Relations between Jewish and non-Jewish Germans 1933-1945: A case study in the use of evidence by historians __________________________________ A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in History by Ruth L. Baker University of Canterbury 2009 _________________________________ Table of Contents Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................... 2 Table of Figures ................................................................................................................................. 2 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................ 3 Abstract .............................................................................................................................................. 4 Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter One..................................................................................................................................... 10 Historians: Their Sources and Use of Evidence............................................................................... 10 The Problem of Source Selection ................................................................................................ 15 The Problem with Use of Evidence.............................................................................................. 27 The Failure to Use Other Valuable Sources ................................................................................ 39 Chapter Two..................................................................................................................................... 51 Personal Narratives.......................................................................................................................... 51 Historians and personal narratives .............................................................................................. 52 What personal narratives can tell................................................................................................. 64 Systematic analysis of personal narratives.................................................................................. 69 Chapter Three .................................................................................................................................. 85 The Diaries of Victor Klemperer ....................................................................................................... 85 Being Klemperer .......................................................................................................................... 87 Bartov’s Klemperer....................................................................................................................... 96 Heim’s Klemperer....................................................................................................................... 104 What Klemperer’s Diaries Tell ................................................................................................... 117 Conclusion...................................................................................................................................... 139 Appendix......................................................................................................................................... 146 Bibliography.................................................................................................................................... 151 Table of Figures Figure 1: Violence against Jews: participants listed by Wildt........................................................... 29 Figure 2: Incidence of loyalty/disloyalty in client/customer relationships (Limberg)......................... 76 Figure 3: Incidence of loyalty/disloyalty during all encounters with non-Jews (Limberg)................. 77 Figure 4: Demonstrations of loyalty/disloyalty in existing relationships (Limberg)........................... 78 Figure 5: Oral history samples: encounters with non-Jews ............................................................. 80 Figure 6: Encounters (101) with non-Jews over time: oral history samples, with trendlines ........... 82 Figure 7: Encounters (128) with non-Jews over time: memoir samples, with trendlines................. 83 Figure 8: Klemperer as quoted by Bartov ....................................................................................... 98 Figure 9: Experiential emotive values assigned to Bartov's Klemperer quotes ............................... 98 Figure 10: Chronology of events listed by Bartov .......................................................................... 100 Figure 11: Experiential values based on actual incident count in Klemperer’s 1933-1945 diaries 101 Figure 12: Comparison: Bartov's sample of Klemperer's experiences/Klemperer’s own account. 101 Figure 13: Klemperer: Encounters with non-Jews September 1941-June 1942 ........................... 111 Figure 14: Instances of provision vs. refusal in Klemperer’s diaries 1933-1945............................ 113 Figure 15: Provision and refusal throughout the years 1933-1945................................................ 114 Figure 16: Locations of encounters with trendlines........................................................................ 119 Figure 17: Klemperer’s encounters with strangers (with trendline)................................................ 120 Figure 18: Types of relationships with trendlines........................................................................... 121 Figure 19: Klemperer: The behaviour of strangers after the yellow star was introduced............... 122 Figure 20: The behaviour of strangers towards Klemperer during the entire Nazi period ............. 123 Figure 21: Klemperer’s experiences of encounters with strangers ................................................ 123 Figure 22: ‘Effect Assessment’: Klemperer's responses to encounters with ‘ordinary’ Germans.. 124 Figure 23: Classification of behaviours toward Jews in Klemperer’s diaries ................................. 126 Figure 24: Comparison between Behaviour and Effect assessments ........................................... 127 Figure 25: Averages obtained by combining Effect Assessments and Behaviour Assessments .. 127 Figure 26: Apparent motives of non-Jews interacting with Klemperer........................................... 129 Figure 27: Active beneficial behaviours noted by Klemperer, according to level of relationship ... 131 Figure 28: Comparison of beneficial and detrimental behaviours in Klemperer ............................ 132 Figure 29: Comparison of experiences in ‘familiar' relationships (Klemperer)............................... 135 Figure 30: Positive and negative encounters over time with trendlines (Klemperer)..................... 137 3 Acknowledgements I wish firstly to acknowledge and thank Dr. Gareth Pritchard, who has been an inspirational teacher, an enthusiastic supporter, and a good friend. This thesis is the result of his continual encouragement – I never would have got this far without his repeated reminders that it was possible. I also thank Dr. Chris Connolly, whose wisdom and thoughtful opinions I always deeply appreciated. Kerstin Wyatt is a precious friend who willingly helped me with translation issues, even though the subject matter was personally painful for her. I thank Jesse and Bazi, our only two sons still at home, who never once complained when I was distracted from domestic concerns. I am most grateful to Jesse who cheerfully fetched and carried library books and made me strong coffee in desperate moments. But most especially I thank my husband Jeremy, who has been an unfailing rock of support, my biggest encourager through some dark times, and who gave me all the space and help I needed, whenever I needed it. This thesis is dedicated to him. 4 Abstract Of all fields of historical enquiry, Germany’s Third Reich is perhaps the richest in sources and historiography. Therefore, it is logical to assume that this is where we see history done at its best. The chief interest of this dissertation is how historians select their sources and how they use the evidence they find in their sources. I have taken relations between Jewish Germans and non-Jewish Germans as a case study because of the enormous quantity of primary source material and because so many historians have commented on the issue. I do not attempt to make any claims about what happened between Jewish Germans and their non-Jewish compatriots nor do I make a moral assessment of behaviours and attitudes among the ‘ordinary’ people of Germany under the Third Reich. Rather, this is a technical exercise to examine how well the historians have done history in this particular area. My systematic review of the historians’ methodologies reveals that many either distort the evidence they cite or put forward arguments that go well beyond what the evidence warrants, perhaps because of pre-conceived theories which shape their approaches to the evidence. Moreover, they fail to make the best possible use of some types of source such as personal narratives. In order to ascertain whether these sources can be better used, I systematically analyse a selection of personal narratives which are sometimes quoted by historians, in particular