German-Jewish Masculinities in the Third Reich, 1933-1945
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Stolen Manhood? German-Jewish Masculinities in the Third Reich, 1933-1945 by Sebastian Huebel Bachelor of Arts, Thompson Rivers University, 2003 Master of Arts, University of Victoria, 2009 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (History) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) June 2017 © Sebastian Huebel, 2017 Abstract When the Nazis came to power in Germany, they used various strategies to expel German Jews from social, cultural and economic life. My dissertation focuses on gendered forms of discrimination which had impacts on Jewish masculine identity. I am asking how Jewish men experienced these challenges and the undermining of their self-understandings as men in the Third Reich. How did Jewish men adhere to pre-established gender norms and practices such as the role of serving as the providers and protectors of their families? How did Jewish men maintain their sense of being patriotic German war veterans and members of the national community? And finally, how did Jewish men react to being exposed to the physical assaults and violence that was overwhelmingly directed against them in prewar Germany? These central questions form the basis of my study of Jewish masculinities in the Third Reich. I argue that Jewish men’s gender identities, intersecting with categories of ethnicity, race, class and age, underwent a profound process of marginalization that undermined their accustomed ways of performing masculinity; yet at the same time, in their attempts to sustain their conception of masculinity they maintained sufficient agency and developed coping strategies to prevent their full-scale emasculation. Jewish men adapted to their persecution by finding alternative employment, assuming an increased presence in the domestic sphere as fathers and husbands; maintaining an emotional spiritual-belonging to Germany; resisting their sexual-racial classification as racial defilers; minimizing physical victimization in concentration camps and the public by embodying military virtues like strength and discipline; and finally developing gendered survival strategies living as “illegals” in the underground during the years of the Holocaust. In their totality of perceptions, reactions and often overlapping coping strategies, Jewish men comprised a heterogenous group of marginalized men who with their families strove to have normal lives in Nazi Germany. ii Lay Summary This dissertation examines the lives of German Jewish men in Nazi Germany through the lens of gender. I show how the Nazis sought to emasculate Jewish men by way of propaganda, law and physical violence, and how in turn masculine self- understandings, perceptions and identities changed under Nazi rule. When their adherence to hegemonic, mainstream practices of masculinity were challenged and undermined, many Jewish men turned to despondent, depressive and even suicidal behaviors, but others were able to negotiate their new status by developing coping mechanisms that allowed them to defy emasculation and adapt – at least temporarily – to their marginalized status as men. iii Preface This dissertation is the original, unpublished, independent work by the author, S. Huebel. iv Table of Contents Abstract……………..…………………………………………………………………………....ii Lay Summary…..…………………………………………………………………………….….iii Preface…………………………………………………………………………………………...iv Table of Contents…..…………………………………………………………………………….v List of Figures…...…………………………………………………………………………...….vi Image and Photo Credits………………………………………………………………………..vii List of Abbreviations……..……………………………………………………………………..ix Acknowledgements…..………………………………………………………………………......x Dedication…...…………………………………………………………………………………..xi Introduction…..…………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter 1. German Jews and Military Masculinity ………...………………………………….22 Chapter 2. The Question of Race and Sex: Propaganda, Policy and Jewish Masculinities....…66 Chapter 3. Jewish Masculinity and the Importance of Work……………..…………………..107 Chapter 4. Jewish Husbands and Fathers in the Third Reich……………………………..…..152 Chapter 5. Gender, Violence and Jewish Masculinities...……………………………………..201 Chapter 6. Defying Deportation: 'Underground' Experiences and Jewish Masculinity ...…....274 Conclusion……………………...……………………………………………………………...301 Bibliography…………………...………………………………………………………………307 v List of Figures List of Figures Fig. 1. Antisemitic Postcard…….………………………………………………………………..28 Fig. 2. Caricature, Wiener Arbeiterzeitung……………………………………………………….29 Fig. 3. Cover Page, Kladderadatsch……..