Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

173
inevitable and fearful that he would be accused of such a crime, had sold his
business to Willibald Lemke by March 1936. 163
The three remaining examples of trials were not as well documented as the
previous two. However, the recording of these offences conform to the Nazi
policy in Magdeburg of forced segregation and of ‘proving’ the true nature of
‘Jewish sexual perversion and predatory practice.’ Throughout these trials there
followed the associated vilification and ruination. In this respect they are not
reflective of cases which arose from the sole motivation of ‘aryanisation.’
On 12 March 1936, a non-Jewish insurance agent, Bernhardt Gans of
Jakobstraße, was sentenced to fourteen months’ imprisonment for
‘Rassenschande.’ 164 Both he and the Jewess involved were also deprived of all
civil rights for three years. Gans had spent the preceding New Year’s Eve with an
unnamed Jewish woman and was denounced by one of his neighbours. Of
particular interest in this case was the absence of a prison sentence for the Jewess
involved. It could be postulated that as the ‘crime’ had taken place at Gans’
residence, that the judge found him more culpable and wished to make an example
of him as a warning to ‘Aryans’ and Jews.
Another key case was the arrest, imprisonment and subsequent trial of the
Magdeburg solicitor and notary, Willi Spanier in 1938. Spanier was accused of
committing indecent sexual assault on a fifteen-year-old male office employee. A
particularly well-organised hate campaign was instigated by the city’s
governmental and legal bodies against the innocent Spanier, complete with an
163 Correspondence from the regional office of the CV in Leipzig to the head office of
the CV in Berlin, 20 March 1936, Collection RG-11.00M.31, Reel 130, File 721-1-
2845, USHMMA, op. cit., p. 342.
164 Strafsache, 20. März 1936, Bestand Rep. C 144, Signatur Nr. 68, LHASA MD, p.
10.