Public Welfare and the German Jews under National Socialism (Part A)
Anti-Jewish Policies of the Municipal Administrations, the German Council of Municipalities and the Reich Ministry of the Interior (1933 - 1942), 1
Source: Wolf Gruner, International conference: German Society's Responses to Nazi Anti-Jewish Policy 1933-1941, Yad Vashem, 10-13 February 1995.
Our historical understanding of the situation of German Jews during the first years of National Socialist rule is influenced by the image of emigrating attorneys, physicians, civil servants and academicians who, as a result of the ensuing persecution, closed down their chancelleries and practices or were compelled to give up their positions in government or the universities. In fact, they comprised the first groups that were removed from their professional positions by, for example, the Law for the Reestablishment of the Professional Civil Service. Yet the myth that was behind it all, that of the well-to-do German Jews - which even appears to be untenable prior to 1933 - remains.
In reality, the world economic crisis and the exclusionary measures that began in 1933 set into motion a massive process of impoverishment within the Jewish population which very rapidly outpaced the proportion of the unemployed and dispossessed as a whole 2 . In 1936, in spite of the economic upward trend and a significant decrease in the population as a result of emigration, over 37,000 German Jews were unemployed - far more than at the beginning of the Nazi dictatorship which continued to be overshadowed by the world economic crisis 3 . How did German society react to this social problem which increasingly intensified with each new measure of discrimination? From the vantage point of their ideology it was unthinkable for the National Socialists to expend government resources for the Jews. At the same time, all needy Germans had a legal right to social services in accordance with the Public Welfare Ordinance ( Reichsfuersorgeverordnung). At first, public welfare could not and was not to be refused since abject poverty hindered emigration efforts, a euphemism for successful expulsion in the eyes of the National Socialists. Moreover, a situation where tens of thousands of people were without money and work over long periods also meant an internal political risk for the Nazi leadership.
The increased economic dependency of thousands of Jews subjected the overall National Socialist plan to unanticipated contradictions precisely within the framework of this explosive social sphere. For this reason, the process of impoverishment - a fact which until now has rarely been appreciated ΓÇô played an increasingly significant role in the strategy discussions within the National Socialist leadership and at the ministerial level. Hitler, in contrast to other authorities, calculated precisely the negative social ramifications of his policy from the very beginning, issuing a directive in 1935 that new measures should be avoided were they to result in 'Jews burdening the public sector.' 4 However, this was only intended to apply to the central levels. The contradiction between the duty to provide public welfare and an overriding will to exclude the Jews was increasingly settled by the cities and municipalities to the disadvantage of the needy. Jewish welfare recipients apparently suffered discrimination and isolation at the hands of welfare offices long before there were centralised regulations. Clear developments, mechanisms and contradictions in the politics of persecution are reflected in the socio-political treatment of the Jewish needy. In this regard, diverse interests appear more to have encouraged such a policy than to hinder it. Exclusion was not - as shall be demonstrated - simply implemented from above, but rather developed as the result of a process that involved an interplay between local and central levels; a process one might call ΓÇ£trial and error.ΓÇ¥
A more precise analysis of policy creation under National Socialism may be made based on the extensive source materials available for both the federal and the municipal levels which deal with operations within the public welfare apparatus - at least in the sphere of social policy. In the following, I will sketch the process leading to the exclusion of German Jews from government welfare programs, focusing on the responsible institutions - namely, the cities and their public welfare administrations and the Ministry of the Interior. Secondly, I will illustrate the significance and function of the German Council of Municipalities ( Deutscher Gemeindetag ), for planning this persecution. Finally, I will summarise the questions regarding the persecution of Jews between 1933 and 1942 that arose out of the events thus presented.
The First Local Exclusionary Measures in Public Welfare (1933 - Summer 1937)
Although some researchers in the 1980s equated Nazi social policy with racist policy 5 , recent opinions conclude that the social and political treatment of Jewish and non-Jewish Germans were on an equal footing until November 1938 6 For example, in their three-volume history of public welfare for the poor in Germany, Sachsse and Tennstedt claim that only from 1938 did racial criteria ΓÇ£seep intoΓÇ¥ all sectors of social security 7 . This in no way corresponds to the facts discovered some time ago from the studies done on Frankfurt am Main 8 and Hamburg 9 , and recently on Berlin 10 and other cities in the Third Reich 11 . Racism and anti-Semitism in many areas had resulted in unequal treatment of German Jews by government welfare organisations long before the 1938 pogrom.
