G Warburg - Six Years of Hitler (RLE Responding to Fascism): The Jews Under the Nazi Regime

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: RESPONDING TO FASCISM

SIX YEARS OF HITLER

The Jews Under the Nazi Regime

G. WARBURG

Foreword by

NEVILLE LASKI

Volume 8

First published in 1939

This edition first published in 2010
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1939 G.Warburg

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ISBN 0-203-85017-3 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 10: 0-415-57699-7 (Set)

eISBN 10: 0-203-85012-2 (Set)

ISBN 10: 0-415-58013-7 (Volume 8)

eISBN 10: 0-203-85017-3 (Volume 8)

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-57699-4 (Set)

eISBN 13: 978-0-203-85012-1 (Set)

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-58013-7 (Volume 8)

eISBN 13: 978-0-203-85017-6 (Volume 8)

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THE JEWS UNDER THE NAZI REGIME

BY

G. WARBURG

FOREWORD BY

NEVILLE LASKI

FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1939

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

by NEVILLE LASKI

OF books about the Nazi regime and the persecution of the Jews there seem to be no end, but this book, I venture to think, is on a somewhat different plane from that on which most have been written before. Many of them are personal experiences or express personal sentiments. This book is of a different character. The author naturally holds strong views on his subject and does not pretend to hide them. But this book is above all a factual record. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the first book that has been written which gives a systematic survey of the anti-Jewish policy in Nazi Germany based not on disconnected stories nor on personal narratives, but on facts published by the Nazis themselves. There are many who still believe that apart from the occasional anti-Semitic outbursts that are reported in the Press, Jews are still able to exist in Germany. Others maintain that the anti-Jewish policy is really only a side issue, and that the Jews are merely used as scapegoats when difficulties are encountered by the Nazis. Unhappily both these views are entirely wrong. Anti-Semitism is not a side-issue of Nazism. It is the very root of the Nazi creed and, particularly in the mind of the Leader, the very essence of his doctrine. This book shows clearly the systematic methods adopted by the Nazi regime to purge not only the professions but every field of activity from the last vestige of Jewish participation. It shows how each decree is merely a stepping-stone to the next. It reveals how the mind of the German youth is being poisoned against the Jew and how the persecution which at the beginning was confined to material things now sets out to crush the spiritual heritage of Israel, which is now the common heritage of the Western civilized world. Continual defamation, insults of the worst type are part and parcel of Nazi politics to which the Jew has to submit day in and day out. His religion, his most sacred ideals, are made the butt of the foulest abuse. He has no protection. He has to suffer in silence while the most disgusting insinuations are made against his religion, his family life, and his morals. The aim and object of all this is to impress not only upon the Gentile but on the Jew himself that he is an inferior being who must be ostracized and shunned.

In most publications and newspaper reports physical outrages have been given a prominent part. Dreadful as they are they are not really the most important. It will be seen from this book that the Jews have suffered far more through administrative measures than from physical assaults. These aspects of the Nazi policy are those which are the least known outside Germany, but which are in reality the most evil aspect of the Nazi regime. No exaggeration can emphasize the accumulative effect of these decrees which have made the Jew an outlaw in the land in which he has lived, nor could there be a stronger indictment of the depth of vileness to which the Nazi regime has sunk, and which requires no atrocity reports to accentuate. Let me again emphasize a most important aspect of this work. Every statement is based on facts published in the Nazi-controlled Press, and if reference is made to German-Jewish papers it must be remembered that these papers are also under the control of the Nazi censor, without whose authority nothing can appear. The same care has been taken only to quote from English newspapers whose veracity and standing are beyond challenge. In every case the greatest care has been taken to verify and prove the statements made. There can be no foundation for any suggestion that they are biased or one-sided. No one who wishes to understand and realize what is going on in Germany can afford to ignore this book. Its importance and interest is not confined to members of the Jewish faith. Far from it. Thinking men of all political parties and of all creeds must ponder its contents. The Nazi attack on the Jew both within and without Germany is but a part of the general attack of the Nazi ideology against the very foundations on which humanity and religion rest.

If the Jew triumphs over the peoples of the world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of mankind, and this planet will once again wander through the ether, empty of men, as it did millions of years ago. Eternal nature wreaks pitiless vengeance upon the transgressors of her commands. So to-day I believe that I am acting in accordance with the mind of the almighty Creator. In beating off the Jews I am fighting for the work of the Lord.Mein Kampf, pp. 6970.

THE above words are the basis of the whole Nazi attitude towards the Jews. Hitler, in his book Mein Kampf, has touched upon the Jewish question in practically every chapter, and in some chapters on almost every page. Hitlers hatred of the Jews permeates the whole book, just as it now permeates Germanys practical policy. Those who still believe that the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany is more or less incidental, that Hitler is not really bent upon it but is only driven forward by some of his more fanatical lieutenants, by men like Streicher and Goebbels, Rosenberg and Ley, are mistaken. A man who is sincerely convincedand on this point Hitler is undoubtedly sincerethat by fighting against the Jews he is fulfilling the work of the Lord, is a man possessed, and does not need to be driven by fanatical lieutenants. Hitler, so often a shrewd tactician, is, where the Jewish question is concerned, the fanatic of fanatics. The true cause of this hatred will probably never be known. Hitler But that hardly explains the sudden change from a tolerant youth to a fanatical persecutor. Whatever may be the true reason for Hitlers change, the fact remains that he himself is the driving force behind the anti-Semitic policy. A word from him could stop Streicher and Goebbels, Rosenberg and Ley, on the instant. Even Hitlers neutrality in this question would be sufficient to enable those Germans who detest the methods of persecution to put a brake on the drive. But they are powerless, because Hitler is, and will remain, the driving force.