In the early years of Nazi rule an antisemitism aimed at the economic annihilation of the Jews was disseminated from "below" and in particular from the commercial middle-class. Although the Mayor of Hamburg, Carl Vincent Krogmann and the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter Karl Kaufmann were both antisemites they did not unconditionally support this middle-class radical antisemitism. State and party leaders in Hamburg consistently implemented Reich anti-Jewish laws such as the Civil Service Restoration Act but largely relinquished a radicalization of Jewish policy through independent initiative.
Compared with other regions of Germany this reaction was unusual. For example, in Munich and other cities the Nazis acted earlier and more radically often pre-empting Reich orders. Although there were never any official islands of humanity there were differences between the regions of Germany according to the diverse structures of their economies and the situation of their Jewish populations.
In Hamburg between 1933 and 1936/37 the policy of economic annihilation of the Jews remained in a state of consistent indecision. Despite harassment and boycotts Jewish businesses participated in the gradual economic recovery and some made increased profits; despite measures taken against individual Jewish businessmen there was no systematic policy of "removal of the Jews" ("Entjudung"). Although initially the leadership in Hamburg relinquished explicit tactics there developed disparate behaviour between administrative departments varying from opposition to support of Jewish businesses reflecting the particularism of the Nazi administrative departments.
The initial tactical restraint in Hamburg regarding Jewish policy resulted from Hamburg's economic status as port and trading centre which was susceptible to foreign opinion. Hamburg was officially recognized as an economically "depressed area" up until 1938 as after 1933 the number of unemployed only slowly decreased and the Nazi policy of rearming and autarky favoured industry and agriculture but retarded foreign trade which dominated Hamburg's economy. The result was discontent and discord. At this time action taken against the more than 1,500 Jewish businesses in Hamburg would have agrivated the economic crisis and threatened the Nazi evoked stability which they did not want to risk.
In addition, the economic annihilation of the Jews did not have complete approval from all strata of society. The Nazi attempt to provide an outlet for antisemitism from "below" and at the same time to commit the population to a boycott of Jewish businesses through the boycott of 1 April 1933 was largely a failure. The Hamburg chamber of commerce and the economic elite also initially dissociated themselves from the process of economic annihilation of the Jews. Whereas the younger businessmen from the "generation who grew up during the First World War" ("Kriegsjugendgeneration") were mostly antisemites the older generation of businessmen regarded the radical Nazi antisemitism with scepticism and moreover as a potential threat to themselves, the measures taken against Jewish businesses being seen as an unwelcome intervention in the private economy by the state. However, this partial scepticism was mostly expressed as passive detachment and not as an active solidarity with the Jewish victims.
The Nazi acquisition of power initiated a progressive isolation of the Jewish population. This brought to an end a process of assimilation that was considerably more advanced in Hamburg than in other regions of Germany, indicated by the number of so-called "mixed marriages" ("Mischehen"). The policy of dissimilation after 1933 led to a return to Judaism particularly among young Jews and promoted the establishment of a Jewish solidarity committee that sought to offset the severities of economic discrimination. However, the possibilities were limited to stabilizing the economic situation of those effected within the setting of a "Jewish economic sector". Principally individual Jewish businessmen were alone in their struggle for survival. Many acts of harassment and repression were thereby initially compensated for through increased investment, flexibility and creativity. Many Jewish businesses maintained their market position until 1937 through the remarkable self-assertion of their owners.
However, already by 1936/37 it was itimated that the phase of temporary restraint was coming to an end and that medium-term the Nazis were striving for the annihilation of the means of livelihood of the Jews. This was evidenced in the failure of all attempts by the Hamburg banker Max Warburg to negotiate a politcal arrangement with leading Nazis to acquire a secure status under law for the Jews in Germany. The particular type of Nazi racial antisemitism and a power structure that promoted a cumulative radicalization allowed temporary tactical concessions in Jewish policy but precluded any arrangement on the basis of normative legal rights.
In Hamburg in 1936/37 the department of the NSDAP regional business consultant (NSDAP-Gauwirtschaftsberater) established itself as the licencing authority for "aryanization". Dr Gustav Schlotterer was its head until 1935, Carlo Otte between 1935 and 1940 and Dr Otto Wolff from 1940 onward. Prior to this, Jewish businessmen had been able to freely sell their businesses for a fair price. The licencing practice of the Gauwirtschafsberater brought this freedom of contract to an end which caused a large loss in sale price for Jewish owners as only the inventary and stock were reimbursed and not the actual goodwill of the firm.
