Attacks on Berlin Department Stores (Warenhaeuser) After 1933 (Part C)
Source: Simone Ladwig-Winters , International conference: German Society's Responses to Nazi Anti-Jewish Policy 1933-1941, Yad Vashem, 10-13 February 1995.
Conditions of "Aryanization"
By late 1937 and early 1938, the "Bureau Hess" had determined out three criteria that would have to be met before Wertheim could be considered "Aryanized." The Ministry of Economics, in turn, notified Wertheim of these conditions, although this ministry had already recognised the enterprise as "German." This notification is the only written version of the criteria for "Aryanization" that I found during my entire research. The conditions were comparable to those that had been applied at Hermann Tietz in 1934, namely non-Jewish ownership, non-Jewish employees, and a new name 68 . Concerning the ownership of Wertheim, a gradual transfer of shares from Jewish to non-Jewish members of the family had taken place, until finally, in 1938, the last Jewish co-owners were eliminated. Secondly, Jewish managers - of which there had only been two - were forced to leave at the end of 1936 and 1938 69 . The number of employees at lower levels was reduced over years, and in early 1938, the last thirty-four had to give up their jobs in the company. More than half of them had worked at Wertheim for over fifteen years. The files of the Deutsche Bank include a list of their names 70 . Thirteen of these thirty-four employees were later deported and killed; for most of them, the place of death is unknown. In contrast to Schocken, where dismissed employees received severance pay 71 , the sources give no hint of comparable measures at Wertheim. And thirdly, the company name: after long discussions among the Ministry of Economics, Stauss, and top officials of the party, the new name decided upon was AWAG , an acronym for Allgemeine Warenhandelsgesellschaft A.G. (General Retailing Corporation), not A. Wertheim A.G. as most customers believed 72 .
The company stayed in business and a good many of its loans were repaid. This was the situation when Georg Wertheim died on 31 December 1939, nearly blind and still refusing to emigrate. He had been hit hard by the 1938 pogrom, his divorce, and the fact that his only son had been drafted into the military. In December 1939 he sent his daughter a farewell letter 73 . Georg Wertheim was cremated on 4 January 1940 and is buried in a Christian cemetery in Berlin.
The Founding Family Loses their Property and Fights to Survive
Most Jewish members of the family were able to emigrate, others survived underground in Berlin, but three family members were killed in Auschwitz. Only one "non-Aryan" wife emigrated with her husband. The others distanced themselves from the family's troubles, agreed to divorce, and took over their relatives' property, behaving more like legal owners than trustees. A year after Georg Wertheim's death, Ursula Wertheim, who still held the clear majority of shares, married Arthur Lindgens, who was a member of the supervisory board of Wertheim/AWAG.
Conclusions
Looking at the overall development of the company, one can conclude that the arbitrary threats of early 1933 were so menacing that the climate was quickly prepared for the take over of important businesses, under pressure from Germany's leading banks. Ideological aims, such as subjecting the Warenhaeuser to the control of local authorities, turned out to be unfeasible in light of the stores' economic importance and of their creditors. Officials in the highest ranks of the National Socialist party took an interest in the controversy. In the early phase, a fragile balance existed between the German banks and top officials in the party.
Local authorities, such as in Breslau, tried to work against this balance, but they remained at a disadvantage, at least until the beginning of the war. The local chambers of industry and commerce were not involved in the process. The newly installed directors and owners of the businesses enjoyed the backing of the party. Auditing agencies played an important part in this redistribution as well. On order of the party, the auditors helped to assess the value of an enterprise. They always did this in a politically biased way, to the disadvantage of the legal owner.
As Laak has noted 74 , "Aryanization" in the business sector involved the greatest number of persons in antisemitic persecution, as a step toward total elimination. But until 1938 the disappearance of Jews from the sphere of big business was a welcome effect (even in the view of society as whole), but only a secondary one 75 . The parties involved in the take overs were motivated less by ideology than by profits. As the case of Hermann Tietz illustrates, the redistribution benefited only a limited number of private persons, not to mention the creditor banks. Though the course of events differed at Wertheim, their consequences were similar.
Contrary to what Genschel has argued 76 , the term "insidious" ( schleichend ), is a misleading characterisation of this process of selection and persecution. The main difference between the later, official "Aryanization" by decree following the 1938 pogrom and the stage before it was the private initiative that gave impetus to the process. In choosing the term schleichend , Genschel describes how people lost their property. This marginalized the important question of who profited. In addition, for those people affected by it, "Aryanization" meant complete selection and exclusion, which was gradual only in a few exceptional cases. An examination of large-scale retail enterprises shows that their take over occurred during the first phase, which was driven by the actions of private persons. The party and the state only created a framework for these individuals' activities.
In the case of the Hermann Tietz take over, the new owner was simply interested in enriching himself. In the case of Wertheim, the motivations are less obvious. Here the legal owner tried to keep the enterprise in the family. But loyalties within the family shifted along with external political changes. It was shortly before he died that Georg Wertheim finally realised he could do nothing constructive for the enterprise. The Wertheim family represents here, in a microcosm, a phenomenon that occurred in society at large during the National Socialist period.
References:
68 BAP R 80 Ba 2 P 5205, Doc. 37, 9 March 1938.
69 Ladwig-Winters, Wertheim, pp. 281-282.
70 BAP R 80 Ba 2 P 5205, Doc. 29, 16 December 1937.
71 Avraham Barkai, Vom Boykott zur Entjudung , Frankfurt a.M., 1988, p. 94.
72 BAP R 80 Ba 2 P 5201, Doc. 261, 6 August 1938.
73 Wertheim, Diary , p. 85.
74 Dirk van Laak, "Die Mitwirkenden bei der "Arisierung.ΓÇ¥ Dargestellt am Beispiel der rheinisch-westfaelischen Industrieregion 1933-1940,ΓÇ¥ in Die Deutschen und die Judenverfolgung im Dritten Reich , Ursula Buettner, ed., Hamburg, 1992, pp. 231-257, especially 249.
75 Avraham Barkai, "Max Warburg im Jahre 1933. Missglueckte Versuche zur Milderung der Judenverfolgung,ΓÇ¥ in: Juden in Deutschland. Emanzipation, Integration, Verfolgung und Vernichtung , Peter Freimark et al., ed., Hamburg, 1991, p. 391.
76 Helmut Genschel, Die Verdraengung der Juden aus der Wirtschaft im Dritten Reich , Goettingen, 1966.
