Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

September 1938. 118 All property belonging to the organisations was confiscated
because the organisations were deemed enemies of the people and of the state, and
that as such the organisations had used, or would continue to use, the confiscated
property to pursue these ends. 119 Given the proliferation of Zionist organisations
in Magdeburg, these dissolutions would have been deeply felt.
Documentation concerning the dissolutions of three other organisations was
also received in Magdeburg from the Berlin Gestapa. However, it is not known
whether or not these organisations were at any time operational in Magdeburg. 120
The first organisation was that of the Verband nationaldeutscher Juden, 121 which
was dissolved on 9 December 1935, 122 the second was the Paulus-Bund, 123 which
118
Auflösung der Staatszionistischen Organisationen nebst sämtlichen
Unterorganisationen, 25. Juli 1938, Bestand Rep. C 20 I. I b, Signatur Nr. 1831, Band
IV, LHASA MD, op. cit., p. 117.
119
Ibid.
120
No documentation confirming the existence and operations of these organisations
in Magdeburg has been located.
121
The ultra-nationalist Verband nationaldeutscher Juden, as an organisation, was
extremely offended by its exclusion from the ‘national resurgence’ in Nazi Germany.
Regardless of its exclusion it remained hostile to the Reichsvertretung der Juden in
Deutschland, as it refused to act co-operatively in a common organisation which
included Ostjuden and the Zionists. It continued in its adulation of ‘German values’
until it was forcibly disbanded. For a detailed history of this organisation up until
1933 see Carl J. Rheins, “The Verband nationaldeutscher Juden 1921–1933,” Leo
Baeck Institute Year Book, vol. XXV, 1980, pp. 243–268.
122
Memorandum from the Reich and Prussian Minister for the Interior to the State
Governments and to the offices of the Gestapo concerning the dissolution and the
banning of the Verband nationaldeutscher Juden, 9 December 1935, Bestand Rep. C
20 I. I b, Signatur Nr. 119, LHASA MD, p. 296.
123
In June 1933 the Reich Association of Christian-German Citizens of Non-Aryan or
Not Purely Aryan Origin was established in Berlin. In 1936 it was re-named the
Paulus-Bund, Vereinigung nichtarischer Christen. These baptised Jews and their
offspring did not see themselves as part of the Jewish community. They avoided any
contact with Jewish organisations, which they viewed as alien and not a component of
their own world and lives. The main purpose of this organisation was to prevent their
decline into the even more stigmatised and discriminated status of the ‘full Jew.’ The
organisation also assisted in finding suitable marriage partners after September 1935
and set up sections within its administration for welfare, job placement and legal and
educational advice. For a complete account of the roles and activities of this
organisation see Werner Cohn, “Bearers of a Common Fate? The ‘Non-Aryan’
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