Protest in Hitler's “National Community”

Protest in Hitler’s “National Community” Protest, Culture and Society General editors: Kathrin Fahlenbrach, Institute for Media and Communication, University of Hamburg Martin Klimke, New York University Abu Dhabi Joachim Scharloth, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany Protest movements have been recognized as significant contributors to processes of political participation and transformations of culture and value systems, as well as to the development of both a national and transnational civil society. This series brings together the various innovative approaches to phenomena of social change, protest and dissent which have emerged in recent years, from an interdisciplinary perspective. It contextualizes social protest and cultures of dissent in larger political processes and socio-cultural transformations by examining the influence of historical trajectories and the response of various segments of society, political and legal institutions on a national and in- ternational level. In doing so, the series offers a more comprehensive and multi-dimensional view of historical and cultural change in the twentieth and twenty-first century. For a full series listing, please see back matter. Protest In Hitler’s “National Community” Popular Unrest and the Nazi Response Edited by Nathan Stoltzfus and Birgit Maier-Katkin berghahn N E W Y O R K • O X F O R D www.berghahnbooks.com First published in 2016 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2016, 2017 Nathan Stoltzfus and Birgit Maier-Katkin First paperback edition published in 2017 All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Protest in Hitler’s “national community” : popular unrest and the Nazi response / edited by Nathan Stoltzfus and Birgit Maier-Katkin. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-78238-824-1 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-78533-733-8 (paperback) — ISBN 978-1-78238-825-8 (ebook) 1. Protest movements—Germany—History—20th century. 2. Government, Resistance to—Germany—History—20th century. 3. Dissenters—Germany—History—20th century. 4. National socialism—Social aspects—History. 5. Germany—Politics and government—1933–1945. 6. Racism—Government policy—Germany— History—20th century. 7. Germany—Social conditions—1933–1945. 8. Germany—Race relations—Government policy—History—20th century. I. Stoltzfus, Nathan. II. Maier-Katkin, Birgit DD256.7.P76 2015 303.48'4094309043—dc23 2015003128 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-78238-824-1 (hardback) ISBN: 978-1-78533-733-8 (paperback) ISBN: 978-1-78238-825-8 (ebook) Henry Friedlander at Ingeborg Hunzinger’s Memorial to the Rosenstrasse Protest, “Block der Frauen,” on January 28, 2009. Photo by Benjamin Friedlander. This book is dedicated to professor Henry Friedlander, historian and Holo- caust survivor, who was writing the preface when he suffered a devastating stroke on February 12, 2009. Although his work did not address dissent systematically, Professor Friedlander’s dissertation was on the German Revo- lution of 1918–19 and his final work, The Origins of Nazi Genocide, ad- dressed the limitations that expressions of popular opinion imposed on Nazi “euthanasia.” On his final trip to Berlin, just two weeks before his stroke, Henry Friedlander paid a visit to the Rosenstrasse Memorial with his son, Professor Benjamin Friedlander. Henry repeatedly said that the release of Jews from Rosenstrasse only made sense to him when it was seen as the result of protest by their non-Jewish relatives, as he had begun to write: “Germans could do something to oppose the regime. Rosenstrasse was proof of that. This is also what Sybil [Milton] thought. You don’t have a big roundup of Jews and imprison some of them because you want to make them take the jobs of the leadership you are now deporting. Some say they did not want to do these Jews any harm. But they were not arresting them to give them an iron cross medal.” Contents List of Illustrations ix Editor’s Preface xi Introduction: Nazi Responses to Popular Protests in the Reich 1 Nathan Stoltzfus and Brigit Maier-Katkin Chapter 1. Aspects of German Procedures in the Holocaust 10 Gerhard L. Weinberg Chapter 2. Women and Protest in Wartime Nazi Germany 18 Jill Stephenson Chapter 3. The Demonstrations in Support of the Protestant Provincial Bishop Hans Meiser: A Successful Protest Against the Nazi Regime? 