Paulgerhard Lohmann The Anti-Semitic NS Racial Mania and the Fritzlar Jews 1933-1949 Dedicated to the former Jews of Fritzlar, to their children and grandchildren 2 This book provides a second revision of Chapters 13 and 14 of my book entitled “Hier waren wir zu Hause – Die Geschichte der Juden von Fritzlar 1096-2000”, ISBN 978-3-8311-4579- 2, comprising 536 pages and containing further source references. Please address any corrections and supplements to the author P. Lohmann, Blaumühlengässchen 5e, D 34560 Fritzlar, Germany, Tel. 05622-6989 © Lohmann, Author. Reproductions of any kind are permitted. English text revision: Eric Mark, Kraainem, Belgien; Technic revision: Alexander Fischer, Fritzlar Layout: Dr. Heinz Nöding, Wabern-Hebel Production: Books on Demand, Norderstedt, 2008 ISBN German version: 978-3-8334-7504-7 English version: 978-3-8334-7570-2 3 This report is intended to be a monument, a memorial that not only recalls memories, but also provokes thinking: “Recollection, shattering and thought, these three should never allow a holocaust to happen again.” (Yehuda Amichai) Structure: The years of terror 1933-1945 1st phase: Restriction of earning opportunities and pressure towards emigration The first NS year 1933 Page 5 The second NS year 1934 Page 23 2nd phase: Radicalization of racism and further deprivation of rights The third NS year 1935 Page 34 3rd phase: Pressure towards giving up business and increases in emigration costs The fourth NS year 1936 Page 46 The fifth NS year 1937 Page 58 4th phase: Compulsion to give up business and emigrate under threat of death The sixth NS year 1938 Page 68 The seventh NS year 1939 Page 97 The eighth NS year 1940 Page 108 5th phase: Deportation, forced labour and mass murder The ninth NS year 1941 Page 113 The tenth NS year 1942 Page 130 The final NS years 1943-1945 Page 140 Structure of the individual years A chronology of the year concerned Fritzlar Jewish citizens 19.. Emigrations, Moves and Sales 19.. a) Emigrations 19.. aa) direct emigration from Fritzlar ab) indirect emigration following change of location b) Moves within Germany 19.. c) Deaths 19.. including Shoah victims d) Shops and other places of work 19.. e) Houses and real estate 19.. f) Stock sales and auctions 19.. g) Imprisonment and Deportation Data 19.. The years of transition 1945-1949 The Returnees, Jewish property and return moves 1945-1949.........................Page 145 Displaced persons (DPs) 1945-1949......................................................................Page 151 Towards lasting memory.......................................................................... ..............Page 158 Annex 1. Elections 1933......................... ......................... ......................... ................Page 163 2. Act of Enabling, March 1933......................... ......................... ...................Page 164 3. Boycott of Jewish businesses and practices, March/April 1933 …. .. ……Page 165 4. Re-establishment of the national Civil Service, 1933..................................Page 166 5. Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”, 1924-1927.............................................................Page 167 6. Identity cards for Jews in Fritzlar, December 1938 and Feb. 1939............ Page 169 7. Register of Jewish property by trustee Levi Gutheim..... ............................Page 171 8. Immigration receiving countries 1933-1942................................................Page 173 9. Murder victims of the Shoah, 1938-1945, Survivors and “Stolpersteine”...Page 173 10. The deceased 1933-1945..............................................................................Page 176 11. Unsolved fates………..................................................................................Page 176 12. Overall view….............................................................................................Page 177 13. List of names with biographical dates..........................................................Page 178 14. Sources quoted and literature.......................................................................Page 195 15. Thanks..........................................................................................................Page 198 4 Introduction This book is a factual, documentary work. The juxtaposition of many quotations from newspapers in the first part and of the reports on events in the second part of each annual chapter is designed to help the reader to form his own opinion. For that reason the author has mostly held back from providing his own comments. As regards the Title: “Anti-Semitic NS racial mania” 1. By mania I understand a completely dominant, objectively unfounded, but irrefutable fixation on one “idée fixe”. For the topic treated here that is the Nazi claim that t h e Jews - every one of them individually and all of them together – were the cause of all the problems that had arisen since 1914. They were all judged to be Jewish capitalists and Jewish Bolshevists. To reduce multiple causes in this way to a single root for all national difficulties is “pure madness”. 