Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

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priority. 176 Magdeburg proved no exception to this rule, as previously
demonstrated in the coverage of ‘Rassenschande’ trials. Given the new legal and
racial status of Jews, propaganda only intensified. On 3 January 1936, Die
Mitteldeutsche Zeitung in Magdeburg published an article discussing the topic:
‘No national minority.’ 177 The reality of the end of this relationship was now
being played out to the full. Jews were not only to be pursued in the judiciary and
the press, but Jewish voices were also going to be forbidden in the public domain.
In Magdeburg regular bans on Jewish public speakers were ordered, with the strict
instruction that should such bans be breached, then the offending parties were to
be arrested. 178
As in the trials involving the crime of ‘Rassenschande,’ other cases which
were played out in Magdeburg emanated from the same variety of motivations.
The primary purpose was to expose ‘Jewish criminality.’ Two high-profile cases
involving invented crimes typify the torment played out publicly and also
represent this tragic end.
Ernst Fliess was a prominent solicitor and respected member of the Jewish
community. Having been arrested and charged for the alleged crime of trafficking
in foreign currency, he opted to represent himself. The charges were manufactured
and Fliess was innocent. In spite of the judicial ruling which guaranteed that legal
counsel could not be detained when representing a defendant, Fliess’s opponent,
176 Memorandum the Reich and Prussian Minister for the Interior to the State
Governments, 7 December 1935, Collection JM, File 10624, YVA, op. cit., p. 101.
177 “Keine nationale Minderheit! Grundsätzliche Ausführungen zur Judenfrage,” in
Die Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, 3. Januar 1936, Collection JM, File 10624, YVA, op. cit,
p. 105.
178 Rundschreiben; Redeverbot, 21. Februar 1935 – 12. Februar 1937, Bestand Z.-
Dok.001, Signatur Nr. 001, ASGM, op. cit., pp. 230–233; Collection JM, File 10624,
YVA, op. cit., pp. 91–152; Bestand Z.-Dok.001, Signatur Nr. 099, ASGM, p. 99.