Shortly after Hitler became Chancellor the first municipal initiatives to target Jewish personnel were in the field of welfare. In Berlin, civil servants and doctors were being dismissed or relieved of their duties even weeks before the notorious Law for the Reestablishment of the Professional Civil Service on 7 April 1933. Following the dismissals entailed by this law, the municipal administration in 1933 and 1934 was above all concerned with cutting subventions made to the welfare activities of Jewish homes and institutions 12 .
In 1935, well in advance of federal legislation, measures had already been taken in some cities to remove certain supplemental benefits from the Jewish poor who should have been supported through the public welfare system. In this context, non-local Jewish residents were one of the first groups targeted by the municipal administrations. Up to 1935 the high unemployment and the economic pressures that this created, together with the prospect of better chances of emigration, intensified the migration of Jewish families from the country into the cities as well as from smaller to larger towns. Jews who moved to Frankfurt am Main only received seventy percent of public welfare benefits 13 , and in Berlin, in contrast to ΓÇ£AryanΓÇ¥ immigrants, they were principally assigned to asylums for the homeless 14 .
Though the National Socialists used the Nuremberg Laws to relegate German Jews to second-class citizens in the fall of 1935, there were no further regulations in the social sphere. Although Jews were not yet entirely excluded from public welfare, they were being increasingly separated. In October 1935 Erich Hilgenfeldt, the official representative of the Winter Relief Organisation, used the new political situation to exclude Jews from their list of the needy, there being no individual legal entitlement to the benefits provided by this organisation. Hilgenfeldt forced the Jewish welfare institutions to establish a separate and controlled system of relief assistance 15 .
In the meantime, those cities responsible for social welfare had to expend more and more welfare resources for the rapidly growing number of unemployed and impoverished Jews. Individual welfare offices reacted to this new reality by proposing that this group be generally disadvantaged within the scope of the welfare program 16 . At the German Council of Municipalities meeting in summer 1935 17 , Berlin had called for all Jewish welfare offices to be placed under official control in order to prevent ΓÇ£a misuseof public welfare fundsΓÇ¥ through their activities 18 . In October, at the insistence of the local Gauleiter , the town of Koenigsberg urged the German Council of Municipalities to impose stricter standards in assessing the neediness of Jews entitled to support 19 .
In order to find a way to limit the number of Jewish applicants for welfare support, the Ministry of the Interior at the end of 1935 implemented a suggestion made by the Council of Municipalities: namely, to instruct the welfare associations that henceforward social support for the Jewish poor will be dependent upon supplementary support being granted by Jewish welfare offices 20 . This provided local offices with the possibility of denying assistance if other forms of support as well as the means to control Jewish facilities were not declared. But except for individual socio-political provisions - Jews still had to pay radio license fees and no longer received marriage loans - there was no centralised regulation for the next one and a half years.
For this reason, some of the municipal administrations launched their own initiatives. In May 1937 Karl Fiehler 21 , the Mayor of Munich, announced that Jews were to be assisted in accordance with the laws, but under no circumstances was it necessary to put Jews 'on an equal footing with Aryan comrades at all levels of social security.' Voluntary services provided by welfare offices, such as loans, credit assistance and convalescence support, should be ΓÇ£refused on principle.ΓÇ¥ 22 Since Mayor Fiehler (who participated in 1923 in the Hitler putsch in Munich), served also as the chairman of the German Council of Municipalities and head of the NSDAP-Hauptamt fuer Kommunalpolitik (Main Office for Municipal Policy), from 1933, his opinion not only carried a certain weight, its influence extended to other cities as well 23 .
A Discussion in the German Council of Municipalities (June 1937)
In November 1935 and in April 1936 also the welfare associations that formed the North-western German Committee for Welfare discussed the discrimination topic 24 . The common demand for new guidelines for the ΓÇ£treatment of non-AryansΓÇ¥ was finally brought to the German Council of Municipalities. Its functionaries were instructed to ensure that the Ministry of the Interior come up with a corresponding regulation 25 . The social plight of tens of thousands of Jews, until then recognised, was now also being discussed in the ministries, although at first exclusively as a possible hindrance to their expulsion. At a meeting in the Ministry of the Interior on 29 September 1936, by way of preparation for a ministerial conference, it was agreed that the ultimate goal of the Judenpolitik would be reached ΓÇ£when there are no longer any Jews in Germany.ΓÇ¥ It was a matter of determining the pace and extent of the individual measures. Also considered was the issue of ΓÇ£implementing the emigration compulsorily.ΓÇ¥ Despite a basic consensus, there were some voices among the higher ministry officials that warned against ΓÇ£the formation of a Jewish proletariatΓÇ¥ and the consignment of Jews to assistance for the poor 26 .
