The "Aryanization" of Jewish Companies And German Society (Part A)
The "Aryanization" of Jewish Companies and German Society. The Example of Hamburg . 1
Frank Bajohr, International conference: German Society's Responses to Nazi Anti-Jewish Policy 1933-1941, Yad Vashem, 10-13 February 1995.
The process of eliminating the Jews from the economy in Hamburg began in the spring of 1933 with an apparent paradox. On the one hand the situation was marked by an eruptive antisemitism 'from below,' which, independent of government initiatives, urged that the elimination of the Jews be speeded up. In the course of uninhibited riotous antisemitism, SA men smashed the windows of Jewish businesses, sealed off the entrances to Jewish-owned department stores and attacked Jewish passers-by 2. Arbitrary house search warrants, violent trespassing, and boycott campaigns against department stores and 'penny bazaars,' which were intended to enforce the immediate dismissal of Jewish employees were the order of the day in the spring of 1933. Antisemitic campaigns were also organised by numerous middle-class professional associations, which excluded Jews from membership without being ordered to do so and partly against the vote of the head of their associations. These courses of action were particularly apparent in professional associations of, for example, solicitors, estate agents and market traders, who even before 1933 had complained about the "overcrowding" of their professions and demanded limitations by the state regarding membership requirements 3 . The National Socialist Kampfbund fuer den gewerblichen Mittelstand declared boycotts on deliveries to Jewish companies and organised 'Brown Masses' in Hamburg which introduced the products of the middle-class economy and warned against buying in Jewish shops. 4
But even without such organisational directives 'from above,' middle-class businessmen organised boycott campaigns against their Jewish counterparts such as Beiersdorf by means of newspaper advertisements, pamphlets and stickers ("Whoever buys Nivea articles is helping to support a Jewish company") and joined forces in antisemitic groups (namely, Interessengemeinschaft 'Deutsche Marke' - the 'German Trademark' Combine; and ADEFA - Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscharischer Fabrikanten der Bekleidungsindustrie - the Working group of German Aryan Manufacturers in the Clothing Industry ) 5.
On the other hand, the new National Socialist rulers in Hamburg kept tactically aloof in the first years of their rule. They even stepped in to protect hard-pressed Jewish firms and took action against middle-class radical antisemites. For example, the head of the Hamburg Tailors' Guild was relieved of his office for "endangering economic peace" when he led an antisemitic campaign against a mail-order fabric business in an association magazine. 6 . In some individual cases the Hamburg representative in Berlin represented the interests of Jewish companies in the institutions of the Reich right up to 1937 7 . Along these lines the Hamburger Wirtschaftsbehoerde declared to the Reichspressestelle of the NSDAP in 1933 that antisemitic campaigns were damaging to its economic policy which was responsible for the upkeep of job opportunities in Hamburg.' 8
The reasons for this preliminary tactical restraint lay in the economic structure and the economic situation of Hamburg - a port and a commercial centre. Firstly, the National Socialist rulers of Hamburg feared that the antisemitic activities were endangering trade relations of the Hamburg economy. The relentless reports in the international press about the excesses of antisemitism 'from below' had alarmed them. Gauleiter, Kaufmann, in a conversation with Hitler in November 1934 concluded that, Hamburg is attracting the attention of the whole world," its port forming an "open boundary" which strongly favours "foreign propaganda . ' 9. The National Socialists so feared of foreign boycott campaigns that the Hamburg Senator for Economic Affairs, for example, withdrew the prohibition against Jewish butcheries after Jewish dock-workers in North Africa had refused to unload ships from the port of Hamburg. 10
Until 1938 Hamburg was officially recognised as an economically "depressed area." Contrary to the trend in the Reich, the unemployment figures in Hamburg declined slowly due to the National Socialist policy of armament and self-sufficiency, which was favourable for industry and agriculture but damaging to Hamburg's foreign trade. Almost 42.5% of those employed in Hamburg were working in the trade and transport sector (the average in the Reich was 16.9%) 11 which was suffering from stagnation of foreign trade under the National Socialists. The result was dissatisfaction and dissonance among the people. This was particularly evident in the results of the plebiscite on 19 August 1934, when over twenty percent of the citizens of Hamburg voted against a merger of the offices of the Reich Chancellor and the Reich President to be under Hitler, their "no" votes constituting twice the average number of 'no' votes throughout the Reich. Gauleiter Kaufmann described the election results as the most bitter disappointment during my long term of activity within the party . ' 12
In this context any offensive action against the more than 1,500 Jewish companies in Hamburg would have worsened the economic crisis and endangered the stability of National Socialist rule, which the latter were eager to prevent. Thus, until 1936-37 the main feature of Hamburg's policy towards the Jews was a certain tactical restraint, in particular when compared with other regions and cities such as Munich where the National Socialists had already taken more radical steps than in Hamburg. This meant that the Jewish businesses in Hamburg were able to hold their own for much longer than in other places. Avraham Barkai estimated that until 1938 sixty to seventy percent of Jewish businesses throughout the Reich closed down 13. According to figures produced by the NSDAP- Gauwirtschaftsberater (Gau Economic Consultant), the number of Jewish business in Hamburg decreased by only twenty percent during the same period. Even if the latter figure is most certainly too low, 14 the Jewish businesses in Hamburg were in a better position than in most other cities in the first years of National Socialist rule 15 - paradoxically not least because the economic situation in Hamburg was quite unfavourable on the whole.