……………………………………………………….32 Fig. 4. Poster by Hans Schweitzer………………………………………………………………..35 Fig. 5. Sample Pages of Gefallene Deutschen Juden: Frontbriefe 1914-18………………………42 Fig. 6. Photo Richard Stern……………………………………………………………………….50 Fig. 7. Caricature “Jewish Hunt for Women”…………………………………………………….66 Fig. 8. Caricature “The Beginning and the End”………………………………………………….73 Fig. 9. Caricature “The Legion of Shame”………………………………………………………..73 Fig. 10. Image from Der Giftpilz………………………………………………………………....75 Fig. 11. Image from Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid und keinem Jud auf seinem Eid……….75 Fig. 12. Caricature, “Children drawing Jews”……………………………………………………75 Fig. 13. Caricature, “Unfruitful”…………………………………………………………………76 Fig. 14. Poster, “Deutsche Frau. Halte Dein Blut rein!”..................................................................76 Fig. 15. Photo, Oskar Danker…………………………………………………………………......78 Fig. 16. Photo, Julius Rosenberg…………………………………………………………………78 Fig. 17. Film Poster, “Der Ewige Jude”….…………………………………………………….....80 Fig. 18. Propaganda Poster “Stadt und Land, Hand in Hand”…………………………………...114 Fig. 19. Image from Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid und keinem Jud auf seinem Eid………114 Fig. 20. Passport of Expulsion (Ausschließungsschein), Reich Labor Service………………….116 Fig. 21. Red Cross Letter by Ernst Wachsner…………………………………………………...146 Fig. 22. Photo Willy Cohn………………………………………………………………………193 Fig. 23. Photos of Willy Cohn’s daughters……………………………………………………...193 Fig. 24. Photo, Carnival in Cologne……..………………………………………………………207 Fig. 25. Photo, Hermann Pressmann & Family………………………………………………….210 Fig. 26. Caricature, “The Jewish Body”………………………………………………………...210 Fig. 27. Photo Ludwig Marum under arrest……………………………………………………..235 Fig. 28. Photo, Buchenwald Concentration Camp……...……………………………………….252 Fig. 29. Konrad Friedländer’s forged military papers…………………………………………...296 Fig. 30. Photo, Eugen Hermann-Friede…………………………………………………………298 vi Image and Photo Credits Fig. 1 in Georg Heuberger & Helmut Gold, eds. Abgestempelt. Judenfeindliche Postkarten auf der Grundlage der Sammlung Wolfgang Haney (Frankfurt: Umschau Buchverlag, 1999), 145. Fig. 2 Wiener Arbeiterzeitung, 1919. Retrieved from http://www.dolchstosslegende.com/posters.html Fig. 3 Courtesy of Randal Bytwerk. Retrieved from http://www.bytwerk.com/gpa/images/kladder/kd33-31a.jpg Fig. 4 Courtesy of Randal Bytwerk. Retrieved from http://www.bytwerk.com/gpa/posters/garant.jpg Fig. 5 in Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten, Gefallene Deutsche Juden: Frontbriefe 1914-1918 (Berlin: Vortrup Verlag, 1935), i-ii. Fig. 6 Courtesy of NS-Dokumentationszentrum Köln. Fig. 7 in Kurt Plischke, Der Jude als Rassenschänder: Eine Anklage gegen Juda und eine Mahnung an die deutschen Frauen und Mädchen (Berlin: NS Druck & Verlag, 1934), 46. Fig. 8 Courtesy of Randal Bytwerk. Retrieved from http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda- archive/images/sturmer/sturm06.jpg Fig. 9 Courtesy of Randal Bytwerk. Retrieved from http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/images/sturmer/ds16a.jpg Fig. 10 Courtesy of Randal Bytwerk. Retrieved from http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/images/fuchs/fuchs13.jpg Fig. 11 Courtesy of Randal Bytwerk. Retrieved from http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/images/fuchs/fuchs13.jpg Fig. 12 in Franco Ruault, Tödliche Maskeraden: Julius Streicher und die “Lösung der Judenfrage” (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2009), 177. Fig. 13 Courtesy by Randal Bytwerk. Retrieved from http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/images/sturmer/ds4.jpg Fig 14 Courtesy of Deutsches Historisches Museum. Retrieved from http://www.dhm.de/archiv/ausstellungen/grundrechte/bilder/2_04.jpg vii Fig. 15 Retrieved from https://juden-in-cuxhaven.jimdo.com/juden-in-cuxhaven/das-bild-rassenschande- in-cuxhaven/ Fig. 16 Courtesy of Institut für Stadtgeschichte, Gelsenkirchen. Photo ISG FS I 6018. Fig. 17 Courtesy of German Historical Institute German History in Documents and Images, Washington DC. Retrieved from http://germanhistorydocs.ghi- dc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=2331 Fig. 18 Retrieved from http://www.spurensuche-bremen.de/stadt-und-land-hand-in-hand/ Fig. 19 Courtesy of Randal Bytwerk. Retrieved from http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/images/fuchs/fuchs3.jpg Fig. 20 Courtesy of Jewish Museum Berlin, Collection Familie Klotzsch, K291 Inv.-Nr 2003/145/24. Fig. 21 Courtesy of Jewish Museum Berlin, Collection Familien Wachsner/Meyerhoff, Convolute 314. K1024, Folder 3, Inv.-Nr 2014/194/539. Fig. 22 Courtesy of Danièle Cohn. Fig. 23 Courtesy of Danièle Cohn. Fig. 24 Courtesy of Yad Yashem Photo Archive, Jerusalem. FA192_3. Fig. 25 Courtesy of Sonia Pressmann Fuentes. Retrieved from http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ce/pd-03.htm Fig. 26 Franco Ruault, Tödliche Maskeraden: Julius Streicher und die “Lösung der Judenfrage” (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2009), 179. Fig. 27 Ludwig Marum, Briefe aus dem KZ Kislau, ed. Elisabeth Marum-Lunau