WEEK 2 Prewar Persecution of “Enemies of the State” and Other Targeted Minorities in the Third Reich Prepared by Tony Joel and Mathew Turner

Week 2 Unit Learning Outcomes ULO 1. evaluate in a reflective and critical manner the consequences of and prejudice

ULO 3. synthesise core historiographical debates on how and why occurred

Introduction This learning module is divided into a series of seven mostly short sections all of which are linked by the common theme of German victim groups who were ostracised and persecuted by their own government when living under . We start this week by examining the Nazi concept of supposed “” superiority and the creation of a national socialist “people’s community” or what the Nazis termed their ideal .

Section 2 explores theories of Nazi “” and , which provided a pseudoscientific framework for including the identification of “undesirables” ( and others) who were classified as not belonging to the Volksgemeinschaft.

Section 3 (the lengthiest this week) investigates the persecution of Jews living in the Third Reich, particularly in the prewar period 1933-39 but also up to 1941. Section 4 considers how German Jews responded to this persecution, both “officially” and privately.

Section 5 outlines the Nazi system of concentration camps, used to intimidate and imprison political opponents and other individuals considered to be “enemies of the state.” The section reinforces the important point that, although they were included among the targets, Jews were by no means the main priority during the prewar period.

Section 6 looks at the Nazi program of forced sterilisation introduced as early as July 1933, which provided Nazi doctors with the legal means to carry out the sterilisation of individuals who, according to racial “science,” threatened the purity of the “.” Sterilisation victims included Germans with hereditary illnesses, mental illnesses, or perceived physical and intellectual disabilities.

Finally, Section 7 probes the Third Reich’s “euthanasia” programs — the state-sanctioned killing of tens of thousands of German citizens the Nazis deemed to be “life unworthy LEARNING MODULE 2. Introduction 2 of life” (“lebensunwertes Leben”) on the basis of perceived physical and intellectual disabilities. It was a systematic, secret program that required organisation on a national scale, and the wholesale corruption of morally bankrupt legal and medical professionals. Though a point of rigorous historiographical dispute, the “euthanasia” programs may be seen as a precursor to the mass extermination of Jews subsequently carried out in Nazi death camps during wartime. (PLEASE NOTE: Throughout this weekly topic, qualification will be used whenever there are references to the “euthanasia” programs because what the Nazis euphemistically termed “euthanasia” in no way qualifies as a case of what properly constitutes mercy killing with consent.)

After completing this learning module, you will continue to evaluate, in a reflective and critical manner, the consequences of racism and prejudice. Furthermore, you will begin to grapple with and synthesise a core historiographical debate on how and why the Holocaust occurred.

Section 1. The Nazi Concept of “Aryan Superiority” and Creation of the German Volksgemeinschaft

One message that featured prominently in Nazi election campaigns, speeches, and propaganda as the NSDAP became more electorally popular during the Weimar era was the notion that Hitler, in becoming national leader, would unite as a special “people’s community” (Volksgemeinschaft). For many disaffected Germans — growing tired of lurching from one economic crisis to another, unconvinced by a polarised and thus ostensibly paralysed political system, and frustrated by their disunited country — the message of coming together in a national cause resonated. The establishment of this new Volksgemeinschaft would form the basis of the national socialist revolution that Hitler promised would follow the establishment of national socialism. Of course, not every individual or group in was included in the newly-conceptualised Volksgemeinschaft. Germans with opposing political views, or perceived physical or intellectual deficiencies, habitual criminals, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, so- called “Gypsies” and many others all belonged outside of the Volksgemeinschaft as they did not conform to the Nazi concept of creating a superior “Aryan race.”

PRESCRIBED TEXT: Please read Thomas Kühne’s chapter entitled “The Claims of Community,” pp. 129-35 (up to the sub-heading “Their Comrades Are Their Conscience”).

LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 1: The Nazi Concept of “Aryan Superiority” 3

According to Kühne, the exclusion of Jews from the Nazis’ Volksgemeinschaft was an essential element in maintaining what he calls a “fabricated… sense of national belonging,” one that crossed political and economic divides. Kühne observes that this “new social order” was a work-in-progress. On page 140, he concludes: “Who was in and who was out, who was above and who was below, what was to be done and what was to be left out — all of this was to be redefined.” Underpinning this process of exclusion were Nazi concepts of racial and eugenics.

Section 2. Nazi Racial Hygiene Theories and Eugenics

From the outset, we must stress that racial hygiene and eugenics were not exclusive to Germany. Indeed, such themes were immensely popular among certain sectors of the scientific communities of many countries from the late nineteenth century onwards. The German eugenics scene, then, was just one aspect of a much wider movement before and after the First World War.

In Germany, medical scientists played a central role in promoting and developing eugenic theories, and the movement gained in status and legitimacy. During the Weimar period, eugenics research institutes proliferated. They reflected the growing popularity of ideas about racial hygiene.

German eugenics emphasised the importance of heredity as opposed to environment in determining the outcome of “natural selection.” Consequently, it was assumed that the “protection” of the “Aryan race” could be guaranteed only by direct interference in the process of biological reproduction. The mentally handicapped confined to institutions were the subject of a significant work co-published in 1920 by , a legal academic, and psychiatrist . As Henry Friedlander points out, in their work entitled Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens (Approval of the Destruction of ) Binding and Hoche advocated the killing of the “feebleminded” who were characterised as unproductive parasites on postwar German society.1

READING EXCERPT: Hugh Gregory Gallagher, in ”Scientific and Economic Origins of the Killing,” discusses the cultural context of Approval of the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life. Gallagher comments that Hitler read this controversial work by Binding and Hoche.

1 See chapter 1 in Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi : From Euthanasia to the . (University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill & London, 1995). LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 2: Nazi Racial Hygiene Theories and Eugenics 4

The psychiatrist Alfred Hoche (l) and the legal scholar Karl Binding (r). Sources: “Die Schreibtischtäter,” Badische Zeitung. http://www.badische-zeitung.de/deutschland-1/die- schreibtischtaeter--17782862.html [Accessed 1 February 2017]. “Prof. Dr. jur. Karl Ludwig Lorenz Binding” Professorenkatalog der Universität . https://www.uni- leipzig.de/unigeschichte/professorenkatalog/leipzig/Binding_736/ [Accessed 1 Feb. 2017].

German popular culture in the 1920s and 1930s was peppered with novels and films justifying on racial grounds the killing of the mentally and physically handicapped. Furthermore, a number of studies appeared advocating “euthanasia” on economic grounds. Clearly, then, the groundwork had been laid for future action to exclude the handicapped from the Nazis’ Volksgemeinschaft.

Section 3. Prewar Persecution of German Jews On 30 January 1933, was appointed chancellor of Germany. His powers still were restricted until, in response to the March 1933 burning down of the Reichstag (the federal parliamentary building, in Berlin), president Paul von Hindenburg signed the Enabling Act. Henceforth, Hitler could pass laws without parliamentary support. Although the Enabling Act originally was intended as a temporary measure to restore order, it was never rescinded. Lack of parliamentary restriction facilitated Hitler’s “legal” seizure of power (Machtergreifung) of all aspects of the state.

The persecution of German Jews at the hands of the Nazis, from 1933 through to the early years of the war, can be understood to have taken place in three stages: unsystematic measures (1933-34); formalisation or legalisation of measures (1935-37); and economic expropriation and increasing violence (1938-41). As the Second World War neared, German Jews came under greater physical threat, culminating in the of November 1938. Propaganda was used to remind the German public of the alleged threat posed by Jews in their midst, and German Jews found themselves increasingly isolated and persecuted. LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 3: Prewar Persecution of German Jews 5

a) Anti-Jewish Policy in Germany, 1933-41 Once in power, the Nazis were in a position to implement measures against Germany’s Jewish population. The evolution of policy against Jews living in the Third Reich (both German and foreign Jews) provides a model for the later treatment of ’s Jews more broadly. Nonetheless, you must bear in mind that the characteristic features of the prewar treatment of Germany’s Jews were marginalisation and humiliation, NOT the systematic extermination that occurred only after the outbreak of war against the Soviet Union in June 1941.