In view of the demands made on the Ministry of the Interior via the German Council of Municipalities in 1936, the ministerial department responsible for municipal interests suggested in May 1937, on the basis of the growing discrepancy between the acute consequences of the persecution of the Jews and the interests of the cities themselves, that ΓÇ£the future treatment of the Jews in the public welfare systemΓÇ¥ be put as a question of general principle on the agenda of the next meeting of the German Council of Municipalities and its responsible Welfare Committee 27 .
The importance of the German Council of Municipalities during the period of National Socialism has been underestimated until now. In research accounts of the history of the German Council of Municipalities under National Socialism, there has been an overemphasis on both the reduction of municipal self-administration functions after 1933 and minimisation of the political and legal latitude granted to the towns and municipalities represented in this institution. The consensus until now has been that with the help of the Ministry of the Interior the state virtually put the Council of Municipalities out of action 28 . However, a thorough examination of social policies under National Socialism shows that the Gleichschaltung of leading organisations in the German Council of Municipalities created a body that played an active part in the development of policies which were related to domestic affairs and persecution under National Socialism. This applies in particular to welfare, the labour market and the housing market, as well as to the anti-Jewish policy in these sectors, which is of primary interest here.
The mayors and municipal civil servants of the communities and cities represented in the German Council of Municipalities and its specialised committees discussed the implementation of decisions made by the central government as well as persecutory initiatives developed at the local level. The Ministry of the Interior, which also acted as a supervisory organ for the German Council of Municipalities as it had done for the municipalities since 1935, could support or, if necessary, curtail the latter through the German Council of Municipalities.
Taking part in the meeting of the German Council of Municipalities on 10 June 1937 in Heidelberg, at which the treatment of Jews in the welfare system was discussed, were not only the vice president Ralf Zeitler 29 and other functionaries from the Council of Municipalities, the representatives of various towns and municipalities 30 , but also Ministerial Counsel Fritz Ruppert of the Ministry of the Interior. Brief accounts of the session have already been provided by research articles, but without an analysis of its significance and context 31 . Oskar Martini, the main speaker and vice president of the Social Services Administration in Hamburg, was thoroughly prepared. Not only had he acquired material from other cities on their welfare practices, but he had also met with Loesener, head of the section on Jews at the Ministry of the Interior, who intimated to him the intentions of his ministry 32 . Martini first provided an overview of the current legal status of the Jews and of the so-called Mischlinge . He then stated that although many aspects of the welfare system could be regulated in accordance with the spirit of National Socialism, ΓÇ£a series of questionsΓÇ¥ remained open which could only be regulated by means of federal legislation.' 33 Based on the demand to place Jews within the framework of legislation regarding foreigners, as it was expressed in the party program of the NSDAP, it followed that Jews [would have to] be equated with foreigners in the welfare system.' Monthly cash supports should be calculated based on the standards which apply to public welfare for foreigners.' Hence, supplementary welfare categories, such as Gehobene Fuersorge 34 , would also be eliminated in addition to voluntary welfare services. Moreover, it was demanded that all Jewish recipients of welfare benefits be required to do Pflichtarbeit (unpaid mandatory labour) 35 . With regard to the housing of the handicapped and mentally ill in nursing homes and mental homes (so-called closed welfare), in the future Jews would be segregated from the others. Similarly, Jewish children in need of special education were to be accommodated separately in Jewish institutions 36 .
The conference discussion revealed that, in fact, diverse discriminatory tactics had been employed by the various municipal welfare authorities up to this point. The welfare office in Nuremberg was already paying twenty percent less in benefits and services to its Jewish inhabitants, similar to the practice in Frankfurt am Main. On the other hand, Berlin and Munich had eliminated all the ΓÇ£supplementary,ΓÇ¥ i.e., non-obligatory, welfare services. The Leipzig authorities made cuts by withdrawing the supplementary aid given to Jewish support centres from public allowances 37 . Forced compensation of benefto Jewish public welfrecipients in isolated groups through Pflichtarbeit was a customary practice in Duisburg 38 , Hamburg 39 , Berlin 40 , Goettingen 41 and Leipzig 42 . These different approaches, which became clear in the course of the discussion, prompted Ministerial Counsel Ruppert to call for a collection of material and ideas in order to draft a uniform legislation, which the conference participants from all the institutions considered necessary 43 . A year later the municipal representatives provided this material to the Ministry of the Interior to draft the ordinance designed to exclude Jews from the social welfare system.
