Raul Hilberg Read online

  come tax in lieu of donations for

  Party purposes imposed on Nazis,

  December24,1940 (RGBI I, 1666.)

  Prohibition of Sunday work, Synod of

  Szabolcs, 1092

  Jews not permitted to be plaintiffs, or

  Proposal by the Party Chancellery

  witnesses against Christians in the

  that Jews not be permitted to insti­

  Courts, 3d Lateran Council, 1179,

  tute civil suits, September 9, 1942

  Canon 26

  (Bormann to Justice Ministry, September 9, 1942, NG-151.)

  Jews not permitted to withhold in­

  Decree

  empowering

  the

  Justice

  heritance from descendants who

  Ministry to void wills offending the

  had

  accepted

  Christianity,

  3d

  “sound judgment of the people,”

  Lateran Council, 1179, Canon 26

  July 31, 1938 (RGBI 1,937.)

  11

  T A B L E 1 - 1

  CANONICAL AND NAZI ANTI-JEWISH MEASURES (Continued)

  Canonical Law

  Nazi Measure

  The marking of Jewish clothes with a

  Decree of September 1, 1941 (RGBl

  badge, 4th Lateran Council, 1215,

  I, 547.)

  Canon 68 (Copied from the legislation by Caliph Omar II [634-644],

  who had decreed that Christians

  wear blue belts and Jews, yellow

  belts.)

  Construction of new synagogues pro­

  Destruction of synagogues in entire

  hibited, Council of Oxford, 1222

  Reich, November 10, 1938 (Hey-

  drich to Goring, November II,

  1938, PS-3058.)

  Christians not permitted to attend

  Friendly relations with Jews pro­

  Jewish

  ceremonies,

  Synod

  of

  hibited, October 24, 1941 (Gestapo

  Vienna, 1267

  directive, L-15.)

  Jews not permitted to dispute with

  simple Christian people about the

  tenets of the Catholic religion, Synod of Vienna, 1267

  Compulsory ghettos, Synod of Bres­

  Order by Heydrich, September 21,

  lau, 1267

  1939 (PS-3363.)

  Christians not permitted to sell or rent

  Decree providing for compulsory sale

  real estate to Jews, Synod of Ofen,

  of Jewish real estate, December 3,

  1279

  1938 (RGBl I, 1709.)

  Adoption by a Christian of the Jewish

  Adoption of the Jewish religion by a

  religion or return by a baptized Jew

  Christian places him in jeopardy of

  to the Jewish religion defined as a

  being treated as a Jew. (Decision by

  heresy, Synod of Mainz, 1310

  Oberlandesgericht Königsberg, 4th

  Zivilsenat, June 26, 1942.) (Die

  Judenfrage [Vertrauliche Beilage],

  November 1, 1942, pp. 82-83.)

  Sale or transfer of Church articles to

  Jews prohibited, Synod of Lavour,

  1368

  Jews not permitted to act as agents in

  Decree of July 6, 1938, providing for

  the conclusion of contracts, espeliquidation of Jewish real estate

  cially marriage contracts, between

  agencies, brokerage agencies, and

  Christians, Council of Basel, 1434,

  marriage agencies catering to non-

  Sessio XIX

  Jews (RGB1I, 823.)

  Jews not permitted to obtain aca­

  Law against Overcrowding of Gerdemic degrees. Council of Basel,

  man

  Schools

  and

  Universities,

  1434, Sessio XIX

  April 25, 1933 (RGB1 I, 225.)

  12

  PRECEDENTS

  community organization; (2) a yearly sum of 5,250 lire to the Casa Pia

  for missionary work among Jews; (3) a yearly sum of 5,250 lire to the

  Cloister of the Converted for the same purpose. In tum, the Papal State

  expended a yearly sum of 1,500 lire for welfare work. But no state

  money was paid for education or the care of the sick.

  The papal regime in the Rome ghetto gives us an idea of the

  cumulative effect

  of

  the

  canonical law.

  This

  was its total result.

  Moreover, the policy of the Church gave rise not only to ecclesiastical

  regulations; for more than a thousand years, the will of the Church was

  also enforced by the state. The decisions of the synods and councils

  became basic guides for state action. Every medieval state copied the

  canonical law and elaborated upon it. Thus there arose an “international medieval Jewry law,” which continued to develop until the eighteenth century. The governmental refinements and elaborations of the clerical regime may briefly be noted in Table 1-2, which shows also the

  Nazi versions.

  These are some of the precedents that were handed down to the

  Nazi bureaucratic machine. To be sure, not all the lessons of the past

  were still remembered in 1933; much had been obscured by the passage

  of time. This is particularly true of negative principles, such as the

  avoidance of riots and pogroms. In 1406 the state sought to make

  profits from mob violence in the Jewish quarter of Vienna. Christians

  suffered greater losses in this pogrom than Jews, because the Jewish

  pawnshops, which went up in smoke during the great ghetto fire, contained the possessions of the very people who were rioting in the streets." This experience was all but forgotten when, in November

  1938, Nazi mobs surged once more into Jewish shops. The principal

  losers now were German insurance companies, who had to pay Geman

  owners of the damaged buildings for the broken window glass. A historical lesson had to be learned all over again.