PRESCRIBED TEXT: Please read part of the chapter entitled “Elite Cooperation,” pp. 114-17 (i.e. from the subheading “The First Attacks on Jews” onwards), for insight into early Nazi anti-Jewish measures and from the perspective of the German Foreign Office.

Unsystematic Measures against Jews, 1933–34 Attempts in early 1933 by more aggressive members of the Nazi movement to initiate a boycott of Jewish businesses and to orchestrate a series of violent attacks on the Jewish community had little success. The boycott — initially scheduled for a week, but cancelled after the first day on 1 April 1933 — failed to attract popular support and resulted in unwanted international criticism.

SA goons picketing at the front entrance of a Jewish-owned business during the unsuccessful boycott, 1 April 1933. And another shopfront vandalised with a Star of David and “Jude” (the German word for Jews). Sources: “Boycott of Jewish Businesses - Photograph,” USHMM. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_ph.php?ModuleId=10005678&MediaId=2676 [Accessed 1 February 2017]. “Notable Events Marking the Beginning of the Holocaust,” I Survived. http://isurvived.org/TOC-I.html [Accessed 1 February 2017]. LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 3: Prewar Persecution of German Jews 6

The boycott was called off and instead several legal measures (designed to exclude Jews from aspects of public life) were introduced in order to assuage the aggressively antisemitic elements of the Nazi movement. This pattern of a piecemeal adoption of anti-Jewish measures whenever grassroots antisemitism threatened to get out of hand characterised Nazi policy towards Jews in this early period. A series of decrees stripped German Jews of many civil rights. Restrictions were placed on their employment in the civil service, in the legal and medical professions, and in public schools and universities. Jews were barred from the armed forces, German cultural organisations, publishing, and many other publications. In addition, Jewish membership of trade, professional, sport, and labour organisations was severely curtailed. Restrictions were placed on the hiring of Jews, and Jewish attendance at universities and public schools was subject to strict quotas.

As Sarah Gordon observes, an important point to note about these early anti-Jewish measures is that by and large they were implemented on a local, not central level, and they were uncoordinated.2 It seems that, at this early stage of the Third Reich, Hitler was not following any systematic plan in relation to persecuting Germany’s Jews.

PRESCRIBED TEXT: Please read “Street-Level Coercion,” Sebastian Haffner’s account of the Nazis’ initial anti-Jewish measures, pp. 123-28. Haffner was a German who witnessed the rise of Nazism, attacks against Jews, and the dismantling of democracy. The excerpt is taken from his memoir entitled Defying Hitler, which he wrote in exile in 1939.

Formalisation of anti-Jewish measures, 1935–37 By September 1935, almost three years had passed since Hitler had become chancellor and grass-roots Nazi activists were becoming increasingly restless about what they perceived as the government’s apparent lack of decisive action on the so-called “Jewish question” (Judenfrage). Hitler’s official response came through the implementation of the (so-called because they emerged out of that year’s annual rally in the historic Franconian city). This legislation, introduced in two stages in late 1935, effectively triggered the formal exclusion of Jews from German society.

2 Sarah Gordon, Hitler, Germans, and the “Jewish Question” (Princeton University Press, NJ, 1984). p. 121. LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 3: Prewar Persecution of German Jews 7

The annual Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, 1935. Source: “The terrifying Spectacle of the in Nazi Germany,” All Day. http://www.allday.com/the-terrifying-spectacle-of-the-nuremberg-rallies-in-nazi-germany- 2180809118.html [Accessed 1 February 2017]

The “Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour” made marriage and all sexual relations between “” (i.e. all non-Jewish Germans) and “non-Aryans” (i.e. Jews) an unlawful offence (though existing marriages were not outlawed). Any “Aryans” and “non-Aryans” caught in sexual relationships (outside of pre-existing marriages) were arrested and publicly shamed for “race defilement.”

A couple being publicly shamed after having been discovered to be in a “mixed” sexual relationship after the introduction of the Nuremberg Laws. The man has been forced to wear a sign stating “I am a race defiler.” Source: “Propaganda,” USHMM. http://www.ushmm.org/propaganda/archive/public-humiliation/ [Accessed 2 February 2017] LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 3: Prewar Persecution of German Jews 8

Effective implementation of this law protecting “German blood and honour” required the introduction (in November 1935) of the “Reich Citizenship Law,” the chief purpose of which was to officially define who qualified as “Aryan” and “non-Aryan” in the Third Reich. This was a remarkably complex challenge, of course, because according to Nazi “Jewishness” was based on racial traits rather than religion. Jews had been living in Germany for centuries, and as part of the assimilation process many had married non- Jewish Germans. Determining which Germans were “pure Aryans” and identifying which Germans were “contaminated” with “Jewish blood” would require wading through several generations of what the Nazis considered to be “.” In any case, obviously there was no “scientific” way to identify the presence of such an irrational notion as “Jewish blood,” and so the Nazis were actually forced to rely on (historical) religious “evidence” to identify racial Jews living in the Third Reich (e.g. baptism records).

If it was discovered someone had three or more Jewish grandparents then, irrespective of their own faith, under Nazi law this individual suddenly was categorised as racially Jewish. To further complicate matters, if someone had two Jewish grandparents then, according to Nazi racial theory, they were classified as being “part-Jewish” or a so-called Mischlinge meaning a person of “mixed race.” To legalise this process, the “Reich Citizenship Law” saw complicated charts created as part of an elaborate system to define who was “Aryan,” who was racially Jewish, and who fell somewhere in between. Any Germans identified as being racially Jewish according to these charts were stripped of their citizenship rights and classified as “state subjects” rather than citizens. By definition, Jews in Germany were placed at the mercy of arbitrary state action.

Nuremberg Laws “race chart” dividing the Reich’s existing population into “Aryan” Germans, various categories of so-called Mischlinge, and Jews. Source: “Nuremberg Race Laws Chart,” USHMM. http://www.ushmm.org/propaganda/archive/nuremberg-race-laws-chart/ [Accessed 2 Feb. 2017] LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 3: Prewar Persecution of German Jews 9

Despite their radical implications, the legalistic framework of the Nuremberg Laws gave them the appearance of moderation and thus camouflaged their potential danger to the population at large. Indeed, at the time the Nuremberg Laws were presented as the “definitive solution” to the so-called “Jewish question” and Germans were encouraged to assume that their introduction meant that the most extreme measures against Jews already had been taken. Some German Jews even welcomed the Nuremberg Laws precisely because they at least seemed to bring about certainty to what was becoming an increasingly difficult situation. And for a year or so following the introduction of the Nuremberg Laws the situation appeared to be more stable in terms of overt violence against Jews. Upon reflection, however, we know this temporary restraint of antisemitism almost certainly came about due to Nazi attempts to appear respectable when under the world’s spotlight while hosting the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. The first documentary film extract for this week focuses on what have become known as the “Nazi Olympics.”

Economic expropriation, emigration and physical persecution, 1938-41 In March 1938, in what is known as the (meaning “annexation”), was incorporated into an expanding Greater German Reich. With approximately 185,000 Jews living in Austria (90 per cent of them in the capital Vienna) at the time of the Anschluss, overnight the number of Jews living under Nazi control in early 1938 more or less doubled to around 340,000.3 From April 1938, anti-Jewish violence escalated and this coincided with Hitler openly pursuing an increasingly bold expansionist foreign policy.

