Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Restrictions upon Jews in Berlin Keywords: File: pub/places/germany/kristallnacht/documents.008 Last-Modified: 1993/09/24 "Restrictions upon Jews in Berlin The Kristallnacht of November 1938 and the policy decisions following it marked a major stage in the development of Jewish policy since they brought about a greater commitment by the State to settle the Jewish question. With the flood of new legal restrictions on Jews the State machinery became increasingly involved in the administration of this policy. The weaknesses of earlier policies -- terror, boycott, legislation and emigration -- were becoming clear. The reappraisal after the pogrom revealed glimpses of the more thorough-going policy which led ultimately to extermination. Goebbels's threat to remove Jews from public places was soon carried out, and new regulations for the social segregation of Jews from other Germans pointed towards the creation of ghettos. On 4 December 1938 the Police-President of Berlin issued this order: In accordance with Reich Police Decree of 28 November 1938 with regard to the appearance of Jews in public, the President for the State Police District of Berlin has issued a first order, which will become effective on 6 December 1938. It decrees that streets, squares, parks, and buildings which come under the restrictions against Jews are not to be entered or driven through in vehicles by Jews of German citizenship or by Jews without citizenship. If such Jews are still residents of a district which comes under the restrictions against Jews, at the time when this decree becomes effective, they will have to use a permit issued by the police station of that residential district in order to cross the boundary of the restricted area. With effect from July 1939 and thereafter, permits for residents of the restricted area will no longer be issued. - The restrictions against Jews in Berlin include: 1. All theatres, cinemas, cabarets, public concert and lecture halls, museums, amusement places, the exhibition halls at the Messedamm including the exhibition area and radio tower, the Deutschlandhalle and the Sportsplatz, the Reich Sports Field, and all sport places including the ice-skating rinks. 2. All public and private bathing establishments and indoor baths as well as open-air baths. 3. The Wilhelmstrasse from the Leipziger Strasse up to Unter den Linden including the Wilhelmsplatz. 4. The Voss-strasse from the Hermann-Go"ring-Strasse up to the Wilhelmstrasse. 5. The Reichsehrenmal including the sidewalk on the north side of Unter den Linden from the university to the Zeughaus (Military Historical Museum). Exempted from articles 1-2 are such institutions and events as are open to Jewish visitors in accordance with properly authorized permission. Intentional or negligent violation will be punished with a fine of up to 150 Reichsmarks or up to 6 weeks' detention. In addition it is announced, among other things, that even more thorough executive orders will be issued. This restriction against Jews does not apply to foreign Jews. It is probable that the restriction against Jews, which has no time limit, will soon be extended to include a large number of Berlin streets. In this respect the main streets and thoroughfares of Berlin especially come into considera- tion, because even now, in these streets in particular, Jewry more or less dominates the street scene. The rows of streets in the centre and the north of Berlin, where the Jewish element has predominated for centuries (for example, Munz, the Linien, and Grenadier-Strasse) will probably not be included in the districts banned to Jews. It is therefore advisable for any Jew to start immediately looking for another residence in one of the above-mentioned parts of Berlin, and perhaps to effect an exchange of residence with one of the pure-blood Germans residing there. Furthermore, the Jews can expect to be restricted to purely Jewish inns in the future. Further social restrictions upon Jews The attempt to enforce a principle always ran up against practical difficulties of administration, in this case the provision of alternative accommodation for those Jews evacuated from certain areas. The anti-mixing regulations were obliged to deal with two fundamental problems, namely, housing and marriage. At the conference on 12 November, Heydrich had raised the question of epidemics breaking out if ghettos were established. He also doubted whether his police could regularly supervise daily life in such ghettos. Goring's answer in his decree of 28 December was to concentrate the Jews in houses instead of areas. Another outstanding matter was the intermarriages which had existed before the Blood Protection Law of 1935. That measure had applied only to marriages contracted after it came into force. In the same decree Goring introduced a new classification in the case of such marriages based on the criterion of the children's religious affiliation. Another determining factor was which spouse was the Jewish partner in the marriage. The Jewish wife was given better treatment than the Jewish husband, presumably because her German husband was assumed to be the owner of the family house: At my suggestion. the Fuhrer has made the following decisions concerning the Jewish problem: SECTION A I. Housing of Jews 1(a). The tenant protective law is not, as a rule, to be abrogated for the Jews. On the contrary, it is desired, if possible, to proceed in particular cases in such a way that the Jews are quartered together in separate houses in so far as the housing conditions allow. 