Public Welfare and the German Jews under National Socialism (Part B)
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.
The procedure described here certainly characterises more than an individual case, as evidenced by debates of this type that took place at the central administration of the German Council of Municipalities in Berlin, its provincial bodies or specialised committees. In addition to the discussions which will be described in the following, the municipalities and welfare associations also discussed after 1933 the separation of Jewish scholars in public schools 44 , in 1939 the ΓÇ£evictionΓÇ¥ of Jews 45 , and in 1942 the wage rates for compulsory labour performed by German Jews in public sector companies 46 . In all these cases city mayors with the help of the German Council of Municipalities used this opportunity to co-ordinate their own practices with procedures elsewhere at very little expense. Functionaries from the Council of Municipalities began to present themselves at the Ministry of the Interior as advocates of the cities with the result that local opinions acquired real weight in the shaping of central policy. Thus a situation developed where the mayor of any small town could approach the Ministry of the Interior with an exclusionary proposal of his own.
The Preparation for a Central Exclusionary Regulation (Autumn 1937 - Summer 1938)
In spite of the discussion described above and the interests of the Ministry of the Interior that were expressed, nothing happened in fact because the exclusionary measures were supposed to be incorporated into a comprehensive National Socialist restructuring of the welfare system 47 . Only in 1938, as Hamburg began to restructure the guideline rate for the welfare system in its region, did the Ministry of the Interior recommend that Jews be excluded from the progressive levels of welfare support in order to prevent them from benefiting from the planned improvements in service 48 . This meant de facto that for the first time Jews were not only disadvantaged, but their social status was diminished by a federal ordinance.
Shortly afterwards, the Ministry of the Interior announced that for the time being there would not be a uniform regulation for Jews at the national level. However, local welfare authorities could take informal measures themselves 49 . On 24 March the Ministry thus granted the district welfare associations permission to reduce the level of supplementary support given to Jewish welfare offices by exactly the amounts formerly given 50 , as Leipzig was in fact already doing. In general, at this time the welfare practices with regard to German Jews in many cities were characterised by increasingly stringent criteria and by isolation. The Jewish homeless were by now either being handed straight over to the local Jewish communities for support (in Chemnitz, Dresden, Munich and Nuremberg), or accommodated away from ΓÇ£AryansΓÇ¥ in municipal shelters on separate premises (Cologne, Leipzig) 51 . In order to introduce separation in the treatment of the needy, the Berlin welfare offices from April 1938 started keeping records as to which of their current claimants were Jewish. For the separate medical treatment of the more than 10,000 Jewish men and women receiving social support, the Berlin authorities at first admitted just twenty Jewish doctors, who were also required to take on all manner of special duties 52 . Roma and Sinti, so-called wanderers, or others alleged to shy away from work were discriminated against in the same fashion and often together with the Jews 53 . At a meeting of the East German Committee for Welfare in Koenigsberg on 23 April 1938, once again the complaint was voiced about the lack of a legal foundation for the 'elimination of non-Aryans from higher-level welfare.' 54 One month later the German Council of Municipalities at the meeting of its Welfare Committee in Wuerzburg on 25 May presented its own guidelines. According to these, individual support for Jews and foreigners - as in the city-state of Hamburg since the beginning of the current year - was to be restricted to the level of Allgemeine Fuersorge (general welfare) 55 .
As the Ministry of the Interior informed the Ministry of Labour and the Fuehrer's Deputy towards the end of July 1938, the new guidelines developed by the German Council of Municipalities served a public welfare system that was run on the principles of National Socialism. According to Secretary of State Pfundtner, the Ministry of the Interior supported the suggestion in particular ΓÇ£from the socio-political perspective.ΓÇ¥ However, owing to the heavy financial burden that it would entail for the town and municipal authorities, the Ministry would be publishing the directive requested by the Council of Municipalities solely as a recommendation, as a centralised anti-Jewish regulation was now imminent anyway 56 . The number of dispossessed Jews increased more rapidly than ever as a result of measures taken in the economic sector at the beginning of 1938. Consequently, the prevailing stance at the Ministry of the Interior shifted accordingly; and in August the Ministry together with the Council of Municipalities drafted an ordinance designed to exclude Jews entirely from the social welfare system. Only in ΓÇ£emergency cases,ΓÇ¥ for instance if benefits could not be assured through Jewish voluntary welfare work, were German Jews to receive state benefits at a much reduced level by being equated in the future with foreigners 57 .
