"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (147 page)

105.
Seel, in Frank,
Deutsches Verwaltungsrecht
, 164, who speaks of a circular from the Reich and Prussian minister of the interior according to which applicants for official positions whose sixteenth birthday was after December 31, 1935, had to be successful graduates of the Hitlerjugend. Thus it was ensured that all officials would be National Socialists “in the not too distant future.”

106.
Decision of the Berlin Disciplinary Court of May 3, 1939, cited at the Federal Disciplinary Court proceedings of July 21, 1955 (
Entscheidungssammlung
[1955]: 174 ff.). The applicant had been dismissed for failing to join the NSV and negligent execution of the Hitler salute as an expression of his lack of respect for a superior. The Federal Disciplinary Court acknowledged that the sanction for the applicant’s nonmembership in the NSV had a political basis. This was, however, not the case for his lack of respect toward a superior: this action had been rightly punished, since a negligent salute to a superior—even if the prescribed form was the Hitler salute—was a dereliction of duty in any regime. In this connection see the annotation “Der rechtsstaatliche Kern im Hitlergruß,” in Kirn,
Verfassungsumsturz oder Rechtskontinuität
(1972) (digression).

107.
Seel, in Frank,
Deutsches Verwaltungsrecht
, 164.

108.
The Reich Disciplinary Court fined a police captain a 5% reduction in wages for a year for buying goods from Jews (
Amtliche Entscheidungssammlung
, 2:69). As late as 1937, the Baden Administrative Court reduced by 20% the retirement pay of a Baden Bürgermeister who had sold a cow to a Jewish cattle dealer, claiming, “In accord with the representative of the state interests, the Disciplinary Court holds the fundamental view that the obligations of an official preclude business relations with members of the Jewish race, even in his personal affairs” (
DVerw.
[1937]: 286); in a similar vein the Reich Disciplinary Court reduced an official’s salary in a judgment of March 21, 1939, stating that “if in the National Socialist state in 1935, 1936, and 1937, an official still buys goods from a Jew, whether directly or through a third party, he thereby damages not only his reputation and that of the whole Civil Service, but he also betrays the trust placed in him in the crudest fashion” (
DVerw.
[1940]: 13).

109.
A Jewish official who had been in retirement since 1925 and possessed an undeclared fortune abroad (approx. 120,000 Swiss francs) was sentenced to two and a half years’ hard labor and the forfeit of his entire pension by the Reich Disciplinary Court (
Reichsverwaltungsgericht
E 2, 2213).

110.
Reich Ministry of the Interior circular of July 11, 1933 (
MinbliV
[1933]: Sp. 807–10).

111.
See, for example, the decree by the
Oberpräsident
of the Rhine Province to the Reich and state authorities and all Party offices,
Geheimes Staatsarchiv
, Rep. 90, no. 2326, sheets 307–9 (also quoted in Brandt,
Die politische Treuepflicht
, 123 ff.).

112.
Reich Ministry of the Interior circular of June 22, 1933, on “Combating defeatism (
Miesmachertum
),”
MinbliV
(1933): Sp. 731–32, which reveals particularly clearly the prevailing mores in Civil Service law:

It has frequently been observed of late that officials, employees, and workers express opinions in conversations with other persons that are apt to foment discontent about the measures taken by the national government and sow the seeds of mistrust. Such people can be rightly described as defeatists. I wish to make it clear to all officials, employees, and workers that in future such methods will be looked upon as a perpetuation of Marxist agitation, and the perpetrators will be regarded as crypto-Marxists still pursuing Marxist goals. I also request all officials, employees, and workers who have supervisory duties to take note of such cases and to let me know the names of the people involved immediately. I shall have to regard failure to do so as a clear declaration of solidarity with such agitators and trouble-makers.

113.
This was particularly true of the jurisdiction of the Reich Disciplinary Court (
Reichsdisziplinarhof
, later renamed
Reichsdienststrafhof
); see BVerfGE, 3, 107 ff., for details.

114.
RGBl.
I 1333; the text of the provision was “(2) Defined as a Jew is also a citizen descending from two fully Jewish grandparents, a
Mischling
who (a) belonged to the Jewish religious community at the time of promulgation of this law or was later received into it; (b) was at the time of promulgation of this law married to a Jew or later married one such; (c) descends from a marriage with a Jew as defined by par. 1, contracted after the coming into effect of the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor of September 15, 1935 [
RGBl.
I 1146]; (d) was born from extramarital intercourse with a Jew as defined by par. 1 and born out of wedlock later than July 31, 1936.”

