Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939 (63 page)

44. For the protocol of the meeting as established by Wilhelm Stuckart, see Hans Mommsen and Susanne Willems, eds.,
Herrschaftsalltag im Dritten Reich: Studien und Texte
(Düsseldorf, 1988), pp. 445ff. For Stuckart’s remark see ibid., p. 446.

45. Ibid., p. 448.

46. Ibid., p. 457.

47. Fridolf Kudlien,
Ärtzte im Nationalsozialismus
(Cologne, 1985), p. 76.

48.
Akten der Reichskanzlei
, vol. 5 (24 Jan. 1935–5 Feb. 1938), serial number 859, IfZ, Munich.

49. Friedlander and Milton,
Archives of the Holocaust
, vol. 20, pp. 85–87, and
Akten der Parteikanzlei der NSDAP
(abstracts), part 1, vol. 1, p. 245. In a meeting with Hitler on December 3, 1937, it was decided that “within weeks” the minister of the interior would submit to the chief of the Reich Chancellery the draft of a Law for the exclusion of Jewish physicians from medical practice. Ibid., p. 97.

50. Ibid.

51. Reich Minister of Education…, 25.11.1936, Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft…, microfilm MA 103/1, IfZ, Munich.

52. Ibid., 19.4.1937.

53.
Akten der Parteikanzlei
, microfiches 016639–40, IfZ, Munich.

54.
Akten der Parteikanzlei der NSDAP
(abstracts), part 1, vol. 2, p. 262.

55. Ibid. The reason for Hitler’s decision can be tentatively surmised on the basis of the issues raised by the minister of education himself. Moreover, when it appeared, on September 10, 1935, that a similar law about Jewish schooling would be enforced from the beginning of the school year 1936, Cardinal Bertram sent a protest to Minister of Education Rust on precisely the issue of the converted Jewish pupils. See
Akten deutscher Bischöfe
, vol. 3,
1935–1936
, p. 57.

56. Regarding the general situation of Jewish students in Nazi Germany see Götz von Olenhusen, “Die ‘nichtarischen’ Studenten” and Grüttner,
Studenten im Dritten Reich
, pp. 212ff. For details on the doctorates issue, see also Friedländer, “The Demise of the German Mandarins,” pp. 75ff.

57. Wilhelm Grau to State Secretary Kunisch, Reich Ministry of Education…, 18.2.1936, Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft u. Erziehung, microfilm MA 103/1 IfZ, Munich.

58. Reich Minister of Education, 28.4.1936, ibid.

59. The Dean, Philosophy Faculty of the Friedrich Wilhelm University, 29.2.1936, ibid.

60. The Führer’s Deputy to the Reich Minister of the Interior, 15.10.1936, ibid.

61. Reich Minister of Education…, 15.4.1937, ibid.

62. Dean Weinhandel, Philosophical Faculty, Kiel, to Reich Minister of Education, 21.4.1937, ibid. The issue of Heller’s dissertation, one of the elements that triggered the revision process in regard to doctoral degrees for Jews, had a delayed aftermath. Heller defended his dissertation on July 5, 1934, and was awarded summa cum laude. Soon after, Dr. Heller left for Tel Aviv, where he was informed, on November 23, 1935, by the dean’s office in Berlin that his diploma would be sent to him on receipt of 4.25 RM to cover postage. But, instead of the diploma, Heller received the following letter from Dean Bieberach on January 10, 1936:
“You claim that on October 16, 1935 [the official graduation date] you were awarded the doctoral degree by the philosophy faculty of Berlin University. I demand that you refrain from making this false statement. You will not be granted this degree in the future either, as you are unworthy of bearing a German academic title. This has been unequivocally confirmed by a verification of your dissertation. The faculty regrets that you had been allowed to accede to the doctoral examination.”
In 1961 Heller wrote to Humboldt University in East Berlin to receive his doctoral diploma. The university did not answer, but the senator for education of East Berlin sent an authorization allowing Heller to use the doctoral title. With the opening of the archives of the German Democratic Republic, the reason for the university’s silence in 1961 became clear: Heller’s dissertation was considered to be anticommunist. In 1992, fifty-seven years after Heller had in fact been deemed worthy of the doctoral degree, two representatives of Humboldt University came to his home in Israel and presented him with his diploma. Abraham Heller, personal archives, Ramat-Gan, Israel. I am indebted to Dr. Heller, and to his daughter, Mrs. Nili Bibring, for having given me access to the documentation in this case.

63. Peter Hanke,
Zur Geschichte der Juden in München zwischen 1933 und 1945
(Munich, 1967), p. 139.

64. Ibid., pp. 139–40.

65. Kommission…,
Dokumente zur Geschichte der Frankfurter Juden
, p. 163.

66. Ibid., pp. 163–64.

67. Ibid., pp. 167–71.

68. Ibid., p. 172.

69. Müller,
Stuttgart
, p. 296.

70. Ibid., pp. 296–97.

71. Ibid., p. 297.

72. Dr. Hugo Schleicher, Offenburg i/B, to District Office Offenburg, 19 March, 1937, Unterlagen betr. Entrechtung der Juden in Baden 1933–1940, ED 303, IfZ, Munich.

