Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

The Process of Aryanisation
115
‘Aryanisations’ in Magdeburg commenced as early as 1933. They initially
occurred in the form of ‘voluntary’ sales. 131 The process of coercion and forced
sales gathered momentum after the Nuremberg Laws. Sale prices in 1933 were
still well below market value, but they were, nevertheless, better than the sale
prices which Jewish vendors later experienced, as the acceleration of the
displacement of the Jews from the city’s economic life gathered momentum. As
the years progressed, sale prices plummeted. Those who gained principally were
Nazi Party stalwarts and middle-class functionaries of the Nazi Party. 132 In April
1938 approximately 60% of Jewish-owned businesses in the city had been
‘aryanised.’
In Magdeburg the process of ‘aryanisation’ conforms to the pattern observed
throughout Germany with the figure of businesses ‘aryanised’ by 1935 being
between 20% and 25% of those in existence in 1933. 133 In addition to the ongoing
activities of boycotts and defamation in the local press, small businesses whose
shops appeared especially attractive to local Nazi Party functionaries were slowly
worn down and demoralised by various means. Claims that building and health
regulations had been violated was one such ploy. An example of this was
discussed in the previous section in the case of the stationer, ‘L. Sperling & Co.’.
Another effective ploy occurred after the application of the Nuremberg Laws
when a number of Jews were threatened with the accusation of ‘Rassenschande,’
or, worse still, were arrested under suspicion of the charge. Through these means
131 Barkai, op. cit., p. 69.
132 Frank Bajohr, “The Beneficiaries of ‘Aryanization’: Hamburg as a Case Study,”
Yad Vashem Studies, vol. XXVI, 1998, pp. 173–201.
133 Barkai, op. cit., p. 70.