The Economic Struggle of German Jews, 1933-1943 (Part E)
Source: A. Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation, The Economic Struggle of German Jews 1933 - 1943, Hanover & London 1989, pp. 37 - 53, 77 - 92, 106 - 109.
Consequently, the functionaries and social workers of the Reichsvertretung responsible for occupational training were dissatisfied with the level of success of their work. Georg Josephtal, director of the relevant department within the Reichsvertretung and later labour minister in Israel, noted with alarm that at the end of 1937, based on similar calculations, only some 10 percent of Jewish youth between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five were being trained in such programs. This was far too low a percentage to provide a solution to the problems of unemployment among Jewish youth. To be sure, the Jewish community in Germany [could] not deal totally with occupation training' but had to make all possible efforts for occupational training for school leavers.' It must be the aim of the Jewish community in Germany to help direct all school leavers, insofar as possible, toward useful vocations.... A new social stratum, the children of the socially and culturally advanced middle class, must be included in efforts aimed at productivisation.' Along with the objective prerequisites, 'subjective [preconditions] in public opinion' would have to be created in particular 108 .
Most of the young people reached by the system of vocational education were members of the Zionist youth movement. The small group of non-Zionist trainees, in Gross-Breesen and the rural communal farm Neuendorf, also came mainly from the assimilationist youth movement and had formulated the goal of establishing a communitarian agricultural 'settlement,' influenced by romantic agrarian ideologies. A Jewish settlement had been established in Gross-Glasgow near Kottbus in 1930. Twenty to twenty-five Jewish families settled there as small farmers until the settlement had to be disbanded in 1935 109 . Not until 1936 was an expressly non-Zionist agricultural training farm with the objective of a common settlement overseas set up in Gross-Breesen, near Breslau. Both the 'conscious affirmation of Jewish tradition' and an 'avowed attachment to German cultural life' were fostered there. These were intended to shape and determine the behaviour of the young trainees beyond the period of training Gross-Breesen in the new country of settlement as well.' 110
In all these cases, only a fraction of organised Jewish youth was included in this vocational training program; the great mass of young people were left to fend on their own. Undoubtedly, financial difficulties also played a role in this connection: applicants on occasion had to be turned away because of a lack of subsidies for operating expenses, even though the youth leagues normally accepted their own members in their hachshara centres even without payment of any fees to defray costs. Thus, it was often specifically those young persons from small, rural communities, who had had no earlier ties with the youth leagues, who found they had no opportunity to escape their hostile surroundings 111 . Viewed from the vantage of today, it appears that the organised system of vocational training was of principal benefit to those young people emigrating to Palestine.
According to the sources, nearly 80 percent of Jewish youth trained in the state of Hesse between 1933 and 1936 reached Palestine. For the most part, they were absorbed there in
agricultural settlements, mainly in kibbutzim 112 . A similar situation probably prevailed in other regions of Germany. In contrast, all of the projects for collective emigration and settlement in other countries failed. For those who completed the training program in Gross-Breesen, we have the results of a survey conducted after the end of the war. These results indicate that only a small proportion of them were able to put the agricultural occupation they had learned to practical use in order to build a new life for themselves outside Germany 113 .
The Creeping Displacement from Economic Life - a Balance Sheet
The community of 350,000 to 365,000 Jews still living in Germany at the end of 1937 differed distinctly in its demographic composition from German Jewry on the eve of the Nazi advent to power in 1933. Even then, the Jews had been a group characterised by declining numbers and a rapid process of over-ageing. Now, only six years later, these demographic features were far more pronounced. The Jews had also suffered a massive loss in economic power. As a group, they still had quite substantial assets at their disposal, yet many individuals had already been reduced to living off their last savings. The press carried almost daily reports on bankruptcies and business closures, particularly in the provinces. It was almost impossible to obtain credit. German banks no longer issued loans to Jews and foreclosed on their mortgages. The Jewish banks still in existence did not have sufficient funds to replace the credit that had been withdrawn 146 . Nonetheless, the Jewish community had not yet abandoned all hope: Individuals tried by all available means to retain their factories, stores, or jobs. If unsuccessful, they attempted to learn a new profession. The amounts of income tax paid by Jews had declined in some cities by 20 to 40 percent; nonetheless, in 1937, Jews still paid out nearly RM 80 million in taxes. This sum, however, included the substantial taxes levied on proceeds from liquidations 147 .
