Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

112
Reichsführer SS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei im Reichsministerium des Innern
dated 29 September 1938 and despatched nationally, it was made clear that Jewish
assets would be confiscated. 128 Preparations for the final exclusion of Jews from
the German economy and society were proceeding at a rapid pace. Legislation
designed to financially cripple German Jewry was expedited in 1938, 129
culminating in this registration of Jewish assets.
A number of conclusions and observations can be made on the process of
economic strangulation of the Jewish community. The experiences of individuals
were dependent on which sector of the commercial landscape they occupied. As
with all Jewish business owners in Germany, 1933 was a tumultuous year of
ongoing boycotts and fear in Magdeburg. However, in spite of an effective and
ongoing campaign of defamation and boycott, the majority of Jewish businesses
adjusted to the new and difficult conditions. With the passage of the Nuremberg
Laws in 1935, the ferocity of the public defamations were expedited, as Jews
possessed no civil rights and became open targets. In the wake of these laws the
process of ‘aryanisation,’ particularly of lucrative and highly coveted businesses,
commenced. This period also marked the real end of any non-Jewish patronage of
Jewish businesses. By 1938, of the 40% of the original businesses in existence in
1933, only a small minority were functioning with any serious business turnover.
However, of all the sectors in the commercial landscape, they possessed slightly
128 Betrifft: Verwaltung von Vermögen, das zum Zwecke der Einziehung
beschlagnahmt wird, 29. September 1938, Bestand Rep. C 20 I. I b, Signatur Nr.
1831, Band IV, LHASA MD, op. cit., pp. 118–120.
129 See Hans Safrian, “Expediting Expropriation and Expulsion: The Impact of the
‘Vienna Model’ on Anti-Jewish Policies in Nazi Germany, 1938,” Holocaust and
Genocide Studies, vol. 14, number 3, 2000, pp. 390–414 and Götz Aly, Hitlers
Volksstaat: Raub, Rassenkrieg und Nationaler Sozialismus Frankfurt am Main: S.
Fischer Verlag, 2005.