73. The Mayor as Chairman of the Hospital Fund to District Office Offenburg, 2.4.1937, ibid. When he referred to “the obscurantists of our time,” the mayor of Gengenbach was using the title of Alfred Rosenberg’s anti-Catholic pamphlet
An die Dunkelmänner unserer Zeit
(To the obscurantists of our time).

74. District Office, Offenburg, to Mayor, Gengenbach, 5.4.1937, ibid.

75.
Chronik der Stadt Stuttgart
, vol. 3, p. 354.

76. Ibid., p. 368.

77. “Otto Bernheimer, ‘Kunde Göring,’” in Hans Lamm, ed.,
Von Juden in München
(Munich, 1959), pp. 351–52.

78. Thomas Klein, ed.,
Die Lageberichte der Geheimen Staatspolizei über die Provinz Hessen-Nassau 1933–1936
, vol. 1 (Vienna, 1986), p. 515.

79. Bröszat, Fröhlich, and Wiesemann,
Bayern in der NS-Zeit
, vol. 1, p. 462.

80. Ibid., p. 458.

81. Wildt,
Die Judenpolitik des SD
, pp. 40, 108. An SD quarterly report for the period January through April 1937 states that some large Jewish firms had doubled their revenues by comparison to 1933. Ibid., p. 108.

82. Hayes, “Big Business and Aryanisation,” p. 260.

83. Ibid., pp. 260–61.

84. Ibid., p. 262.

85. Barkai,
From Boycott to Annihilation
, p. 108.

86. Ibid., p. 84.

87. Wildt,
Die Judenpolitik des SD
, p. 165.

88. See Wilhelm Treue, “Hitlers Denkschrift zum Vierjahresplan,”
VfZ
3 (1955).

89.
Akten der Parteikanzlei der NSDAP
(abstracts), part 1, vol. 2, p. 267.

90. Adjutantur des Führers 1934–1937, microfilm MA 13/2, IfZ, Munich.

91. The Führer’s Deputy, the Chief of Staff, directive, 23.10.37, Stellvertreter des Führers (Anordnungen…), 1937, Db 15.02, IfZ, Munich.

92. Ben-Elissar,
La Diplomatie du IIIe Reich
, p. 191. I follow Ben-Elissar for most details on this issue.

93. Ibid., p. 194 (see English translation in
Documents on German Foreign Policy
, Series D, vol. 5, pp. 746–47).

94. Ibid., pp. 209ff. On the whole issue see Avraham Barkai, “German Interests in the Haavarah-Transfer Agreement 1933–1939,”
LBIY
35 ([London] 1990).

95.
Jüdische Rundschau
, Jan. 14, 1938, LBI, New York.

96. Hitler,
Speeches and Proclamations
, p. 1057.

97. Kwiet and Eschwege,
Selbstbehauptung und Widerstand
, p. 201.

98. Thomas Bernhard,
Heldenplatz
(Frankfurt am Main, 1988), pp. 136–37.

Chapter 8 An Austrian Model?

1. Peter Gay,
Freud: A Life for Our Time
(New York, 1988), p. 628. A minor postscript may be added to the story of this departure. As the emigration and an entry permit to France had been arranged through the intervention of the U.S. ambassador to Paris, William Bullitt (an ex-patient and devoted admirer of Freud’s), an American official accompanied the Freuds from Vienna to Paris. Years later a person who knew the official wrote: “When I saw him…he told me about the trip and also vehemently described his personal feelings of repugnance for Freud, his friends and relatives, Jews and psychoanalysis.” Quoted in Linda Donn,
Freud and Jung: Years of Friendship, Years of Loss
(New York, 1988), p. 20.

2. Tonny Moser, “Österreich,” in Benz,
Dimension des Völkermords
, p. 68n.

3. F. L. Carstens,
Faschismus in Österreich: Von Schönerer zu Hitler
(Munich, 1978), p. 185.

4. Ibid., pp. 231–32.

5. Ibid., p. 233.

6. Wildt,
Die Judenpolitik des SD
, pp. 52–53.

7. Safrian,
Die Eichmann-Männer
, p. 32.

8. Götz Aly and Susanne Heim,
Vordenker der Vernichtung
, p. 33.

9. Ibid., p. 38.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid., p. 39.

12. The Führer’s Deputy to the Reich Commissary for the Reunification of Austria with the Reich, Gauleiter Party comrade Josef Bürckel, 18.7.1938, Reichskomissar für die Wiedervereinigung Österreichs mit dem Deutschen Reich, microfilm MA 145/1, IfZ, Munich.