115.
See Stuckart and Globke,
Reichsbürgergesetz
(1936), 17 ff.; H. Graml, “Zur Stellung der Mischlinge 1. Grades,”
Gutachten des IfZ
2:31 f.; Fauck, “Verfolgung von Mischlingen.”

116.
RGBl.
I 433; under the terms of sec. 1a, par. 3, non-Aryans were denied a career in the Civil Service. The directives of August 8, 1933 (
RGBl.
I 575), under sec. 1, par. 3, of this law defined a person as non-Aryan if even only one parent or one grandparent was non-Aryan.

117.
Circular of November 16, 1934, ZS, file 257, sheet 75.

118.
See Fauck, “Verfolgung von Mischlingen,” report 2, 29 ff.

119.
For the general legal status of
Mischlinge
, see the memorandum prepared by the office of the
Reichsführer
-SS in 1944, which contains proposals with much detail in this regard (IfZ, Personal Staff archives, RFSS, microfilm).

120.
See, for example, the record of a discussion on March 6, 1942, at the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) on the “final solution to the Jewish question” with reference to the forced sterilization of all
Mischlinge
(Nuremberg doc. NG-2586; excerpts in Poliakov and Wulf,
Das Dritte Reich und die Juden
[1961], 385 f.).

121.
Decree of the head of the Four Year Plan of October 13, 1943, quoted in Fauck, “Verfolgung von Mischlingen,” 29.

122.
Reich Ministry of the Interior decree (signed by Stuckart), 1944, undated (ZS, file 257, sheet 76), which contains the request “Please do not publish or discuss publicly” (to keep the planned discriminatory measures secret).

123.
Ibid.

124.
See the record of the discussion of March 6, 1942, at the RSHA (note 120, above).

Part One. Section 1. III. Race Legislation in the Narrower Sense

1.
See von zur Mühlen,
Rassenideologien
(1977), 244.

2.
RGBl.
I 529 (with amending laws of June 26, 1935 [
RGBl.
I 773], and of February 4, 1935 [
RGBl.
I 119]). See also the implementing order of August 31, 1939 (
RGBl.
I 1560).

3.
Detailed references and examples will be found in K. Nowak,
“Euthanasie” und Sterilisierung im “Dritten Reich” Die Konfrontation der evangelischen und katholischen Kirche mit dem “Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses” und der “Euthanasie”-Aktion
(1978), 42 f.

4.
Hereditary diseases listed in sec. 1, par. 2, of the law were congenital mental retardation, schizophrenia, cyclic (manic-depressive) psychosis, hereditary epilepsy, Huntington’s chorea, inherited blindness, hereditary deafness, and severe malformation; in addition, people suffering from severe alcoholism could be sterilized.

5.
Nowak, “
Euthanasie” und Sterilisierung im “Dritten Reich,
” 40 ff., 41 f.

6.
See Reich Ministry of Interior circular of February 27, 1934, Az. IIIa II 713/34 (
MinbliV
[1934], no. 10, 455), which states:

First and foremost it should be made clear that appropriate measures must be taken to prevent reproduction. Persons with congenital diseases as defined by the law of July 14, 1933, must … be removed to an institution with or without their consent or that of their relatives…. It is particularly stressed that for the purposes of the law a “closed institution” … must be such that the prevention of reproduction is fully guaranteed…. Special arrangements may be necessary for guarding persons … who by virtue of the type of their disease or infirmity do not endanger or disturb those around them, such as the physically weak, congenitally blind, and deaf-mute. The measures necessary to ensure prevention of reproduction … must always be taken notwithstanding.

7.
Hereditary Disease Court, decision of April 19, 1934 (Az. 261 XIII 163/34),
DJ
(1934): 948.

8.
Circular from the Reich and Prussian Minister of the Interior dated December 2, 1936, regarding the leaflet entitled “Congenitally Diseased Offspring Means Death of the Nation” (
MinbliV
[1936], no. 52, 1621), which states that “the readily understandable form in which the leaflet is written will be extremely valuable for explaining the law. It should therefore be widely used.”

9.
Details in Weinkauff and Wagner,
Die deutsche Justiz
(1968), 198; M. Barella, “Die Tötung Geisteskranker im Dritten Reich,”
DRiZ
(1960): 144 ff.; L. Martin, “Die Tötung Geisteskranker im Dritten Reich,”
DRiZ
(1960): 218 f.; Henkys,
Die nationalsozialistischen Gewaltverbrechen
(1964), 62, 65.

