Public Responses to Anti-Semitism, 1933-1938 (Part C)
Source: David Bankier, Chapter 4 in: The Germans and the Final Solution , Public Opinion under Nazism, Oxford 1992, pp.67-88.
The Year 1938
From the end of 1937 the Jewish question was again central to a massive onslaught which resulted in reckless maltreatment and terror. The new campaign was sharply differentiated from previous ones by the fact that the state was active in arbitrary persecution; hitherto the party had been the main perpetrator. The Aryanization process was abruptly stepped up; new regulations on relations with Jews were published; antisemitic legislation and extensive administrative measures rapidly encompassed all areas of life. The state's initiative did not mean that the party lagged behind: it unleashed a barrage of propaganda to escalate the pressure to expel the Jews. In the space of two weeks in Saxony alone, 1,350 antisemitic meetings were held under the slogan A nation breaks its chains.' 71 As usual, agitative propaganda preceded terror: vandalising of Jewish institutions, businesses and private homes; abuse and torment of individuals, and arbitrary arrests. Whenever the foreign press gave prominence to these events, wholesale arrests followed. The Nazis hoped that as a result the Jews would restrain foreign observers from recording abuses.
The euphoria, which followed the annexation of Austria in March, led to such outrages that Austrian Gauleiter Buerckel had to arrest members of the Austrian Legion 72 . At the end of April a boycott was started in Frankfurt and a month later pogroms broke out in Berlin. The terror was undoubtedly also fed by concrete show' examples such as the demolition of the Munich synagogue after Hitler's referendum in May. These initiatives from above always served as a signal for a tide of abuse against German Jews. The mayor of Bad Kissingen, for example, was one who understood this green light: Jewish visitors to the town's spa were issued special yellow tickets, prohibited from frequenting the concert hall and reading-rooms, and restricted to properly designated baths and garden benches 73 .
In the summer this policy assumed even more serious dimensions. The most embracing act of state terror was the Juniaktion (June Action). In Berlin, as well as in other cities, there were systematic house-to-house searches and arrests; cafes were raided and even cinemas were emptied of Jews. Those who had a police record of any kind, even for parking a car on the wrong side of the road, were treated as criminals and transported to concentration camps. The fact that release was made conditional on leaving Germany clearly demonstrated that the main purpose of the operation was to force emigration.
Again the party sought to show its zeal by outdoing the state in persecuting Jews. Police arrests were matched by revived party brutality. From 10 June antisemitic furore masterminded by the Berlin Gauleitung and perpetrated by party organisations erupted: Jewish stores were defaced with signs; clinics and lawyers' offices were marked. In several cases businesses were smashed and gutted, and in the coming weeks the storm extended to South Western Germany. That these attacks were engineered and carried out by the party is clear from internal SD material. The initiative came from the local party chiefs and not from the Jewish section of the SD or a government agency 74 .
An atmosphere fuelled by fears of impending war at the time of the Sudeten crisis found expression in the antisemitic mood of party elements and in the recourse to violence. During the month of October there were a number of outbreaks in Vienna and provincial towns, staged mainly by the SA and the Hitler Youth, which discharged accumulated passions. Bands of SA men who had been demobilised after being called up for service raided Jewish houses in Vienna in search of means to punish Jews for their unpatriotic' attitude during the Munich crisis. The most virulent outbreak was a large-scale pogrom lasting from the 14th to the 21st. Hundreds of Jewish houses, schools, synagogues and businesses were raided, wrecked and looted. In Krems the Jews were compelled to turn over the synagogue to the local Nazi Party. As a consequence of these events suicides multiplied 75 .
The persecution reached a climax in the mass expulsion of Jews of Polish origin, whose tragic fate sent ripples throughout the world. Some 15,000 of them were rounded up, bundled into trains and unloaded at the Polish frontier. That this was not the first expulsion of Jews is often overlooked. In April the Nazis planned to expel all Jews from the Burgenland province for strategic reasons', and prohibit any Jews from residing within 50 kilometres of the border. In fact, some 400 were ordered to leave twelve towns in the Burgenland and sent over the frontiers into Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Since many were refused permission to enter Czechoslovak territory, they remained interned in barracks on the border 76 . All these measures made it clear to everyone that, unlike in previous years, this time antisemitic policy would be pursued regardless of its effect on Germany's image.