  If some old discoveries had to be made anew, it must be stressed

  that many a new discovery had not even been fathomed of old. The

  administrative precedents created by church and state were in themselves incomplete. The destructive path charted in past centuries was an interrupted path. The anti-Jewish policies of conversion and expulsion could carry destructive operations only up to a point. These policies were not only goals; they were also limits before which the

  bureaucracy had to stop and beyond which it could not pass. Only the

  removal of these restraints could bring the development of destructive

  operations to its fullest potentiality. That is why the Nazi adminis- 13

  13.

  Otto Stowasser, “Zur Geschichle der Wiener Geserah,” Vierteljahrschrifl fur

  Soval- und Wirlschafisgeschichle 16(1922): 117.

  13

  T A B L E 1 - 2

  PRE-NAZI AND NAZI ANTI-JEWISH MEASURES

  Pre-Nazi Slate Development

  Nazi Measure

  Per capita protection tax (der goldene

  Opferpfennig) imposed on Jews by

  King Ludwig the Bavarian, 1328-37

  (Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland,

  P-31)

  The property of Jews slain in a Ger13th Ordinance to the Reich Citizenman city considered as public propship Law providing that the property, “because the Jews with their erty of a Jew be confiscated after

  possessions belong to the Reich

  his death, July 1, 1943 (RGB1 I,

  chamber," provision in the 14th-


  372)

  century code Regulae juris "Ad de-

  cus” (Kisch, Jews in Medieval Germany,

  pp.360-61,560-61)

  Confiscation of Jewish claims against

  11th Ordinance to the Reich Citizen­

  Christian debtors at the end of

  ship Law, November 25, 1941

  the

  14th-century

  in

  Nuremberg.

  (RGB1 I, 722)

  (Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland,

  p. 58)

  “Fines”: for example, the Regensburg

  Decree for the "Atonement Payment”

  fine for “killing Christian child,"

  by the Jews, November 12, 1938

  1421. (Ibid., pp. 77-79)

  (RGB1 I, 1579)

  Marking of documents and personal

  Decree providing for identification

  papers

  identifying

  possessor

  or

  cards, July 23, 1938 (RGB1 1, 922)

  bearer as a Jew (Zosa Szajkowski,

  “Jewish Participation in the Sale of

  National

  Property

  during

  the

  French Revolution," Jewish Social

  Studies, 1952, p. 29ln)

  Around 1800, the Jewish poet Ludwig

  Decree providing for marking of pass­

  Borne had to have his passport

  ports, October 5, 1938 (RGB1 I,

  marked “Jud von Frankfurt" (Hein1342)

  rich

  Graetz,

  Volkstiimliche

  Ge-

  schichte der Juden [Berlin-Vienna,

  1923], vol. 3, pp. 373-74)

  Marking of houses, special shopping

  Marking

  of

  Jewish

  apartments.

  hours, and restrictions of move­

  (Jüdisches Nachrichtenblatt [Berment,

  17th

  century,

  Frankfurt

  lin], April 17, 1942)

  (Ibid., pp. 387-88)

  Decree

  providing

  for

  movement

  restrictions,

  September

  1,

  1941

  (RGB1I, 547)

  Compulsory Jewish names in 19th-

  Decree of January 5,1937 (RGBl 1,9)

  century bureaucratic practice (Leo

  Decree of August 17, 1938 (RGBl I,

  M. Friedman, “American Jewish

  1044)

  Names,” Historia Judaica, October 1944, p. 154)

  14

  PRECEDENTS

  trators became improvisers and innovators; that is also why the German bureaucracy under Hitler did infinitely more damage in twelve years than the Catholic Church was capable of in twelve centuries.

  The administrative precedents, however, are not the only historical

  determinants with which we are concerned. In a Western society, destructive activity is not just a technocratic phenomenon. The problems arising in a destruction process are not only administrative but also

  psychological. A Christian is commanded to choose good and to reject

  evil. The greater his destructive task, therefore, the more potent are

  the moral obstacles in his way. These obstacles must be removed; the

  internal

  conflict

  must

  somehow

  be

  resolved.

  One

  of

  the

  principal

  means through which the perpetrator attempts to clear his conscience

  is by clothing his victim in a mantle of evil, by portraying the victim as

  an object that must be destroyed.

  In recorded history we find many such portraits. Invariably they

  are floating effusively like clouds through the centuries and over the

  continents.

  Whatever

  their

  origins

  or

  destinations,

  the

  function

  of

  these stereotypes is always the same. They are used as justification for

  destructive

  thinking;

  they

  are

  employed

  as

  excuses

  for

  destructive

  action.

