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

‘national biological balance’. Such a radical, dehumanizing

approach only had a chance of being put into practice in wartime, in a more

generally brutalizing atmosphere in which the existence of the individual was

already to an extent devalued.

chapter 7

THE PERSECUTION OF JEWS IN THE

TERRITORY OF THE REICH, 1939–1940

In the first months of the war there was a characteristic concentration of the

jurisdiction of the Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei) with respect to the ‘Jewish

question’. The Gestapo and the Security Police were merged under the Reich

Security Head Office (RSHA) in October 1939 and from the beginning of 1940

responsibility for Jewish affairs was concentrated in a new Department, IV D 4

(Emigration and Evacuation), which was altered shortly afterwards to IV B 4

(Jewish Affairs and Evacuation Matters). 1

Amongst other things, this Department oversaw the Reich Association of Jews

in Germany (Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland), founded in July 1939, in

respect of which the responsible officials performed their duties in the pettiest,

most intransigent, and least cooperative manner possible. 2 The Reich Association of Jews oversaw existing communities and administered them as branch or district

associations. 3 The Jewish institutions that still existed (associations, organizations, foundations) were gradually dissolved and their functions incorporated into the

responsibilities of the Reich Association. 4

In autumn 1939 the Jewish schools that were still in existence were also

assimilated into the remit of the Reich Association, which was by then heavily

overburdened. In October 1939 there were still 9,555 Jewish pupils in a total of 126

schools, including 5 secondary schools, 1 middle school, and a secondary modern.

134

The Persecution of the Jews, 1939–1941

Two years later, in the autumn of 1941, there were 74 schools remaining for some

7,000 Jewish children of school age, of which only one was a secondary school. By

the end of 1941 teaching was impossible in practical terms because of the deport-

ations and numerous other restrictions in the lives of the Jewish population. 5 In 1942 the whole network of Jewish schools was dissolved on the orders of the

Gestapo. 6 The existing centres for the education of the Jewish population in agricultural and technical professions, in preparation for their emigration, not

only survived but were positively encouraged by the RSHA. However, after the

summer of 1941 it pushed for a reduction in their number, and by the end of that

year it was aiming to shut them down altogether. 7

In the first months of the war Jews were almost wholly excluded from German

society. 8 The collection of documents edited by Joseph Walk reveals that between the November pogroms and the outbreak of war 229 anti-Jewish regulations were

issued, rising to 253 between 1 September 1939 and the beginning of the deport-

ations in October 1941. In September 1939, for example, an (unpublished) general 8

p.m. curfew was imposed on Jews, 9 their radios were confiscated, 10 and their telephones were disconnected in summer 1940. 11 In June 1940 they were excluded from the National Air-Raid Protection League (Reichsluftschutzbund), 12 and an order of the Aviation Ministry of 7 October 1940 assigned them separate air-raid

shelters or ensured that they would be kept apart from other inhabitants in the

event of an air raid. 13 Jews’ ration cards were marked with a ‘J’, 14 they were only permitted to use certain shops, 15 and the times when they were permitted to shop were strictly regulated by the municipality (and often limited to one hour a day). 16

Jews were systematically discriminated against in the distribution of rations, and

by turn refused the right to buy luxury foods17 and then clothing. 18 These drastic measures had the effect of starving the Jewish population and ensuring that they

devoted most of their energies to obtaining food. 19

In addition, since the summer of 1939 many cities had taken their own measures

to stop Jews from moving in. 20 Jews were being driven out of their homes in increasing numbers since the war had begun and were taken into designated

‘Jewish houses’. 21 From May 1941 Gestapo units started to erect special ‘Jewish camps’ on the outskirts of the municipalities. 22

After the war started the so-called forced-labour deployment of German Jews in

segregated work brigades (or geschlossener Arbeitseinsatz) was extended. Hitherto,

enforced employment had only affected people registered as without an income or

in receipt of benefits, but in the spring of 1940 it was extended to include all Jews

‘capable of work’, which meant above all women. Jews were deployed chiefly in

industrial production. In February 1941 41,000 people were involved in this

geschlossener Arbeitseinsatz, and the regime had thereby effectively exhausted

the working potential of the Jewish population. 23

At the same time the regime continued with its policy of forcing the Jewish

minority into exile. In a keynote speech before the Gauleiters held on 29 February

Persecution of Jews in the Reich, 1939–40

135

1940 Himmler declared that the continuation of emigration measures was one of

his priorities for the rest of that year. 24 According to the reports of the SD, 10,312

Jews emigrated from Germany in the first quarter of 1940.25 On 24 April the RSHA informed the Gestapo regional offices that they should ‘continue to press ahead

with Jewish emigration from the territory of the Reich even during the war’. 26 In the process it was important to ensure that ‘Jews fit for military service or for

work’ should if possible not be allowed to emigrate to another European country,

and under no circumstances into enemy states.

Euthanasia Programmes

In spring and summer 1939—not coincidentally at a time when intensive prepar-

ations for war were under way—the National Socialist regime began to make

concrete arrangements for the systematic ‘annihilation of lives unfit for further

existence’. Such plans had long been the subject of discussion by specialists, with

the constant support of the NSDAP. 27 In the field of psychiatry ideas on racial hygiene had been making headway since 1933, and in particular long-term patients

thought to be suffering from hereditary deficiencies, resistant to treatment, and

otherwise unproductive were not only the preferred targets of enforced steriliza-

tion but the day-to-day victims of systematic neglect, since they were considered

‘non-contributive mouths to feed’. 28

A background such as this certainly contributed to the receptiveness among

psychiatrists—and the state bureaucracy concerned with psychiatric care—to the

idea of systematic ‘annihilation’ of patients in psychiatric institutions.