Hitler and the Policy-Making Process on the Jewish Question (Part B)
Source : David Bankier, in: Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Volume 3, Number 1 (1988), pp.1-20.
In the same context, let us examine the decision not to have the Jews wear a distinguishing mark before September 1941, again despite the pressure exerted from various circles in previous years. Marking the Jews was proposed for example by Heydrich at the notorious conference at the Reich Air Ministry on 12 November 1938, but it was Hitler who opposed the measure. In Raul Hilberg's view The reason for Hitler's opposition is something of a mystery.' Hilberg surmises that the objection was rooted in aesthetic grounds. 22 But Hitler's reasons become evident from reading the protocol of the Regierungspraesidenten meeting held in November 1938. The document explicitly states that Hitler categorically rejected the proposal for two main reasons: first, he believed that marking would have made it impossible to avoid antisemitic violence, contributing to more excesses; second, marking would have made it difficult and even impossible for the Jews to shop at German stores, creating an insoluble problem as to their maintenance and reviving unnecessary violence. 23 And indeed, when the step was finally adopted, Bormann, acting on Hitler's orders, issued instructions to prevent antisemitic rioting by all means. 24 Once marking was decided upon, Hitler himself decided if, and when, to grant exceptions. The same reason, the avoidance of unnecessary agitation, underlay Hitler's order in December 1938 not to limit the Jews' freedom of movement. This had been sanctioned after the order of 28 November 1938 had made it possible to restrict the appearance of Jews in public. To ensure that the instruction would be appropriately and expediently handled, Hitler commanded that in the future everyone was to act according to this order. 25 It is clear then from the above and numerous other examples, that Hitler is not to be seen as yielding to pressures to radicalise the policy on the Jewish question. However, the positions he took are not to be interpreted as a sign of his moderation in antisemitic policy, as emerges from various scholarly works. He was never moderate in antisemitic policy. His astute sense of tactics or his readiness for temporary compromises, which did not detract from his determination to solve the Jewish problem conclusively, should not be misinterpreted as a sign of his temperance. We shall now subject this image of Hitler as a moderate, as it appears in Mommsen's and Ian Kershaw's studies, to a critical scrutiny 26
Was Hitler a moderate in anti-Semitic Policy?
Although for obvious reasons of image Hitler sometimes tried to appear as a moderate, it was in fact Hitler and not others who initiated radical measures. He, whom Schleunes describes as being uninformed, in fact controlled the entire process. Admiral Erich Raeder put it concisely in his memo:
When information or rumours arose about radical measures of the Party and the Gestapo, one could come to the conclusion by the conduct of the Fuehrer that such measures were not ordered by the Fuehrer himself. …In the course of future years, I gradually came to the conclusion that the Fuehrer himself always leaned toward the more radical solution without letting on outwardly' 27
Hitler's utterance of 25 October 1941 sheds further light on his manner of dealing with various matters:
I have numerous accounts to settle, about which I cannot think today. But that does not mean that I forget them. I write them down. The time will come to bring out the big book. Even with regard to the Jews, I have found myself remaining inactive. There is no sense in adding uselessly to the difficulties of the moment. One acts more shrewdly when one bides one's time' 28
This sounds as if he was explaining to his special guests that evening, Himmler and Heydrich, why he had waited so long to begin the extermination of the Jews.
From the early stages of his rule, foreign policy considerations played a crucial role in the character of his decision-making, as is clear from his statement to the Reichsstatthalter in July 1933: To broach the Jewish problem again would mean to cause an uproar again in the whole world.' 29 A few months later in another Reichsstatthalter conference on 28 September 1933, he pointedly alluded to the political considerations impeding his antisemitic policy. Speaking of Germany's foreign policy problems and the damage caused to the country by the handling of the Jewish question, he made it patently clear that his strategy was not characterised by the absence of long-term goals, but by his flexibility in their pursuit and by his ability to decide priorities. Regarding the Jewish question we cannot yield,' he said.
