Jewish Life in Nazi Germany: Dilemmas and Responses (38 page)

18. Ibid., 79.

1. Max wiener,
   Jüdische Religion im Zeitalter der Emanzipation
   (Berlin: Philo Verlag, 1933). See also, Max wiener, “was heißt religiöse erneuerung?”
   Liberales Judentum
   ,
   

   vol. 14, 1–3 (January/March 1922): 5–9, and Robert S. Schine,
   Jewish Thought
   

   Adrift: Max Wiener (1882–1950)
   (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 109–120.
   

2. Fritz Pinkuss, “Saul Ascher, ein Historiker der Judenemanzipation,”
   Zeitschrift für die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland
   6 (1935): 32.
   
3. Raphael Straus, “Antisemitismus im Mittelalter. ein wort pro domo,”
   Zeitschrift für die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland
   6 (1935): 24.
   
4. wilhelm Grau, “‘Antisemitismus im Mittelalter’—ein wort contra Raphael Straus,”
   

   Zeitschrift für die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland
   6 (1935): 198.
   

1. a
   PPendIx
   a
   

   L
   aw for the
   r
   estor ation of the
   

1. P
   rofessiona L
   C
   iv i L
   s
   erv iCe
   

   7 April 1933
   

   The Reich Government has enacted the following Law, promulgated herewith:
   

   § 1
   

   1. To restore a national professional civil service and to simplify administration, civil servants may be dismissed from office in accordance with the following regulations, even where there would be no grounds for such action under the prevailing Law.
      
   2. For the purposes of this Law the following are to be considered civil servants: direct and indirect officials of the Reich, direct and indirect officials of the
      Länder
      , officials of Local Councils, and of Federations of Local Councils, officials of Public Corporations as well as of Institutions and enterprises of equivalent status . . . The provisions will apply also to officials of Social Insurance organizations having the status of civil servants . . .
      

§ 2

1. Civil servants who have entered the service since 9 November 1918, without possessing the required or customary educational background or other qualifications are to be dismissed from the service. Their previous salaries will continue to be paid for a pe-riod of three months following their dismissal.
   
2. They will have no claim to temporary pensions, full pensions or survivors’ benefits, nor to retain designation of rank or titles, or to wear uniforms or emblems . . .
   

§ 3

1. Civil servants who are not of Aryan descent are to be retired (§ 8ff.); if they are honorary officials, they are to be dismissed from their official status.
   
2. Section 1 does not apply to civil servants in office from 1 August 1914, who fought at the Front for the German Reich or its Allies in the world war, or whose fathers or sons fell in the world war. other exceptions may be permitted by the Reich Minister of the Interior in coordination with the Minister concerned or with the highest authorities with respect to civil servants working abroad.
   

§ 4

1. Civil servants whose previous political activities afford no assurance that they will at all times give their fullest support to the national State, can be dismissed from the service . . .

Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler

Reich Minister of the Interior Frick

Reich Minister of Finance Graf Schwerin von Krosigk

Source
: Yitzhak Arad, Israel Gutman, and Abraham Margaliot, eds.,
Documents on the Holocaust
, 8
^th
ed. (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press and Yad Vashem, 1999), 39–41.

a
PPendIx
b

P
roCLamation of the
(n
ew
) r
eiChsvertretunG der

d
eutsChen
J
uden

At a time that is as hard and difficult as any in Jewish history, but also significant as few times have been, we have been entrusted with the leadership and representation of the German Jews by a joint decision of the State Association of the Jewish Communities (
Landesverbände
), the major Jewish organizations and the large Jewish communities of Germany.

There was no thought of party interests, no separate aims in this decision, but solely and wholly the realization that the lives and fu-ture of the German Jews today depend on their unity and cooperation. The first task is to make this unity live. There must be recognition of the vitality and aims of every organization and association, but in all major and decisive tasks there must only be one union, only the totality of the German Jews. Anyone who goes his own way today, who excludes himself today, has committed a wrong against the vital need of the German Jews.