After two years of relative calm on the Jewish question, how did the population respond to these developments? The dimensions and chof the wave of anti-Jewish terror prior to Kristalln received pamentiin the SD's national report of 1 November 1938. In its view, the public attitude toward the Jewish question was expressed in the proliferation of rioting, and on the whole enjoyed the support of the local party organisations 77 . This generalisation by the SD requires closer scrutiny.
The events of 1938 brought no significant change in the pattern of public reactions established in previous years. The overwhelming majority approved social segregation and economic destruction of the Jews but not outbursts of brute force. Notwithstanding the fact that traditional anti-Jewish attitudes not only persisted but even grew in this period, practical interests had priority over loyalty to the official doctrine. The Berlin observer of the Sopade rightly noticed that, although antisemitism was gradually taking root in the population, it was not Jew-hatred in the Nazi sense. The public did not feel sympathy for the Jews, but this fact did not lead them to abstain from shopping in Jewish stores, and many workers frequented them without encountering difficulties 78 .
In Cologne a pattern of non-conformist conduct we are already familiar with appears again: some continued to shop in Jewish stores, but as a way of expressing their opposition to Nazism and not necessarily out of sympathy for the victims 79 . As in previous years, economic measures against the Jews were universally welcomed. Thus the decree which provided for the registration of all Jewish property over RM 5,000 received general acclaim and the public hardly regretted the state taking possession of wealth which they believed Jews had stolen from the German people 80 . Yet the Sopade reporter in Schleswig asserted that many did not understand the point of reviving the antisemitic drive after the Jews had already been marginalized economically 81 . Similarly, another report states that even those who endorsed the expulsion of the Jews from the economy and public life rejected the brutal methods employed 82 . As previously, those condemning the disturbances did so out of opposition to the form of antisemitism and not to the policy itself. An observer in Berlin noticed that as a result of the constant incitement many had become antisemites. However, the report adds, more than a few voices had been raised against the hooligans: the general public witnessed these ongoings with morbid interest, and the outrages were regarded by many as being inconsistent with modern civilisation.' 83 As in the summer of 1935, people thought that the authorities had gone too far in their crusade against the Jews.
The reports on rural areas reflect the specific reality of small communities. The dominant pattern of behaviour was identification with antisemitic policy so long as it was not applied too clto home. Hence absolute indifference to the victimisation of unknown Jews was compatible with manifestations of sympathy towards local Jews. Despite the propaganda, the peasants did not cease to distinguish between their Jew', who should stay in the village, and the rest of German Jews, who should be expelled so that the Jewish question in general could be solved. A report from Saxony in a region with a small Jewish population exemplifies these attitudes: people endorsed the antisemitic measures they read about in the newspapers, but when a Jew trading there was harmed by this same policy they regretted it 84 . A Sopade contact from south-western Germany got the same impression: in villages where Jews had lived for generations and were part of the social landscape, even though there were no more social contacts between Jews and Germans, people felt sorry that the local Jews were leaving 85 .
It is true that we could explain this absence of interest in what was happening to the Jews by the fact that the German public had its own troubles which concerned them more than the Jewish question. Indeed, one commentator emphasised that The population fears a coming war. In this mood the whole Jewish question arouses little interest. People have better things to worry about than the Jews.' 86 To be sure, the mood of the population in 1938 was characterised by an almost universal fear of war. Hitler's foreign-policy success generated more relief than rejoicing. In domestic affairs, economic hardships caused mounting discontent and tension. However, to attribute people's lack of interest in the Jews to the effect of these competing factors would be too simplistic. The attitudes in previous years explain the reactions in this period. On the basis of the reactions from 1933 on, it can safely be concluded that the attitudes from the early months of Hitler's rule became a normative pattern of behaviour.