10.
Völkischer Beobachter
, August 7, 1929. Examples in Reich Supreme Court of January 17, 1941 (
DR
[A] [1941]: 1458), and April 1, 1942 (
DR
[A] [1942]: 1163); see also the Hereditary Disease Court, Jena, of January 25, 1939 (
DR
[1939]: 731), and Hereditary Disease Superior Court, Jena (733).

11.
See more recently Nowak,
“Euthanasie” und Sterilisierung im “Dritten Reich.”

12.
See ibid., 71.

13.
See von zur Mühlen,
Rassenideologien
, 224; also K. Dörner, “Nationalsozialismus und Lebensvernichtung,”
VjhZ
15 (1967): 121 ff.; Nowak,
“Euthanasie” und Sterilisierung im “Dritten Reich,”
71 ff.

14.
H. Puvogel, “Die leitenden Grundgedanken bei der Entmannung von Sittlichkeitsver-brechern,” legal thesis (Göttingen, 1937), pt. 2, sec. D.

15.
See Nowak,
“Euthanasie” und Sterilisierung im “Dritten Reich,”
78 ff.

16.
For more details, see A. Rückerl, ed.,
NS-Vernichtungslager im Spiegel deutscher Straf-prozesse, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Chelmno
(1977), 66 ff.

17.
Weinkauff and Wagner,
Die deutsche Justiz
, 198; Barella, “Die Tötung Geisteskranker im Dritten Reich,” 144 ff.; Martin, “Die Tötung Geisteskranker im Dritten Reich,” 218 f.; Nowak,
“Euthanasie” und Sterilisierung im “Dritten Reich,”
119 ff., 129 ff.

18.
According to the Implementing Order on the Granting of Marriage Loans of June 20, 1933, sec. 1 (
RGBl.
I 377), loans were not granted if it was likely that one of the partners was not “unreservedly devoted to the national state at all times.” This was interpreted such that loans were not granted if one of the partners was non-Aryan (RFM Directive of July 5, 1933, cited in Krausnick, “Judenverfolgung” [1965], 263).

19.
For terminology, see Bein, “Der jüdische Parasit” (1965).

20.
See, for example, the series published by the Deutscher Rechtsverlag, Berlin,
Das Judentum in der Rechtswissenschaft
. In particular see the monograph by Menzel,
Minderheitenrecht und Judenfrage
(1934), which reproduces two papers read at the Association of National Socialist German Jurists, Hamburg, on February 17 and March 28, 1933. The author was an
Amtsgericht
judge in Altona. See also Breusing, “Die Juden” (1936), 149 f.; Meyer, “Das jüdische Hehlerrecht” (1937); Ruth, “Wucher- und Wucherrecht der Juden im Mittelalter” (1937); Franz, “Der Jude im katholischen Kirchenrecht” (1937); H.-K. Klaußen, “Der Judeneid,”
Dt. Rechtswiss
. (1937): 190 ff.; Göppinger,
Die Verfolgung der Juristen jüdischer Abstammung
(1963), 72 ff., reports two seminars of October 3–4,1936, on “Jews in Jurisprudence” and November 19–21, 1936, on “German Jurisprudence and Jews,” in which “findings” relating “Jewry” to “[hereditary] criminality” were broadcast. See also Lorenzen, “Die Rechtstellung der Juden vor der Emanzipation” (1938); Lorenzen, “Judentum und Judenfrage” (report on a series of lecture evenings at Berlin University, January 12–28, 1939); Lorenzen, “Das Eindringen der Juden in die Justiz vor 1933” (1939) (Lorenzen was an
Amtsgerichtsrat
in the Reich Ministry of Justice). Von Medeazza, “Judenfrage und Judengesetzgebung in Europa” (1941); Feldscher, “Rassenpflege und Erbpflege im deutschen Recht” (1943) (Feldscher was an
Oberregierungsrat
in the Reich Ministry of the Interior).

21.
See Reich Ministry of Interior circular of March 5, 1934 (
MinbliV
[1934], no. 11, 455), regarding training of teachers in racial studies, hereditary science, etc., which contains the following points: “(1) It is eminently desirable that teachers at all schools should take courses and workshops to gain information on the fundamentals of hereditary science, racial studies, racial hygiene, family studies, and population policy and their application to the various fields of education and teaching. Nevertheless, great care should be taken in the selection of lecturers and school principals so that only those … who are willing and able to draw the philosophical conclusions in the spirit of the National Socialist movement are chosen. (2) For this reason, teachers who have proved their National Socialist loyalty can be considered as leaders.” See Lorenzen, “Judentum und Judenfrage,” 235 (“the Jews are not only foreign to us, they are also our enemies”).