In the new State the position of individual groups has changed, even of those which are far more numerous and stronger than we are. Legislation and economic policy have taken their own authorized road, including [some] and excluding [others]. we must understand this and not deceive ourselves. only then will we be able to discover every honorable opportunity, and to struggle for every right, for every place, for every opportunity to continue to exist. The German Jews will be able to make their way in the new State as a working community that accepts work and gives work.

There is only one area in which we are permitted to carry out our own ideas, our own aims, but it is a decisive area, that of our Jewish life and Jewish future. This is where the most clearly defined tasks exist.

There are new duties in Jewish education, new areas of Jewish schooling must be created, and existing ones must be nurtured and protected, in order that the rising generation may find spiritual strength, inner resistance, and physical competence. There must be a thoughtful selection in order to develop and re-direct our youth towards professions which offer them a place in life and prospects of a future.

All there is now, all that has been begun, all that has been attempted must be joined together here to give aid and support. All that is destructive must be opposed, and all our strength devoted to reconstruction on the religious base of Judaism.

Much of our former economic security has been taken from us Ger-man Jews, or at least reduced. within the area that remains to us the individual must be drawn away from his isolation. occupational connections and associations, where permissible, can increase existing strength and give support to the weak, can make experience and contacts useful for all. There will be not a few who will be refused a place of work or the exercise of their profession on German soil. we are faced by the fact which can no longer be questioned or opposed, of a clear, historic necessity to give our youth new [living] space. It has become a great task to discover places and open roads, as on the sacred soil of Palestine, for which Providence has decreed a new era, as everywhere where the character, industry and ability of the German Jews can prove themselves, robbing none of their bread, but creating a livelihood for others.

For this and all else we hope for the understanding assistance of the Authorities, and the respect of our gentile fellow citizens, whom we join in love and loyalty to Germany.

we place our faith in the active sense of community and of responsibility of the German Jews, as also in the willingness to sacrifice of our Brothers everywhere.

we will stand united and, in confidence in our God, labor for the
honor of the Jewish Name.
May the nature of the German Jews arise anew from the tribulations of this time!

The Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden

Leo Baeck

otto Hirsch — Stuttgart Siegfried Moses — Berlin Rudolf Callmann — Cologne Jacob Hoffmann — Frankfurt Leopold Landenberger — Nuremberg Franz Meyer — Breslau Julius Seligsohn — Berlin Heinrich Stahl — Berlin

Source
: Yitzhak Arad, Israel Gutman, and Abraham Margaliot, eds.,
Documents on the Holocaust
, 8
^th
ed. (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press and Yad Vashem, 1999), 57–59. This proclamation was published in the
Jüdische Rundschau
, 29 September 1933.

a
PPendIx
C

t
he
a
meriCan
J
ew ish
C
ommittee

171 Madison Ave.

New York

1 March 1935

NOT FOR PuBLICATION

The Situation of the Jews in Germany

1. LEGAL STATuS
   

   Although the depths of brutal discrimination against the Jews in Nazi Germany have been reached, there is no end to the rumors that the more radical members of the National Socialist Party are pressing forward for disenfranchisement of non-Aryans by forcing them to accept a formal second-class legal status. However, this question is considered under the present regime, of slight importance because in effect the Jews of Germany have already been relegated to a sec-ond-class position.
   

2. ECONOMIC POSITION
   

   opposed to the fanaticism of such men as Reichsminister of the Interior Frick, Streicher, Goebbels and Hitler, is Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, President of the Reichsbank and Minister of the economy, who according to the latest reports has categorically demanded the cessa-tion of violent Jew-baiting. It is well known that Dr. Schacht is more realistic than some of his colleagues and believes that the German economy will suffer if such a policy is continued. It will be remembered, also, that Dr. Schacht attempted to counteract the Nazi boycott activities during the Christmas season by pointing out the dangers that would result to the nation. However, despite his warning, there were in many towns boycotts which closely resembled that of April 1, 1933. In Frankfurt, Storm Troops stood as pickets outside Jewish shops during the last three days of the Christmas shopping rush, and prevented customers who did not openly state they were Jews from entering. According to reports which were never denied officially in Germany, in the town of Mainz, Nazis stormed a Jew-ish-owned department store which was thronged with customers and wanted to drive the customers out. A fight ensued when many insisted on buying their Christmas presents in this shop. Still, it is a fact not without significance that the anti-Jewish feeling of the Ger-man people must be stirred up by such means, and ordinarily does not exist openly or spontaneously.
   

