Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Nazi Anti-Semitism becomes official policy Summary: Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses begins, Jews excluded from Civil Service, Jewish doctors and lawyers restricted as to employment, number of Jewish students reduced by law Keywords: File: pub/places/germany/kristallnacht/documents.001 Last-modified: 1993/09/23 XRef: holocaust index "When Hitler came to power in 1933, the antisemitic aims of the NSDAP became official policy. Initially, however, circumstances determined the course of Nazi Jewish policy. The new regime wished to consolidate its power and to avoid provoking strong reactions against too hasty and radical measures. Uncertainty about domestic opinion and concern that foreign disapproval might result in economic reprisals explain this cautious attitude. The Nazi leadership feared that actions against the Jews might get out of control and cause embarrassment. It wished to maintain control over Jewish policy and not to allow the Party to run ahead of its leaders. Outrages against Jews, spring 1933 In the context of the 'revolution from below' of March 1933, however, this was difficult to achieve. Thus in the spring of 1933, SA men made numerous if sporadic attacks on Jews and Jewish property. The American Consul in Leipzig, Ralph Busser, reported on 5 April: In Dresden several weeks ago uniformed 'Nazis' raided the Jewish Prayer House, interrupted the evening religious service, arrested twenty-five worshippers, and tore the holy insignia or emblems from their head-covering worn while praying. Eighteen Jewish shops, including a bakery, mostly in Chemnitz, had their windows broken by rioters led by uniformed 'Nazis'. Five of the Polish Jews arrested in Desden were each compelled to drink one-half litre of castor oil. As most of the victims of assualt were threatened with worse violence if they report the attacks, it is not known to what extent fanatical 'Nazis' are still terrorizing Jews, Communists and Social Democrats, who are considered as favouring the old parliamentary regime in Germany. Some of the Jewish men assaulted had to submit to the shearing of their beards, or to the clipping of their hair in the shape of steps. One Polish Jew in Chemnitz had his hair torn out by the roots. The involvement of foreign Jews brought protests from diplomatic representatives in Germany. The Party Boycott Order, 28 March 1933 At the end of March, perhaps partly in order to gain some sort of control over the antisemitic actions of the local Party and SA units, the Government gave its blessing to an official Party boycott of Jewish shops in retaliation for the campaign abroad against Nazi atrocities. Julius Streicher, the rabidly antisemitic Gauleiter of Franconia, organized action committees to promote the boycott, and SA men were stationed in front of Jewish shops to 'warn' intending customers. But the action failed to arouse public enthusiasm and the planned mass meetings did not take place. The American Consul in Leipzig noted that the boycott was 'unpopular with the working classes and the educated circles of the middle classes'. The Party order of 28 March was published in the Vo"lkischer Beobachter the following day: 1. Action committees in every local branch and subdivision of the NSDAP organization are to be formed for putting into effect the planned boycott of Jewish shops, Jewish goods, Jewish doctors and Jewish lawyers. The action committees are responsible for making sure that the boycott affects those who are guilty and not those who are innocent. 2. The action committees are responsible for the maximum protection of all foreigners without regard to confession, background or race. The boycott is purely a defensive measure aimed exclusively against German Jewry. 3. The action committees must at once popularize the boycott by means of propa- ganda and enlightenment. The principle is: No German must any longer buy from a Jew or let him and his backers promote their goods. The boycott must be general. It must be supported by the whole German people and must hit Jewry in its most sensitive place.... 8. The boycott must be coordinated and set in motion everywhere at the same time, so that all preparations must be carried out immediately. Orders are being sent to the S A and S S so that from the moment of the boycott the population will be warned by guards not to enter Jewish shops. The start of the boycott is to be announced by posters, through the press and leaflets, etc. The boycott will commence on Saturday, 1 April on the stroke of 10 o'clock. It will be continued until an order comes from the Party leadership for it to stop. 9. The action committees are to organize tens of thousands of mass meetings, which are to extend to the smallest villages for the purpose of demanding that in all professions the number of Jews shall