Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939 (55 page)

53. Ibid.

54. Elzbieta Ettinger,
Hannah Arendt/Martin Heidegger
(New Haven, Conn. 1995), pp. 35–36. Heidegger’s letters are paraphrased as Ettinger had not received permission to quote them directly.

55. Thomas Sheehan, “Heidegger and the Nazis,”
New York Review of Books
, June 16, 1988, p. 40.

56. Ibid.

57. Ibid. See also Ott,
Laubhüttenfest 1940
, p. 183.

58. Safranski,
Ein Meister aus Deutschland
, p. 302.

59. Ibid., p. 300.

60. Heinrich Meier,
Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss und “Der Begriff des Politischen”: Dialog unter Abwesenden
(Stuttgart, 1988), p. 137.

61. Ibid., pp. 14–15.

62. For all details in this section, see Bernd Rüthers,
Carl Schmitt im Dritten Reich: Wissenschaft als Zeitgeist-Bestärkung?
(Munich, 1990), pp. 31–34.

63. Wolfgang Heuer,
Hannah Arendt
(Reinbek/Hamburg, 1987), p. 29.

64. Kommission…,
Dokumente zur Geschichte der Frankfurter Juden
, pp. 99–100.

65. Donald L. Niewyk,
The Jews in Weimar Germany
(Baton Rouge, La., 1980), p. 67. Michael Kater’s evaluation is somewhat clearer-cut: “The number of converts to Nazism, among the professors, often motivated by antisemitism, was growing, especially in 1932, and even if most of them chose to remain outside the party, the evidence suggests that in their heart of hearts they had switched their allegiance to Hitler.” Michael Kater,
The Nazi Party: A Social Profile of Members and Leaders 1919–1945
(Oxford, 1983), p. 69. Academic Judeophobia during the empire and even more during the Weimar Republic is too well documented to need much further proof. Yet some notorious incidents can be read in contrary ways. In 1924 the Jewish Nobel laureate in chemistry and professor at the University of Munich, Richard Willstätter, resigned in protest against the decision of the dean and a majority of the facility not to appoint the geochemist Viktor Goldschmidt on obviously antisemitic grounds. Yet, conversely, a great number of faculty members and students attempted for weeks to persuade Willstätter to take back his resignation, to no avail. Regarding the issue as such and Willstätter’s resignation, see Fritz Stern,
Dreams and Delusions
(New York, 1987), pp. 46–47, and John V. H. Dippel,
Bound upon a Wheel of Fire: Why So Many German Jews Made the Tragic Decision to Remain in Nazi Germany
(New York, 1996), pp. 25–27.

66. Michael H. Kater,
Studentenschaft und Rechtsradikalismus in Deutschland 1918–1933
(Hamburg, 1975), pp. 145–46.

67. Geoffrey J. Giles,
Students and National Socialism in Germany
(Princeton, N.J., 1985), p. 17.

68. Ulrich Herbert, “‘Generation der Sachlichkeit’: Die völkische Studenten-bewegung der frühen zwanziger Jahre in Deutschland,” in Frank Bajohr et al., eds.,
Zivilisation und Barbarei: Die widersprüchlichen Potentiale der Moderne
(Hamburg, 1991), pp. 115ff. For the establishment and the growth of the NSDSB until 1933 see also Michael Grüttner,
Studenten im Dritten Reich
(Paderborn, 1995), pp. 19–61.

69. On November 12, 1930, the
Berliner Tageblatt
reported that around five hundred Nazi students had launched attacks against prorepublic and Jewish students on the Berlin University campus: “During the assault, a Social Democratic student was wounded and had to get medical assistance…a Jewish female student was attacked by the Nazis, thrown to the ground and trampled upon…. The group yelled in turn ‘Germany awake!’ and ‘Out with Jews’!” Kater,
Studentenschaft und Rechtsradikalismus
, p. 155.

70. Ibid., p. 157.

71. Kater,
The Nazi Party
, p. 184.

72. Rudolf Schottlaender, “Antisemitische Hochschulpolitik: Zur Lage an der Technischen Hochschule Berlin 1933/34,” in Reinhard Rürup, ed.,
Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Technischen Universität Berlin 1878–1979
, vol. 1 (Berlin, 1979), p. 447.

73. Ibid.

74. Ibid., p. 448.

75. Sauder,
Die Bücherverbrennung
, p. 89. In Berlin, the publication of these theses led to an immediate conflict between students and the rector of the university, Eduard Kohlrausch, who had ordered the removal of the notices and posters from university grounds; the students countered by announcing his resignation. Giles,
Students and National Socialism
, p. 131.

76. George L. Mosse, “Die Bildungsbürger verbrennen ihre eigenen Bücher” in Horst Denkler und Eberhard Lämmert, eds., “Das war ein Vorspiel nur…”
Berliner Colloquium zur Literaturpolitik im “Dritten Reich
” (Berlin, 1985), p. 35.

