often assisted or at least consented to such brutal acts. Denunciations of Jewish people came increasingly from within their ranks of their friends or colleagues who, down on their luck, would report their Jewish activities to local authorities or gangs, all the while hoping that such actions would remove the person in question from their professional place and gift others a chance. Personal feuds and jealousies often ended in this way.
Yet while all this happened the majority of German people sat by and watched. Not all consented, indeed many, the majority in fact would criticise these gangs of youth and while many shop owners were forced to put up ‘No Jews’ signs many did not enforce the law, preferring to continue serving their Jewish customers. Many Germans were arrested or assaulted for coming to the aid of a Jewish person experiencing difficulty at the hands of the SA or others. Yet the fact remains that despite their disgust at the actions of their felloe Germans no concentrated attempt was made to curtail their activities. Many believed there was little they could do about it and were simply indifferent to the Jewish plight. Many continued to trade and deal with Jews out of economic necessity however and does not represent any act of defiance on behalf of the population. Indeed many who did feel sympathetic to Hitler’s cause against the Jews still had many Jewish friends, because, as Burleigh puts it, “Like Friendship, limited commercial dealings with individual Jews did not preclude prejudices against an abstraction”. (p290, Burleigh). In my opinion this is all too true and is an incredibly dangerous but yet all to naturally occurring mindset.
Before I make some concluding statements I will quickly go through some key discussions which were suggested to me by a professor of Holocaust studies.
1. What happened at Nuremberg?
In 1935 the Nuremberg Race Laws were created and put into practice through Germany. It came in two parts. The first half was entitled ‘The law for the protection of German blood and German honour’ and the second was called, ‘The Reich citizenship laws’. In the first set of laws it banned marriage between ‘Germans’ and Jews and also prohibited the use of ‘German’ woman under the age of forty-five as domestic servants. In the second section it stripped Jews of their German citizenship
2. Who were the SS?
The SS stood for Schutzstaffel which translates as (“Protective Squadron”) they were the military organisation of the Nazi party. It became one of the most powerful organisations in Germany, growing from its initial role as Hitler’s personal bodyguard.
3. Who were the SD?
The SD were the Sicherheitsdienst which was the intelligence arm of the SS. It worked in close conjunction with the Gestapo throughout Germany and was particularly involved in the persecution of the Jews, as well as the administration of the Polish Ghettos.
In conclusion the Nazi’s were a particularly nasty bunch.
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