2. Whilst Hitler connected the concept of the “Jewish race” with “Jewish blood” he did not specify any scientifically provable racial characteristics. According to his definition a Jew was someone who descended from at least one Jewish grandfather or grandmother. The Judaism of that grandfather or grandmother was not recognised as deriving from his “blood” or any racial characteristic, but from the outward membership by at least one grandparent of a synagogue community. This was not a matter of inheriting or passing on a religious belief - that was of no consequence. It was a matter only of the fact of membership of a grandparent and the fact of descent; the personal religious belief of the individual Jew played no role. 3. Hitler thus maintained the opinion expressed in his polemic “Mein Kampf “, which he had written in 1924/27 and which was the decisive textbook of the Nazi movement. 4. Next to the racial madness was the delusionary overestimate of himself as “Führer” (leader) and the collective Hitler cult by the German people. • All soldiers and officials, as well as all pastors and all youths over the age of 14 had to swear an oath to Hitler personally – not to the rights and the wellbeing of the people, • Parliament was dissolved and the Reichstag was only summoned in order to take official note of the decisions of the Reich government without debating them or voting, • The independence of the law courts and any form of power sharing was abolished, • and the freedom of the press and of expressing one’s opinion was gradually done away with. In this manner dictatorship became the extreme opposite of democracy. 5. Individualism was rejected and the value of the individual disregarded; in its place the “people” were apparently authoritative, clearly summarised in the slogan: You are nothing, your people is everything! In this way it was attempted not only to destroy the Jews systematically to “protect” the German people, but in the end to sacrifice even the German people as a “race” which in the long run was inferior and too weak. As regards the Structure: In this book a chronology has been drawn up for each year, essentially on the basis of the reports in the local newspaper, to describe the general situation. The second part of each annual description contains a report how the laws were implemented as regards the Jews in Fritzlar, a North Hesse town near Kassel. This method clarifies the effects of general orders on actual persons and situations in a specific town. 1933 5 The years of terror 1933-1945 1st phase: Restriction of earning opportunities and pressure towards emigration In the early stages the aim of the National Socialist (NS) policy was to shatter the influence and economic power of the Jews and to expel them from Germany. Two hurdles stood in the way of this aim: one had been put up by the German side itself, i.e. the high taxes on departure; the other hurdle had been raised by the other countries, in other words their strict limits on immigration. The first NS year A chronology of the year 1933 On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Reichskanzler (Imperial Chancellor) by Hindenburg. As early as 2nd February it became clear that the Communists would be the first to be fought and persecuted.1 On 27 Feb a draft “Order against betrayal of the German People“ was submitted to the Reichspresident, stating “particularly severe damage to German interests may also be noted where someone launches detrimental news in the foreign press”. The order was adopted on 28 Feb. In the night of 27/28 February, the Reichstag (Parliament) building was set on fire, and as one of the suspected arsonists the Dutch communist Nauro Marius van der Lubbe of Leyden was arrested. The Reichstag members and officials of the Communist party, a total of 130 persons, were immediately arrested. The Osterhofen camp was installed as the first Hessian concentration camp (KZ). On 1st March, i.e. the day after the Reichstag fire, an “Order for the Protection of People and State” “for defence against Communist acts of violence imperilling the State” was passed. Right from the beginning Jews became victims of the fight against Communism. Thus we can read in the Homberger Kreisblatt of 2nd March that during “a search of a Jewish tearoom in Berlin” 30 foreigners had been arrested who were unable to produce residence permits. And on 3rd March one could read: “ The premises of the Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen