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  novel, published only eleven years before Hitler came to power, depicts an expulsion of the Jews from Vienna. The author shows how Vienna cannot get along without its Jews. Ultimately, the Jews are

  recalled. That was the mentality of Jewry, and of Jewish leadership, on

  the eve of the destruction process. When the Nazis took over in 1933,

  the old Jewish reaction pattern set in again, but this time the results

  were catastrophic. The German bureaucracy was not slowed by Jewish

  pleading; it was not stopped by Jewish indispensability. Without regard

  to

  cost,

  the

  bureaucratic machine,

  operating

  with

  accelerating speed

  and

  ever-widening

  destructive

  effect,

  proceeded

  to

  annihilate

  the

  European Jews. The Jewish community, unable to switch to resistance,

  increased its cooperation with the tempo of the German measures, thus

  hastening its own destruction.

  We see, therefore, that both perpetrators and victims drew upon

  their age-old experience in dealing with each other. The Germans did it

  with success. The Jews did it with disaster.

  48.

  Hugo Bettauer, Die Stadt ohne Juden—Ein Roman von übermorgen (Vienna,

  1922).

  28

  c

  H

  A

  P

  T

  E

  R

  T

  W

  ANTECEDENTS O

  The first chapter has dealt with historical parallels, with events and

  patterns of pre-Nazi times which were repeated in the years 1933-

  45. These events were the precedents of the destruction process. Now

  we turn to a description of the climate in which the destruction process

  began. The activities that were designed to create this climate we shall

  call the antecedents.

  The specific question to which we shall address ourselves in this

  chapter is this: What was the state of readiness for anti-Jewish action in

  1933? We know that the antagonistic conception of Jewry, the portrait

  in which the Jew was painted as an enemy, a criminal, and a parasite,

  was already quite old. We also know that administrative action against

  European Jewry had been taken even earlier; Jewry law was a product

  of medieval times. We know, third, that an administrative apparatus

  capable of efficient operation on a complicated level had been developed in Germany for centuries. Hitler thus did not have to originate any propaganda. He did not have to invent any laws. He did not have

  to create a machine. He did have to rise to power.

  Adolf Hitler’s ascendancy to the chancellorship was a signal to the

  bureaucracy that it could begin to take action against the Jews. Whatever the Nazi movement stood for would now be the aim of all Germany. Such was the general atmosphere and the overall expectation.

  The Nazi party, the full name of which was the Nationalsozialistische

  Deutsche

  Arbeiter

  Partei

  (National

  Socialist

  German

  Workers

  Party),

  (NSDAP), assigned to itself the task of activating the bureaucracy and

  the whole of society. What it did not provide was a set of specifics. In

  fifteen years of activity it had not developed a detailed draft for implementation.

  The party was organized soon after World War 1. Some of its

  founders

  drew

  up

  a

  twenty-five-point

  program,

  dated

  February

  24,

  1920, which contained four paragraphs that dealt, directly or indirectly,

  with Jews. These articles, which were the sum total of guidance supplied by the party to the bureaucracy, were as follows: 31

  ANTECEDENTS

  4. Only a member of the community [Volksgenosse] can be a citizen.

  Only a person with German blood, regardless of his religious adherence,

  can be a member of the community. No Jew may therefore be a member of

  the community.

  5. Whoever is not a citizen should live only as a guest in Germany,

  under the law applicable to foreigners.

  6. The right to determine the leadership and laws of the state may be

  exercised only by citizens. Hence we demand that every public office,

  regardless of its nature, in Reich, province, or locality, be held only by

  citizens.

  8. Every immigration of non-Germans is to be prevented. We demand

  that all non-Germans who have migrated to Germany since August 2,

  1914, be forced to leave the Reich immediately.1

  Paragraph 17 provided for the expropriation of real property for

  community

  purposes.

  This

  provision,

  which

  troubled

  the

  propertied

  supporters of the Nazi party, was authoritatively interpreted by Hitler

  to mean that only Jewish property was involved.2 3 4 As Goring, the

  second-ranking Nazi, informed us after the war, the program had been

  drawn up by very “simple people.” Neither Hitler nor Göring had

  participated in the drafting.2

  Not until the early 1930s did the party build up its machinery to

  include

  legal

  and

  political

  divisions.

  The

  Innerpolitical

  Division,

  formed at the end of 1931, was headed by civil servants—first Dr.

  Helmut Nicolai, then his deputy Ernst von Heydebrand und der Lasa.‘

  The two men struggled with such topics as citizenship, exclusions, and

  registration. Texts of the drafts are no longer extant, but Heydebrand

  summarized his preliminary thoughts in a journal published in 1931.

  Significantly, he cautioned against attaching to initial regulations the

  kind of consequences that might be all too “gruesome” (allzu grausige

  Folgen).s

  On March 6, 1933, seven weeks after Hitler had become Chancel-

  1. Text in Ludwig Münz, Führer durch die Behörden und Organisationen (Berlin,

  1939), pp. 3-4. As of February, the party was still the Deutsche Arbeiter Partei. It was

  renamed the NSDAP in March, its First Chairman (I. Vorsitzender) was Anton Drexler,

  but Hitler read the program in an open meeting on February 24. Reginald Phelps, “Hitler

  als Parteiredner im Jahre 1920,'' Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte II (1963): 274 ff.

  2. Münz, Führer, p. 4.

  3. Testimony by Göring, Trial of the Major War Criminals, vol. 9, p. 273.

  4. Regierungsrat Nicolai had been dismissed from his civil service position because

  of political activities. Uwe Adam, Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich (Düsseldorf, 1972),

  p. 28. Regierungsrat Heydebrand obtained early retirement from his post because of

  heart trouble. Eike von Repkow (Robert M. W. Kempner), Justiz-Dämmerung (Berlin,

  1932), p. Ill (reissued by the author in 1963). The Innerpolitical Division was incorporated into the Legal Division (headed by Hans Frank) in December 1932. Adam, Judenpolitik, p. 28n.

  3. Kempner, Justiz-Dämmerung, p. 110.

  32

  ANTECEDENTS

  lor, Staatssekretär Bang
of the Economy Ministry (a party man) wrote

  unofficially to Lammers, Chief of the Reich Chancellery, to suggest

  some anti-Jewish action (a ban on immigration of Eastern Jews and the

  revocation of name changes).6 During the same month, a private committee

  (Arbeitsgemeinschaft)·

  possibly

  called

  together

  by

  the

  Interior

  Ministry, worked on an elaborate draft of anti-Jewish legislation. The

  group, which contained only one or two known anti-Semites, managed

  to anticipate several measures that were to be taken in later years,

  including

  dismissals,

  prohibition

  of

  mixed

  marriages,

  revocation

  of

  name

  changes,

  and the

  institution

  of Jewish

  community machinery.

  Reviewing its handiwork, the committee was struck by the fact that its

  proposals would deal the victims “a heavy, partially undeserved fate

  that would therefore have to be mitigated as much as possible [ein

  schweres, zum Teil unverdientes und daher nach Möglichkeit zu milderndes Schicksal]."1

  There is little evidence, however, that the ministerial bureaucracy

  was much affected by these initiatives or even that it was constantly

  aware of them. Rather, these forays may be taken as indications of a

  convergence of thinking, inside and outside of the party, about directions to be followed and obstacles to be faced in Jewish affairs. Government officials did not really have to be shown the way. They did not have to be supplied with formulations and ideas. Thus on October 3,

  1932, almost four months before Hitler’s rise to power, the Reich Interior Minister von Gayl was considering a twenty-year residence requirement for the attainment of German citizenship in the case of aliens

  “belonging

  to

  a

  lower

  culture”

  (Angehörigen

  niederer

  Kultur).’

  He

  meant, in the main, Polish Jews. On December 23, 1932, even as party

  men interested in exposing and isolating the Jews were demanding that

  Jews have only Jewish names, an official of the Prussian Interior Ministry, Hans Globke, wrote a directive, for internal use only, to prohibit approval of name changes that were sought by Jews who might have

  wished

  to

  “disguise

  their

  Jewish

  descent

  [ihre

  Abkunft

  ...

  zu

  verschleiern]."’ By March and April 1933, the ministerial work to bar

  Jews from civil service positions was already leading to the first anti-

  Jewish laws.

  6. Lammers sent Bang's suggestions to Interior Minister Frick, March 9, 1933,

  adding an idea of his own (deportation of Eastern Jews of foreign nationality). Frick

  replied to Lammers. March 13, 1933, that the proposals had been passed on to subor-

  diantes in the Interior Ministry. For the entire correspondence, see document NG-902.

  7. Adam, Judenpolitik, pp. 33-38.

  8. Ibid., p. 43.

  9. Regierungsrat Globke to Regierungspräsidenten (Polizeipräsident in Berlin),

  Landräte, regional police administrations (staatliche Poiizeiverwaher), and local police

  offices (Ortspolizeibehörden). December ¿3, 1932. Central Archives (Zentralarchiv) of

  the German Democratic Republic, through the courtesy of Ambassador Stefan Heymann.

  33

  ANTECEDENTS

  Still, the party felt that it should employ its offices and formations

  to create a climate conducive to anti-Jewish activities by government,

  business, and the general public. To this end the party engaged in

  exhortations, demonstrations, and boycotts. In these matters, at least,

  the party men could claim an exclusive expertise. They did not, however, enjoy freedom from criticism.

  In

  particular,

  Germany's

  intellectual

  elite

  had

  always

  expressed

  distaste for “propaganda” and “disturbances.” Crudity of language or

  argument

  was

  associated

  with

  ordinary,

  uneducated,

  common

  people.

  At times the very word anti-Semite had a negative connotation.10 11 Even

  though the advent of Nazism produced some attempts to speak in anti-

  Jewish tones (in Oslo, an aristocratic German envoy, moved by the

  new spirit, made an old anti-Semitic novel his family’s reading matter)," the habit was difficult to acquire and easy to discard. That is why most ranking functionaries would proclaim routinely after the war that

  they had never hated Jews in the first place.

  Street activities were even less palatable to the German establishment. For the Jewish New Year on September 12, 1931, the brownshirted party formation (SA) in Berlin had planned molestations of

  Jews leaving the synagogues. Miscalculating the hour when services

  were to end, the SA timed its operation an hour too late and accosted a

  number

  of

  non-Jews.

  Court

  proceedings

  were

  instituted

  against

  the

  organizers of the disturbance. Although the judges were very mild in

  their condemnation of the Nazi formation, the episode did not enhance

  the party’s prestige.12

  AH the same, in 1933 the party men seized the opportunity to

  launch a campaign of violence against individual Jews and to proclaim

  an anti-Jewish boycott. This time there were serious repercussions in

  foreign

  countries.

  A

  boycott

  movement

  was

  started

  against

  German

  exports and was supported by Jews and non-Jews alike. By March 27,

  1933, Vice-Chancellor Papen was forced to write a letter to the Board

  10. See, for example, Friedrich Nietzsche's letter to Georg Brandes. October 20,

  1888. Friedrich Nietzsche. Werkt, ed. Karl Schlechte, 3 vols. (Munich, 1936), vol. 3,

  pp. 1325-26. When the young Heinrich Himmler, of middle-class background, first encountered anti-Jewish books, his reaction to this literature was notably reserved. See Bradley Smith, Heinrich Himmler—A Nazi in the Making (Stanford, 1971), pp. 74, 92.

  11. Diary of Emst von Weizsäcker, entry of April 22, 1933, in Leonidas E. Hill.ed.,

  Die Weizsäcker Papiere 1933-1945 (Vienna and Frankfurt am Main. 1974), p. 31. The

  novel was Wilhelm Hauff's Jud Suss.

  12. Arnold Paucker, “Der jüdische Abwehrkampf,'' in Werner Mosse, ed., Em-

  Scheidungsjahr (Tübingen, 1966). pp. 478-79. P. B. Wiener, “Die Parteien der Mitte,”

  ibid., pp. 303-4. On the trial, see Kempner. Justiz-Dämmerung, pp. 32-33,54-57.

  34

  ANTECEDENTS

  of Trade for German-American Commerce, in which he pointed out

  that the number of “excesses” against Americans was “less than a

  dozen,” that hundreds of thousands of Jews remained unmolested, that

  the big Jewish publishing houses were still in business, that there was

  no St. Barthol
omew Night, and so on.13 14 15

  In June 1933 the German Foreign Minister, von Neurath, visited

  London. In his report to Reich President von Hindenburg, the Foreign

  Minister noted that he could hardly recognize London. The Jewish

  question had come up again and again, and no counterarguments were

  of any avail. The Englishmen had declared that in judging this matter

  they were guided only by sentiment (gefuhlsmassig). This point was

  made to von Neurath by the English King himself in a “very earnest

  conversation.”

  In

  international

  conferences

  von

  Neurath

  had

  noted

  that many governments were represented by people who were well-

  known Jews, as a kind of protest.14

  Another difficulty was created by the undisciplined behavior of

  party members. Many Jews were mistreated and a few were killed. In

  Bavaria the police arrested several members of a uniformed party formation, the Schutzstaffeln (Protective Formations) (SS), for the mistreatment of

  Jews.

  The

  SS

  office

  in

  the

  city

  of

  Aschaffenburg

  thereupon claimed that no member of the SS could be arrested by a

  policeman. This assertion was so novel that the Bavarian Minister of

  Justice, Dr. Hans Frank, himself a top Nazi, questioned the claim and

  asked the Bavarian Minister President (Siebert) to discuss the matter

  with SS Chief Himmler and with Himmler’s superior, SA Chief Rohm.15

  Shortly after this incident, a few killings took place in the Bavarian

  concentration camp of Dachau. The victims were two Germans and a

  Jew (Dr. Delwin Katz). Himmler and Rohm requested that proceedings

  against the responsible SS men be quashed for “state-political” reasons.

  Bavarian

  Staatsminister

  of

  the

  Interior

  Wagner

  (another

  party

  man) agreed but expressed the hope that in the future such requests

  would not be put to him again. Writing to Frank, Wagner asked the

  Justice Minister to quash the proceedings in the concentration camp,

  13. VonPapento Board of Trade of German-American Commerce, March 27, 1933,

  D-635. New York Times, March 29, 1933. For molestation of Americans, see report by

  U S. Consul General Messersmith to the Secretary of State, March 14, 1933, L-198.

  Simitar to the von Papen letter is the telegram of the Cologne branch of the American

  Chamber of Commerce in Germany to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, March 25, 1933,