The Anti-Jewish Welfare ordinance and its Application by German Cities (Autumn 1938 - Summer 1939)
After the November pogrom in 1938, which did not succeed in accelerating the expulsion of German Jews to the extent desired, the Nazi leadership began to reorient and pursue a new parallel strategy of persecution ΓÇô namely forced emigration, and forced separation of those remaining. In the long run, as predicted by Heydrich at the first central strategy session on 12 November, after the pogrom, ΓÇ£countless JewsΓÇ¥ would remain in the country anyway. As a result of the many measures discussed and decided by the ministers at this conference - especially expropriation, special taxes and a prohibition on trading - Jews who remained behind would be among the long-term unemployed and thus be ΓÇ£proletarianised.ΓÇ¥ 58 The new dependence on the welfare system of the Third Reich, by rapidly growing numbers of Jews who were unable to emigrate, was to be countered with all-encompassing isolation. This new radical strategy to separate German Jews in the areas of education, economy, labour, the housing market, and public welfare was served by numerous ordinances published by the Nazi authorities until the summer of 1939. As a result, a mandatory Jewish organisation was founded to create a separate school and welfare system. Thus for the Jews, this policy meant not only separation from German society but a further upheaval - living in a controlled and isolated ΓÇ£forced communityΓÇ¥ ( Zwangsgemeinschaft) 59 . A few days later Minister of the Interior Frick, Minister of Labour Seldte and Minister of Finance Graf Schwerin von Krosigk issued the long-discussed decree pertaining to welfare. Based on the Ordinance on Social Welfare for Jews issued on 19 November 1938, German Jews were allowed the welfare resources of exclusively Jewish institutions. Jews were to be granted public benefits only in the most extreme emergencies, and even then only the ΓÇ£barest necessities.ΓÇ¥ 60 For the implementation of this decree a special apparatus was set up. The public welfare system was instructed jointly by the Ministries of Labour and tInterior that from January 1939 it would be responsible for keeping a statistical record of Jews in the whole of Germany. The local and district welfare associations supplied the pertinent data to the Reich Department of Statistics, according to which Jewish Germans were identified from 1939 as a separgroup by the ΓÇ£Reich Welfare Statistics Express ServiceΓÇ¥ ( Schnelldienst der Reichsfuersorgestatistik ), to be issued on a quarterly basis 61 . At the local level, welfare offices segregated Jewish welfare recipients systematically in special offices or at specific hours. In Berlin at the beginning of December 1938, Mayor Lippert personally demanded the establishment of special consultation days and departments for Jews 62 . And following the pogrom, Hamburg's welfare authorities introduced special hours for dealing with Jews, but towards the end of December 1938 the decision was made to set up a separate department, the Sonderdienststelle B fuer Juden , which opened in February 1939 63 . Separate offices were also set up by employment authorities. Following the new persecution strategy after the pogrom these offices organised segregated compulsory labour not only for Jews who were unemployed but also for those who claimed welfare support. The Reich Institute for Employment and Social Insurance had ordered this measure on 20 December 1938, as the National Socialist state had ΓÇ£no interestΓÇ¥ in supporting Jews who were fit for work from public funds without receiving anything in return.' 64 This step had its origins in the policy of separate mandatory labour that had been applied to Jews by welfare offices since the mid-1930s.
It was as if the anti-Jewish welfare ordinance was a long-awaited start signal - a whole series of city administrations (Breslau, Chemnitz, Duesseldorf, Cologne and Munich), stopped providing welfare assistance to Jews 65 . As for Berlin, the German capital, even though ordered by Mayor Lippert as early as the beginning of December 1938, the exclusion of Jews from public welfare was not immediately put into practice. The reason for this lag was that the Jewish community would have been overwhelmed if it had to provide for such a large number of dependants, as was officially confirmed by a trustee specially appointed by the capital after the pogrom 66 . In other towns as well, for example Frankfurt am Main, Jewish welfare was now controlled by local authorities 67 . Whether public welfare still intervened on behalf of Jews in need was determined by the local authority, as well as by the financial situation of the local Jewish community.
