Everyday Anti-Semitism in Pre-war Nazi Germany: The Popular Bases (Part C)
Source: Michael H. Kater, Yad Vashem Studies XVI (Jerusalem, 1984), pp. 129-159.
Denunciations of Jewish physicians at the time of the first "official" boycott of April 1933 74 highlight the economic motive of the action. As in earlier centuries of persecution by Germans of their Jewish neighbours, professional rivalry was the mainspring of unauthorised anti-Semitic acts by German businessmen and business institutions. Among the latter were the Bavarian chambers of commerce which took advantage of the directives of the boycott in order to denounce to the police Jewish businessmen in all spheres of commerce 75 . In the wake of this boycott the Nuremberg association Merkur, which was dedicated to the training of young commercial personnel, excluded all of its Jewish members arbitrarily and without legal support 76 . After Hitler, motivated by political and economic reasons, had strictly forbidden "individual actions against Jews" by members of the party in the summer of 1935, and Reich Interior Minister Frick had immediately extended this ordinance to the non-party realm 77 , the German Savings Bank Association (Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband) was caught in error. On September 11, 1935, Reich Economics Minister Hjalmar Schacht sent a letter to the executive of the association, in which he expressed his astonishment at the fact that independent boycott measures against Jews had been taken by individual savings banks, without the authorisation of the responsible controlling agencies.' He then urged the bank branches to remove those restrictions, such as the display of posters discouraging Jesus from entering the banks' premises.' 78
Since National Socialism and the Third Reich were largely a lower-middle-class phenomenon 79 , it is hardly surprising that the great majority of non-organised, unauthorised and populist actions against the Jews after 1933 originated with "Aryan" businessmen of the petite bourgeoisie. Their aim was to eradicate the Jewish competition once and for all. Whether or not it was official boycott time, "Aryan" businesses ensured the spread of anti-Jewish propaganda and persuaded Gentile customers to refrain from any dealings with their Jewish rivals. The businessmen often employed the SA in these ventures, which seemed the logical thing to do, for there were relatively few SA-men whose interests did not coincide with those of lower-middle-class artisans, shopkeepers or merchants 80 .
Medium-sized businesses took care to advertise the "Aryan" character of their proprietors and to denounce and defile their Jewish competitors. A special target of such businessmen were the large department stores, which the party had - for the time being - not yet "Aryanized." 81 From official contemporary reports, it is obvious that "Aryan" shopkeepers played a key role in all acts of physical violence against Jewish businesses and their owners 82 . If rural councils or small-town municipalities were not directly responsible for the posting of anti-Jewish signs, then the local merchants or their party and SA stooges were. Such involvement applied especially in the case of the aforementioned cattle-vendors. Often, of course, the municipal officers of a village or town were themselves trades people, and the conflict of interests, is now quite evident 83 . Practical considerations also motivated the anti-Jewish discrimination of tavern keepers, for it was in the local pubs that business deals were often begun and concluded 84 . And finally, owners of medium-sized businesses did their utmost to profit from "unofficial" Aryanization procedures, in which they could gain possession of formerly Jewish businesses for a token price 85 .
This essay has attempted to demonstrate the capriciousness of anti-Jewish action in the Third Reich prior to 1939, the lack of any real co-ordination between anti-Semitic measures originating in the private and public sectors, and the presence of a substantial populist basis for the Judeo-phobia of Germany's most prolific ethnic-cultural minority. By way of a conclusion, one may cite the example of anti-Jewish measures designed to keep German Jews out of public baths, in order to illustrate one again the arbitrariness and, at the same time, the curious admixture of elements of popular initiative and state legislation in Third Reich anti-Semitism.
Juridically speaking, a blanket prohibition against Jews seeking admission to pool or bathing facilities in the Third Reich did not exist until the Kristallnacht legislation at the end of 1938 86 . Probably because of Gauleiter Streicher's pathologically vituperative anti-Semitism in Franconia, the Nuremberg town council served as the vanguard of those municipal administrations that came to ban the use of public swimming pools by Jeers at the start of the regime. This happened as early as August 1933, when there was no legal precedent for such action at either the Reich or the state level. From Nuremberg, the practice of closing municipally managed baths to Jews quickly spread to other communities in Upper and Middle Franconia 87 . Later that month Munich followed suit, but this time a distinction was made between swimming pools on the one hand and shower and tub-bath facilities on the other: Jews could still use the latter 88 . By August 22, one publicly operated spa in Berlin, the famous Badeanstalt Wannsee, had locked its gates to the Jews 89 , yet most other bathing spots in the Reich, including apparently all private ones, still had not imposed such restrictions.
This situation began to change in the summer of 1934, a period when Jews were generally less molested in the Reich. In July of that year, the municipality of Bad Kissingen, an official spa, closed its town pool to all "non-Aryans" because of the allegedly bad behaviour of certain Jews 90 . The insinuation here was a sexual one, for it was well known in Germany that pools could be used for dating purposes or as trysting places, especially if they were located in a naturally landscaped setting. This ruling, too, was inconsistent with hitherto existing ordinances, for the Nuremberg Race Laws were not enacted until autumn of the following year, and no legal definition of "Jew" as yet existed.
Some two months before this legislation was introduced, Jews were accosted at the Maria Einsiedel open-air pool in Munich as well as at the main pool in Heigenbruecken (north west Bavaria). According to the official report of the Bavarian Political Police, juvenile Gentile bathers had taken exception to the composure of young Jewish males seen in the accompaniment of "Aryan" girls. The German swimmers were then said to have started repetitive chants, demanding the expulsion of the Jews 91 . It is likely that the young chanters were in fact Hitler Youths who had been ordered to commence the heckling; hence the demand for the anti-Semitic restrictions could have been anything but "spontaneous." On the other hand, there is probably some truth in the same report regarding Jews in Bad Kissingen during this summer season. Ever since the town pool had been closed to them, they were said to have flocked to some of the other baths in the town, and their proprietors were now complaining, for fear of losing regular resort guests and those who visited the spa for medicinal treatment 92 . If the report can be believed, it is easy to see that in this case the well-worn economic argument against Jews was once again being put to use by commercially minded entrepreneurs, without recourse to existing legal precedent or even impending discriminatory laws. Moreover, there were other pools and baths, both public and private, that now chose to inveigh against the Jews, notwithstanding Hitler's orders to members of the Nazi movement to leave the Jews alone 93 , and prior to the official race announcements at the Nuremberg Party Rally on September 15, 1935. Again, in the closing of some of these baths, sexual overtones came to the fore. In innumerable municipalities,' reported functionaries of the exiled Social Democratic Party in Prague, bathing facilities habeen barred to Jews, and ΓÇ£race molestersΓÇ¥ [Rassenschaender-implying sexual promiscuity] have been arrested, beaten, dragged around, and taken to concentration camps.' 94
Conventional wisdom would now have it that once the Nazis had proclaimed a law, particularly an anti-Semitic one, the people would have been forced to obey it, contrary to how they truly might have felt. However, the evidence presented here leads one to infer that the Nazis promulgated a law - the Nuremberg Race Law - as a result of certain impressions they may have gained from the prevailing mood of the German public. In the case of the swimming pools, affiliate members of the NSDAP might well have been involved in extensive manipulation in order to create the image of a public consensus on the officially sensitive issue of "Aryans" mixing with Jews in erotically conducive situations. However, since such manipulation cannot be proved conclusively, it is equally possible that many ordinary Germans, notably those beholden to the hard core of convinced Semites, really were offended by the company or sight of Jews. Whether they had been sufficiently conditioned by Nazi propaganda in the summer of 1935 in order to react in this manner is a question that cries out for an answer. Nevertheless, one would be hard-pressed to reply to it in the affirmative if further proof could be adduced that the German people, with no particular record of philo-Semitism behind them, basically did not like the Jewish minority in their midst, before or after 1933, and were fully aware of what they were doing when, in the national elections of July 1932, they voted for the NSDAP, thus making it the largest party in the Reichstag, and when they kept on cheering Hitler after his appointment to the Chancellery in January 1933.
References:
74 See Hanke, p. 84.
75 See the example from Munich in Hanke, p. 101. For Mannheim, see Fliedner, p. 123.
76 Mueller, p. 217.
77 Frick to Landesregierungen, Berlin, August 20, 1935; Frick to Preussische Regierungspraesidenten, Berlin, September 10, 1935, SAS, HO 235, IΓÇôVIII, F 23.
78 Reichs- und Preussischer Wirtschaftsminister [Schacht] to Dr. Heintze, Berlin, September 11, 1935, SAS, HO 235, IΓÇôVIII, F 23.
79 This view was first authoritatively stated by Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics , Garden City, New York, 1960, pp. 134ΓÇô36 and passim. It is now empirically corroborated in Kater, The Nazi Party.
80 See text above near references to notes 40, 49ΓÇô52, and below near reference to note 83. Also see excerpt, ΓÇ£Halbmonatsbericht des Regierungspraesidenten von Ober- und Mittelfranken,ΓÇ¥ July 21, 1934, in Broszat et al., 1977, p. 440; Kulka, p.263; Franke, p 117; Deutschland-Berichte 2, 1935: 102, 1034; Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933ΓÇô1945 , Chicago and London, 1955, p. 121; Noakes and Pridham, p. 462; Schleunes, pp. 143ΓÇô45; Adam, Judenpolitik , p. 85.