The department of the Hamburg Gauwirtschaftsberater and its employees involved in "aryanization" were members of a generation of academically and ideologically moulded ascenders whose youth alone distinguished them from the traditional dignities of the Hamburg economic elite and who personified the new Nazi economic elite. Whereas the Hamburg NSDAP regional departments in general and the NSDAP-Gauwirtschaftsberater in particular had little institutional competence and were of marginal significance compared to the city administration "aryanization" and "removal of the Jews" ("Entjudung") from the economy became one of the fields of activity in which an NSDAP regional department exercised a predominant influence. This was possible because the chamber of commerce and the Hamburg economic administration (Wirtschafsverwaltung) were willing to leave the Gauwirtschafsberater freedom of activity regarding "aryanization" so as to more effectively otherwise restrict the "revolutionary" energy of the NSDAP-Gauwirtschaft apparatus.
In addition to the department of the Gauwirtschaftsberater, the foreign exchange department of the Hamburg lower Elbe tax office, from 1937 the Hamburg main tax office (Devisenstelle der Landesfinanzamt Unterelbe, from 1937 Oberfinanzdirektion Hamburg), and customs investigation department (Zollfahndung) constituted the institutions that from 1936/37 increased the repression against Jewish businesses. In Hamburg with its foreign trade orientated economy the licencing and customs departments had grown into major institutions. The foreign exchange department under Oberregierungsrat Josef Krebs employed 330 public employees, almost as many employees as the Reich Ministry of Trade and Commerce (Reichswirtschaftsministerium) in 1933. The foreign exchange department consisted of a "licencing department" under Reichsbankoberinspektor Clausnitzer and a "surveillance department" under Regierungsrat Fritz Klesper which was concerned with surveillance, investigation and criminal prosecution. These departments worked closely together with the Hamburg customs investigation department (Zollfahndungsstelle) under Zollrat Hackbarth whose customs investigation department was subordinate to the Hamburg tax office (Landesfinanzamt, later Oberfinanzdirektion) which had a staff of 4 senior customs inspectors, 24 customs inspectors and an unknown number of senior secretaries and secretaries. Supported by paragraph 37a of the Foreign Exchange Act, later paragraph 59 which, grounded on a vague suspicion of flight of capital, allowed the complete withdrawal of a Jewish businessman's right to dispose of his property, the foreign exchange department set in motion a spiral of repression which led to the "aryanization" or liquidation of significant Jewish businesses. The conduct of the foreign exchange department clearly demonstrates that the radicalization of the anti-Jewish policy cannot be entirely explained through a replacing of the bureaucratic "constitutional state" with the "expedient state" but rather through a radicalization process within the "constitutional state" itself, that broadly departed from legally bound conduct which was experienced as a liberation from the restrictions of a constitutional state. In this respect Ernst Fraenkel's ideal typical lines of demarkation are blurred making it more accurate to speak of an insidious disintegration or partial self-destruction of the "constitutional state".
In 1937/38 measures taken by individual ministries and public authority harassment accelerated "aryanization" and liquidation of Jewish businesses. With the regulation of 26 April 1938 that obliged Jews to register their property and succeeding regulations the Reich intervened in "aryanization" and "legalized" what had previously been an informal obligation to register. Nevertheless, no centralization of "measures to remove the Jews" ("Entjudungsmaßnahmen") took place at the state level but continued to be implemented by regional institutions.
In Hamburg the Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann functioned as highest authority who on the one hand managed a most discrete balance between Reich and regional interests regarding the sale of especially lucrative businesses, and on the other hand generally corroborated the established areas of responsibility and procedural practice. The department of the NSDAP-Gauwirtschaftsberater in Hamburg continued to play a dominent role in "aryanization" although in accordance with Reich orders it was merely entitled to involvement.
In addition, the Hamburg economic administration (Wirtschaftsverwaltung) and industry were now institutionally included within the measures of elimination and participated in the decision process, for example over the liquidation or sale of Jewish businesses. Whereas until 1937/38 the Hamburg chamber of commerce had played a rather passive role it now openly represented and supported the applicants of "aryanization" and later helped them to renege on their obligations to Jewish owners. There were various motives for this change of conduct: the consolidation of the Nazi regime through "successes" in domestic and foreign policy that led many to expect a long duration of Nazi rule, the surmounting of the economic crisis in Hamburg that, in regard of Jewish businesses, removed the necessity of policies of stability, the dynamics of the elimination process itself which in 1938 became irreversible, the institutional involvement of the chamber of commerce in "aryanization" which in 1938/39 opened up new dimensions of enrichment in German annexed areas.
The economic consequences of "aryanization" mainly benefitted the commercial middle-class as the liquidation of mostly middle-sized Jewish companies reduced the pressure of competition, and the systematic breaking up and selling off of individual branches of Jewish branch businesses promoted a middle-class. Also, the principles by which the NSDAP-Gauwirtschaftsberater authorized "aryanization" were in favour of middle-class interests as they expressly intended the "prevention of the building of combines" and the "promotion of new blood". This prevented any concentration of property as the purchasers were not from the established Hamburg business-class but were principally those who wished to become initially established with the help of "aryanization": former employees, junior businessmen who had previously found no possibility of entry to the state regulated system of foreign trade, those making a change, and those coming in through the back door, and profiteers in the polital wake of the Nazis.