correspond respectively to their proportion of the whole German population. To increase the impact made by this action, this demand is limited first of all to three fields: (a) attendance at German schools and universities; (b) the medical profession; (c) the legal profession.... During April several measures against the Jews were introduced, among them their exclusion from the Civil Service (see Noakes, pp. 229-30). Hitler's sensitivity to opposition was shown by the exemption, made on President Hindenburg's personal intervention, of those Jewish civil servants who had fought or lost relatives in the First World War. Prohibitions were also placed on Jewish doctors working in hospitals and on the appointment of Jewish assistant judges in Prussia. These were professions in which Jews tended to specialize. In Hamburg, for instance, Jews were only 3 per cent of the population but they accounted for 40 per cent of the doctors, 30 per cent of the lawyers, and IO per cent of the judges. A further measure designed to isolate the Jews and reduce their contact with the rest of the German population was the Law against the Overcrowding of German Schools, of 25 April 1933, which restricted the number of Jews admitted to schools, colleges, and universities to the same proportion as that of 'non-Aryans to Aryans' in the total German population. The Reich Minister of the Interior tries to enforce legality in Jewish policy, January 1934 As far as the Party militants were concerned, however, the pace was not fast enough. As a result, tension between the local Party and SA militants, on the one hand, who wanted to take direct action against the Jews and some of whom were inspired by economic rivalry, and the authorities on the other hand, continued during 1934 and into 1935. As in other spheres, the main burden of resisting the extremists fell on Wilhelm Frick, the Reich Minister of the Interior. This Ministry was the agency primarily responsible for racial questions, changes of name, eugenics, race and naturalization. In January 1934, Frick sent a memorandum to national and regional Government authorities in which he stressed the need to adhere to the letter of the law in the enforcement of legislation affecting the Jews. Clearly this was particu- larly necessary in the economic sphere where some businesses were apparently anxious to eliminate Jewish rivals by making use of the 'Aryan paragraph'. This practice was not conducive to economic stability which was one of the regime's main objectives. German Aryan legislation is necessary for racial and State political reasons. On the other hand, the Reich Government has set itself certain limits which must likewise be observed. German Aryan legislation will be correctly judged at home and abroad if these limits are everywhere heeded. It is especially improper and even open to objection for the principles of Para. 3 BBG [Civil Service Law of April 1933], the so-called 'Aryan paragraph' (which has become the model for numerous other laws and orders), to be extended to other fields to which they by no means apply. This is true particularly of the free economy, as the National Socialist Government has always declared. I therefore repeat my request that infringements of this kind shall be decisively opposed and also that subordinate authorities shall be emphatically instructed that they are to base their measures and decisions only on the valid laws.... Any annulment or extension of Reich laws which are valid can be carried out only by the Reich Government itself according to the Enabling Law, and not by the bodies which administer these laws. They must, on the contrary, apply these laws so long as they are in force and are not to contradict them because they appear not to accord completely with National Socialism. Hess warns Party militants, April 1935 In April 1935 Hess felt compelled to issue a confidential order to Party members warning them not to take the law into their own hands as this would cause friction with the police: While I can understand that all decent National Socialists oppose these new attempts by Jewry with utter indignation, I must warn them most urgently not to vent their feelings by acts of terror against individual Jews as this can only result in bringing Party members into conflict with the political police, who consist largely of Party members, and this will be welcomed by Jewry. The political police can in such cases only follow the strict instructions of the Fuhrer in carrying out all measures for maintaining peace and order, so making it possible for the Fuhrer to rebuke at any time allegations of atrocities and boycotts made by Jews abroad." (Noakes,460-463) Followups directed to alt.revisionism Work Cited Noakes, Jeremy, and Geoffrey Pridham. Documents on Nazism 1919-1945. New York: Viking Press, 1974
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