II
While basic antisemitism was widespread among middle-class businessmen and repeatedly exhibited in individual 'wild' acts, the economic leadership circles of the major Hamburg traders and the Chamber of Commerce were differentiated in their attitude towards antisemitism and the National Socialist policy vis-a-vis the Jews. This meant that the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce, despite its formal Gleichschaltung, did not support the anti-Jewish policy actively at first. Until 1937 it maintained its independence, characterised by a mixture of passivity and distance. For example, it continued to use a Jewish firm for printing its information sheets despite strong opposition from the Gestapo and the Hamburg Wirtschaftsbehoerde . In reply to subsequent reproaches, the Chamber of Commerce explained that it had to remain free in its economic decisions.' 16 Furthermore, not wanting to get involved in boycott campaigns it rigorously refused to provide information about Jewish companies and did not participate in the systematic listing of Jewish businesses. There is every indication that behind this attitude was a certain amount of hidden scepticism regarding the National Socialist race policy, which was unofficially proclaimed by some members of the Hamburg bourgeoisie. Several times, the National Socialist Hamburger Tageblatt polemised against the lack of "race-consciousness" among the city's bourgeoisie and publicly accused individuals of "pro-Jewish behaviour."
In July 1935 the party organ of the Hamburg NSDAP denounced the wife of a lawyer in public. She had expressed her anger about the virulent antisemitic placards in the window of an 'Aryan' shop and had told the owner that certain ladies do not like this and would not buy in such shops .'17 Under the heading "Lawyer's wife stood up for the Jews," the Tageblatt commented:
You have to take a deep breath in a case like this in order to remain calm. The fact that things like this can still happen today goes to prove to us quite unmistakably that in particular certain 'gracious' circles do not or do not want to understand National Socialism. Presumably the latter is correct and only possible because these 'certain people' have discourse with the Jews, because they also have the money required to cultivate a nice society in a big way. Yes, in these 'certain circles' the people are judged only by their purses. If these are in order, all other things are of no importance, not to mention the question of race .'18
In March 1935 the mayor of Hamburg, Krogmann, in a speech to the merchants of the East Asia Association, acknowledged criticism of racial policies. Before this audience, Krogmann censured those who believed they could deny the term race' and in particular that of the Aryans.' He considered the "Jewish issue" to be of "very great importance." To assuage any doubts that might arise, Krogmann assured the merchants that National Socialism would proceed with the "Jewish issue" in a very much more humane way than was generally the case in world history.' 19 Although a remark of this kind was an outright mockery of reality, the consul general of the South African Union congratulated the mayor on his remarks which he thought were "particularly fortunate." The consul general emphasised that it was correct to publicly oppose the "doubters" among the businessmen: It is true that these old chaps can't get things into their heads very easily.' 20 The consul general's comments about the "old chaps" gives us to understand that it was the older businessmen in particular who had misgivings about the National Socialist policy towards the Jews. Deeply rooted in their bourgeois world of status, which was so dominant in the Kaiserreich and which prized Tuechtigkeit (efficiency) of the individual so highly, they tended to renounce ideologies such as antisemitism which were hardly compatible with their pragmatic entrepreneurial self-image. Furthermore, in their eyes, steps taken against Jewish businesses represented an inadmissible intervention by the state in the economy, and, hence, a potential threat to their own position. And finally, many actions of the anti-Jewish policy, such as organised boycotts, were regarded by them as "politics of the street" and were rejected with a great deal of indignation. Thus, for example, the Hamburg banker Cornelius Freiherr von Berenberg-Gossler, although a member of the NSDAP, condemned the boycott of 1 April 1933 as being "outrageous" and "medieval," and he confided in his diary that the anti-Jewish activities left him feeling quite ashamed .21 Appraisal of and objection to the policy towards the Jews were often apparent within Hamburg's bourgeois families and usually followed a generational pattern. Dr. Eduard Rosenbaum, corporation counsel of the Chamber of Commerce and himself a Jew, had already recognised before 1933 that there were definite differences of opinion between the older and younger businessmen in their attitude towards the National Socialist ideology. The younger businessmen no longer thought in terms of "status" but of "race." When asked by the older businessmen after the Reichstag elections in July 1932 what they could do to stop the spread of the NSDAP, he replied: Just take a look at what your sons are reading.' 22 According to Rosenbaum's observations, the way of thinking of the younger businessmen was increasingly influenced by the intellectual right-wingers in the Weimar Republic. In particular, the members of the Kriegsjugendgeneration, who had been raised in the bourgeois world but found that world of privilege increasingly compromised by the current crisis and decay, were quite open to ideas which, in their fathers' eyes, appeared to be heresy: beginning with the "national planned economy," as propagated by the magazine Die Tat , and extending to racial antisemitism.