3 When the Nazis first came to power there had been approximately 500,000 Jews living in Germany. According to a July 1933 census, the overall population was 67 million. This meant that Jews made up only around 0.75 percent of Germany’s population at the time Hitler became chancellor. For the 1933 data, see “Germany: Jewish Population in 1933,” USHMM. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005276 [Accessed 27 February 2017]. By 1939, the number of Jews still living in Nazi Germany had shrunk to roughly 180,000 Jews “by faith” and another 20,000 Jews “by race” (i.e. most self-identified as being Jewish whereas a significant minority did not even consider themselves Jewish but nonetheless were classified as racially Jewish under the Nuremberg Laws). By the outbreak of war in September 1939, some 282,000 Jews had left Germany and another 117,000 had migrated from Austria in the 18 months since the Anschluss. See “German Jewish Refugees, 1933-1939,” USHMM. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005468 [Accessed 27 February 2017]. LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 3: Prewar Persecution of German Jews 10

As a form of public humiliation, Viennese Jews were forced by Austrian Nazis to scrub streets in front of large crowds of onlookers following the Anschluss in 1938. Source: “Expulsion, and Murder – History of the Jews in Vienna,” Stadt Wien. https://www.wien.gv.at/english/culture/jewishvienna/history/nationalsocialism.html [Accessed 2 Feb. 2017]

From April to October 1938, the climate for Jews living in the expanded Reich deteriorated rapidly. Nazi laws dictated that Jews were required to register all property. In July 1938, some 15,000 Jewish males were arrested and sent to concentration camps. In August 1938, a new law was passed stating that any Jews whose first names were of “non-Jewish origin” were required to add the middle name Israel (for males) or Sara (for females). All Jews living under Nazism were forced to carry identity cards, and their existing passports were revoked and replaced with a new passport stamped with a large letter “J.” In October 1938, a further 50,000 Polish Jews still residing in Germany were forcibly expelled across the border into a highly resistant Poland, left stateless and penniless. Among those expelled were the parents of Herschel Grynszpan who, having fled Germany to Paris, himself faced deportation. In desperation, Grynszpan mortally wounded Ernst vom Rath, the German Consul to France, on 8 November 1938.

The Nazis’ response to vom Rath’s death was immediate and vicious. On 9 November 1938, in a nationwide assault that could have occurred only with Hitler’s consent, the SS coordinated a series of attacks against Jews and their synagogues, homes, and businesses. Owing to all the wanton vandalism, this infamous event has become known as Kristallnacht (meaning “Crystal Night” but usually translated as “the Night of Broken Glass”). LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 3: Prewar Persecution of German Jews 11

Top left: Nazi supporters ransack a Jewish-owned shop on 9 November 1938. Top right: Onlookers observe the shattered glass of a Jewish-owned shop in the aftermath of the pogrom. Middle left: The Börnestraße Synagogue in Frankfurt burning during the Kristallnacht pogrom (notice the onlookers in the foreground watching on as it burned). Middle right: The remains of the Fasanenstraße Synagogue in Berlin after it was destroyed by fire. Bottom left: Thousands of new inmates, Jews rounded up following Kristallnacht, at roll call in Buchenwald concentration camp. Bottom right: Handicapped Jewish prisoners in Buchenwald who were photographed for propaganda purposes following Kristallnacht. Sources: “Kristallnacht (Crystal Night),” Spartacus Educational. http://spartacus- educational.com/GERcrystal.htm [Accessed 2 February 2017] “Kristallnacht,” USHMM. https://www.ushmm.org/research/research-in-collections/search-the- collections/bibliography/kristallnacht [Accessed 2 February 2017]. “Major Collection of Nazi-Confiscated Posters to be Sold at Auction,” CNN. http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/06/arts/hans-sachs-poster-collection-auction/ [Accessed 2 Feb. 2017] “Kristallnacht,” AISH. http://www.aish.com/ho/o/48956531.html [Accessed 2 February 2017]. “Buchenwald - Photograph,” USHMM. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_ph.php?ModuleId=10005198&MediaId=932 [Accessed 2 February 2017] “Five Handicapped Jewish Prisoners, photographed for Propaganda Purposes, who arrived in Buchenwald after Kristallnacht,” USHMM. https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1051047 [Accessed 2 February 2017] LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 3: Prewar Persecution of German Jews 12

The Oranienburgerstraße Synagogue, Berlin's leading synagogue, and a close-up shot of the Mahntafel (commemorative plaque with an admonishing reminder for present and future generations never to forget the past) erected near its front entrance. The large lettering “VERGESST ES NIE” translates as “never forget.” The original synagogue, built in 1866, was attacked and burned by the Nazis during Kristallnacht. The destroyed synagogue remained in a ruinous state until it was rebuilt in the 1990s following German reunification. Photos: Tony Joel, October 2009.

In the wake of the Kristallnacht pogrom, male Jews were rounded up and incarcerated in concentration camps where a number died as a result of their harsh treatment. This is important since it was only AFTER Kristallnacht — i.e. from November 1938 onwards — that Jews were incarcerated on the grounds of being Jewish. Any Jews previously sent to concentration camps had been targeted for other reasons such as being communist, socialist, homosexual, work-shy, or a criminal etc. Notably, the implementation of anti-Jewish policy was now decisively in the hands of the most radical arm of the Nazi movement: the SS.

PRESCRIBED TEXT: For a detailed account of Nazi anti-Jewish measures from January 1933 to December 1938, please read Avraham Barkai’s chapter “” in your prescribed text, pp. 144-68.

LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 3: Prewar Persecution of German Jews 13

Following Kristallnacht, the SS pursued a two-pronged policy against Jews still living in Nazi Germany. The first prong was the direct expropriation of Jewish property, a policy that was aimed at the total impoverishment of Jews and the enrichment of the Nazi state. Through this policy of “Aryanisation,” the SS took over ownership of Jewish businesses without compensation. The second prong was the policy of expulsion of Jews from the German sphere of influence through a policy of emigration that lasted until the outbreak of the Second World War. Once war broke out in September 1939, Jews in Germany were totally cut off from German society in general, deprived of any involvement in the workforce, subjected to forced labour, and at the mercy of radical Nazi organisations like the SA and SS including the dreaded . As Barkai concludes in his chapter (p. 168): “The tactics of the German rulers aimed at driving Jews out of the country by means of increased economic and physical pressure had the desired effect.” Reflecting on 1938, we can see it marked a turning point in the development of anti-Jewish policy. Jews still living in the expanded Third Reich were under no illusions whether they had a fair or positive future under the yoke of Nazism.

b) Mechanisms of Persecution: Propaganda So far we have sketched the contours of anti-Jewish policy in prewar Germany, but what has been outlined largely is only a series of legislative measures. A precondition for the acceptance and enforcement of anti-Jewish laws was fostering some measure of general support among the German people (or at least no significant active resistance), as well as an institutional means of dealing with those whom the régime believed threatened order. The German people were assailed by a constant barrage of negative images relating to Jews, with the aim of undermining any latent sympathy.

Film was the most innovative medium for propaganda. Nazi films drew on traditional antisemitic stereotypes — the rootless Jew, the mendacious Jew, and the physically deformed Jew who was a stranger in society. Images depicted Jews as vermin who had to be violently eradicated. They were designed to dehumanise Jews and desensitise Germans to their increasingly radicalised and violent persecution. Prominent Nazi antisemitic propaganda films included Die Rothschilds (The Rothchilds), Jud-Süß (Jew Süss), and Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) all of which were released in 1940. According to David Welch’s study The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda, Nazi films (including so-called “documentaries”) represented a shift in the orientation of propaganda from merely confirming latent prejudice to anticipating and suggesting future courses of action.4

4 David Welch, The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda. (Routledge, London, 1993) LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 3: Prewar Persecution of German Jews 14

Posters promoting the propaganda film Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew), which the Nazis promoted as “a documentary film about world Jewry” (“ein Dokumentarfilm über das Weltjudentum”). Source: “How did I get the Idea?” The Wandering Jew. http://www.wandering- jew.com/programs/search.cgi?page,next,20060501, [Accessed 2 February 2017].