81 See Graf Stosch, Stapoleitstelle, to Gestapo, Recklinghausen, November 5, 1934, Staatsarchiv Muenster, Polit. Polizei, 3. Reich/430; Hanke, pp. 102, 150; Fliedner, p. 116; Gau Westfalen Nord, ΓÇ£Stimmungs- und Lagebericht fuer den Monat November 1936,ΓÇ¥ Staatsarchiv Muenster, Gauleitung Westfalen-Nord, Gauschulungsamt/15.
82 ΓÇ£Taetigkeitsbericht Gau Sued-Hannover-Braunschweig fuer Mai 1933,ΓÇ¥ Hanover, June 12, 1933, Niedersaechsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Hanover, Hann. 310 I, B 13; Hanke, p. 80. Sometimes discontented German farmers in the countryside molested Jewish cattle dealers without punishment. See excerpt, ΓÇ£Monatsbericht des Bezirksamtes [Ebermannstadt, Bavaria],ΓÇ¥ November 30, 1936, in Broszat et al., 1977, p. 97.
83 See Buergermeister Rettich to Landrat in Hechingen, Haigerloch, May 14, 1937, SAS, HO 235, IΓÇôVIII, F 23; Kulka, p. 267; and the examples in Hanke, pp. 399ΓÇô400, 417ΓÇô25.
84 Excerpt, ΓÇ£Monatsbericht des Bezirksamtes [Ebermannstadt, Bavaria],ΓÇ¥ November 30, 1936, in Broszat et al., 1977, p. 98; doc. 936, Aug. 26, 1938, in Dokumente ueber die Verfolgung , p. 108; Hanke, p. 137; Franke, p. 120.
85 On the phenomenon as such, see Schleunes, pp. 156ΓÇô57. See also the specific examples from Nuremberg in Mueller, p. 222ΓÇô25; from Dortmund in Knipping, pp. 74ΓÇô76; from Heilbronn in Franke, pp. 118ΓÇô19. See also Kershaw, ΓÇ£Antisemitismus und Volksmeinung,ΓÇ¥ p. 308.
86 Bernhard Loesener, ΓÇ£Als Rassereferent im Reichsministerium des Innern,ΓÇ¥ Vierteljahreshefte fuer Zeitgeschichte 9, 1961: 290. But as early as May 1936 the Reich Interior Ministry had conceded municipalities independent jurisdiction in the matter. See Joseph Walk, ed., Das Sonderrecht fuer die Juden im NS-Staat: Eine Sammlung der gesetzlichen Massnahmen und Richtlinien ΓÇô Inhalt und Bedeutung, Heidelberg and Karlsruhe, 1981 (hereafterΓÇôWalk), p. 164. On the other hand, a Reich ordinance decreeing that Jews stay out of public bath (and other public places) was not issued until June 16, 1939. Ibid. , pp. 295ΓÇô96.
87 Mueller, p. 217; excerpt, ΓÇ£Halbmonatsbericht des Regierungspraesidenten von Ober- und Mittelfranken,ΓÇ¥ August 8, 1933, in Broszat et al., 1977, p. 435.
88 Hanke, p. 104.
89 Entry for August 21, in Jochen Klepper, Unter dem Schatten deiner Fluegel: Aus den Tagebuechern 1932ΓÇô1942 , ed. Hildegard Klepper, Munich, 1976, p. 100. Joining Berlin at that time were Fulda, Beuthen and Speyer. See Walk, p. 48.
90 Walk, p. 85; excerpt, ΓÇ£Lagebericht des Regierungspraesidenten von Unterfranken,ΓÇ¥ August 7, 1934, in Broszat et al., 1977, p. 440.
91 Excerpt, ΓÇ£Monatsbericht der Bayerischen Politischen Polizei,ΓÇ¥ August 1, 1935, ibid. , p. 450.
92 Ibid. , pp. 450ΓÇô51.
93 See note 77, above.
94 Quotation is from Deutschland-Berichte 2, 1935: 921 (August 1935). See also ibid. , pp. 800ΓÇô03, 932, 1036, 1042; Hermann Meyerhoff, Herne 1933ΓÇô1945: Die Zeit des Nationalsozialismus: Ein kommunalpolitischer Rueckblick , Herne, 1963, p. 105; doc. 45, August 8, 1935, in Dokumente ueber die Verfolgung , p. 61; Knipping, pp. 49ΓÇô50; Walk, pp. 121ΓÇô22, 154.