77. Ibid., p. 42.

78. Professional schools group leader Hildburghausen to Minister Wächtler, Thuringia Education Ministry, Weimar, 6.5.1933, Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (NSDStB), microfilm MA–228, IfZ.

79. District leader mid-Germany to Prime Minister Manfred von Killinger, Dresden, 12.8.1933, NSDStB, microfilm MA 228, IfZ.

80. Gerhard Gräfe to Georg Plötner, main office for political education, Berlin 16.5.1933, ibid. It seems that, on the other hand, Arthur Schnitzler’s famous “Jewish” novel,
Der Weg ins Freie (The Road into the Open)
, was spared, probably because it was interpreted as carrying a Zionist message.

81. Victor Klemperer,
Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten: Tagebücher 1933–1945
, vol. 1,
1933–1941
(Berlin, 1995), pp. 31–43.

82. Jacob Boas, “German-Jewish Internal Politics under Hitler 1933–1938,”
LBIY
29 (1984): 3.

83. An earlier federative association of the organizations of Jewish communities (
Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft der deutschen Landesverbände jüdischer Gemeinden
) had been established as early as January 1932; it represented the Jews of Germany during the first months of the Nazi regime before being replaced by the
Reichsvertretung
.

84. Leo Baeck has remained to this day a target of sharp criticism for what has appeared to some as subservience to and even cooperation with the Nazis. Hannah Arendt referred to him as the “Führer” of German Jewry. See Hannah Arendt,
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
(New York, 1963), p. 105. Raul Hilberg has kept to his initially harsh evaluation; for him Baeck was both pompous and pathetic all along. Raul Hilberg,
Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe 1933–1945
(New York, 1992), p. 108.

85. Paul Sauer, “Otto Hirsch (1885–1941), Director of the Reichsvertretung,”
LBIY
32 (1987): 357.

86. For these quotations see Abraham Margalioth, “The Problem of the Rescue of German Jewry During the Years 1933–1939: The Reasons for the Delay in Their Emigration from the Third Reich,” in Yisrael Guttman and Ephraim Zuroff, eds.,
Rescue Attempts During the Holocaust
(Jerusalem, 1977), pp. 249ff.

87. Abraham Margalioth,
Between Rescue and Annihilation: Studies in the History of German Jewry 1932–1938
(Jerusalem, 1990), p. 5 (in Hebrew). See also Francis R. Nicosia, “Revisionist Zionism in Germany (II): Georg Kareski and the Staatszionistische Organization, 1933–1938,”
LBIY
32 ([London] 1987) 231ff.

88. Yehuda Bauer,
My Brother’s Keeper: A History of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee 1929–1939
(Philadelphia, 1974), p. 111.

89. The Free Association for the Interests of Orthodox Jewry to the Reich Chancellor, Frankfurt, October 4, 1933,
Akten der Reichskanzlei
, vol. 2,
12/9/33–27/8/34
, pp. 884ff.

90. See Werner Rosenstock, “Exodus 1933–1939: A Survey of Jewish Emigration from Germany,”
LBIY
1 ([London] 1956): 377, and particularly Herbert A. Strauss, “Jewish Emigration from Germany: Nazi Policies and Jewish Responses (I),”
LBIY
25: ([London] 1980): 326.

91. Ibid., p. 379.

92. Klaus Mann,
The Turning Point: Thirty-five Years in This Century
(1942; reprint, New York, 1985), p. 270.

93. Barkai,
From Boycott to Annihilation
, pp. 99ff.

94. Hans Mommsen, “Der nationalsozialistische Staat und die Judenverfolgung vor 1938,”
VfZ
1 (1962): 71–72.

95. For a detailed account of the Haavarah negotiations and agreement, see Francis R. Nicosia,
The Third Reich and the Palestine Question
(London, 1985), pp. 29ff., and in particular p. 46. See also Nicosia’s updated article on the major themes of his book: “Ein nützlicher Feind: Zionismus im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland 1933–1939,”
VfZ
37, no. 3 (1989): 367ff.

96. Nicosia, “Ein nützlicher Feind,” p. 383.

97. Tom Segev,
The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust
(New York, 1993), p. 30.

98. Nicosia,
The Third Reich
, p. 42.

99. Ibid.

100. Nicosia, “Ein nützlicher Feind,” p. 378. It is in the same spirit that Robert Weltsch, editor of the Zionist
Jüdische Rundschau
and possibly the best-known German Jewish journalist after 1933, wrote one of his most famous columns on April 4, 1933: “Trägt ihn mit Stolz, den gelben Fleck” (Wear the yellow badge with pride). In this memorably titled article, Weltsch argued that Nazism was offering a historic opportunity to reassert Jewish national identity. The Jews would regain the respect they had lost in assimilating, and they would launch their own national revival, as the Germans had. The Jews owed a debt of gratitude to the Nazis: Hitler had shown them the path to the recovery of their own identity. The column aroused immense enthusiasm among German Jews, Zionists and non-Zionists alike.