13. Hilberg,
The Destruction of the European Jews
, p. 61.

14. The State Commissary for Private Business (Walter Rafelsberger) to Heinrich Himmler, 14.8.1939, Persönlicher Stab des Reichsführers SS, microfilm MA–290, IfZ, Munich.

15. Bruce F. Pauley,
From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Antisemitism
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1992), p. 289. About the confiscation of Jewish dwellings in Vienna, see mainly Gerhard Botz,
Wohnungspolitik und Judendeportation in Wien, 1938–1945
(Vienna, 1975).

16. Wildt,
Die Judenpolitik des SD
, p. 52.

17. Eichmann to Hagen, 8.5.1938, in Yitzhak Arad, Yisrael Guttman, and Abraham Margalioth, eds.,
Documents on the Holocaust
(Jerusalem, 1981), pp. 93–94. There were other ways of perceiving the situation that was unfolding in former Austria. In a letter to the London
Times
of April 4, 1938, a Mr. Edwin A. Stoner wrote: “At St Anton—a village beloved by British skiers—the railway station was a blaze of color; even the station dog wore his swastika, but he looked unhappy and wagged a reluctant tail. Ninety per cent of Viennese now sport the swastika, popularly referred to as ‘the safety pin.’ One of the strangest sights was the vast crowd struggling to get into the British consulate in Wallnerstrasse. Many were Jews desirous of British nationality or anxious to leave a country where only Aryans are tolerated. Poor demented folk, they had little chance of success. Quoted in George Clare,
Last Waltz in Vienna: The Rise and Destruction of a Family, 1842–1942
(New York, 1981), p. 199.

18. Herbert Rosenkranz, “Austrian Jewry: Between Forced Emigration and Deportation,” in Yisrael Guttman and Cynthia J. Haft, eds.,
Patterns of Jewish Leadership in Nazi Europe 1933–1945
(Jerusalem, 1979), pp. 70–71. During his interrogation by Israeli police in 1960, Eichmann described how Löwenherz, just released from prison, authored the new plan for the centralization of the emigration procedures: “I gave Dr. Löwenherz paper and pencil and said: Please go back for one more night and write up a memo telling me how you would organize this whole thing, how you would run it. Object: stepped-up emigration…. The next day, this Dr. Löwenherz brought me his draft. I found it excellent and we immediately took action on his suggestions.” Jochen von Lang, ed.,
Eichmann Interrogated: Transcripts from the Archives of the Israeli Police
(New York, 1983), pp. 50–51.

19. Safrian,
Die Eichmann-Männer
, p. 41.

20. Quoted in Heinz Höhne,
The Order of the Death’s Head: The Story of Hitler’s SS
(New York, 1970), p. 337.

21. Ibid., p. 338.

22. On the forcible expulsion of Jews from the Reich, mainly over Germany’s western borders, see Jacob Toury, “Ein Auftakt zur Endlösung: Judenaustreibungen über nichtslawische Reichsgrenzen 1933 bis 1939,” in Büttner, Johe, and Voss,
Das Unrechtsregime
, vol. 2, pp. 164ff.; for Austria, pp. 169ff.

23. Memorandum of II 112/4, 2.11.38, idem.

24. Moser, “Österreich,” p. 68n.

25. SD, II 112, to Racial Policy Office of the NSDAP, 3.12.38; Racial Policy Office to Chief of the SD Main Office, 14.12.38, SD Hauptamt, microfilm MA-554, IfZ, Munich.

26. Aly and Heim,
Vordenker der Vernichtung
, p. 40. In May, on Eichmann’s orders, some nineteen hundred Jews with prior records of jail sentences were shipped to Dachau, spreading fear in the community and hastening the exodus. Herbert,
Best
., p. 213.

27. Gordon J. Horwitz,
In the Shadow of Death: Living Outside the Gates of Mauthausen
(London, 1991), p. 23.

28. Ibid., p. 28.

29. Ibid., p. 29.

30. Ibid., p. 12.

31. Ibid., pp. 13–14.

32. Aly and Heim,
Vordenker der Vernichtung
, p. 36.

33. Ibid., pp. 41–42.

34. Henry L. Feingold,
Bearing Witness: How America and Its Jews Responded to the Holocaust
(Syracuse, N.Y., 1995), p. 75.

35.
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1938
, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C., 1950), pp. 740–41.

36. Shlomo Z. Katz, “Public Opinion in Western Europe and the Evian Conference of July 1938,”
Yad Vashem Studies
9 (1973): 106.

37. Ibid., 108.

38. Ibid., 111.

39. Ibid., 113.

40. Ibid., 114.

41. Heinz Boberach, ed.,
Meldungen aus dem Reich: Die geheimen Lageberichte des Sicherheitsdienstes der SS 1938–1945
, vol. 2 (Herrsching, 1984), p. 23.

42. David S. Wyman,
Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis 1938–1941
(New York, 1985), p. 50.