chapter eighteen Flashcards
between 1933 and 1939 the nazi regime began an intensive campaign of persecution and
legal discrimination agsint jews in germany
during this period hitler and the nazi leadership set about a scheme
of anti semetic legislation
at the same time a relentless propaganda campaign was launched to ‘ educate ‘ the German people about the
need to purge jewish infuelnces from German society
on the 1st April 1933 , the nazi regime imposed a boycott of jewish shops and business , hitler claimed this action was justified retaliation against
jews in Germany and abroad who had called for a boycott of German goods
Goebbels organised an intensive propaganda campaign to
maximise the impact of the boycott , which was carried out by gangs of brown shirt SA men
the SA marked out which places of business were to be
targeted and stood meaningfully outside to intimidate who would be customers
shops were the main target of the boycott but it also applied dto
jewish professionals such as doctors and lawyers
court proceedings involving jewish lawyers and judgers were
disrupted in berlin , Breslau and elsewhere
many jewish lawyers were attacked in the street and had their
legal robes stopped from them , jewish doctors , school teachers and university lecturers were also subjected to similar treatment
the boycott made a big public impact t and featured prominently in news coverage both in
Germany and foreign countries but it was not an unqualified success
it was unclear in many cases what was a
‘jewish business ‘ and what wast
many business were half jewish / half German in ownership and many others were
controlled by foreign creditor or German banks
a number of German citizens deifnelty used Jewish shops to show their
disapproval of the nazi regime
the boycott was banned after one day although it was meant to last
indefienetly
at the time , the boycott seemed to show the unleashing of nazi violence by an
aggressive new dictatorship flaunting its power just a week after the enabling act
the real situation was rather diffrent , hitler was not at all enthausatic about a rveoloution from below bringing chaos in Germany . he was anxious to keep the
SA under control and he was concerned about adverse reactions from his conservative allies in gemrnay or from foreign public opinion
it is possible that hitler only ever intended the boycott to be a brief affair , from his perspective
hitler allowed the boycott to ho ahead only as a limited grudging concession to radical activists
hitlers main aim was to avoid instability while he carried out a legal revolution , however hitler was willing to allow
a considerable degree of nazi intimidation
- it was useful to him as an expression of ‘ spontaneous public anger ‘ that only his new gov could satisfy
for hitler anti semitic violence was a two edged sword , just enough and the nazis could claim that only they could maintain order in an unstable germany , and too much and
Hitlers position might be threatened by the conservative elites on whom he still depended
in April 1933 the nazi regime introduced the law for the restoration of the proffesional civil service requiring
jews to be dismissed from the civil service
under the 1933 law people were considered non aryan if
either of their parents or either of their grandparents were jewish
under new April 1933 law , president Hindenburg had insisted on
exceptions for German jews who had served in the First World War and for those fathers who were killed
the exemptions amendment lessens the laws impact as it effected
2/3 of jews in civil services
the civil service law had a devastating economic and psychological impact on middle class jews in germany and contributed to emmigration
- in 1937 …
37,000 jews left germany , most jews however stayed behind
jewish lawyers made up around 16% of germanys legal proffesion , of the non aryan lawyers practicing in 1933 X were allowed to continue working in spite of the new regulations
60%
- exclusion of lawyers were a gradual process over several years
more than 10% of German doctors were jews , they were attacked by nazi propaganda as
’ danger to German society ‘
nazi officials at local government level and in private associations initiated their own anti semetic measures , some local authorities started
removing Jewish doctors from their posts
anti semitic propaganda against jewish doctors treating Aryans was laced with
lurid stories about innaporopiate and malicious actions supposedly carried out by Jewish doctors
- nazi regime was pushed along by these initiatives
the regime announced a ban on jewish doctors in April 1933 , in theory
jewish doctors could now only treat jewish patients but many jewish doctors carried on their normal practice for years
also in April 1933 the law against overcrowding of German schools and universities restricted
the number of jewish children who could attend state schools and universities
- promoted on the basis that Aryan students would receive more resources not those who will ‘ grow up to be enemies of germany ‘
nazi propganda stressed the danger that a well educated jew could be a greater threat to germnay than
an uneducated one
German children were being told that their former friends and classmates were unworthy of being in the same schools as them and that they were
a burden and threat to germany
not all jewish children were forced out of state school at this point this process was not completed until
1938
jewish children could also still attend private education and jewish schools , these schools had many problems in
gaining funding and in maintaining academic standards , but jewish children’s were not yet completly denied education
in October 1933 the reich press law enabled the regime to
apple strict censorship and to close down publications they disliked
jews has a prominent role in journalism and publishing in Weimar germany and the press law effecively
silenced the large numbers of jewish journalists and editors , may of whom were forced to leave the country
in 1935 the nazi regime extended the anti semitic legislation through the numberg because they were announced at the
annual party rally at numberg
by 1935 many fanatical anti semites in the nazi movement were restless because they believed Nazi persecution of the
jews had not gone far enough
they urged hitler to move further and faster , these radical became the driving force behind the demands for
anti jewish legislation
at the numberg party rally in 1935 , Hitler announced that the communist international had declared
war on nazism and that it was time to ‘ deal once and for all with jewish-bolshevism ‘
on 15th September the Numberg laws were introduced :
the Reich citizenship law meant that someone could be a German citizen only if they had purely German blood. Jews and other non Aryans were now classified as subjects and had fewer rights than citzens
the law for the portion of German blood and honour outlawed marriage between Aryans and non-Aryans , it was made illegal for German citizens to marry Jews m it was also illegal for jews to have any sexual relations with a German citizen
the laws made the enforcing of anti-semitism the major concern of
civil servants , judges the gestapo
the numberg laws were later extended to cover almost
all contact between jews and aryans
aryan women were pressured to leave their jewish husbands on the grounds that men who lost their jobs through anti semitic legislation would be
a burden to their partner
some relationships continued however they were at high chance of
being denounced to the gestapo
punishments were harsh and jewish men convicted under the terms of the law for the protection of German blood and honour were often
re arrested by the gestapo after being released and then sent to concentration camps
in nov 1935 the first supplementary decree on the reich citizenship law denied what constituted a full jew:
someone who had three jewish grandparents
had two jewish grandparents and married to a jew
‘ half jews ‘ were labelled as mischlinge “ cross breed “
position of jews without the rights of citizenship left them with obligations to the state but with no
political rights and powerless against the nazi bureaucracy
discrimination agsint jews occurred all over germany as result of local interventions , for example
local agitation resulted in the mayor issuing a ban on jews using the swimming pool
pubs and other businesses put up signs saying that jews were not welcome
pro nazi activists took the lead in pushing for
anti jewish measures in local schools , village committees and almost all areas of public life
evidence suggests that these signs were often displayed to
keep nazi officials happy rather than to stop jews from using the establishments
in other places however the discrimination against jews was very real , Albert Herzfeld , a middle class jew who had served in the German army was
barred from his artists cub in 1935
later he was banned from his favourite restaurants and spa in Wiesbaden
many germans were embarrassed by overt discrimination , for example
to break of from family doctors they had relied on for years or were appalled to see literary classics seen as jewish purged from the local library
when nazi activists in Leipzig demanded the removal of a statue to the great composer Felix Mendelssohn , even the local party boss ..
drew the line and blocked the proposal
open oppositon to discrimination was rare , most people who were unhappy about the discrimination kept their
heads down and retreated into internal exile