To gain a greater sense of Nazi antisemitic propaganda, you may wish to view some of the “documentary” Der ewige Jude (dubbed with English commentary).

c) Interpreting Persecution: Introducing the Historiographical Debate of “Intentionalism and Structuralism/Functionalism” How do historians account for the changing emphases in Nazi policy towards Jews from the formation of the Nazi Party in the early 1920s up to the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941? Some historians have argued that all policy was directed by Hitler and was part of a long-term strategy in which there always existed an intention to eventually exterminate Jews once conditions allowed and the timing was ripe. This school of thought, led by the likes of Lucy Dawidowicz and Eberhard Jäckel, is referred to as intentionalism (i.e. due to Hitler apparently harbouring longstanding intent to commit genocide against Europe’s Jews). Other historians instead stress the seemingly ad hoc nature of how Nazi policy unfolded, and place greater emphasis on the influence of the actions of local, rather than central, Nazi organisations. This school of thought, led by Hans Mommsen and Ian Kershaw among others, is known as structuralism or functionalism (i.e. in reference to how the Nazi régime actually functioned). LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 3: Prewar Persecution of German Jews 15

The intentionalism vs. structuralism debate among historians was at its hottest in the 1980s and 1990s, at which time the world’s leading Holocaust scholars were polarised over key historiographical issues such as Hitler’s involvement and how events transpired. As this interview with one of the chief protagonists Hans Mommsen reveals, by the late 1990s some common ground was reached and subsequently Holocaust scholarship has moved beyond the strict binary world of intentionalism vs. structuralism and is now far more nuanced. Even so, these two highly influential theories remain relevant today — especially for students who are forming their own informed interpretations of how and why the Holocaust occurred. Throughout this unit, you will encounter aspects of the intentionalist/structuralist historiographical debate concerning various issues relating to the implementation of Nazi anti-Jewish policy.

READING EXCERPT: Please read ”The Development of Policy towards Jews, 1933-39” in which Ian Kershaw reviews the debate surrounding the intentions of Nazi anti- Jewish policy up to the outbreak of war.

Kershaw argues that Hitler did not initiate the anti-Jewish boycott of 1933, the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, or the Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938. Instead, Kershaw emphasises the lack of coordination in the formulation of anti-Jewish policy. Do you find his interpretation, which downplays Hitler’s role, convincing? Or, at this early stage of studying the unit, do you favour the intentionalist perspective built around the notion that Hitler intended to exterminate Jews from the outset but had to bide his time until he was in a position to act? There is no “right” or “wrong” answer. It is open to interpretation, and you made find yourself regularly oscillating in your views.

Lucy Dawidowicz is associated with the intentionalist position. German historian Hans Mommsen, pictured here at the time of his 80th birthday in 2010, is one of the most radical originators of structuralism/functionalism. Sources: “Lucy S. Dawidowicz,” JWA. http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/dawidowicz-lucy-s “Die Freiheit, die ich meine,“ Frankfurter Rundschau. http://www.fr-online.de/literatur/zum-80--geburtstag- des-historikers-hans-mommsen-die-freiheit--die-ich-meine,1472266,4804042.html [Accessed 2 February 2017].

LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 4: Responses by the German-Jewish Community 16

Section 4. Responses by the German-Jewish Community to Nazi Persecution, 1933-41

The ways in which German Jews responded to the mounting persecution they faced between 1933 and 1941 cannot be generalised. Contrary to Nazi stereotypes, German Jews were a remarkably diverse group of citizens: young and old; single or married; individuals or belonging to large close-knit families; rich and poor, representing all classes in German society; all kinds of careers; and living in small villages through to large cities. Likewise, each had varying ties to their Jewish faith ranging from deeply committed Orthodox Jews through to some assimilated Jews who had more or less abandoned religion altogether. Most German Jews were assimilated. They had been raised speaking German as a first language, enjoyed strong ties to German culture, and first and foremost identified as German (rather than thinking of themselves as primarily Jewish with their Germanness only a secondary consideration as antisemites alleged).5 Most German Jews were very attached to their beloved Fatherland, and large numbers fought and died for Germany in the First World War. Unsurprisingly, for assimilated Jews the idea of leaving Germany in the wake of increasing Nazi persecution was a difficult decision.

A smaller number of German Jews were devoutly religious Orthodox Jews. For this group, the current misfortune of Jews was seen within the much broader historical context of a continuing cycle of God’s punishment for straying from the true path of Judaism. A third classification, Zionist Jews, believed that Hitler’s actions reaffirmed the dangers of assimilation. Zionists were critical of what they perceived to be their fellow Jews’ failure to promote Jewish national identity and encourage emigration to Israel (Palestine). Between Hitler coming to power in January 1933 and the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, each German Jew grappled with the decision to leave Germany throughout this period depending on their individual backgrounds and circumstances. Somewhat paradoxically, Nazi anti-Jewish measures also forced Jews to unite and form an “official” association charged with representing their interests in the face of mounting persecution.6

It is easy for you to focus on the details of Nazi rule — to be dazzled by the bizarre yet fascinating unfolding of evil. Remember, however, that the objects of antisemitism were innocent people: parents, children, and grandparents just trying to live their everyday lives. These ordinary folk were the victims of terror and persecution.

5 Although the conventional term that is employed universally is “German Jews,” when discussing Germany’s assimilated Jews it actually would be far more accurate to use the term “Jewish Germans” because it places Jewishness as the adjective and Germanness as the noun instead of the other way around. As a comparison, no one would use the term “German Catholic” or “German Protestant” instead of “Catholic German” or “Protestant German” when discussing a German of Christian faith. 6 Herbert A. Strauss, “Jewish Autonomy within the Limits of National Socialist Policy: The Communities and the Reichsvertretung,” in Arnold Paucker (ed.), Die Juden im Nationalsozialistischen Deutschland/The Jews in Nazi Germany, 1933-45. (JCB Mohr, Tübingen, 1986). p. 132. LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 4: Responses by the German-Jewish Community 17

An evil danger and threat to Nazi Germany? Unlike 1.5 million other Jewish children, Peter Berlowitz, born in Berlin in 1936, somehow managed to survive the Holocaust — although, of course, he was subjected to harsh persecution under Nazism. Source: “Peter Berlowitz,” Museum of Tolerance. http://www.museumoftolerance.com/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=tmL6KfNVLtH&b=5759983&ct= 7943141 [Accessed 6 February 2017].

a) The “Official” Community Prior to the Nazi seizure of power, the interests of Germany’s Jews were represented by a diverse and rich network of communal organisations (e.g. religious interests, political lobbies, sporting clubs, women’s groups). From 1933, the Jewish community was forced to present a united front in the face of overwhelming danger. The Representative Committee of German Jews (Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden) was formed in 1933 to ensure that the Jewish community spoke with one voice in its dealings with the Nazi government.

The Reichsvertretung continually pressured Nazi authorities as it tried to counter the effects of anti-Jewish legislation. Although its efforts were generally unsuccessful, its lobbying of international opinion resulted in some early modifications of Nazi policy (for instance, issues relating to the employment rights of Jewish returned servicemen). The Reichsvertretung also played an increasingly vital role providing education for Jewish children excluded from attending school, organising vocational training for the unemployed and those seeking to emigrate, ensuring religious education to bolster morale and reinforce a sense of Jewish identity, and coordinating welfare for growing numbers of impoverished Jews. After 1935, it actively promoted and assisted German Jews who wished to emigrate. The Reichsvertretung is criticised frequently because of its apparent acquiescence in Nazi demands and the failure of its response to counter repressive orders. In February 1939, the committee was renamed the Representative Association of Jews in Germany (Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland), with the name change reflecting the diminishing position of German Jews in society. LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 4: Responses by the German-Jewish Community 18

German Jews, seeking to emigrate, wait in the office of the Relief Organisation of German Jews (Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden). On the wall is a map of South America and a sign about emigration to Palestine. Berlin, Germany, 1935. Source: “German Jewish Refugees, 1933-1939,” USHMM. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005468 [Accessed 6 February 2017].

b) Private Responses The responses of private individuals in part reflected those of the official community. Some individuals, for instance, participated in community-sponsored cultural and religious activities, whereas others joined the Zionist movement. Nonetheless, the reality of persecution was experienced in the context of everyday relationships.

PRESCRIBED TEXT: Please read Marion Kaplan’s chapter entitled “Going and Staying,” pp. 236-51.