Reactions to Kristallnacht
The comprehensive SD report for 1938 merely sketched the contours of the population's reaction to the Kristallnacht : generally speaking, in the south (except Austria) and in the west (mainly Catholic, more populous and urban) criticism was stronger than in the north (Protestant, rural and less populous). Economic circles protested against the damage, and the bourgeoisie feared the possible consequences abroad 87 . This picture, although basically correct, deserves further elaboration.
The nation wide pogrom of Kristallnacht ΓÇô while initiated, organised and executed throughout Germany by state and party agencies ΓÇô belonged to the renewed anti-Jewish wave of terror. Hence the reactions of the public cannot be detached from the responses throughout 1938, particularly to the turbulence of the summer and autumn months.
It must be borne in mind that behind the widespread distrust of the regime's policies, as well as discontent over internal conditions, were the waning of the optimism, which the Munich agreement had aroused, the shattering of hopes for international appeasement, and the feelings that another eleventh-hour conference could not be conjured up to prevent war. The pogrom was just the straw that broke the camel's back; overall criticism ensued. And, while critical tone is apparent in all the reports, the dominant motif is not condemnation on moral grounds. Shame at the act, shock at its extent, and regret for the property destroyed converged to create a negative reaction. Nevertheless, the responses to Kristallnacht far outstripped public reactions to any other antisemitic outrage.
For the first time, all Germans were personally confronted with antisemitic violence. For this reason there is no trace of indifference. All sections of the population reacted with deep shock. The public was polarised on the handling of the Jewish question: party circles and their periphery gave full support, while the large majority condemned it.
For the first time, there were large displays of shame. People felt humiliated that Germany's Kultur was disgraced in the eyes of the world. According to eyewitnesses, people in the streets of Berlin who saw Jewish camp inmates returning home looked as though they were ashamed, and numerous stories went round of Germans who tried to compensate Jews for what the regime did 88 .
For the first time, non-Jews sensed a real danger of being the next victim of Nazi terror. Many who had hitherto profited from Aryanization felt they were not secure because they stood to lose from revived radicalism. They feared that the confiscation of Jewish property could be a precedent for plundering other well-off sections of the public. For example, Carl Goerdeler, the leader of the 20 July 1944 plot, forecast further persecution of capitalists and Christians 89 . Hence it was only natural that the most vehement condemnation of the pogrom came from those sectors who suspected they were next in line for such treatment; these apprehensions were especially noticeable in among the Catholic public. The fact that in certain places the pogrom was accompanied by attacks against the Catholic Church, when SA men who did not have Jews to attack deflected their fury onto Catholic churches, destroying crosses and effigies, aroused a fear that the government was losing its grip.
It was not coincidenthat the communist underground directed its propaganda at Catholics. It knvery well thatthey were particularly sensitive about the violence against the foes of Nazism', and that they feared that once terror had been unleashed the churches and religious leaders would be the next victims. In this light it is no surprise that the communists tried to win over the Catholic population by drawing parallels between the fate of the Jews and the fate of the churches. Again and again they said that the pogrom was the beginning of a process which would eventually destroy Christianity. A communist underground leaflet disseminated in the Rhine region is an eloquent example of this line of reasoning: Catholics were horrified to see that the burning of synagogues was frighteningly similar to the attacks of the Hitler gangs against the bishops' manses in Rothenburg, Vienna, and Munich 90 .
Added to the underground responses to the pogrom, the Berlin Gestapo Report for November tells us that the Jewish question was of central interest to communist activity throughout the Reich. The reporter stressed that the communist underground's call for solidarity with the Jews, fell on sympathetic ears among the upper class and Catholics, and even among certain sectors of the public who supported antisemitic policies but rejected vandalism. The Gestapo stations of Schwerin and Cologne also recorded lively debates in factories, which had previously been under communist influence 91 . It is particularly noteworthy that the underground reaction did not necessarily mirror the attitudes of all workers. Even a Sopade report had to admit that condemnation was by no means unanimous 92 .