Also in December 1938, the municipal welfare office in Munich proposed to Fiehler, Mayor of Munich and Chairman of the German Council of Municipalities, that the ruling whereby the support of local Jewish residents is the responsibility of the voluntary Jewish welfare organisations also be applied to ΓÇ£Jews by race.ΓÇ¥ 68 On 7 January 1939 Munich decreed that on principle all the Jewish poor - including non-members - were to be referred to the Jewish community 69 . The outcome of such severe measures was the subject at the South German Committee meeting of the German Council of Municipalities on 27 January 1939 in Bad Duerkheim. The members discussed how the town authorities were to behave when Jewish offices asked for help in meeting the costs they could not cover themselves 70 . The chairman of the association, a councillor from Nuremberg, maintained that on no account should the solvency of the local office be allowed to serve as a gauge. The central leadership of the Jewish welfare system, he claimed, would have to secure the support through a redistribution of funds or, if necessary, through aid from abroad. In order to get this point across on a national scale, a report was to be given at the German Council of Municipalities in Berlin 71 . Along with the exclusion of Jewish Germans from the so-called ΓÇ£open welfareΓÇ¥ system, which provided regular support to those who were in need but were not independent, there was much discussion on the treatment of Jewish Germans in the ΓÇ£closed welfareΓÇ¥ system, which provided for the ill and handicapped in nursing and mental homes. Based on a survey conducted in Prussia, where the majority of those responsible for welfare declared themselves in favour of physical segregation of patients, the executive president of the German Council of Municipalities, Jeserich, asked the Minister of the Interior on 26 January 1939 for a ruling on what direction regional welfare associations should follow with regard to Jews who were mentally ill 72 . In the journal Volksgesundheit , the managing director of the Hamburg-Langenhorn Institution publicly demanded that ΓÇ£all mentally ill JewsΓÇ¥ be concentrated in an institution for which the ΓÇ£Jewish community in GermanyΓÇ¥ was to take financial responsibility 73 .
The exclusionary process, which was considerably accelerated as the result of constant communication among the members of the German Council of Municipalities, took on new dimensions in the spring of 1939. In Berlin the regional welfare office, together with its trustee, decided that from May the Jewish community would have to take responsibility for the costs and organisation of ΓÇ£closed welfareΓÇ¥ in its entirety and for the feeding and clothing aid given in ΓÇ£open welfare,ΓÇ¥ not only for its own community members, but also for ΓÇ£all Jews in need (Jews by race),ΓÇ¥ of both German and foreign nationality as well as all stateless Jews. The regional welfare office would, for the time being, continue to make cash payments for ΓÇ£open welfare,ΓÇ¥ but these would be reduced to thirty Reichsmarks, including thirty percent for rent costs that had previously been paid additionally 74 . As early as the Bad Duerkheim meeting of the German Council of Municipalities on 27 January, a representative of the city of Munich had called for the general introduction of ΓÇ£special guidelines for Jews,ΓÇ¥ as practised in his own city 75 .
Municipal authorities that still had to provide funds for the Jewish poor because of the financial difficulties of their Jewish communities increasingly demanded compensation payments from other Jewish communities in the Reich 76 . At the beginning of June 1939, the German Council of Municipalities implemented a regulation pertaining to the joint liability of all Jews in Germany for those Jews who required social support, such that in the event of local Jewish welfare institutions running out of funds they could 'fall back upon the umbrella organisation.' 77 The formal establishment of such an institution, the Reich Association of Jews in Germany ( Reichsvereinigung), on 4 July 1939 had the effect of a catalyst; this mandatory organisation was obliged to organise and finance a separate Jewish welfare system 78 .