We would have liked to have achieved a step-by-step aggravation in the treatment of German Jewry. First, to create a citizenship law and from then on, to treat the Jews increasingly worse. However, the Jews are influential abroad and we should not provide them with anti-German propaganda material' 30
He cited the example of the German girl who was accused of having relations with a Jew and had her plait cut off. The event had received wide publicity in the foreign press, damaging Germany's image. As further illustration of the foreign pressure, he mentioned the 139 complaints of attacks against its citizens presented by the Soviet Union. 31 These precautions held sway even at the beginning of the war, when deciding the policy towards Polish Jewry. Heydrich's address to the Einsatzgruppen on 15 September 1939, on the Jewish problem in Poland, furnishes a most instructive example of the decision-making process in Nazi Germany: Whenever policy proposals are related to important questions of foreign policy, Himmler brings them to Hitler because only he can decide on them.' 32 Nor can Hitler be seen as a moderate on those occasions when he rejected the use of brute force. His disapproval of physical violence in the form of pogroms already appeared in his earliest political writing of 1919. It stemmed not from his moderate position but, on the contrary, from his preference for a much more radical solution: the irrevocable and total removal of the Jews. His ΓÇ£scientificΓÇ¥, as opposed to emotional, antisemitism, was clearly understood by the Jewish department of the SD, which also (certainly not out of moderation) opposed Streicher's vulgar antisemitism. Party officials like Ministerialdirektor Sommer from the office of the Fuehrer's deputy plainly realised that the implementation of temporary tactical measures prior to the total removal of the Jews did not mean moderation. At a meeting on 29 September 1936, while preparing a conference on Jewish policy, he pointed out:
From the point of view of the party program, the Jewish question can be seen as solved only when not a single Jew remains in Germany and this final goal ( Endziel ) is well established. The present solution however, is to be seen only as a partial solution towards this end and the steps will be determined by measure and tempo.' 33
Sommer was faithfully paraphrasing Hitler's views.
Hitler evinced perseverance and an inflexible resolve in pursuing ideological aims, coupled with an obsession for taking advantage of every opportunity and a sense of timing, rather than of moderation. He tactfully adopted a pragmatic attitude and was prepared to wait for the propitious moment for every decision. This becomes apparent from an analysis of a concrete example: the preliminary work on the fifth implementation ordinance of the Nuremberg Laws regarding the ousting of Jewish lawyers. When, on 23 September 1938, Minister of Justice Franz Guertner wrote to Hitler to deal with the ordinance and sign it, he nevertheless refrained from publicising his sanction but, again, not out of moderation or disinterest. The remarks on the document made in the Fuehrer's office on the eve of his decision to agree to the Munich conference, show that Hitler had no desire to publicise the ordinance at that stage, fearing a deterioration in Germany's image in the already tensituation at the height of the German-Czechoslovakian crisis. 34 Hitler might also have been in the background of an analogous attitude adopted by the SS following Goering's 28 December 1938 decree. Goering, acting on Hitler's wish, ordered that train sleepers and restaurants be barred to Jews. To avoid any negative reaction the decree could have unleashed abroad, it was not announced publicly, but transmitted by the SS only to the Jewish representative body, the Reichsvertretung , on 13 February 1939. 35
Without a doubt, Hitler believed that final goals should not subordinate practical policy-making even when the policy seemed to settle for compromise or contradict the goals themselves. He knew that the needs of the reality shaped by the consolidation of the system and the institutionalisation of the regime necessarily led to a compromise between Nazi ideology and its goals. He made this point clear in dealing with the criticism levelled at his antisemitic line in a speech to the party leadership at the end of April 1937. In this address, he expounded at length on the guidelines of the new regime, making it absolutely plain that only the leader was entitled to decide when to implement one policy or another. A newspaper article demanding that Jewish shops be marked elicited a caustic reaction from him: As a matter of principle, in the party there are no demands… of whom does he [the journalist] demand? Who can decide on this question? I alone… the question of marking has been studied for some years, and it is clear that one day it will be decided; the final aim of our policy is entirely clear to every one of us.' 36 And, as we shall see below, he indeed decided in the discussions on the marking of Jewish shops.
Hitler is also depicted as a moderate during the turbulent months of the spring and summer of 1935 when an antisemitic wave swept over Germany. Kershaw, for example, argues that this so-called ΓÇ£ antisemitische Welle ΓÇ¥ (antisemitic wave) bears the stamp of another instance of party agitation in which Hitler was uninvolved. 37 These events, however, can be viewed from a different angle. To begin with, as we have already seen, his decisions were vital on any matter that could have international implications. Since he knew that agitation had a direct effect on Germany's foreign relations and would bring in its wake a slew of complaints from foreign legations about the maltreatment of their citizens, no propaganda campaign could be launched without his orders. We can infer this, for example, from Hess' 19 March 1934 prohibition against all anti-Jewish propaganda for the projected boycott of the NS-H before the Easter sale. He made it plain that no such campaign could be launched without Hitler's prior instruction. 38 Once the antisemitic crusade started, however, it acquired a momentum of its own, creating the impression that the radicals dominated the political arena. But, Hitler was actually behind them. Not only was he the prime mover, but he was also skilful enough to make it look as though others were responsible for the action. His reasons for starting the campaign may have been varied: he believed the antisemitic movement would have a positive effect on the low morale of the middle class as conveyed in various Gestapo and Party reports. 39 And apart from its instrumental role in implementing the antisemitic principles of the Nazi ideology and program, the campaign could certainly be used by the regime to deflect attention from its internal problems and stir the population out of political apathy.
The Jewish question performed another function, in addition to being an instrument of political integration to raise public morale. It was used as a tool of incitement by party organisations. That Hitler was fully informed of the potential damage to Germany's interests, and yet chose not to reject the violence this time, is a well documented fact. This is apparent from the correspondence on the issue of antisemitic sign-boards in the files of the party chancellery. When, in April 1935, Bormann asked about Hitler's stand on the antisemitic sign-boards he received an unequivocal answer from Hitler's adjutant, Fritz Wiedemann: Hitler knows what is going on and is averse to prohibiting their display. 40 Similarly, the President of the German Olympic Committee, Oswald Lewald, repeatedly complained to the Reich authorities about the sign-boards banning Jews. His letters mentioned the local Kreisleiter's antisemitic agitation, creating a highly excited atmosphere in Garmisch. Although Hitler was again told about the damage this might cause both the Olympic winter games and summer games, Lewald learned he did not retract his decision in support of the local party leader. Only when the issue became extremely serious did he change his attitude, first empowering Hess to deal with it and later prohibiting it himself, as we read in an order given on 3 December by the Ministry of the Interior. 41 Here, without going into detail, suffice it to note that, during the war, as well, it was Hitler who stood behind the antisemitic propaganda actions launched by his Minister of Propaganda. In his diary, Goebbels writes that the Jewish problem was raised at Hitler's orders during both the spring and autumn of 1943. 42 The propaganda was presumably intensified in these months to reinforce the faith in Nazism which could have been undermined by the spreading rumours of the extermination of the Jews. Similarly, Goebbels noted on 10 September 1943 that Hitler wanted an exhaustive treatment of the Jewish question in the propaganda, adding that in the Fuehrer's view the fight against Judaism and Bolshevism were the best propaganda horses they had in stud'. 43 The same concern for Germany's image during the Olympic Games led Hitler to forbid expressly any antisemitic riots following the killing of Wilhelm Gustloff, the leader of the Swiss Nazi party, by the Jewish student David Frankfurter. As is known, immediately after the news of the killing became public knowledge, party activists launched a spontaneous retaliatory campaign against German Jewry. It was Hitler who vigorously ripped these initiatives in the bud, again, not out of moderation but of political expediency. 44
In other cases, which he deemed secondary or marginal, he simply put off his decision, believing that deterministic forces were bound to solve matters through organic Evolution. This was characteristic of Hitler, who saw himself as the interpreting agent of predictable forces, a trait which developed into the habit of announcing intentions in the form of prophecies. Such was the case when Himmler brought to his attention a situation report from the Bavarian Political Police on 28 March 1934, stating that the Bavarian Officers Association had adopted a stand unacceptable in a National Socialist State. Officers who were members of both the Association and the Union of Veterans faced a dilemma: the veterans union was barred to Jews while the Association decided to let the Jews stay if they had joined within the first three years of its existence. Himmler asked whether he should tell the Association to expel the Jews or, alternatively, dissolve it because of its attitude. Hitler decided to do neither, pointing out that the question of the Jewish members would find its solution in time. 45
Hitler's intervention in antisemitic measures
The marking of Jewish stores, a measure that became law on 14 June 1938, embodied in the third implementation ordinance pursuant to the Law of Reich Citizenship, also bears his stamp. It is a striking example of how Hitler waited for the appropriate moment to implement a particular idea, which served as motivation for antisemitic policy. The timing was carefully chosen even though there had been suggestions to implement the measure earlier. Let us examine Hitler's involvement in the question of marking Jewish stores.