Even though the communist underground spoke out strongly against the pogrom, its chief complaint was the waste of public property ΓÇô contrary to the objectives of the Four Year Plan. In this respect there was no essential difference between the reaction of the communists and the responses of other groups in Germany. Condemnation of material damage and regret at the loss of property came before the immorality of abusing defenceless civilians. This is evident in one of the underground circulars issued at the time:
No one in Germany believes that the burning of synagogues and Jewish homes, the destruction, plunder and burning of Jewish shops, warehouses and factories, the bestial maltreatment, the murder, the mass concentration of Jews in camps, is due to the rage of the German people'. Workers are calculating the number of extra hours they will need to work to repair the damage done to German national property. Workers' wives who manage to buy something for their homes only after much work and hardship watched the waste of much property with bitterness, and numerous housing-candidates watched with repressed rage as Nazis burned houses, villas andsynagogues' 93 .
The treatment of the Jews aroused disapproval among many who had hitherto endorsed moderate' antisemitic measures. For example, only Kristallnacht shook the educated bourgeoisie out of their apathy. Up to this moment many of them felt the utmost contempt for the regime's vulgarity and lack of culture. Up to this moment they were ready to tolerate this because the Nazis were seen as the saviours who could prevent Germany's collapse into Bolshevism. But the pogrom was too much, disappointing and politically alienating the bourgeoisie. A Sopade report from Saxony for January 1939 told of scientists, intellectuals and army officers who were deeply affected by the acts of vandalism. They vigorously condemned the action, especially the foolish destruction of property. The reporter added that the few who had supported Nazism in these circles had begun to detach themselves from the system, voicing hostile criticism against this sort of National Bolshevism'. Following the pogrom, the bourgeoisie no longer considered it bon ton to invite party members to tea parties and concerts 94 . Some were so deeply troubled that they wrote to the British Embassy in Berlin to express their shame. One monarchist asked for help to liberate Germany from the gang of terrorists ruling it. He called for retaliation against the Germans in the United States, Britain and France, and efforts to enable German Jews to find refuge in former German colonies 95 . Even party circles condemned the way the pogrom was carried out. Their reasons were obviously different: they argued that the arson contradicted the goals of the Four Year Plan, and that it was politically unwise to arouse sympathy for the Jews.
References:
71 Sopade, July 1938, A 76.
72 British Consulate General in Vienna, 29 April 1938, PRO, FO 371/21635.
73 Ibid.
74 SD IIΓÇô112, Berlin, 1 July 1938, BA, R 58/996.
75 British Consulate General in Vienna to British Embassy in Berlin, 7 Oct. and 7. Nov. 1938, PRO, FO 371/21665; Jewish Telegraphic Agency, News Bulletin 88 (14 Apr. 1938).
76 British Consulate General in Vienna, 13. Apr. 1938, PRO, FO 371/21634.
77 Kulka, The ΓÇ¥Jewish QuestionΓÇ¥', vol. II, pp. 396-9.
78 Sopade, Feb. 1938, A 60-2.
79 Sopade, July 1938, A 89.
80 Henderson to Halifax, 2 May 1938, PRO, FO 408/68. On the expropriation policy see A. Barkai, ΓÇ¥Schicksalsjahr 1938ΓÇ¥: Kontinuitaet und Verschaerfung der wirtschaftlichen Auspluenderung der deutschen Juden', in Ursula Buettner (ed.), Das Unrechtsregime (Christians, Hamburg, 1986), vol. II. pp. 45-68.
81 Sopade, July 1938, A 94.
82 Sopade, July 1938, A 89-90, 94-5; British Consulate in Hamburg, report June 1938, PRO, FO 371/21635.
83 British Charge d'Affaires in Berlin to FO, 13 July 1938, PRO, FO 371/21635.
84 Sopade, Feb. 1938, A 67 (Sachsen 2).
85 Sopade, Feb. 1938, A 62.
86 Sopade, July 1938, A 101.
87 It is important to remember that widespread antisemitic rioting preceded Kristallnacht . Thus, there were outbursts of violence in the night of 7 Nov., in Rothenburg, Fulda and Vebra: Jewish houses, shops and schools were demolished and acts of terror committed. The synagogue of Bad Hersfeld was burned on the night of 8 Nov. and other synagogues ΓÇô in Eschwege, Witzenhausen, Fritzlar, Kirchhain and Neustadt (near Marburg) ΓÇô were destroyed before Kristallnacht . See Chef Sicherheitspolizei an Chef Ordnungspolizei, 9. Nov. 1938, BA, R 58/979; also Kulka, The ΓÇ¥Jewish QuestionΓÇ¥', vol. II, p. 399.