Interestingly, Marion Kaplan argues that Jewish women were more likely than men to sense the growing hostility and urge their husbands to leave Nazi Germany. Because married women were unlikely to be in the paid workforce, they had more interaction with ordinary people on a daily basis. They experienced being snubbed by neighbours and rudeness in shops, whereas men operating in the public sphere were largely LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 4: Responses by the German-Jewish Community 19 insulated from everyday manifestations of prejudice. Men feared unemployment, the loss of status, and impoverishment that potentially confronted them if they moved out of Germany. Conversely, once Jewish men decided to leave they took the initiative in making the relevant arrangements. For many Jewish men, this involved leaving ahead of their families in an attempt to establish themselves in a new country — sometimes with the inadvertent result that their wives and children became stranded in Nazi Germany once war broke out. Women who were tied to caring for elderly family members also found it particularly difficult to leave.

Of great importance were family relationships and friendship with other Jews, which offered ways to counteract the feelings of fear and isolation caused by being increasingly shut off from the wider German community. Remember, however, there were a significant number of Germans who had Jewish ancestry but did not consider themselves to be Jewish, and yet once the Nazis seized power these people subsequently were classified as being racially Jewish. Many such Germans had no established ties with the local Jewish community and so they felt particularly vulnerable and isolated. So, too, did individual Jews without family or networks of Jewish friends. In such cases, these atomised Jews could become overwhelmed by feelings of loneliness. Financial resources could alleviate problems to some extent by opening up possibilities for travelling overseas or at least weathering the storm more comfortably than poor Jews who suffered from a lack of resources. As circumstances worsened financially, emotionally, and psychologically, thoughts turned to the possibility of indefinite emigration.

The Decision to Emigrate Jews whose homes were located in smaller German cities and towns were especially vulnerable to harassment and persecution. As their businesses collapsed, they typically sought refuge in Germany’s largest cities. While internal migration was disruptive — indeed, traumatic even — the dominant issue that Germany’s Jews increasingly confronted was whether to emigrate. The considerable logistical and financial difficulties associated with emigration notwithstanding, perhaps the major obstacle to leaving Germany was psychological. On the one hand, for many German Jews the prospect of permanently leaving their Fatherland was an incredibly difficult prospect to accept. On the other hand, many German Jews found it very hard to recognise that they and their families were in real physical danger. And, in the 1930s, this did not even mean predicting mass extermination — but it did involve foreseeing that there was no future for Jews in Germany so long as Hitler and the Nazis were in power.

Some of the most heartrending stories involve Jewish children who were sent to safety by their parents, many of whom were relocated to Britain as part of the so-called Kindertransport (“transportation of children”) program.

LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 4: Responses by the German-Jewish Community 20

(l) Photo taken of some of the first 200 German Jewish children relocated to Britain as part of the Kindertransport program. They arrived in Harwich, England, in December 1938. Eventually, around 10,000 Jewish children were rescued from Germany, Austria, , and Poland and relocated to Britain where they lived with new families. (r) A sculpture erected in 2006 at the Liverpool Street Station, London, as a memorial to the Kindertransport program. It depicts young children with suitcases standing on train tracks, with the names of some of the cities they departed embedded on blocks in front of them. Sources: “Kindertransport and KTA History,” KTA. http://www.kindertransport.org/history.htm [Accessed 6 February 2017]. “Kindertransport,” Association of Jewish Refugees. http://www.ajr.org.uk/kindertransport [Accessed 6 February 2017].

If you would like to engage further with the Kindertransport topic, please view this short extract taken from the moving documentary entitled Into the Arms of Strangers.

Of course, German Jews could not assume that they could simply emigrate to anywhere that they wished. Many countries placed barriers in their way, as did the Nazi authorities whose punitive departure taxes and currency restrictions meant that Jews who left often had few resources to fall back on even if they found somewhere to go. The story of the St Louis and its hundreds of Jewish refugees turned away first from Cuba and then the United States came to symbolise the plight of Jewish refugees who were refused entry and possible salvation from death. The response of the international community to the dire situation facing Germany’s Jews (and later including Austria and the Sudetenland) has prompted a lively historiographical debate relating to its alleged complicity in the fate of Jews who were prevented from escaping from Europe prior to the outbreak of war. LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 4: Responses by the German-Jewish Community 21

c) German Jews in Limbo, 1939-41 As established in the previous section, when war broke out in September 1939 approximately 180,000 Jews “by faith” and an estimated 20,000 Jews “by race” remained living within the territory of the Altreich (the “Old Reich” as determined by Germany’s pre-1937 border — in other words, prior to any territorial expansion under Hitler). A further 60,000-65,000 Jews lived in Austria (mainly in Vienna), with around 100,000 more Jews located in the Protectorate of Bohemia/Moravia.7 According to Avraham Barkai, Jews who for whatever reason had decided to remain living under Nazism up to 1939 were disproportionately older in comparison with the German Jewish community’s demographic structure prior to Hitler becoming chancellor. Almost 60 per cent of Jews in Germany on the eve of war were females, and only 22 per cent of Jews still living in the Third Reich were gainfully employed while the rest were dependent on savings, pensions, and charity to eke out an existence.8

The outbreak of war virtually spelt the end of the policy of forced migration. Jews were driven out of the economy and forced to endure a perilous existence. Jews were allowed to work only for other Jews, except for those Jews who were conscripted as forced labourers at starvation-levels of payment. Social and economic isolation were accompanied by terror.

Park benches in Nazi Germany inscribed with the message Nicht für Juden! (For Jews only!) Source: “Juden dürfen am Bayerischen Platz nur die gelb markierten Sitzbänke benutzen,” Berlin University of the Arts. http://digital.udk-berlin.de/?/students/shim-seaum/projects/ss15.Nur-fuer-Juden/ [Accessed 6 February 2017]. One point worth noting that students often find confusing is that, in keeping with the Nazis’ aim of rendering Jews invisible within the Third Reich, Jews still residing in Germany were NOT required to wear a Star of David until September 1941 (but they were segregated in other ways). The differential treatment of Jews in Germany and occupied Poland (covered in future weekly topics) underlines that German policy did not take a single path — a point reinforced in the discussion of Jews in western European and the Balkans who came under Nazi rule in 1940-41 (also covered later in this unit).

7 Avraham. Barkai, “In a Ghetto without Walls” in Michael A. Meyer (ed.), German-Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 4, Renewal and Destruction 1918-1945. (Columbia University Press, New York, 1998). p. 334. 8 Avraham Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation: The Economic Struggle of German Jews, 1933-1943 (University Press of New England, Hanover and London, 1989). pp. 154-55. LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 4: Responses by the German-Jewish Community 22

d) German Jews’ Impoverishment and Harassment, 1939-41 After the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938, the marginalisation of German Jews accelerated. The outbreak of war virtually spelt the end of the policy of forced migration. To hide the fact that not all Jews had been removed from Germany, wherever possible those who remained were denied contact with the wider German community. The reconstituted Reichsvereinigung became the largest employer of Jews in Germany, as well as being responsible for the provision of all community services. By necessity the Jewish community, more or less cut off from the rest of German society, was forced to become economically self-sufficient.

Social and economic isolation were accompanied by terror, furthermore, as Jews were targeted by the Gestapo. Spying on Jews was made even easier when, in the northern spring of 1941, all Jews still residing in Germany were required to move into so-called Jews’ Houses (Judenhäuser) — apartment buildings owned by Jews in which most of the residents were Jewish (any “Aryan” spouses who had remained loyal rather than succumbing to pressure by seeking a divorce also were forced to live in a Judenhaus).

(l) An elderly German Jew forced to wear the yellow Star of David in public after September 1941. (r) A former Judenhaus located in Hanover. Sources: “Gleis 17 Memorial - Berlin Grunewald,” Information Portal to European Sites of Remembrance. http://www.memorialmuseums.org/eng/denkmaeler/view/338/Mahnmal-Gleis-17-–--Berlin- Grunewald [Accessed 6 February 2017]. “Judenhäuser,“ Netzwerk Erinnerung und Zukunft in der Region Hannover. http://www.erinnerungundzukunft.de/index.php?id=372&L=1 [Accessed 6 February 2017].

LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 5: Concentration Camps: Icons of the SS State 23

Section 5. Concentration Camps: Icons of the SS State

The Nazi state liked to create the impression that it was strictly run along lawful principles. Under the veneer of legality, however, was an elaborate machinery of state terror as epitomised by the growth of a system of SS-controlled concentration camps.

Dachau Concentration Camp. Opened on 22 March 1933 (less than two months after Hitler became chancellor) and located in Dachau, a small town on the outskirts of , it was the first Nazi concentration camp. Photos: Tony Joel, February 2006.

Although the Holocaust and concentration camps are inextricably linked in the popular imagination, it is important to understand that in the first instance the concentration camp system was only incidentally relevant to the persecution of Jews. Nonetheless, important parallels exist between the development of the camp system and the emergence of anti-Jewish policy. Concentration camps were established quickly after Hitler’s accession to power, initially with the purpose of temporarily detaining political enemies of the Nazi state. If Jews were imprisoned, this was for LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 5: Concentration Camps: Icons of the SS State 24

political reasons, not specifically because they were Jews. Once imprisoned, however, Jews were likely to be targeted for particularly brutal treatment.

From 1936, changes occurred in the functionality of camps and these were significant for Jews. The category of prisoner taken into camps was extended from political prisoners to include so-called “antisocial” elements like Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, persistent criminals, “vagabonds,” so-called “Gypsies” ( and Roma), idlers and those deemed to be work-shy, prostitutes, gamblers, habitual drunks, hooligans, traffic offenders, psychopaths, and the mentally ill.

In 1937-38, increasing emphasis was placed on the so-called work-shy elements as the camps moved from having a primarily political or even social function to performing an expanded economic role. And, from June 1938 onwards (including in Austria after the Anschluss), attempts were made to arrest all “antisocials” and Jews with criminal records, specifically for use as forced labour in SS enterprises. Massive waves of arrests coincided with the annexation of both Austria and the Sudetenland as well as the Kristallnacht pogrom. Yet it must be emphasised that, until the outbreak of war, the camps continued to function in order to control a broad cross-section of Reich “enemies,” of whom Jews constituted only one element among many.9

This range of prisoners is well illustrated by the system of prisoner classification that was adopted just prior to the outbreak of war in order to easily identify each type of prisoner. Each category of prisoner wore a coloured triangle (or triangles, for those who qualified for multiple categories) as follows:

(l) An old chart erected at Dachau Concentration Camp explaining the Nazis’ multi-coloured badging system used to easily identify prisoners. Photo: Tony Joel, February 2006.

9 Martin Broszat’s classic study “The concentration camps 1933–45,” first published as part of the pathbreaking edited collection Anatomy of the SS State (Paladin, London, 1970), remains the most comprehensive account of the transformation of the camps from detention centres whose purpose was to deal with political “enemies” into labour camps accommodating social and “racial” undesirables. LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 5: Concentration Camps: Icons of the SS State 25

The memorial inside the former Dachau camp site erected during the 1960s to remember (most of) the various victim groups. All colours were included except for pink, which was used to denote homosexuals. Photo: Tony Joel, February 2006.

To reiterate, although the prewar concentration camp system facilitated the persecution of Jews it was not designed specifically for that purpose. As with the development of anti-Jewish policy, its evolution is characterised by improvisation and adaptation to specific circumstances.

Section 6. Lawful Sterilisation in the Third Reich Nazism’s intolerance of the racially “inferior” was reflected in legislation introduced in the first years of the régime to prevent the “racially degenerate” from reproducing and thus impacting on future generations.

The “Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Defects” (i.e. to be effected through forced sterilisation) came into effect on 14 July 1933. It was, in fact, an adaptation of a law introduced in the state of Prussia during what became the last year of the Weimar Republic in response to lobbying by eugenics experts who, to be fair, originally had aimed to institute a humane policy that would have been administered with a number of important safeguards. Needless to say, in the hands of the Nazis this law was not exactly implemented in the manner in which it initially had been intended. Doris Bergen notes the degree to which professionals were involved in the development and implementation of such laws: from lawyers involved in the legislation’s introduction; bureaucrats handling the paperwork; to doctors and nurses who performed the sterilisation procedures.10 Far from coerced, these individuals developed their own stake in the continuation of such programs, despite their obviously questionable morality.

10 Doris Bergen, War & Genocide, Second Edition. (Rowman & Littlefield, London, 2009). pp. 63-64. LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 6: Lawful Sterilisation in the Third Reich 26

The USHMM pamphlet from which this photograph is copied states: “In 1934 this 19-year-old shop clerk, identified only as ‘Gerda D,’ was diagnosed as schizophrenic and sterilized at the Moabite Hospital. In 1939 she was repeatedly refused a marriage certificate because of her sterilization.” It is believed that, even though her diagnosis was uncertain, the sterilisation went ahead nonetheless as a condition of her release from the institute. Source: “Handicapped,” USHMM. https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/2000926-Handicapped.pdf [Accessed 15 February 2017].

The 1933 law required state doctors and directors of mental asylums to refer patients to a “Tribunal of Hereditary Health” comprising a government doctor, an “independent” physician, and a judge. Patients involved had very limited rights to legal representation. According to the law: Any person suffering from a hereditary disease can be sterilized if medical knowledge indicates that his [sic] offspring will suffer from severe hereditary physical or mental damage.11

In his influential study The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, Henry Friedlander observes that the relevant conditions targeted for compulsory sterilisation were: • congenital feeblemindedness (Schwachsinn) • folie circulaire (manic-depressive psychosis) • schizophrenia • hereditary epilepsy • hereditary St Vitus’ Dance (Huntington’s chorea) • hereditary blindness • hereditary deafness • severe hereditary physical deformity • severe alcoholism on a discretionary basis12

11 Quoted in Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide. p. 27. 12 ibid. LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 6: Lawful Sterilisation in the Third Reich 27

If the tribunal found against the patient, he or she was compulsorily sterilised. One important consequence of the implementation of this type of law, as the German professor of biology Benno Müller-Hill explains, was that so-called “experts” in disciplines such as anthropology, psychiatry, and the law felt they had been given the green light to recommend other methods of controlling reproduction of those fellow citizens deemed undesirable. The failure of “experts” to promote humane values paved the way for their collaboration in even worse atrocities conducted in the pursuit of “racial hygiene.”

Even under Nazism, however, radical eugenicists sometimes met with rejection. A proposal to require all Germans to pass a reproductive suitability test based on their “eugenic fitness” before they were allowed to be married was unsuccessful, as was a proposal to extend the sterilisation law to criminals (“asocials”). Such attempts nonetheless illustrate the type of thinking that the educated élite so confidently promoted. The failure of “experts” to promote humane values paved the way for their collaboration in even worse atrocities conducted in the pursuit of “racial hygiene.”

Nonetheless, there were other prewar breakthroughs for racist eugenicists under Nazism. “Expert” recommendations to sterilise the so-called “Rhineland Bastards” — the “coloured” offspring resulting from fraternisations between the French-African colonial troops and local German women during France’s occupation of the Ruhr and Rhineland following the First World War — were acted on in 1936.

(l) An African-German boy wearing a during the Third Reich. (r) A double-page spread entitled “Bastarde am Rhein” (“Bastards on the Rhine River”) that featured in a 1934 edition of the Nazi racial hygiene journal Blätter des Rassenpolitischen Amtes der NSDAP. Sources: “The Holocaust’s forgotten Black Victims: The ‘Rhineland Bastards,’” Dream Deferred. http://www.dreamdeferred.org.uk/2014/04/the-holocausts-forgotten-victims-the-rhineland-bastards/ “Sterilizing the Rhineland Bastards,” Minderheiten in Köln-Porz 1870 bis heute. http://minderheiten-in- porz.de/minderheitenbeta/main/produktionstagebuch/die_recherche/3_01_04/3_01_04e.htm [Accessed 15 February 2017].

LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 6: Lawful Sterilisation in the Third Reich 28

German eugenicists had never operated in a vacuum. Indeed, pioneering Americans had led the way and many other nationalities had followed. Whereas German efforts certainly escalated during the Third Reich commencing with lawful compulsory sterilisation, the Nazis always remained keen to acknowledge that by no means were they alone in such actions.