References:
1. Germany without annexed Territories.
2. Comp are S. Adler-Rudel, Juedische Selbsthilfe unter dem Naziregime 1933-1939 , Tuebingen, 1974; Avraham Barkai, Vom Boykott zur 'Entjudung,' Frankfurt am Main, 1988.
3. Clemens Vollnhals, 'Juedische Selbsthilfe bis 1938,' in: Die Juden in Deutschland 1933-1945 , Wolfgang Benz, ed., Munich, 1988, p. 374.
4. See speech of Walter Gross (Head of the NSDAP-Rassepolitisches Amt ), 25 September 1935, about a talk with Hitler on 'Judenpolitik;' cited by Philippe Burrin, Hitler und die Juden , Frankfurt am Main, 1993, p. 48.
5. Gisela Bock, Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus, Opladen, 1986; Detlev Peukert, Volksgenossen und Gemeinschaftsfremde , Cologne, 1982; Detlev Peukert, 'Zur Erforschung der Sozialpolitik im Dritten Reich,' in: Soziale Arbeit und Faschismus , Hans-Uwe Otto and Heinz Soenker, eds., Frankfurt am Main, 1989, pp. 36-46.
6. See e.g., Paul Sauer, Dokumente ueber die Verfolgung der juedischen Buerger in Baden-Wuerttemberg durch das nationalsozialistische Regime 1933-1943 , Stuttgart, 1966, part II, p. 130. See also Schoen, who followed Adler-Rudel; Paul Schoen, Armenfuersorge im Nationalsozialismus , Weinheim-Basel, 1985, p. 102.
7. Christoph Sachsse and Florian Tennstedt, Der Wohlfahrtssim Nationalsozialismus. Geschichte der Armenfuersorge in Deutschland , Stuttgart, 1992, vol. 3, p. 276.
8. Kommission zur Erforschung der Geschichte der Frankfurter Juden, ed., Dokumente zur Geschichte der Frankfurter Juden , Frankfurt am Main, 1963.
9. Angelika Ebbinghaus et al., eds., Heilen und Vernichten im Mustergau Hamburg , Hamburg, 1984, pp. 65-67; Uwe Lohalm, 'Hamburgs oeffentliche Fuersorge und die Juden 1933-1939,' in: Die Juden in Hamburg 1590-1990 , Arno Herzig, ed., Hamburg, 1991, pp. 499-514.
10.Wolf Gruner, Judenverfolgung in Berlin 1933-1945. Eine Chronologie der Behoerdenmassnahmen in der Reichshauptstadt, Berlin, 1996; Wolf Gruner, 'Die Reichshauptstadt und die Verfolgung der Berliner Juden 1933-1945,' in: Juedische Geschichte in Berlin, Reinhard Ruerup, ed., Berlin, 1995, pp. 229-266.
11.See the chapter 'Vom betreuten Individuum zur verfolgten Gruppe. Juden im Fuersorge- und Arbeitsrecht bis Sommer 1938,' in: Wolf Gruner, Der Geschlossene Arbeitseinsatz deutscher Juden. Zur Zwangsarbeit als Element der Verfolgung 1938 bis 1943 , Berlin, 1997, pp. 31-40.
12.Gruner, Judenverfolgung , pp. 17-33.
13. Dokumente zur Geschichte der Frankfurter Juden , VIII 3, p. 372: Wohlfahrtsamt an Buergermeister Frankfurt am Main, 12 December 1935.
15.Vollnhals, 'Selbsthilfe,' pp. 399-406; Barkai, Boykott , pp. 107-111.
16.Uwe-Dietrich Adam, Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich , Duesseldorf, 1972, pp. 191-192.
17.On the history of the German Council of Municipalities since 1933 see Horst Matzerath, Nationalsozialismus und kommunale Selbstverwaltung , Stuttgart, 1970. On the German Council of Municipalities and Public Welfare see Schoen, Armenfuersorge , pp. 88-92.
18.Oberbuergermeister Berlin an Deutscher Gemeindetag (DGT), 17 July 1935, and DGT an Reichsinnenministerium (RMdI), 25 July 1935; cited by Adam, Judenpolitik, p. 191.
19.Oberbuergermeister Koenigsberg an DGT, 15 October 1935; cited Ibid . , p. 191.