88 The varied reactions to the pogroms, including the objections, are reflected in most sources. For Nazi reports see for example SD Unterabschnitt Thueringen-Erfurt, Aussenstelle Gotha, 24 Mar. 1939, report for first quarter of 1939, BA, NS 29/77; SD Unterabschnitt Wuerttemberg-Hohenzollern, 1 Feb. 1939, report for fourth quarter of 1938, StA L, K110 Bue. 44, and 1 Apr. 1939, report for first quarter of 1939, ibid., Bue. 45. Cf. the impressions of foreign diplomats: for example those of the Italian Consul in Munich, R. Pittalis, contained his report of 19 Nov. 1938, Le ulteriori ripercussioni delle recenti manifestazioni antisemite' (Comunicazioni did diplomatici italiani su misure ed azioni antiebraiche nel terzo Reich. Documenti tratti dagli Archivi del Ministero degli Affari Esteri Italiano, CDEC); the British diplomat Ogilvie Forbes noted in his dispatch of 15 Nov. 1938 (PRO, FO 371/21637) that he heard no expressions of shame or disgust, and that the onlookers appeared completely passive, but he noticed the inane grim which often inadvertently betrays the guilty conscience'. By contrast the British Consul in Cologne noted that Germans who had nothing at stake displayed a certain amount of Schadenfreude (report of 14 Nov. 1938, PRO, FO 371/21638). Cf. also L. Kochan, Pogrom (Andre Deutsch, London, 1957), pp. 93-4. For the subjective dimension as reflected by personal diaries see for example E. Nies, Politisches Tagebuch 1935-1945 (Ebner, Ulm, 1947), entry for 11 Nov. 1938.
89 On Goerdeler's reactions to the expulsion of Polish Jews see PRO, FO 371/22961; A. P. Young, The X' Documents. The secret history of Foreign Office contacts with the German Resistance 1937-1939 (Andre Deutsch, London, 1974), pp. 139 (on Kristallnacht ), 153, 160-1.
90 Gestapo Aachen, 30 Nov. 1938, report Marxism, BA, R 58/446. Cf. the report of the Nazi Teachers' League (NSLB) of Marquenstein, Haslach, Erding, 19 Nov. 1938, StA N, NSDAP 983; Wiesemann, Judenverfolgung', p. 470; Sopade, Nov. 1938, A 45 (Rheinland-Westfalen 2). It is noteworthy that, in localities without Jews, demonstrations were staged in front of churches: see Sopade, Nov. 1938, A 35 (Bayern), A 45 (Koeln), A 49 (Schlesien 2); RP Mainfranken, report Nov. 1938, BHStA, MA 106694.
93 The most common objection was that the destruction of property contradicted the goals of the Four Year Plan: see for example Kommandeur der Gendarmerie, Land Wuerttemberg, 31 Dec. 1938, StA L, E 151 cII, Bue. 434. See also Kerhaw, Popular Opinion , pp. 269-70. Kulka, ΓÇ¥Public opinionΓÇ¥', pp. 230-42.
94 SD Unterabschnitt Wuerttemberg, 1 Feb. 1939, report for fourth quarter of 1938, StA L, K 110 Bue. 44, and 1 Apr. 1939, report for first quarter of 1939, ibid., Bue. 45. For a suggestive interpretation of these reactions see W. S. Allen, Die deutsche Oeffentlichkeit und die ΓÇ¥ReichskristallnachtΓÇ¥. Konflikt zwischen Werthierarchie und Propaganda im Dritten Reich', in Peukert und Reulecke, Die Reihen fast geschlossen , pp. 397-412.