Right at the beginning of Nazi rule, various Nazi organisations such as the Kampfbund des gewerblichen Mittelstandes (Fighting Union of the Industrial Middle Class) and the Selbsthilfearbeitsgemeinschaft der SA (Self-Help Work Associatioof the SA), produced posters with typical Nazi symbols: the rising sun with a swastika and a watchful German eagle bearing the inscription ΓÇ£German businessΓÇ¥, to mark German stores. In time, the pressure to distinguish between Jewish and Aryan businesses mounted, as we find in the letter of Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick to Schacht dated 23 September 1935, which refers to the demands of large sectors of the public to differentiate between German and Jewish shops. 46 A memorandum from the Ministry of Economy also considered the marking of stores. In principle, however, it was decided that, for the time being, it was impossible to mark Aryan stores and Jewish ones should therefore be marked instead. And yet, despite these suggestions, the stores remained unmarked. The minutes of the conference of party and state officials on 29 September 1936, that dealt with the question and means of marking, tell why. The measure had not been adopted until then because Hitler had not approved it and nothing could be done without receiving the green light from him. 47
Hitler also brought his personal authority to bear in issues regarded as vital to German interests such as the Aryanization policy. Some instances even saw his direct intervention. As part of the rearmament policy, for example, he personally approved the steps to Aryanize the huge weapons factory Simson in Suhl (Thuringia), owned by Artur Simson. 48 He also intervened in the Aryanization policy when foreign citizens were involved, eliciting the protest of their respective governments against the application of the law to their nationals. Following the reports on this from the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of the Interior, Lammers asked Hitler whether Jews of foreign nationality were to be treated as Jews or as foreigners. Hitler refused to give a general answer as was proposed by Hess. Instead he said that in principle Jews of foreign nationality should be treated as Jews, since the Jewish problem as a racial problem was independent of nationality. But, he added, differential treatment could be enforced if foreign policy interests were involved. 49
Just how fundamental the Jewish issue was for him, is revealed by his profound interest in and close attention to trifling details of Germany's Jewish policy. It is common knowledge that his pragmatic approach was accompanied by an aversion to routine work, as illustrated by his instructions to Lammers in 1933 that he was not to be bothered with details. Nevertheless, the archival evidence suggests that the bureaucrats knew perfectly well that there were issues on which he was to be kept fully informed, which required his personal intervention, and which were not to be left to their discretion. Any attempt, therefore, to present Hitler's lack of interest in routine as evidence of a lack of interest in the subject matter as such, is totally misleading. He found time to deal with details even when he was deeply preoccupied with the most important state affairs. Thus, during the Russian pincer attack on the Stalingrad front, he intervened to raise the pension payments to the widow of the director of the State Pictures Gallery in Dresden, from 395 to 600 RM. 50 Similarly, while his army was being driven back half way from the Don to the Dnieper, he was concerned with posthumously promoting Professor Kurt Kluge of the Berlin State School of Art to a full professorship, in order to increase his widow's income. 51
References:
22 Hilberg, op. cit. , p. 120, n. 72.
23 BA R 18/5519.
24 ND, NG-1672; Hilberg, op. cit. , p. 121.
25 Adam, op. cit. , p. 263.
26 Mommsen, op. cit. , p. 106; Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship (London: Edward Arnold, 1985), p. 92.