The title of this Nazi propaganda poster reads: We do not stand alone (Wir stehen nicht allein). It depicts a woman cradling a baby, while the man braces a shield inscribed with the full name of Germany’s new compulsory sterilisation law — the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring — followed by the date it was enacted, 14 July 1933. On the left of the poster are the flags of five countries (the United States, Denmark, Norway, , and Finland) where compulsory sterilisation laws already were in place. The flags at the bottom and to the right represent nations that were considering adopting similar laws. These were Hungary, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Poland, Japan, Latvia, and Lithuania. Source: “Eugenics,” Citizendium. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/eugenics [Accessed 15 February 2017].

LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 7: The Nazis’ “Euthanasia” Programs 29

Part 7. The Nazis’ “Euthanasia” Programs

Prior to the outbreak of war in 1939, the Nazis took the next step and began to implement the so-called “euthanasia” of mentally and physically handicapped Germans considered to be “life unworthy of life” or “useless eaters.” It continued “officially” for two years. The implementation of these policies required the widespread active cooperation of scientists, doctors, and nurses. With few exceptions, this support was forthcoming.

As morally repugnant as such practices were for their victims, they had special significance for the (later) Nazi genocide of Jews. The willingness of doctors to sacrifice their ethical obligations to all patients in favour of the pursuit of “racial purity” suggested that they would be unlikely to object if more radical measures were taken against Jews. And many doctors involved in the “euthanasia” programs later became very willing participants in what the Nazis clandestinely and euphemistically termed the “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem” (die Endlösung der Judenfrage) — that is, the systematic extermination of Europe’s Jews in death camps.

The “euthanasia” program created new opportunities for those prepared to engage in state-sanctioned, racially-motivated, biologically-determined, systematic mass murder. Friedlander comments on the strong linkage between the Nazi “euthanasia” programs and genocide: The euthanasia killings — that is, the systematic and secret execution of the handicapped — were Nazi Germany’s first organized mass murder, in which the killers developed their killing technique. They created the method for selecting the victims. They invented techniques to gas people and burn their bodies. They employed subterfuge to hide the killings, and they did not hesitate to pillage the corpses.13

Since the “euthanasia” killings proved to be the opening act of Nazi genocide, a study of the evolution of the Nazi “euthanasia” program is a prerequisite for understanding how the later plot to kill millions of Jews by gassing was planned and executed.

Hitler’s personal commitment to the Nazi “euthanasia” project is illustrated by the fact that it was directly administered through his personal office, the Chancellery of the Führer of the Nazi Party (Kanzlei des Führers der NSDAP), which was distinctly attached to the Nazi Party and thus technically a non-government agency. Knowledge of the program was limited to a small group of participants and secrecy maintained.14 There is hard evidence linking Hitler to the “euthanasia” programs, with the following image revealing the document that contains his signature and approving state- determined acts of “mercy killing” (Gnadentod). It is an important document because no other documentary evidence directly linking Hitler to the Holocaust or other mass murder programs carried out in the name of National Socialism survived the war.

13 Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide. p. 4. 14 ibid. p.40. LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 7: The Nazis’ “Euthanasia” Programs 30

Facsimile of the so-called “euthanasia” decree, which carries Hitler's signature and was backdated to 1 September 1939 to coincide with the outbreak of war. This is believed to be the only evidence still in existence of Hitler formally (i.e. in writing) authorising mass murder. It reads: Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr Brandt are charged with the responsibility of expanding the authority of certain physicians, to be designated by name, in such a manner that persons who, according to human judgment, are incurable can be accorded, upon a most careful diagnosis of their condition of sickness, a mercy death. Signed A. Hitler. Source: “Documents — Racial Politics: Signed Letter by Hitler authorizing Euthanasia Killings (backdated to September 1, 1939),” GHDI/DGDB. http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=1528 [Accessed 15 February 2017].

LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 7: The Nazis’ “Euthanasia” Programs 31

Under Nazism, “euthanasia” was implemented through two main programs: one targeted handicapped children; the other targeted adults.

a) Handicapped Children Hitler authorised the killing of seriously ill children just prior to the outbreak of war, apparently in response to a personal request from the father of a deformed child (the Knauer baby from Leipzig, which is an infamous case mentioned on p.263 of Robert N. Proctor’s chapter in your prescribed text and discussed further below). Such killings consequently were justified on humanitarian grounds (i.e. the “mercy killing” of handicapped children supposedly with no quality of life). Furthermore, it was claimed that the study of the dead children contributed to research. An estimated 6,000 German children died as a result of “mercy killings” under Nazism. Across the Reich, euphemistically-titled “special children’s wards” (Kinderfachabteilungen) were established in facilities where “expert” medical staff conducted “euthanasia.”

READING EXCERPT: In the first passages of “Nazi Euthanasia” Michael Burleigh provides a succinct account of how the children's “euthanasia” program operated.

PRESCRIBED TEXT: Please read Robert N. Proctor’s chapter “Culling the German Volk,” pp. 260-69.

Proctor recounts the single case in which a father from Leipzig by the name of Knauer wrote to Hitler requesting permission for his disabled baby to be granted a mercy death. Hitler authorised his personal doctor and the head of his personal staff Philipp Bouhler to arrange for the Knauer baby to be assessed and then killed, and then to take similar action with subsequent cases. Children were identified through midwives and physicians who were required to report details of neurological illnesses and deformities deemed to be incurable to a local health officer. They also were asked to comment on the longer-term health prospects of the children. This information was LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 7: The Nazis’ “Euthanasia” Programs 32

sorted by two bureaucrats in the Reich Chancellery Office, neither of whom had medical training. They referred possible cases to a committee of three medical “experts” who were committed to advancing “euthanasia.” Final selections were made without even examining children in person.15

Dr Hermann Pfannmüller, one of the chief Nazi physicians involved in the child “euthanasia” program. At the program’s peak, doctors such as Pfannmüller assessed several hundred individual cases per week simply by reading a patient’s file and without even seeing the child in question. It is believed that Pfannmüller personally sentenced over 3000 children to death. Gerda Metzger was four years old when she was admitted to a “special children’s ward” in Stuttgart on 11 July 1943. She was immediately diagnosed as having spastic diplegia (a form of cerebral palsy historically known as Little’s Disease) and was murdered the following day as part of the Nazi “euthanasia” program that targeted children deemed to be “life unworthy of life.” Sources: “Hermann Pfannmüller,” Ansbach Wiki. http://ansbachplus.de/wiki/hermann-pfannmueller [Accessed 15 February 2017]. “Stuttgart (Städtische Kinderkrankenhäuser und Kinderheime Stuttgart,” Kinderfachabteilungen (“Special Children’s Wards”): Sites of Nazi “Children’s Euthanasia” Crimes and their Commemoration in Europe. http://www.uvm.edu/%7Elkaelber/children/stuttgart/stuttgart.html [Accessed 15 February 2017]

Starvation, or so-called “clean death,” was one method used to kill handicapped children, as was the administration of therapeutic drugs in lethal doses. It was difficult, however, for doctors to obtain large quantities of drugs without this becoming public knowledge. This problem was solved when Hitler’s personal staff from the Chancellery liaised with the Kripo (short for Kriminalpolizei, the Nazi state’s criminal police), which was a sub-branch of the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt or Reich Security Main Office), which was one of the main organisations of the SS under ’s command. The Kripo supplied the “euthanasia” program with the poisons used to kill the children. As Friedlander points out, the involvement of the Kripo and RSHA in the “euthanasia” program was a crucial development because the SS applied this knowledge of mass-killing techniques and systems to its later role in overseeing the systematic extermination of European Jews in the Holocaust.16

15 See Friedlander, pp. 45-46. 16 Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide. p. 55. LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 7: The Nazis’ “Euthanasia” Programs 33

b. The Adult Program: Aktion-T4 A separate program of adult “euthanasia” commenced with the outbreak of war. Its rationalisation was largely economic. It was argued that, during wartime, the state could not afford to waste valuable medical facilities on the handicapped, especially when additional accommodation was required to house ethnic German immigrants () resettled from parts of . The solution to the problem seemed obvious for key Nazi policymakers, especially given that the impetus for the adult “euthanasia” program came directly from Hitler. First, he organised the SS to shoot patients in psychiatric hospitals in Pomerania on the eastern border of the Reich (a process that was extended into occupied Poland). He then authorised the Reich Chancellery to coordinate the identification and relocation of remaining psychiatric patients in the Reich to be gassed. Administration was directed from offices located in central Berlin at the address Tiergartenstraße-4, which is how this new program came to be known as Aktion-T4.