For Jewish businessmen the formal "legalization" of "aryanization" from 1938 onward meant no increase in predictability or certainty but rather increased the despotism and repression. The conditions of the sale of Jewish businesses steadily worsened throughout 1938 so that the value of Jewish firms sank drastically. The systematic and institutionalized decrease in the valuation of inventary and stocks, the loss of arrears, hidden reserves, and the right of auxiliary/additional/supplementary export permits/permission, and various types of pressure culminating in the deliberate denunciation and the summary dismissal of all Jewish employees with the sale of firms were only some aspects of the repressive process of "aryanization" in 1938.
Despite all these repressive measures there still remained 1,200 Jewish businesses in Hamburg in 1938. Their accelerated "aryanization" or liquidation within the succeeding months would not have been possible without the staging of the "Reichskristallnacht" pogrom on 10/11 November 1938. Although business circles and a section of Nazi supporters in Hamburg disapproved of these violent excesses so that even Hamburg Gauleiter Kaufmann publically distanced himself from these acts of violence Kaufmann cynically made the Jews responsible for these acts of violence so that the "final resolution of the Jewish problem" ("Endregelung des Judenproblems") i.e. the economic annihilation of the Jews, became even more radical and systematic in a pseudo-legalized form.
Yet even now the statutory enacted compulsory "aryanization" was not centrally controlled. "Division of labour" was retained. Jewish property was confiscated by the Reich using a net of taxes and compulsory charges and the owners plundered in the emigration process while regional institutions continued to be responsible for "aryanization" and liquidation. This completed the "Entjudung" of remaining Jewish businesses within the following few months. Only the expropriation of private property owned by Jews took longer. In Hamburg alone at the beginning of December 1938 over 200 Jewish retailers were closed within a period of a few days. At this time Jewish owners had no influence over the winding-up or sale of their businesses. When, following the November pogrom, numerous Jewish owners of businesses were arrested and interned in concentration camps the official receiver of the licencing authories appointed a trustee for the abandoned businesses. He had the power to wind-up or sell the business without the owner's assent.
In its end phase "aryanization" in Hamburg became a "race for enrichment" in which especially Nazis acquired possession of lucrative businesses. Corruption and nepotism characterized this phase of "aryanization". Numerous Hamburg NSDAP functionaries enriched themselves by acquiring Jewish property and NSDAP-Gauleiter Kaufmann used "aryanization" as a welcome source of income by demanding "aryanization donations" ("Arisierungsspenden") from both Jewish owners and non-Jewish purchasers with which he financed the NSDAP and financed his personal favourites.
There also developed a "trade in exploitation" ("Verwaltungsgewerbe") connected with "aryanization" in which lawyers, estate agents, banks, trust administrators, "emigration agents" and numerous other people and institutions were involved which blurred into the criminal underworld.
An ever greater part of the population became beneficiaries with the Nazi policy of expansion and annexation from 1938/39 onward. In the years 1941 to 1945 in Hamburg alone property belonging to 30,000 Jews from Hamburg, Germany and western Europe was publically auctioned. At least 100,000 inhabitants of Hamburg and the environs of northern Germany acquired Jewish possessions during this period. Furthermore, numerous Jewish businesses in eastern and western Europe were "aryanized" by Hamburg firms. The involvement of Hamburg inhabitants in "arynization" extended over the entire region of Nazi occupied Europe.
That many "ordinary Germans" profitted materially from the mass murder of the Jews and were thereby morally involved in the policy of extermination constitutes a form of involvement in the genocide that has long been disregarded by research and the debate still revolves either around the question whether the German population knew about the genocide of the Jews or around Browning's and Goldhagen's thesis that "ordinary men" or better "ordinary Germans" were involved in the mass murder. In general the material enrichment at the expence of the Jewish population indicates the erosion of moral and ethical standards in the German population and the extent of moral indifference with which Germans responded to the extermination of the Jews.
German text by Frank Bajohr: "Arisierung" in Hamburg: die Verdrängung der jüdischen Unternehmer 1933-1945 (Summary chapter).
Literature:
Frank Bajohr: "Arisierung" in Hamburg: die Verdrängung der jüdischen Unternehmer 1933-1945,
Christians Verlag, Hamburg 1997.
Ernst Fraenkel: Dual State: a contribution to the theory of dictatorship, Oxford University Press, New York; London [etc.] 1941.
Christopher M. Browning: Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in
Poland, Harper Collins, New York 1992.
Christopher M. Browning: Nazi Policy, Jewish Labour, German Killers, Cambridge University Press
2000
Daniel J. Goldhagen: Hitler's willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, Little,
Brown and Company, London 1996