27 Quoted in Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Cleveland & New York: Meridian Books, 1969), p. 375, n. 89.
28 Hitler's Table Talk 1941ΓÇô44 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973), p. 90.
29 BA R 43 II/1392.
30 Ibid. On these considerations of foreign policy, see for example: von Neurath to Hindenburg 19 June 1933, informing him on the progressive isolation of Germany due to its antisemitic policy. He also informed Hitler on this situation, Document Neurath-11, IMT 40 p. 465. cf. the numerous complaints in the files of the Foreign Ministry (hereafter AA): (complaints of Switzerland, AA, Inland II A/B 327/2; Greece, 306/8; Poland, 320/3; Rumania, 321/3; Czechoslovakia, 302/1, 332/1; Austria, 315/2; Sweden, 325/2 and many others.
31 Amtchef und EG Besprechung on 14 September 1939, Institut fuer Zeitgeschichte , Munich, MA 433/728513ΓÇô4.
32 Ernst Deuerlein, ΓÇ£Hitlers Eintritt in die Politik und die ReichswehrΓÇ¥, Vierteljahreshefte fuer Zeitgeschichte 7 (1959), 177ΓÇô227.
33 BA R 18/5514.
34 BA R 43 II/598.
35 Daily report signed by Herbert Hagen of SD II-112, 10 February 1939, BA R 58/992. On previous pressures exerted by party circles to segregate Jews in trains, see for example: Gauleitung Hessen-Nassau, 19 September 1938, Hessisches Hauptarchiv , Wiesbaden 483/5967; cf. Lagebericht SD Worms, June/July 1939, ibid. 483/5543. cf. Ministry of Transport to Railroad Main Administration, 30 August 1935, AA, Inland II A/B 39/3.
36 Hildegard von Kotze and Helmut Krausnick (Eds.), Es spricht der Fuehrer (Guetersloh: S. Mohn, 1966), pp. 147 ff.
37 Kershaw, op. cit. , p. 93.
38 Hess, 19 March 1934, Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine , Paris, CXLV-519; Dieckloff of the Foreign Office revealed that this step was the result of the talks of von Neurath, Schmidt and Schacht with Hitler, William E. Dodd, Ambassador Dodd's Diary (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1941), entry of 24 May 1935.
39 Stimmung und Lagebericht des Gauleiters Grohé , March 1935, BA NS 22/vorl. 583; see also the reports of many Gestapo stations for April 1935 such as: Duesseldorf, BA R 58/1131; Hannover, Kassel, Koblenz, BA R 58/1132, Stettin, Institut fuer Marxismus und Leninismus/Zentrales Parteiarchiv , Berlin (DDR), St 3/97.
40 Wiedemann to Bormann, 30 April 1935, BA NS 10/550.
41 Lewald to Ministry of the Interior, 14 May 1935, BA R 43 II/729; see also Hess to Ministry of the Interior, 7 June 1935, ibid.
42 Louis P. Lochner (Ed.), The Goebbels Diaries (New York: Award Books, 1974), p. 375.
43 10 September 1943, BA NS 18/225. cf. Hitler's statement on the value of antisemitism in his foreign policy's propaganda, ADAP D 4, p. 293.
44 Monatsbericht des Regierungspraesidenten , Ansbach 7 March 1936, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Abt. II, Geheimes Staatsarchiv , Munich, MA 106 690.
45 Himmler to Hitler, 22 November 1934, Archives of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York, Kreuzberger files, AR 7183, Box 10 folder 3.
46 BA R 18/5513 and the files in BA R 18/5502, 5509; cf. NS, NG 3940, NG 4029.
47 BA R 18/5514.
48 Genschel, op. cit. , p. 102.
49 Lammers to Hess, 21 July 1938, ND, NG 1526.
50 Bormann to Lammers, 7 December 1942, BA R 43 II/450.