In your reading, Burleigh comments on the contribution of a range of professionals and administrators who worked together to develop a bureaucratised system capable of the efficient murder of over 70,000 people. In keeping with the economic rationale for the killings, capacity to work was perhaps the most important selection criterion. That is, patients capable of working were far less likely to be “selected” than others who were deemed incapable of making some kind of positive contribution to society (the Nazis referred to the latter as “unnütze Esser” meaning “useless eaters” and “lebensunwertes Leben” meaning “life unworthy of life”). Various agencies were needed to coordinate tasks as diverse as the transportation of the victims to one of the six killing centres and the drawing up of false death certificates to notify patients’ families.

The villa located at Tiergartenstraße-4, Berlin, which served as the headquarters for the adult “euthanasia” program that accordingly became known as Aktion-T4. The villa did not survive the war, and the site is now the location for the Berlin philharmonic. Source: “Viel versprochen, wenig gehalten,“ Neue Rheinische Zeitung. http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=16303 [Accessed 16 February 2017]. LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 7: The Nazis’ “Euthanasia” Programs 34

Signage at Tiergartenstrasse-4, Berlin, documenting the location’s history as the headquarters for Nazi “euthanasia.” And a large metal plaque, embedded into the ground, commemorating the “forgotten victims” who perished in the gas chambers of the Aktion-T4 killing centres. The sign and embedded plaque were all that marked the site in 2011 when the German Bundestag (federal parliament) voted to fund €500,000 toward a project to build a new memorial and information centre dedicated to the topics of compulsory sterilisation and “euthanasia” under Nazism. The new T4 memorial opened in September 2014. (For more information, see: http://tiergartenstrasse4.org/New_Memorial_on_Tiergartenstrasse_4.html)

Photographs: Tony Joel, December 2011.

The administrators of the program were acutely aware of the difficulties confronting them. They devised a sophisticated system of medical review, including the transfer of patients to intermediate facilities for final assessment, suggesting that decisions were not taken lightly. Above all, there was an emphasis on keeping the project secret, and acknowledgement that both the project’s administrators and Hitler, too, realised that the T4 program would not be widely acceptable to the general public.

READING EXCERPT: In ”A Badly Kept Secret” Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann confirm that, despite elaborate efforts to deceive victims, their families, and the general public alike, attempts at secrecy ultimately failed.

Suspicions were aroused when the wind blew smoke from the crematoria located in the killing institutions towards nearby villages. Also, in numerous cases victims’ relatives realised that the purported causes of death lacked plausibility. Public disquiet came to LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 7: The Nazis’ “Euthanasia” Programs 35 the surface when Clemens von Galen, the Bishop of Münster, delivered a sermon on 3 August 1941 in which he openly denounced the “euthanasia” program. Whether it was coincidental or otherwise, the official adult program ended three weeks later on 24 August 1941. Secretly, however, killings nonetheless continued until the end of the war in what is referred to as the period of “wild euthanasia” (so-called because the centrally administered program ceased to operate but the régime encouraged certain doctors to secretly continue to act on their own initiative).

Smoke from the crematorium at the Aktion-T4 killing centre in Hadamar was clearly noticeable for locals. With increasing numbers of “new patients” being transported to the facility in the program’s dreaded grey buses — without anyone leaving or the building becoming overfilled — it did not take long for locals to work out what was being burned. Source: “Euthanasia Program - Photograph,” USHMM. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_ph.php?ModuleId=10005200&MediaId=3320 [Accessed 16 February 2017].

c. “Euthanasia” Actions against Jews From 1940, significant numbers of Jews were deliberately removed from institutions as a separate group and were not subjected to the same assessment processes as other victims. After a short period in intermediary institutions, Jews were then gassed in one of the Aktion-T4 killing centres. Curious relatives in Germany were not advised of their deaths until mounting pressure forced the authorities to fabricate the story that victims had been transported to occupied Poland. This enabled T4 officials to extort ongoing fees for their upkeep from worried relatives. Fabricated notification of deaths in Poland arrived later, although in reality handicapped Jews had been killed in Germany considerably earlier.

Prior to the implementation of the Holocaust, Aktion-T4 personnel were directly involved in the murder of Jews in yet another context. Under the provisions of the regulation “Sonderbehandlung 14f13” (the euphemistically-titled “Special Treatment 14f13”), concentration camp prisoners considered unfit for work and suffering from “incurable” LEARNING MODULE 2. Section 7: The Nazis’ “Euthanasia” Programs 36 diseases were identified as candidates for “euthanasia.” Personnel from Aktion-T4 liaised with the SS to select prisoners for transportation to T4 gassing facilities. Whereas T4 physicians examined non-Jewish prisoners, Jews were automatically selected by virtue of their “race.” The slippage from selective “mercy” killing to biologically-inspired “racial” killing was complete.

Franz Stangl, a former Austrian policeman, worked at the Hartheim killing centre as part of Aktion-T4 prior serving as commandant of the Holocaust death camps established at Sobibor and Treblinka. Stangl was only one of many former Aktion-T4 personnel who, having gained unprecedented and invaluable experience in systematic mass murder, were subsequently employed to establish death camps in occupied Poland. Hartheim Castle, near Linz in Austria, was commandeered by the Nazis and used as one of the six main killing centres of Aktion-T4. Sources: “Franz Stangl, commander of Treblinka,” Yad Vashem. http://collections.yadvashem.org/photosarchive/en-us/31815.html [Accessed 16 February 2017]. “Hartheim Castle - Place of Learning and Remembrance,” Memorial Museums. http://www.memorialmuseums.org/eng/denkmaeler/view/382/Lern--und-Gedenkort-Schloss- Hartheim [Accessed 16 February 2017].

Systems introduced to implement adult “euthanasia” by the Aktion-T4 organisation — gassing, deception of victims and their families, disposal of bodies, cooperation with the SS and so on — were later adopted and adapted in the extermination camps in eastern Europe. More importantly, as the “euthanasia” project ran down in Germany, personnel experienced in mass murder were redeployed “in the East” to become Holocaust perpetrators.

If you wish to pursue this topic even further then please view the following extract from the documentary Healing by Killing, which runs for 27 minutes.

LEARNING MODULE 2. Conclusion 37

Conclusion

The Nazis’ election pledges to create a “people’s community,” once realised, led to the deliberate targeting of minorities and perceived “threats” to the Nazi state. These concepts, moreover, were underpinned by the pseudo-scientific concepts of “racial hygiene” and eugenics, which provided a framework for the targeting, persecution, incarceration, sterilisation, violence against, and ultimately the state-sanctioned murder of thousands of people who did not belong to the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft. A brutal system of concentration camps and extensive use of propaganda maintained order, spread fear, and reinforced Nazi racial beliefs. Jews counted among those Germans who were targeted for prewar persecution, but by no means were they the only victim group or even the prioritised targets. How German Jews responded to life under Nazism, both “officially” and personally, has been examined in this module.

The Nazi state began to sterilise those individuals who were accused of somehow threatening the health of the “Aryan” race by passing on apparent genetic defects to future offspring. This was a program that was “legal” in the sense that it was encoded into German law and required the participation and corruption of officials from legal and medical fields. In many ways, moreover, large-scale compulsory sterilisation laid the foundations for mass murder: the state-sanctioned “euthanasia” of tens of thousands of people. The Aktion-T4 program in particular has important links to the centralised extermination of Jews subsequently carried out in eastern Europe — from the killing methods employed to the personnel involved.