3. ANTI-JEWISH PROPAGANDA
   

   The press campaign continues to be led by the larger Nazi papers which are stressing with great vigor the “Protocols of the elders of Zion” as proof of an international Jewish conspiracy. These papers seem to have been stimulated to activity by the growing independence and confidence of such “liberal” journals as the Frankfurter Zeitung, which in rather mild terms attempt to counter-balance propaganda by an effort of impartiality. For example, when some weeks ago a gathering of Nazi doctors in Nuremberg, after a speech by Herr Streicher, passed a unanimous resolution demanding the death penalty for any Jew having sexual relations with Aryan women, the Frankfurter Zeitung dared to raise a very careful protest. It was immediately attacked by Goebbel’s “Angriff” and other Nazi journals. Despite this fact, the first protest against Streicher’s rabid policy came forth on February 14
   ^th
   from health officials and the German Medical Society. The protest consisted of a letter to Chancellor Hitler, signed by the President of the Reich Health office and the State Health Commissioners of Bavaria, Baden, Saxony, Thuringia and wurtemberg, followed by a public statement from Dr. Gerhard wagner, the leader of the German Medical Society. Although they expressed approval of Streicher’s “fight against Judaism,” they condemned his attempt to do away with vac-cination and the use of other serums made by Jews.
   

   But the patience of the Jews in Germany has been exhausted by the insults constantly disseminated in
   Der Stuermer
   , and circulating especially in the schools. A new feature of Streicher’s newspaper is a section called “Jewish want Ads,” which contains such shameless vul-garities as advertisements for “a blond Aryan
   shiksa
   for a sexually ripe eleven year old boy.” Another announces the sale of “good Jewish wine mixed with Jewish blood.” A third advertises that an “unemployed rabbi wishes to give lessons in the Talmudic lore of homosexuality.” As a result of the Saar plebiscite, also, the false allegation has been made that Max Braun, the Social Democratic Saarlander leader, is a Jew. The
   Reichsvertretung
   of German Jews issued an official statement signed by Rabbi Leo Baeck and otto Hirsch repudiating this allegation. Meanwhile, the Jewish organizations in Germany are quietly attempting to combat some of the grosser libels cast upon their name. For example, the Central Verein für Deutschen Juden [sic] published a new edition of its pamphlet refuting the blood-ritual murder accusation.
   

4. PuBLIC SCHOOLS
   

   However, Jewish pupils in some public schools still are subjected to the most intense humiliation. At some institutions, they are required to have a students’ card differing in color from those carried by non-Jewish students; in some they are required to sit apart from the other students; in many, they are excluded from student dining rooms and libraries. Happily this is true of only a small proportion of the public schools. But, Nazi “racial science” has now become a compulsory study in all schools throughout Germany. As a measure of mercy, classes in racial science are to be held on Saturdays, and Jewish children are to be allowed to remain at home.
   

5. LEGISLATION AND THE COuRTS
   

   Until the present, the Jews of Germany have had but one recourse — prevented as they were from retaining their professional positions and from emigrating, kept out of agriculture and the Labor Front. They have, despite the boycott, been permitted to begin new small businesses. However, a new decree has just prohibited the opening of new retail shops without a special license from the government. The Aryan clause will undoubtedly be applied in this connection also.
   

   In the law courts Jews seem to have fared somewhat better, especially in the Higher Courts. The “Frankfurter Zeitung” was able to publish several cases where the rights of Jews were upheld by the judges. This seems to be evidence of a change of attitude among the members of the upper middle class, to which the judges belong, toward the Nazis. Apparently this class is beginning to realize the plebian manner and crude ways of so many of the Nazi leaders. The “Peoples’ [sic] Court,” also, meets with the resentment of those judges who still attempt to preserve certain principles of justice. Although the judges cannot openly express their political opposition to the Nazi party, they do so indirectly in this manner: by attempting to safeguard the rights of Jews whenever possible.
   

6. THE CHuRCH OPPOSITION