This fact was used by many cities and municipal authorities, such as Essen and Wuppertal, as the last pretext in order to discontinue providing any kind of support 79 . A survey by the German Council of Municipalities in the Rhineland gives a clear picture of the process of exclusion in ΓÇ£open welfareΓÇ¥ during the first six months of 1939. Of sixteen town boroughs in the region only a single welfare office was still paying its regular allowance to Jews, and this only if the local Jewish community was not able to meet the costs itself . 80 Things were not all that different in the large local districts of Thuringia and Saxony: Erfurt had stopped making the payments, and in Leipzig only a few districts were still paying. Only Dresden was still providing support 81 . The number of Jewish families receiving public assistance fell from over 10,000 in March 1939 to 6,500 in September 82 .
Shortly before the war began the German Council of Municipalities announced to its members, in conjunction with the Ministry of the Interior, that public welfare should now 'be freed of supporting the Jews without further delay.' 83
Welfare Associations, the German Council of Municipalities and the Reich Security Main Office in Conflict (Autumn 1939-End of 1942)
Apparently, the pressure exerted by the municipalities increased after Poland was overrun. Several weeks later the Reichsvereinigung was obliged to assume the costs after November 1939 for any Jews in need of nursing care who were still in public clinics and institutions (i.e. closed welfare) 84 . Although this was still not the case with open welfare, as the Ministry of the Interior informed the German Council of Municipaliat the beginning of December 85 , the few welfare offices still making payments to Jews were applying even more rigid criteria in assessing the neediness of the Jewish poor. By the end of December 1939 the district welfare associations were making regular support payments to just 5,192 Jewish families, of whom four-fifths lived in Berlin 86 . By contrast, the Reichsvereinigung counted a total of 52,000 Jews in need of support in Germany 87 . In other words, almost one in three Jewish Germans by this stage required support, which now had to be raised predominantly by the Reichsvereinigung and its district offices 88 .
As early as spring 1940 the local authorities began a new round of discussions on the exclusion of Jews. At issue was whether - once the Jewish welfare offices completely take over the responsibility for social costs - they would provide for all Jews or only for members of the Reichsvereinigung . On 10 April 1940 Fiehler, head of the German Council of Municipalities, appealed to the staff of the deputy of the Fuehrer for a ΓÇ£satisfactory legal clarificationΓÇ¥ of this question 89 . In addition he asked that Rudolf Hess use his influence to assign the same treatment to 'persons in any way interrelated to Jews (at least if they belong to the Jewish religious community!), that Jews were receiving with regards to their legal entitlement to welfare.' 90 Thus, in the summer of 1940, before the Reichsvereinigung took over full responsibility for supporting the Jews, the Rhineland regional department of the German Council of Municipalities claimed that 'radical help can only be given if the solvency of the Reichsvereinigung is established by the German Council of Municipalities in Berlin or the Ministry of the Interior.' 91
Yet it was neither the German Council of Municipalities nor the Ministry of the Interior that had the authority at the time, but rather the RSHA 92 . On 12 September 1940 at a Berlin meeting of the chairmen of the German Committees for Welfare, Ministerial Counsel Ruppert of the Ministry of the Interior announced:
It has not yet been possible to order a complete exclusion in accord with the office for the supervision of Jewish wealth […] as the financial solvency of the Reichsvereinigung has not yet been clarified. As regards this point, however, an investigation is in progress. Should the complete solvency of the Reichsvereinigung be established, then a tightening of the measures decreed is envisioned, entitling the welfare associations to discontinue all support to Jews immediately. Up until this point, however, the current regulation will have to stay in force.' 93
This clear statement, however, was contradicted by Preiser, representing the German Council of Municipalities, who publicly told the Rhineland regional department in Duesseldorf that he believed the Reichsvereinigung to be capable of payment not only for closed welfare but also open welfare 94 .
References:
44 Compare YV, M1DN, no. 92, fol. 9: Preussischer Gemeindetag Berlin an Magistrat Frankfurt am Main, 21 July 1933; Ibid . , fol. 20-21: DGT Berlin an Preuss. Minister fuer Wissenschaft, Kunst und Volksbildung, 17 October 1934; Ibid . , fol. 23: Artikel in Der Gemeindetag , 15 April 1935.
45 Bundesarchiv Koblenz (hereafter BAK), R 36 DGT, no. 902, unnumbered: Protokoll der 6. Tagung der Sueddeutschen Arbeitsgemeinschaft fuer Wohlfahrtspflege am 27. 1. 1939 in Bad Duerkheim, p. 3.
46 Gruner, Geschlossener Arbeitseinsatz , pp. 297-298.
47 Notiz Zengerling (DGT), ueber Gespraech mit Ruppert (RMdI), 12 November 1937; cited by Adam, Judenpolitik , p. 192. Compare Institut fuer Zeitgeschichte ed ., Akten der Parteikanzlei der NSDAP (AdP), Munich, 1983, Part I, vol. 2: Microfiche, no. 10312468: RMdI-Schreiben, 16 August 1938.
48 Geheimes StA Preussischer Kulturbesitz Berlin-Dahlem, I. HA, Rep. 151, no. 2311, fol. 242: RMdI an Reichsstatthalter Hamburg, 5 February 1938.
49 Adam, Judenpolitik , p. 192.
50 Dienstblatt der Stadt Berlin, 1938 Part VII, p. 116, no. 106: Verfuegung des Landeswohlfahrtsamtes, vom 31. 3. 1938 unter Bezug auf den RMdI-Erlass vom 24. 3. 1938.
51 LA Berlin, Rep. 142 DGT, no. 1-2-6-1, unnumbered: DGT-Umfrage, 5 February 1938, pp. 1-7.
52 Gruner, Judenverfolgung , pp. 47-49: Entries of 30 March, 26 and 27 April 1938.
53 Compare Michael Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid. Die nationalsozialistische 'Loesung der Zigeunerfrage,' Hamburg, 1996, pp. 81-84.
54 Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv Potsdam, Pr. Br. Rep. 55 Provinzialverband, VII a, no. 10, fol. 8: Auszug aus Niederschrift ueber die Sitzung, 23 April 1938.
55 BAK, R 36, no. 933, fol. 146, 146 B: Niederschrift zur Sitzung am 25. 5. 1938, Anlage A: Richtlinien fuer die Bemessung der Leistungen der oeffentlichen Fuersorge.
56 Ibid . , no. 1118, unnumbered: RMdI an Reichsarbeitsministerium, 27 July 1938.
57 AdP , Part I, vol. 2, Microfiche, no.10312468-72: RMdI-Schreiben, Verordnungsentwurf, 16 August 1938.
58 Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem Internationalen Militaergerichtshof , Nuremberg, 1948, vol. XXVIII, Dok. PS-1816, p. 534: Protokoll der Ministerkonferenz, 12 November 1938.
59 For the first description and analysis of this complex anti-Jewish policy after 1938 see Gruner, Geschlossener Arbeitseinsatz , pp. 58-62 and 334-335.
60 Reichsgesetzblatt, 1938 I, p. 1649: Verordnung ueber die oeffentliche Fuersorge fuer Juden.
61 Dienstblatt der Stadt Berlin, 1939 Part VII, S. 25, no. 27: Verfuegung Behagel (Landeswohlfahrtsamt), 21 January 1939.
62 Gruner, Judenverfolgung , p. 61: Entry 3 December 1938.
63 StA Hamburg, 351-10 Sozialbehoerde, StA 26.19, vol. 1, unnumbered: Sitdes Beirats der Sozialverwaltung, 22 December 1938, p. 4; compare Ibid . Sitzung, 21 November 1938, p. 8. Documents published by Ebbinghaus et al., Heilen und Vernichten , pp. 65-67. Compare Lohalm, 'Hamburgs oeffentliche,' p. 510.
64 See in general, Wolf Gruner, Der Geschlossene.
65 Statistisches Reichsamt, Die offene Fuersorge im Vierteljahr Januar/Maerz 1939. Ergebnisse des Schnelldienstes der Reichsfuersorgestatistik , Berlin 1939, p. 8. Compare Dokumente Frankfurter Juden , VI 44, p. 321: DGT-Konferenz in Berlin, 1 March 1939.
66 LA Berlin, Rep. 214, Acc. 794, no. 13, unnumbered: Verfuegung Behagel (Landeswohlfahrtsamt) 29 December 1938. Compare Gruner, 'Reichshauptstadt,' pp. 240-242.
67 Dokumente Frankfurter Juden , p. 323, VI 46: Bericht Rechnungspruefungsamt, 23 June 1939.
68 YV, M1DN, no. 109, fol. 157-161: Vorlage Dezernat 6 fuer OB Muenchen, 13 December 1938.
70 BAK, R 36, no. 902, unnumbered: Protokoll der 6. Tagung der Sueddeutschen Arbeitsgemeinschaft fuer Wohlfahrtspflege am 27. 1. 1939 in Bad Duerkheim, pp. 1-6.
71 Ibid . ; compare YV, M1DN, no. 162, fol. 107: Vermerk des OB/Dezernats 6 Muenchen zur 6. Tagung.
72 BAK, R 36, no. 1842, fol. 32-33 and 39: DGT Berlin an RMdI, 26 January and 23 February 1939.
74 Dienstblatt der Stadt Berlin, 1939 Part VII, S. 146, no. 143: Verfuegung Steeg (OB/Landeswohlfahrtsamt), 12 May 1939; LA Berlin, Rep. 214, Acc. 794, no. 13, unnumbered: Verfuegung Steeg (OB/Landeswohlfahrtsamt), 3 June 1939. Compare Gruner, Judenverfolgung , p. 66: Entry 12 May 1939.
75 YV, M1DN, no. 162, fol. 194-198: Koreferat des OB/Dezernat 6 Muenchen zur 6. Tagung der Sueddt. Arbeitsgemeinschaft fuer Wohlfahrtspflege am 27. 1. 1939 in Bad Duerkheim (undated).
76 BAK, R 36, no. 1022, fol. 26, 26 B: DGT Sachsen an DGT Berlin, 17 May 1939.
77 Ibid . , fol. 29: DGT Berlin an DGT Westfalen/Lippe, 9 June 1939.
78 Compare Barkai, Boykott , pp. 171-172.
79 Statistisches Reichsamt, Die offene Fuersorge im Vierteljahr Juli/September 1939 , Berlin 1939, p. 8.
80 Kurt Duewell, Die Rheingebiete in der Judenpolitik des Nationalsozialismus vor 1942 , Bonn, 1968, pp. 286-293, Anhang V: DGT-Umfragergebnis in der Rheinprovinz, 22 August 1939.
81 Statistisches Reichsamt, Die offene Fuersorge im Vierteljahr April/Juni 1939 , Berlin 1939, p. 8; Deutschland-Berichte der Sozialdemokratischen Partei 1934-1940 , Salzhausen 1989, vol. 1939, p. 924.
82 StaReichsamt, Die offene Fuersorge im Vierteljahr Januar/Maerz 1939, Berlin 1939, p. 2;Idem, Die offene Fuersorge im Vierteljahr Juli/September 1939, Berlin 1939, p. 2.
83 BAK, R 36 DGT, no. 1022, fol. 50: DGT Berlin Brief auf Anfrage DGT Dresden, 25 August 1939.
84 Enacted since 1 November 1939; Bundesarchiv, Abt. Potsdam (hereafter BAP), 75 C Re 1, no. 761, fol. 138-140: Cohn (RV/Fuersorge), an Oberpraesident/Landesfuersorgeverband Breslau, 18 April 1940. Compare Nordrhein-Westfaelisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Duesseldorf, RW 53, no. 413, unnumbered Rundschreiben Oberpraesident/Rheinprovinz, 23 September 1940.
85 BAK, R 36, no. 1022, fol. 66: RMdI-Brief vom 4. 12. 1939 mit Erlass.
86 Statistisches Reichsamt, Die von den Bezirksfuersorgeverbaenden laufend in bar unterstuetzten Parteien am 31. Dezember 1939, Berlin 1940, pp. 2, 5.
87 Arbeitsbericht der Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland fuer das Jahr 1939, (Berlin 1940), p. 32.
88 On the change of conditions based on the war reform of labour legislation see Gruner, Geschlossener Arbeitseinsatz , pp. 113-116.
89 YV, M1DN, no. 109, fol. 34: Fiehler (OB Muenchen), an Stab StdF Muenchen, 10 April 1940.
90 BAK, R 36, no. 1022, fol. 79: 2. Brief Fiehler (OB Muenchen), an Stab StdF Muenchen, 10 April 1940; compare YV, M1DN, no. 109, fol. 30-33.
