Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews by Peter Longerich (booksvooks TXT) 📕

from the mayor of Berlin on the Entjudung of the retail trade

in the Reich capital, published in January 1939. 114 According to this, after the Deprivation of Rights and Forced Emigration, late 1937–9

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pogrom there were 3,700 retailers; of these businesses about two-thirds had been

‘eliminated’, which had brought considerable relief to the retail trade. In the course of the liquidation procedure, goods ‘from Jewish sources’ were on offer from Economic

Group Retail worth a total of 6 million marks, which typically, after examination by

the responsible expert, were assigned an estimated value of only 4.5 million. Where

the takeover of Jewish business was concerned, ‘immediately after the events of the

night of 10 November such a crush began in the various districts that officials, for

example from the Mitte district, were kept busy all day doing nothing but providing

information to applicants and distributing forms. The first request from applicants

normally involved an application for credit for the takeover of a Jewish retail

business . . . For the bulk of applicants, who were entirely uninformed not only

about the financial side, but also about the retail sector, this prompted the second

question, namely where could they be “sure of finding” a good Jewish business. This

too is proof of the fact that elements who have no business experience are interested

in acquiring Jewish businesses.’ The report went on:

For each individual Jewish retail business there were usually at least 3–4 applicants. Among the retinues [i.e. staffs] various factions then formed, declaring themselves in favour of the various applicants, seeking to support them with numerous visits to more or less responsible officials, while accusing one another of friendship towards the Jews. . . . The retinues of a medium-sized department store near Görlitzer railway station appeared several times in

large numbers at my office even supporting an applicant whom I had already rejected . . . To introduce a certain order among the countless applicants, with the consent of the Reich

Economics Ministry, it was agreed between the Party’s Berlin offices and my department to involve the Berlin district leaders heavily in the selection of applicants . . .

At the front of the queue should be old and outstanding Party members who were injured

during the Kampfzeit. Next come Party members who want to make themselves independ-

ent, but who must have business experience, then those who have suffered loss through

demolition work (in the context of the reconstruction of Berlin), and finally long-term

employees of Jewish firms, as long as they are not Judenknechte [‘servants of the Jews’].

In view of the rush of frequently unqualified applicants for Jewish shops, the

mayor observed that the ‘overall impression’ left by ‘Aryanization’ was ‘not

pleasant’. He himself had not thought it possible that ‘the opportunity as a

German to take over Jewish businesses would prompt such an extraordinary

rush of applications’, or ‘that circles of whom it would not have been expected

often asked the person reporting whether he didn’t have “a good Jewish

property available”, could provide information about the whereabouts of Jewish

furniture etc.’.

To the taxes that had already been introduced, which were specially designed

for the economic looting of Jews, further financial burdens were added after the

pogrom. The contribution imposed on the German Jews raised a total of 1,127

billion RM. 115 The Jewish Assets Tax, imposed from December 1938, further 120

Racial Persecution, 1933–1939

empowered the authorities to raise taxes for the benefit of the Reich through

‘Aryanization’. According to an order of 8 February 1939 issued by the Reich

Economics Minister the tax was to constitute 70 per cent of the difference

between the official estimated value and the price actually paid. 116 On 10 June 1940, Goering passed an ‘Order concerning the Verification of Entjudung

deals’, 117 which was intended as a compensation tax on all those Aryanization sales undertaken since 30 January 1933 in which the buyer had realized a

‘disproportionate benefit’.

There was also a special emigration tax, which had been levied since the end of

1938 by police stations or Gestapo offices in various places, and which—to some

extent at least—was used for the financing of emigration. One such tax had been

levied by the Gestapo in Hamburg since December 1938, 118 while the Chief of Police in Berlin, according to Heydrich, introduced a ‘special tax on wealthy Jews’,

which by February 1939 had already brought in three million RM, which were paid

to the Reich Economics Ministry. 119

These regulations were made standard for the whole Reich area from March

1939. With a decree of 25 February, issued to all Gestapo headquarters, 120 the Chief of the Security Police determined that ‘a special tax as a single extraordinary

contribution’ should be levied on all Jews upon emigration. The tax was to be

graded according to the assets of the emigrating individuals, and used to promote

the emigration of Jews without assets. 121 By virtue of the fact that the Jews now had to finance their own expulsion, a highly efficient connection between economic

robbery and forced ‘emigration’—on the model created by Eichmann in Vienna—

had been put in place. Altogether the various taxes and levies resulted in the

comprehensive financial theft of Jewish property.

Jewish Forced Labour before the Start of the War

Even before Reichskristallnacht, bureaucratic efforts had got under way to deploy

Jews for forced labour. From the regime’s point of view, the tense situation in the

labour market suggested, on the one hand, that the Jews excluded from economic

life could be used again as a workforce (separated from non-Jewish workers and in

subordinate occupations); on the other hand, the regime certainly also hoped that

through tough working conditions the pressure towards emigration could be

further heightened; an important additional factor for the introduction of forced

labour was also the hope of a reduction in state welfare costs. 122 After the pogrom forced labour, alongside forced expropriation, residence prohibition, and detention in camps, became one of the central elements of the forced regime imposed

upon the Jews.

Concrete plans for the forced labour deployment of Jews had begun in the

summer of 1938. At the meeting held in Goering’s office on 14 October, the

Deprivation of Rights and Forced Emigration, late 1937–9

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proposal had been made to establish ‘Jewish labour columns’; 123 the President of the Reich Labour Exchange had issued instructions to