A typical representative of this Kriegsjugendgeneration was the new National Socialist president of the Chamber of Commerce, Hermann Victor Huebbe, born in 1901, who strongly objected to the corrosive influence of Jewry.' 23 He forced Eduard Rosenbaum, already mentioned above, to take early pension with the remark that it must be tough to "belong to such a rootless race." His father Anton Huebbe, on the other hand, made no secret of his scepticism towards the National Socialists, and as early as 1931 financed the printing of his publication Haltet das Tor offen 24 (Keep the Gate Open) which protested against the Hamburg National Socialists and their economic policy. After 1933 he kept up relations with Jewish friends such as the banker Max Warburg, until the National Socialists photographed the meetings and denounced Huebbe in public.
Generational differences of opinion about antisemitism occurred also within families, for example the family of businessman Witthoefft. Franz Heinrich Witthoefft, born in 1863, had played an important political role in the 1920s as DVP-Deutsche Volkspartei (German People's Party) representative in the National Assembly and as a senator in Hamburg. Although in the final phase of the Weimar Republic he veered over to the National Socialists, joined the NSDAP, and as a member of the 'Keppler-circle' belonged to the most prominent sponsors of the National Socialists in the commercial world in Hamburg, he was not an antisemite and rejected the anti-Jewish policy after 1933. He made every effort to support Jewish scientists, withdrew in anger from the Rotary Club when it introduced the 'Aryan clause,' and reported to Max Warburg at the beginning of 1934 that many things have come up which are quite different to what we would have liked them to be.' 25 His son Peter Ernst on the other hand, a confirmed antisemite, opposed the braying of the international Jewry' and justified the steps taken against the Jews because they have gone a little too far with their impertinence.' 26 It would miss the point to characterise these differences of opinion as a "generational conflict," especially in view of the fact that within the generation of older businessmen very few engaged themselves on behalf of the persecuted Jews. Among the few that did was the above-mentioned Cornelius von Berenberg-Gossler who, in direct negotiations with SS leaders Karl Wolff and Reinhard Heydrich, achieved the release of his friend Fritz Warburg from Gestapo arrest in April 1939. 27 But efforts of this kind were the exception. On the behaviour of most businessmen, banker Alwin Muenchmeyer's self-critical conclusion was: We did nothing and we didn't think anything of it.' 28 The older merchants expressed reservations only when the closure of Jewish businesses threatened their own position or was understood to be a potential threat. In January 1939 Gauleiter Kaufmann discounted these reservations by stating in a speech in the presence of the Chamber of Commerce:
The Aryanization has somewhat disconcerted one or the other of the Hamburg Aryans. I have heard rumours that elderly gentlemen have been quite seriously pondering the problem when this kind of Aryanization would befall them. One can only think, express and expect such a thing if one is not familiar with this racial problem or is not certain of one's own race. Therefore such statements are so childish - please excuse this expression - that they should really be the cause of some serious concern. I would like to ask you, whenever you meet upon such misgivings, to expel such whims from these gentlemen with most refreshing clarity and, if the effect can be intensified by it, to refer to my words, for, whoever is diligent, will remain, economically speaking, he who he was before.' 29
The "elderly gentlemen" expressed their scepticism about the 'Aryanization' because it tarnished their ideal of economic order. With the actual expropriation of a busi- an individual's lifework - the National Socialist state effected a serious intervention in private property, which contradicted the bourgeois value of security. Many therefore interpreted 'Aryanization' as the forerunner of an imminent "brown Bolshevism."