  The Nazis needed such a stereotype. They required just such an

  image of the Jew. It is therefore of no little significance that when Hitler

  came to power, the image was already there. The model was already

  fixed. When Hitler spoke about the Jew, he could speak to the Germans

  in familiar language. When he reviled his victim, he resurrected a

  medieval conception. When he shouted his fierce anti-Jewish attacks,

  he awakened his Germans as if from slumber to a long-forgotten challenge. How old, precisely, are these charges? Why did they have such an authoritative ring?

  The picture of the Jew we encounter in Nazi propaganda and Nazi

  correspondence had been drawn several hundred years before. Martin

  Luther had already sketched the main outlines of that portrait, and the

  Nazis, in their time, had little to add to it. We shall look here at a few

  excerpts from Luther’s book About the Jews and Their Lies. In doing

  so, let it be stressed that Luther’s ideas were shared by others in his

  century, and that the mode of his expression was the style of his times.

  His work is cited here only because he was a towering figure in the

  development of German thought, and the writing of such a man is not

  to be forgotten in the unearthing of so crucial a conceptualization as

  this. Luther’s treatise about the Jews was addressed to the public

  directly, and, in that pouring recital, sentences descended upon the

  audience in a veritable cascade. Thus the passage:

  Herewith you can readily see how they understand and obey the fifth

  commandment of God, namely, that they are thirsty bloodhounds and

  PRECEDENTS

  murderers of all Christendom, with full intent, now for more than fourteen

  hundred years, and indeed they were often burned to death upon the

  accusation that they had poisoned water and wells, stolen children, and

  tom and hacked them apart, in order to cool their temper secretly with

  Christian blood.1*

  Now see what a fine, thick, fat lie that is when they complain that they

  are held captive by us. It is more than fourteen hundred years since

  Jerusalem was destroyed, and at this time it is almost three hundred years

  since we Christians have been tortured and persecuted by the Jews all

  over the world (as pointed out above), so that we might well complain that

  they had now captured us and killed us—which is the open truth.

  Moreover, we do not know to this day which devil has brought them here

  into our country; we did not look for them in Jerusalem.1’

  Even now no one held them here, Luther continued. They might go

  whenever they wanted to. For they were a heavy burden, “like a

  plague, pestilence, pure misfortune in our country.” They had been

  driven from France, “an especially fine nest,” and the “dear Emperor

  Charles” drove them from Spain, “the best nest of all.” And this year

  they were expelled from the entire Bohemian crown, including Prague,

  “also a very fine nest”—likewise from Regensburg, Magdeburg, and

  other towns.14 15 16 17

  Is this called captivity, if one is not welcome in l
and or house? Yes,

  they hold us Christians captive in our country. They let us work in the

  sweat of our noses, to earn money and property for them, while they sit

  behind the oven, lazy, let off gas, bake pears, eat, drink, live softly and

  well from our wealth. They have captured us and our goods through their

  accursed usury; mock us and spit on us, because we work and permit them

  to be lazy squires who own us and our realm; they are therefore our lords,

  we their servants with our own wealth, sweat, and work. Then they curse

  our Lord, to reward us and to thank us. Should not the devil laugh and

  dance, if he can have such paradise among us Christians, that he may

  devour through the Jews—his holy ones—that which is ours, and stuff our

  mouths and noses as reward, mocking and cursing God and man for good

  measure.

  They could not have had in Jerusalem under David and Solomon such

  fine days on their own estate as they have now on ours—which they rob

  and steal daily. But still they complain that we hold them captive. Yes, we

  have and hold them in captivity, just as I have captured my calculum, my

  blood heaviness, and all other maladies.1’

  14. Luther, Von den Jueden, p. diii.

  15. Ibid.

  16. Ibid., pp. diii, e.

  17. ibid., p. e.

  16

  PRECEDENTS

  What have the Christians done, asks Luther, to deserve such a

  fate? “We do not call their women whores, do not curse them, do not

  steal and dismember their children, do not poison their water. We do

  not thirst after their blood." It was not otherwise than Moses had said.

  God had struck them with frenzy, blindness, and raging heart.11

  This is Luther’s picture of the Jews. First, they want to rule the

  world.18 19 20 21 22 Second, they are archcriminals, killers of Christ and ail Christendom.” Third, he refers to them as a “plague, pestilence, and pure misfortune.This

  Lutheran

  portrait

  of

  Jewish

  world

  rule,

  Jewish

  criminality, and the Jewish plague has often been repudiated. But, in

  spite of denial and exposure, the charges have survived. In four hundred years the picture has not changed.

  In 1895 the Reichstag was discussing a measure, proposed by the

  anti-Semitic faction, for the exclusion of foreign Jews. The speaker,

  Ahlwardt, belonged to that faction. We reproduce here a few excerpts

  from his speech:3

  It is quite dear that there is many a Jew among us of whom one cannot

  say anything bad. If one designates the whole of Jewry as harmful, one

  does so in the knowledge that the racial qualities of this people are such

  that in the long run they cannot harmonize with the racial qualities of the