38 Christiane Kuller Chapter 4. The Catholic Church, Bishop von Galen, and ‘Euthanasia’ 55 Winfried Süß Chapter 5. The Possibilities of Protest in the Third Reich: The Witten Demonstration in Context 76 Julia S. Torrie Chapter 6. The “Legend” of Women’s Resistance in the Rosenstrasse 106 Katharina von Kellenbach Chapter 7. Auschwitz, the “Fabrik-Aktion,” Rosenstrasse: A Plea for a Change of Perspective 125 Joachim Neander Chapter 8. The 1943 Rosenstrasse Protest and the Churches 143 Antonia Leugers Chapter 9. Protest and Aftermath: Placing Protest in the History of Nazi Germany 177 Nathan Stoltzfus viii | Contents Afterword: Protest and Resistance 209 David Clay Large Appendix 1. The Situation of the “Mischlinge” in Germany, Mid-March 1943 by Gerhard Lehfeldt 223 Appendix 2. Decree Regarding the Removal of Jews from Frankfurt/Oder Factories, February 24, 1943 229 Appendix 3. April 1, 1943, OSS Document Identifying Protest in Berlin with the Interruption of Deportation of Jews 233 Appendix 4. Translated Excerpts from the Diaries of Joseph Goebbels, Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, ed. Elke Frölich (Munich: K.G. Saur) 235 Appendix 5. Excerpts from testimonies of women who protested for their Jewish husbands in response to a request from the Berlin Bureau of Reparations, 1955. 241 Appendix 6. Excerpts of Individual Sections and Paragraphs from Legal Texts and Ordinances (1933–1941) 243 Appendix 7. RSHA Guidelines for Deportation to Auschwitz, Berlin, February 20, 1943 247 Appendix 8. Documents of the SS at Auschwitz from early March 1943 indicating their “pull” for workers from Berlin and their expectation that more working Jews (intermarried) would be sent from Berlin 251 Appendix 9. Documents in response to the Witten Protest and from 1944 indicating Hitler’s continuing refusal to use force against “racial” civilians who refused to follow regime guidelines for evacuating bombed areas. 255 Appendix 10. Excerpts from the recent German press representing controversies about public protest by ordinary Germans in the Third Reich. 259 Selected Bibliography 263 Index 267 Illustrations Figure 6.1a. The Jüdische Allgemeine, February 18, 1955, called for all who had resisted and suffered under National Socialism to register at the Berlin Bureau of Reparations, including “the participants in the demonstration march of the “Aryan” wives on Rosenstrasse.” 114 Figure 6.1b. In response to the Jüdische Allgemeine’s call, more than 60 women attested to the Berlin Bureau of Reparations that they had demonstrated on Berlin’s Rosenstrasse for the release of Jews in early 1943, using their own descriptions to describe their actions, including “Demonstrations,” “Proces- sions,” “Demonstration March.” 114 Figure 6.1c. In their own words they also described their collective action of calling out together, “We want to have our husbands back,” and of being ordered by the guards to “clear the streets or we will shoot.” In postwar interviews Goebbels’ Head Deputy, Leopold Gutterer, said that the threats of shooting had been directed at the women, and not at the imprisoned Jews, but that this was not done since this would have caused a yet greater circle of unrest within non-Jewish family circles. 115 Figure 8.1. “Whoever wears this symbol is an enemy of our people.” Nazi propaganda instructing Germans on why German Jews were required to wear the Star of David. It marked the Jews identified specifically for deportation, which was illustrated during the Gestapo’s “Action to Clear the Reich of Jews,” the arrests (dubbed the “Factory Action” after the war) that led to the Rosenstrasse Protest. During the early night hours of March 1, 1943, following the second full day of the imprisonment of intermarried Jews at Rosenstrasse 2-4, about 30 who lived in “privileged” intermarriage and thus did not wear the Star of David, were released while those wearing the Star remained at Rosenstrasse. Eleven days earlier, Berlin’s Gauleiter Joseph Goeb- bels had vowed to deport all persons wearing the Star, once and for all. “I have set for myself a goal to make Berlin entirely free x | Illustrations of Jews by the middle or end of March at the latest,” he wrote on February 18. “With the final deadline of February 28 they are supposed to be first collected in camps and then deported, up to 2,000, batch-by-batch, day-by-day.” Weeks after the release of Jews held at Rosenstrasse 2-4, Goebbels admitted that, because there were still persons wearing the Star, the “The Jewish ques- tion in Berlin is still not yet completely solved. A whole collec- tion of so-called ‘Geltungsjuden’ [‘half-Jewish’ ‘Mischlinge’ who were counted as Jews and wore the Star], Jews from privileged intermarriages [“full Jews” according to the Nuremberg Laws who were exempted from wearing the Star], and also Jews from intermarriages [“full Jews” required to wear the Star] are still to be found in Berlin . I do not want Jews with the Jewish star running around the Reich capital. Either one must take the Jew- ish star away and privilege them, or on the other hand once and for all evacuate them from the Reich capital,” he wrote on April 18, 1943.

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