The economic measures that were feared in the wake of the Nuremberg Laws had not materialised, but administrative practices directed against Jews intensified from month to month. Jews were still legally permitted to practice virtually all commercial occupations. Yet in administrative practice in many localities, they were even denied permits as itinerant peddlers, though this had no basis in law. They were also beleaguered by a crisis in housing: those who were no longer able to afford large, expensive apartments were hard put to find alternative suitable housing. The want ads in Jewish newspapers are wrenching testimony to the harrowing situation: They are replete with inquiries for small apartments, furnished rooms, shared apartments with a common kitchen, and room and board for elderly, isolated individuals. There were even a few offers of corresponding vacancies, a further source of income for some in the Jewish economic sector 148 .
In the Jewish press and the mimeographed annual reports of the Reichsvertretung, apprehensions about the future were formulated hesitantly, with great reserve. Perhaps the intended wish was to avoid discouraging people. Or maybe another fear played a certain role: that one might be accused of spreading 'atrocity propaganda' if one protested too vehemently against the harrassments by the German authorities. Nonetheless, perceptive observers, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, could read the unambiguous signs of the times. In October 1935, the Westdeutscher Beobachter published a 'Warning to the Excessively Enterprising' subtitled 'Jews Want to Sell.' The paper had learned that for a number of weeks, non-Aryans had been looking for buyers for retail stores, wholesale firms and, in a few isolated instances, for factories, houses and real estate property.' In particular, a large number of non-Aryan business and factory owners in small and medium-sized towns [were attempting] to sell their firms to Aryans.' Since these wishes had not been fulfilled, due to lack of qualified buyers with sufficient capital,' the hope was expressed that the responsible authorities [were] already dealing with this problem.' For the time being, the 'Aryan' buyer was advised to make sure to acquire the entire inventory when making a purchase. In this way, the Jewish owner would be prevented from selling off his inventory at throw-away prices in a liquidation sale.' 149
What is stated here in veiled language is expressed more openly in the files of the DEAs. Those files noted that Jewish sellers had been forced by all imaginable pressure tactics to sell off the remainder of their inventory stock at piddlingly ridiculous prices. For the lucky buyers, this proved to be a welcome extra profit bonus; for the rest of the retail trade, it functioned as a protective measure against price-gouging competition. Thus, everyone got what they wanted. Everyone, that is, except the Jews.
In December 1935, the southern German correspondent of the Austrian paper Reichspost - which sympathised with the Nazis but was at that time not yet subject to the restrictions of Goebbels's Sprachregelung (centrally regulated information policy) - sketched with undisguised satisfaction a knowledgeable picture of the situation faced by Jews active in economic life. He first offered a description of the growing number of 'Aryanizations,' the possibilities for emigration, and the activity of the Haavara, which had been responsible for an increase in exports, 'sadly enough, specifically to Palestine.' The journalist then went on to note that
... among Jews, [it was] likewise not everyone's wish to settle in Palestine. Thus, the question takes on enhanced importance: what is to be done then with the remaining German Jews, whose thread of existence has already been served? ... Most recently, the pressure to emigrate has also become acute for many Jews active in economic life. However, the Jewish merchants in small and medium-size provincial towns have, for some time now, been fighting a difficult battle. In these towns, the weapon of the boycott can be utilised far better than in a place like Berlin, for example. The consequence is that there is now a massive sell-off of Jewish retail shops.... There are reports.... from certain areas... that an average of 40 to 50 percent of all Jewish businesses have already been transferred to Aryan ownership. Along with this, there are many small towns in which the last residues of Jewish business activity have already been liquidated. This is also the reason for the fact that various small Gemeinden are offering their synagogues for sale. Only recently, a farmer in Franconia was able to purchase such a building for the price of 700 marks - for the purpose of storing grain. ... The material side of the problem on the Aryan side would probably be well on the way to solution by the establishment of a special Auffangorganisation , whose purpose would be to permit capable Aryan qualified buyers lacking the proper amount of capital to purchase lJewish enterprises. ... However, there is no answer to the question about what to do with Jews who are forced to sell their businesses far below true market value, and for whom any further economic activity is extremely difficult. ... In recent days, the plan has appeared of an international Jewish transfer bank. ... Should this plan be realised with the assistance of international Jewish high finance, those many thousands of Jews who today are... consuming the last remaining residue of their assets would be given a chance to leave Germany - before they have been reduced to total poverty.' 150
Jewish observers outside Germany viewed these events with alarm - and probably with greater clarity than the German Jews and their leadership inside the Reich because they enjoyed the vantage of distance from the scene and an uncensored foreign press. The European representative of the 'Joint,' Bernhard Kahn, reported at the end of 1935 about a massive sell-off of Jewish businesses at farcical prices and the deepening pauperisation of German Jews. According to Kahn's estimate, more than a quarter of German Jews were already destitute and in need of welfare 151 . At the end of 1936, Jakob Lestschinsky, writing from Paris, also viewed the situation with great consternation:
Some 20 to 22 percent of the Jewish population today is already more or less dependent on welfare. 20 to 25 percent are living on their last savings. People have liquidated or transferred their businesses, and received a bit of money in return: a few isolated individuals got millions, a few dozen were handed hundreds of thousands - and tens of thousands received nothing but a paltry thousand marks. Now this last scrap of savings is being eaten up. Whoever has children and was somehow able to manage has sent them abroad. His hope now is to receive some good news. And that redeeming message is requesting him to come to the new homeland. The homeland for children. Whoever is childless sits and counts his coins. And prays to heaven that his years will not outlast, God forbid, his handful of marks. Earning a living - and maybe in some cases a quite decent one - that's something only 10 to 15 percent of the Jewish population, at the most, are able to do. The rest have just enough to scrimp by on. But all ... sense that it is definite now: their fate has been severed from that of the Germans. And is henceforth bound up with another country - of which they only dare to dream. All their thoughts and feelings, all their hopes and longings are fixed on one consuming idea: emigration! So what then is happening: is this the liquidation of German Jewry?!' 152
Letschinsky had lived in Germany for many years before 1932 and was regarded as one of the most knowledgeable observers of the economic developments among German Jewry. The study cited here also demonstrates a very detailed knowledge of the situation in Germany at the time and has been confirmed by later research. Yet at the end of 1936, even Letschinsky did not want to think it possible (and hoped against hope he was wrong) that German Jewry, after nearly two thousand years of Jewish life in that land, was nearing the endpoint of its history. This is most probably why he added a question mark after the exclamation point at the end of the above-cited passage. One year later, he would have left out that question mark. By the end of 1937, even the optimistic observer had to admit that economically, at the very least, German Jewry was facing final destruction. Yet the most discerning and clear-sighted were unable to foresee the swiftness with which this process would come to its calamitous conclusion.
References:
108. JWSP, 1938, p. 7.
109. Szanto, in Richarz, Vol. 3, p. 226f.; see also Barkai, "Weimar", p. 336.
110. See Angress, Juedische Jugend, especially p. 55ff.
111. Szanto, in Richarz, vol. 3, p. 225ff; JWSP, 1937, p. 137f.
112. JWSP, 1937, p. 55.
The Creeping Displacement from Economic Life - a Balance Sheet
146. RV/Arb. 1937, p. 66f.; ALBI/Jm, Adler-Rudel Collection, G/16, p. 5; Israelitisches Familienblatt , 2 April 1936, 29 October 1936.
147. Joint 1937; Budget, Reichsvertretung, 1938; RV/Arb. 1936, p. 101.
148. Walk, II/138; 374; ALBI/Jm, Adler-Rudel Collection, G/6, p. 2f.