101. Segev,
The Seventh Million
, p. 19.

102. Ibid., p. 18.

103. Margalioth, “The Problem of the Rescue,” p. 94.

104. Ibid., p. 95.

105. Quoted in Jost Hermand, “‘Bürger zweier Welten?’ Arnold Zweigs Einstellung zur deutschen Kultur,” in Julius Schoeps, ed.,
Juden als Träger bürgerlicher Kultur in Deutschland
(Bonn, 1989), p. 81.

106. Quoted in Robert Weltsch, “Vorbemerkung zur zweiten Ausgabe” (1959) in Siegmund Kaznelson, ed.,
Juden im Deutschen Kulturbereich: Ein Sammelwerk
(Berlin, 1962), pp. xvff.

107. The number is taken from Eike Geisel’s essay on the history of the
Kulturbund
, “Premiere und Pogrom,” in Eike Geisel and Heinrich M. Broder, eds.,
Premiere und Pogrom: Der Jüdische Kulturbund 1933–1941
(Berlin, 1992), p. 9.

108. Steinweis, “Hans Hinkel,” p. 215.

109. Geisel, “Premiere und Pogrom,” pp. 10ff.

110. Ibid., p. 12.

111. Dahm, “Anfänge und Ideologie,” p. 114.

112. Ibid., p. 115. For details about the forbidding of Schiller and Goethe, see Jacob Boas, “Germany or Diaspora? German Jewry’s Shifting Perceptions in the Nazi Era (1933–1938)”
LBIY
27 (1982): 115 n 32. In his personal memoir about the epoch, Jakob Ball-Kaduri suggests that at the outset Hinkel was keen on developing the
Kulturbund
because of his ambivalent relation to Jewish matters and because the growth of the
Kulturbund
meant the growth of the domain that he was in charge of. Ball-Kaduri,
Das Leben der Juden in Deutschland im Jahre 1933
, p. 151. Such “ambivalence” appears rather as mere ambition on the part of a dedicated anti-Semitic activist.

113. Levi,
Music in the Third Reich
, pp. 51–52.

114. Ibid., pp. 33, 247.

115. Wulf,
Theater und Film im Dritten Reich
, p. 102.

116. Dahm, “Anfänge und Ideologie,” p. 104.

117. Kurt Duwell, “Jewish Cultural Centers in Nazi Germany: Expectations and Accomplishments,” in Jehuda Reinharz and Walter Schatzberg, eds.,
The Jewish Response to German Culture: From the Enlightenment to the Second World War
(Hanover, N.H., 1985), p. 298.

118. Sir Horace Rumbold to Sir John Simon, May 11, 1933,
Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939
, Second Series, vol.
5:1933
, London, 1956, pp. 233–5.

119. The Consul General at Berlin to the Secretary of State, November 1, 1933,
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1933
, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C., 1948), p. 362. (italics added.)

120.
Akten der Reichskanzlei: Die Regierung Hitler
, part 1, vol. 1, p. 631.

121. Schacht’s position was solely motivated by immediate economic goals. Otherwise he favored the “limitation of Jewish influence” in German economic life, and on several occasions he did not hesitate to make blatantly anti-Semitic speeches. In other words, Schacht fully expressed the conservative brand of anti-Semitism, and when faced with the regime’s ever more radical anti-Jewish measures, he toed the line like all the Nazis’ conservative allies. See in particular Albert Fischer,
Hjalmar Schacht und Deutschlands “Judenfrage,”
(Bonn, 1995), mainly pp. 126ff. One of Schacht’s most outspoken anti-Semitic speeches was his “Luther speech” of November 8, 1933. The journalist and socialite Bella Fromm, who was Jewish, was in the audience and commented in her diary: “The intimate friend of Berlin Jewish society [Schacht] did not skip a single one of Martin Luther’s manifold anti-Semitic remarks…. Certainly Jew-baiting is a legal affair since February 1, 1933. But there is no excuse for Schacht’s infamy. Schacht has not always been prosperous. Everything he has he owes to friends who are no National Socialists. Bella Fromm,
Blood and Banquets: A Berlin Social Diary
(London, 1943; reprint, New York, 1990), p. 136.

122.
Akten der Reichskanzlei: Die Regierung Hitler
, part 1, vol. 1, p. 675.

123. Ibid., p. 677.

124. Noakes, “The Development of Nazi Policy Towards the German-Jewish ‘Mischlinge,’” p. 303.