1(b). For this reason the Aryanization of house ownership is to be postponed until the end of the total Aryanization, that is to say, for the present the Aryanization of houses has to be carried out only in those individual cases where urgent reasons exist. The Aryanizing of industries, businesses, agricultural estates, forests, etc., is to be considered as urgent. 2. Use of sleeping and dining cars is to be forbidden to the Jews. At the same time, no special Jewish compartments are to be established. In addition, the use of trains, streets cars, suburban railways, underground railways, buses, and ships cannot be prohibited to Jews. 3. Only the use of certain public establishments, etc., is to be prohibited to Jews. In this category belong the hotels and restaurants visited especially by Party members (for instance: Hotel Kaiserhof, Berlin; Hotel Vierjahreszeiten, Munich; Hotel Deutscher Hof, Nuremberg; Hotel Drei Mohren, Augsburg; etc.). The use of bathing establishments, certain public places, bathing resorts, etc., can be prohibited to Jews; also health baths particularly prescribed by doctors may be used by Jews, but only in such ways that no offence is caused. II. Jews who were officials and have been pensioned are not to be denied their pensions. Investigations must be made, however, as to whether these Jews can manage with a reduced allowance. III. The Jewish welfare organizations are not to be Aryanized or abolished, for so the Jews will only become a public charge; but they may be supported by Jewish welfare organizations. IV. Jewish patents are property, and as such must be Aryanized. (A similar pro- cedure towards Germany was carried out by the USA and other countries during World War I.) SECTION B Mixed Marriages I,1. With children (part-Jews, 1st. class) (a) Where the father is a German and the mother a Jewess, the family may stay in future in its present lodging. The regulations for the exclusion of Jews are not to be applied to such families as far as their housing is concerned. In these cases, the property of the Jewish mother can be transferred to the German husband or to the mixed children. (b) Where the father is a Jew and the mother a German, these families are also not to be moved for the present into Jewish quarters, because the children (part-Jew, 1st. class) must serve in the labour service and the armed forces in the future and must not be exposed to Jewish propaganda. As far as the property is concerned, one must for the present proceed in such a way that it can be completely or partly transferred to the children. I,2. Without children (a) If the husband is a German and the wife a Jewess, the provisions of 1(a) are valid accordingly. (b) If the husband is a Jew, and the wife a German, these childless couples are to be proceeded against as if they were full-blooded Jews. The husband's property cannot be transferred to the wife. Both husband and wife can be moved into Jewish houses or Jewish quarters. Especially in case of emigration, such married couples are to be treated as Jews, as soon as increased emigration is begun. II. If a German wife divorces a Jew, she re-enters the German racial community and all disadvantages for her discontinue. The Jewish question in terms of numbers was largely an urban matter. According to the 1933 census, one-third of the Jews in Germany lived in Berlin, and 74 per cent of the Jewish population was concentrated in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. This tendency increased during the first six years of the Third Reich so that by the 1939 census the proportion of Jews living in large cities had risen to 82 per cent. The Jewish population in Germany (the area confined by the boundaries of 1937) had been reduced during the same period as a result of death and emigration from 515,000 to 350,000, but the acquisition of Austria in 1938, with its relatively large Jewish population of 190,000, reversed the process. Consequently, the policy of emigration received more urgent attention in 1938-39. In August 1938, a Central Office for Jewish Emigration had been established in Vienna to speed up the course of emigration. This solution was soon adopted in Germany itself and involved a scheme to assist poorer Jews to emigrate, whereby richer Jews were obliged to finance the emigration of the poorer. Goring established a central office by decree on 24 January 1939 which was placed under the direction of the Chief of the Security Police, Reinhard Heydrich." (Noakes, 482-485) Work Cited Noakes, Jeremy, and Geoffrey Pridham. Documents on Nazism 1919-1945. New York: Viking Press, 1974
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