ARYANIZATION 
 Aryanization is a term used to denote the transfer of Jewish-owned, independent economic enterprises to "Aryan" German ownership throughout the Third Reich and the countries it occupied. The process had two stages: "voluntary" sales of Jewish-owned businesses, in the period from 1933 to 1938; and a compulsory stage of forced transfer, under law, after November 1938. At the beginning of 1933, there were some 100,000 Jewish-owned enterprises in Germany. The campaign against the Jewish-owned retail trade was not at first based on formal legislation, and consisted mainly of boycotts and intimidation, inspired from above. The process went on steadily and most efficiently, so much so that by the spring of 1938, 60-70 percent of the Jewish enterprises in Germany had been liquidated. Administrative measures were taken by the authorities without legal basis; Jewish enterprises did not receive orders from public institutions; Nazi party members were prohibited from buying in Jewish-owned stores; and welfare recipients were not permitted to use their food stamps in them. Local newspapers were forbidden to publish advertisements of Jewish enterprises. The "creeping" boycott affected mainly the Jewish retail trade. Factories and workshops were able to sustain themselves during the first few years of the Nazi regime. The continued existence of some enterprises had a variety of causes: the Nazi regime's concern about unemployment; the staying power of large concerns, and, in the case of the banks, their international connections, which affected German exports and the influx of foreign currency. The Aryanization measures were orchestrated by the economic counsellors of the Nazi Gauleiter (district leaders), in close co-operation with the local chambers of commerce and industry, economic organisations, and local and central economic and tax authorities. All available "persuasion" was employed in order to prevail upon the Jewish owners to sell their enterprises at a fraction of their value. Large enterprises were acquired by large and prestigious companies, and sometimes arrangements were made that enabled the Jewish owner to receive at least a part of his capital. But there were also cases of wealthy owners being jailed or put in concentration camps and held until they agreed to give up their enterprises. Compulsory Aryanization was the more conspicuous and drastic stage, but by that time, the process of eliminating the independent economic activity of Germany's Jews was well advanced. The November 1938 pogroms marked the transition to open and undisguised robbery of Jewish property in Germany by official institutions of the Nazi regime. Compulsory Aryanization was one of the points in the legislation announced by Herman Goering on November 12, 1938. Jewish enterprises that had not yet been sold were put under a government-appointed trustee, whose task was to "Aryanize" the enterprise. The private assets of the Jews and the little they were paid for the take over of their businesses, from early 1939, were kept in blocked accounts from which the owners could draw only a fixed monthly sum.