Around 1937-38, however, the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce abandoned its restrained attitude towards the economic elimination of the Jews. It openly took sides with the 'Aryan' buyers and supported their efforts to retroactively extricate themselves from contractual commitments to Jewish property owners. Accordingly, in an initiative on behalf of the Ministry of Economics, the Chamber of Commerce ordered that all 'Aryanization' contracts drawn up before 1938 be retroactively subject to the same restrictive conditions as for the sale of businesses after 1938. 30 This meant that any payment agreement on the value of a business - the so-called 'goodwill' fee - be declared invalid.
Violent attacks on Jews and Jewish companies continued to evoke strong objections from the economic sector and Hamburg's bourgeoisie, as reactions to the November 1938 pogrom demonstrated. Even Hamburg Gauleiter Kaufmann felt himself compelled to refer to the pogrom publicly as an "undignified solution ." 31 By this time the economic elimination of the Jews was neither questioned nor merely passively accepted; it was in fact actively supported.
This change in behaviour can be attributed to several factors: Firstly, the National Socialist regime, through its national and foreign political 'successes,' had consolidated in 1938 that not only the majority of the population but also the Hamburg economy reckoned with a long term of National Socialist rule. Secondly, the consequences of the economic crisis had been overcome to such an extent by this stage that Jewish businesses were no longer considered necessary to the economy. Thirdly, the situation of the Jewish companies in 1938 could be compared with that of a sinking ship, that is, the dynamics of the elimination procedure had reached a point where this had become irreversible. Fourthly, the Chamber of Commerce was by then institutionally involved in the process of 'Aryanization' by its appointment of consultants and experts. Finally, the National Socialist expansion after 1938-39 had opened a new, lucrative dimension for certain sectors of the Hamburg economy through the 'Aryanization' of Jewish companies in the annexed areas. This procedure began with the annexation of Austria in 1938 when Hamburg companies participated in the 'Aryanization' of Jewish transit traders and continued in the occupied areas of Eastern and Western Europe.
These changes in policy that surfaced in 1937-38 marked an overall growing decline in moral standards which reached a climax during the Second World War when certain Hamburg trading companies became deeply involved in the expansion and destruction policy of the National Socialists.
References:
1. The following accounts are all based on my dissertation "Arisierung" in Hamburg. Die Verdraengung der juedischen Unternehmer unter nationalsozialistischer Herrschaft , Hamburg, 1997. Indispensable source of background information on the history of 'Aryanization' continues to be Helmut Genschel, Die Verdraengung der Juden aus der Wirtschaft im Dritten Reich , Goettingen, 1966, and Avraham Barkai, Vom Boykott zur "Entjudung". Der wirtschaftliche Existenzkampf der Juden im Dritten Reich 1933-1943 , Frankfurt am Main, 1987.
2. On the topic of violent demonstrations by the Hamburg SA units see also OSOBY (The Special Archive in Moscow), 721.1.2339, p. 47.
3. On the topic of anti-Jewish activities by solicitors, estate agents and market dealers see Hamburgischer Correspondent , 7 April 1933; Staatsarchiv Hamburg (hereafter StAH), Staatsamt, 106, Letters from the representative of Hamburg in Berlin to the Hamburger Staatsamt dated 30 November 1933; Letter of Jakob Boldes to the Ministry of the Interior dated 19 January 1934, Bundesarchiv, Abteilung Potsdam (hereafter BAP), Reichwirtschaftsministerium, 13862, pp. 68-71.
4. Hamburger Tageblatt , 9 September 1933.
5. On antisemitic campaigns of this type, in particular against the Hamburg Beiersdorf AG, see Frank Bajohr and Joachim Szodrzynski, ''Keine juedische Hautcreme mehr benutzen.' Die antisemitische Kampagne gegen die Hamburger Firma Beiersdorf,' in: Die Juden in Hamburg 1590-1990 , Arno Herzig, ed., Hamburg, 1991, pp. 515-526.
6. StAH, Justizverwaltung I, II Ba Vol.2, No.6, letter from the deputy NSDAP- Gau Economic Consultant to Dr. Breiholdt dated 31 August 1934.
7. See StAH, Staatsamt, 106, letter from the representative of Hamburg in Berlin to Hamburgisches Staatsamt dated 31 March 1937.