20.Dienstblatt der Stadt Berlin, 1935 Part VII, p. 325, no. 407: RMdI-Erlass (without date), in Verfuegung Spiewok (Landeswohlfahrtsamt), 28 November 1935.
21.Born 31 August 1895, following a commercial apprenticeship, he did military service in the First World War. And after 1919 was employed in the Munich Municipality. From 1924 to 1933 he served as honorary city councillor; from 1927 to 1930 was head of NSDAP-Ortsgruppe in Munich, and from 1933 to 1945 was Mayor of Munich and Member of the Reichstag. He died in 1969.
22.Yad Vashem Archive, Jerusalem (hereafter YV), M1DN, no. 85, fol. 63: Verfuegung Oberbuergermeister Muenchen, (Wohlfahrts- und Stiftungsreferat), 23 May 1937.
23.On his career as Mayor see Helmuth M. Hanko, 'Kommunalpolitik in der 'Hauptstadt der Bewegung 1933-1935,' in Bayern in der NS-Zeit , Martin Broszat et al., eds, Munich, 1981, vol. 3, pp. 392-442. On other careers see Matzerath, Nationalsozialismus, pp. 186, 251.
24.Lohalm, 'Hamburgs oeffentliche,' p. 507.
25.Ibid . , p. 507.
26.Hans Mommsen and Susanne Willems, eds., Herrschaftsalltag im Dritten Reich. Studien und Texte , Duesseldorf, 1988, pp. 445-452, document 13: Vermerk Stuckart.
27.Staatsarchiv Hamburg, 351-10 Sozialbehoerde I, VT 12.25, unnumbered: RMdI an Martini, 24 May 1937.
28.Matzerath, Nationalsozialismus, pp. 104, 218, 435.
29.Born 7 October 1903 in St. Petersburg. Studied economics and law; from 1931 was a member of the SA, from May 1932 a member of the NSDAP, and from June 1933 vice-manager, and later vice-president of the German Council of Municipalities, from 1945 he was the director manager of a hospital in Hamburg; he died in Hamburg in 1953.
30.These included city councillors: Dr. Fischer-Defoy (Frankfurt am Main), Plath (Nuremberg), Spiewok (Berlin), and guests Claes (Mayor of Braunschweig), Dr. Conti (Berlin), and Duntze (Ministry of the Interior in Baden).
31.Adam, Judenpolitik , pp. 190-192; Gruner, Geschlossener Arbeitseinsatz , pp. 33-35; Lohalm, 'Hamburgs oeffentliche,' p. 508.
32.StA Hamburg, 351-10 Sozialbehoerde I, VT 12.25, unnumbered: Stadtrat Plank (Nuernberg), an DGT, 24 May 1937; Ibid ., Bericht aus Muenchen (undated), Ruppert (RMdI), an Martini, 24 May 1937.
33.StadtA Goettingen, Sozialamt, Acc. no. 407/77, no. 47/1, unnumbered: Bericht ueber die Konferenz des DGT-Wohlfahrtsausschusses, 10 June 1937 in Heidelberg, p. 13; compare Adam, Judenpolitik , pp. 190-191.
34. ' Kriegesbeschaedigte' and ' Kleinrentner ' within this privileged class received higher welfare benefits than the average recipient in the 'Allgemeine Fuersorge.'
35. On Pflichtarbeit as an instrument of persecution see Gruner, Geschlossener Arbeitseinsatz , pp. 34-37.
36.StadtA Goettingen, Sozialamt, Acc. no. 407/77, no. 47/1, unnumbered: Bericht ueber die Konferenz des DGT-Wohlfahrtsausschusses, 10 June 1937 in Heidelberg, pp. 13-16.
37.Ibid . , pp. 22-23. StA Hamburg, 351-10 Sozialbehoerde I, VT 12.25, unnumbered: Stadtrat Plank (Nuernberg) an DGT, 24 May 1937; Ibid ., Bericht aus Muenchen (undatet); Ibid ., V orlage fuer Martini, 4 June 1937.
38.Guenther von Roden, Geschichte der Duisburger Juden , Duisburg, 1986, p. 854.
39.StA Hamburg, 351-10 Sozialbehoerde I, VT 12.25, unnumbered: Vorlage fuer Martini, 4 June 1937.
40.StadtA Goettingen, Sozialamt, Acc. no. 407/77, no. 47/1, unnumbered: Konferenz, 10 June 1937, pp. 22-23.
