Susanne Heim - The Persecution and Murder of the European Jews by Nazi Germany, 1933 1945: German Reich 1938– August 1939

The Persecution and Murder of the Jews, 19331945

The Persecution and Murder of the
European Jews by Nazi Germany,
19331945

Series edited on behalf of the German Federal Archives, the Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin, and the Chair for Modern History at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg

In cooperation with Yad Vashem

Volume 2

edited by
Gtz Aly, Susanne Heim, Ulrich Herbert, Hans-Dieter Kreikamp, Horst Mller, Dieter Pohl, and Hartmut Weber

English edition also edited by
Michael Hollmann, Sybille Steinbacher,
Simone Walther-von Jena, and Andreas Wirsching

International Advisory Board for the English edition
Nomi Halpern, Elizabeth Harvey, Dan Michman,
and Alan E. Steinweis

Coordinator of the English language edition 20142016

Alex J. Kay,

with the assistance of Carla MacDougall

ISBN 978-3-11-052371-3

e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-052638-7

e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-052390-4

Library of Congress Control Number : 2019934888

Bibliographical information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographical information is available at http://dnb.dnb.de.

2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Cover and dust jacket: Frank Ortmann and Martin Z. Schrder

www.degruyter.com

The Persecution and Murder of the European Jews by Nazi Germany, 19331945 presents a broad range of primary sources in a scholarly edition. A total of sixteen English-language volumes will be published in this series, organized according to chronology and geography. The series documents the horrific historical events embodied by the terms Holocaust and Shoah. This English-language edition reproduces all the materials in the German edition but has been adapted for an English-speaking readership. Apart from those originally written in English, all documents have been translated from the language of the original source.

The foreword to the first volume of the series detailed the criteria for the selection of the documents. These criteria can be summarized as follows. First, the sources used for this edition are written documents and, occasionally, transcribed audio materials, dating from the period of National Socialist rule between 1933 and 1945. The decision was taken not to include memoirs, reports, and judicial documents produced in the period after 1945; however, the footnotes make extensive reference to such retrospective testimonies and historical accounts. Second, the documents shed light on the actions and reactions of people with differing backgrounds and convictions and in different places, and indicate their intentions as well as the frequently limited options available to them. The volumes include a variety of document types such as official correspondence, private letters, diary entries, newspaper articles, and the reports of foreign observers. The documents within each volume are arranged chronologically.

This second volume in the series contains documents on the disenfranchisement and expropriation of the Jews in Germany after 1 January 1938 and in Austria from the Anschluss of March 1938 until the beginning of the Second World War on 1 September 1939. The documentation ranges from legislation on the Aryanization of the German economy to the narrative of a Jewish prisoner about his experiences in a concentration camp. The notes of a young girl describing her fear of the looming November pogroms appear alongside the account of a Jewish aid organization on the growing number of refugees, and the speech in which Hitler makes reference to the annihilation of the Jews in Europe. Events and developments are thus presented from multiple perspectives.

The series has been generously funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as a long-term humanities project. The English edition, which is also DFG funded, is a joint project with the Yad Vashem International Institute for Holocaust Research. In addition to the sponsors, the editors are most grateful to the large number of archivists, public officials, historians, and private individuals who have lent assistance to the project. They have provided the editors with advice and comments on sources and with information for the annotations, including biographical details of the persons featured in the documents. Todd Brown, Alex J. Kay, Kathleen Luft, Jennifer E. Neuheiser, and Nicola Varns translated the German-language documents for this second English-language volume in the series. Carol Sykes translated the French and Spanish-language documents. The Italian-language document was translated by Alex J. Kay, and the Dutch-language document by David Lee. Merle Read provided copy-editing services. Ingo Loose assisted with the documents containing Hebrew words and expressions. Peter Palm and Giles Bennett created and advised on the map in this volume. Alicia Brudney, Joseph Dunlop, Nora Huberty, Priska Komaromi, Ashley Kirspel, Benedict Oldfield, Barbara Uchdorf, Ana Lena Werner, and Max Zeterberg contributed to this volume as student assistants. Johannes Gamm was responsible for database management. The following people contributed to the original German volume as student assistants: Romina Becker, Giles Bennett, Natascha Butzke, Florian Danecke, Vera Dost, Ivonne Meybohm, Miriam Schelp, and Remigius Stachowiak. Andrea Lw and Gudrun Schroeter contributed in their capacity as research fellows.

Despite all the care taken, occasional inaccuracies cannot be entirely avoided in such a source collection. We would be grateful for any notifications to this effect. They will be taken into account for future publications. The address of the editorial board is: Institut fr Zeitgeschichte MnchenBerlin, Edition Judenverfolgung, Finckensteinallee 85/87, 12 205 Berlin, Germany.

Berlin/Munich/Freiburg/Klagenfurt, April 2018

This primary source collection on the persecution and murder of the European Jews should be cited using the abbreviation PMJ. This citation style is also used in the work itself where there are cross references between the individual volumes. The documents are consecutively numbered, beginning anew with each volume. Accordingly, PMJ 1/200 refers to document number 200 in the first volume of this edition. The individual documents are presented as follows: title (in bold type), header, document, footnotes.

The titles have been formulated by the editor(s) of the respective volume and provide information on the date of origin of the document, its core message, author, and recipient(s). The header, placed underneath the title, is part of the document itself. It specifies the type of source (letter, draft law, minutes, and so on), the name of the author, the place of origin, the file reference (where applicable), remarks indicating confidential or classified status, and other special features of the document. The location of the ministries or other central agencies in Berlin at the time, for instance the Reich Security Main Office or the Chancellery of the Fhrer, is not cited. The header also contains details about the addressee and, where applicable, the date of the receipt stamp, and it concludes with the date of origin and reference to the stage of processing of the source, for instance draft, carbon copy, or copy.