8. Company archives of the Beiersdorf AG, Section 130, letter from the Behoerde fuer Wirtschaft to the Reichspressestelle of the NSDAP dated 6 October 1933.
9. Quoted from StAH, Staatsamt, 91, protocol of the representative of Hamburg in Berlin dated 2 November 1934.
10.Archives of the Institut fuer die Geschichte der deutschen Juden, Hamburg, 14-001.2, Memoirs of Max Plaut, "Die juedische Gemeinde in Hamburg 1933-1943" (taken from a tape recorded interview from 1973), p. 5.
11. Die Volks-, Berufs- und Betriebszaehlung vom 16. Juni 1925, Statistik des Hamburgischen Staates , Hamburg, 1928, Book XXXIII, Part 2, , p. 82, UEbersicht 67 (Die Wohnbevoelkerung in 20 deutschen Grossstaedten im Jahre 1925 nach Wirtschaftsabteilungen).
12.Quoted from a letter from Kaufmann to Rudolf Hess dated 27 August 1934, Bundesarchiv Koblenz (hereafter BAK), R 43 II/1344, p. 59
13.Barkai, Boykott, p. 123.
14.The Hamburg Gau Economic Consultant did not produce an overall list of Jewish business in Hamburg until 1935-36 so that in his statistics those Jewish businesses that had been liquidated or sold by then were not mentioned.
15.This is also confirmed by one of the leaders of the Hamburg Advisory Service for Jewish Economic Aid, Dr. Ernst Loewenberg. In his memoirs he reports that the "Aryanization" of Jewish businesses in Hamburg was only effected "slowly" and that the wave of emigration began later "because here the living conditions were better than in any other place in the Reich." See the autobiography of Dr. Ernst Loewenberg (private possession), pp. 46, 81.
16.Comment by Reg. Dir. Koehn dated 14 November 1934 on a conversation with Praeses Huebbe, StAH, Deputation fuer Handel, Schiffahrt und Gewerbe II, S XIII, A 1.24.
17.Quoted from 'Frau Rechtsanwalt nahm Juden in Schutz,' Hamburger Tageblatt , 23 July 1935
18.Ibid.
19.Quoted from StAH, Staatliche Pressestelle I-IV, 7050, Vol. II, manuscript of the speech by Krogmann dated 9 March 1935, p.2.
20.StAH, Familie Krogmann I (Carl Vincent Krogmann), C 15, III/3, letter from the consul general of the Union of South Africa to Krogmann dated 11 March 1935.
21.Diary of Cornelius Freiherr von Berenberg-Gossler (private possession), entries from 31 March and 1 April 1933: "I am ashamed in the face of my friends because of the steps taken by the Nazis against the Jews."
22.Quoted from Hans Bielfeldt, 'Politik und Personalia im Dritten Reich,' Staat und Wirtschaft. Beitraege zur Geschichte der Handelskammer, Hamburg, 1980, p. 157.
23.Letter from Hermann Victor Huebbe and Dr. Haage to the Reichs- und Preussische Wirtschaftsministerium dated 9 April 1936, Archiv Forschungsstelle fuer Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg (Archiv Fst.), 227-11.
24. Haltet das Tor offen!, Hamburg, 1931, StAH, Familie de Chapeaurouge, U 91; excerpts from the brochure published by Werner Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution. Ursprung und Geschichte der NSDAP in Hamburg 1922-1933. Dokumente , Frankfurt am Main, 1963, pp. 341-347.
25.StAH, Arnold Otto Meyer, 3, Vol. 1, Letter of condolence from Witthoefft to Max Warburg on the death of Carl Melchior and Aby Warburg (undated, beginning 1934).
26.StAH, Arnold Otto Meyer, 12, Peter Ernst Witthoefft to F.H. Witthoefft dated 3 November 1933.
27. Diary of Cornelius Freiherr von Berenberg-Gossler ( private possession), 1939, dated 18 April 1939.
28.Quoted from Stefanie von Viere, Hinter weissen Fassaden. Alwin Muenchmeyer - ein Bankier betrachtet sein Leben, Hamburg, 1988, p. 136.
29.Kaufmann's speech before the Handelskammer Hamburg dated 6 January 1939, Archiv Fst., 12 (personnel file Kaufmann).
30.Archiv Fst., 227-11, letter from Dr. Haage to the Berlin office of the Chamber of Commerce, 11 May 1939.
31.Quoted from Archiv Fst., 12 (personnel file Kaufmann), speech by Kaufmann before the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce on 6 January 1939.\
