Thetriumph of Barbarism (1933–40)

chapter 7 The Triumph of Barbarism (1933–40)

The Arrest

Werner’s grim premonition came true on 30 January 1933. Adolf Hitler, whose movement Scholem had denounced, mocked, and warned against for a decade, was appointed Chancellor of the Reich by ageing Field Marshal Hindenburg. The kpd viewed this appointment as a brief interlude, just another improvised political manoeuvre that would soon bring about the collapse of the whole rotten system, optimistically predicting: ‘After Hitler, us’. This would prove to be a dangerous illusion, as Hitler immediately went about smashing any potential organised resistance. The sa was promptly de- clared an auxiliary police, legalising street terror against the labour movement. Hitler had always been very clear about who his most dangerous adversaries were, namely Jews and Marxists, but many viewed his extremism as mere dramatic phrase-mongering. Even Werner’s own family underestimated the Nazi danger for quite some time – Betty Scholem would entertain the notion of waiting out Nazi rule in Germany as late as 1935.1 She cited her Italian vacation in 1930, where Jews remained by and large safe eight years after the establishment of a fascist dictatorship. In fact, a ‘kind police inspector’ had even refunded her visitor’s tax after her purse was stolen to compensate her for the inconvenience.2 Admittedly, the German fascists behaved quite differently towards Jews, but would they really make Jewish life impossible? Even Werner thought, in spite of his pessimism, that he would not ‘face too much harm’. He only worried about the fate of his ‘worldly goods’, by which he meant the bourgeois career he had only reluctantly taken up to begin with. Werner Scholem was not climbing a mountain, but rather ill in bed at the time of Hitler’s seizure of power. Betty wrote in early February 1933: ‘The flu is going around, and “Heil Hitler” can be heard all over the market. […]

1 She would write Gershom from Merano in mid-1935: ‘You’re right, we don’t view things at home the right way! Because we are not yet being beaten to death, or deported within 24 hours to the tune of “but your money stays here”, we think to ourselves, with a certain sense of inertia, that all will turn out fine eventually’, Betty to Gershom Scholem, 27 April 1935, Scholem and Scholem 1989, p. 386. 2 See Betty to Gershom Scholem, 28 October 1930, Scholem and Scholem 1989, p. 224ff., as well as his response from 30 October, Scholem 2002, p. 189.

Werner was in bed for a whole 8 days and did not improve whatsoever’.3 It was the anniversary of Arthur Scholem’s death, and Betty paid a visit – through ‘driving snow, gales and the freezing cold’ – to Arthur’s grave in Weißensee. Her thoughts dwelled on the past as she pondered death and old age. She did not mention political changes much, leaving it to Werner to express these fears after recuperating. After visiting him, Betty wrote: ‘His beloved jeremiads are now in full swing. He considers the political situation to be extremely grave, and draws from it the most disastrous conclusions for himself. If he were still a member of the party, it would certainly be even worse for him! I had a good time in spite of this doom and gloom. The stuffed squabs were delicious’.4 A month after Hitler’s inauguration, it gradually became clear that Werner had been too optimistic. In the night of 27–28 February, the Reichstag building went up in flames – a fiery symbolic end to the republic. ‘[S]omething so idiotic you can even imagine it was a contracted job’, Betty wrote, reflecting widespread mistrust of the officially circulated version that the fire was set by a Communist arsonist.5 Whoever set the Reichstag on fire, the Nazi regime benefited from it greatly. An unprecedented wave of arrests was set in motion the following night, sweeping up Werner Scholem with it. Betty wrote Gershom the very next morning to inform him of what had happened in Klopstockstraße: ‘Early this morning at around 4:45 a guard and two others appeared, and, as no one opened the door when they rang, they opened it with a picklock. Lovely, isn’t it? They searched the house for an hour, even the child’s room. They found nothing, for the simple reason that Werner did not have anything forbidden in the apartment. But they had orders, so they took him with them anyway’.6 Emmy was unsure what to do. Werner’s office was immediately informed, and someone had to organise him a lawyer. As Betty wrote, however, ‘both Jews and Communists are more or less out of the question if we’re to accomplish anything’.7 No one else could be found to take the case, and they ended up hiring Kurt Rosenfeld, the same Jewish socialist who had defended Werner in 1921. Emmy remarked in this regard: ‘At that time, however, the old civil servants were all still in their former positions and in the various administrative

3 See Betty to Gershom Scholem, 7 February 1933, Scholem and Scholem 1989, p. 273f. 4 See Betty to Gershom Scholem, 14 February 1933, in Scholem 2002, p. 217. 5 See Betty to Gershom Scholem, 28 February 1933, Scholem 2002, p. 219. The historical con- troversy around who actually committed the deed remains unresolved, for an overview see Giebeler 2010. 6 Betty to Gershom Scholem, 28 February 1933, Scholem 2002, p. 220. 7 Betty to Gershom Scholem, 28 February 1933, Scholem and Scholem 1989, p. 278f.