The Need for Self-Delusion

By Steve Rodan

Suddenly, everywhere you look, the Jews are disappearing.

Jacob Savage in "The Vanishing." Tablet. March 1, 2023 [https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-vanishing]

Some revolutions move slowly. The Nazi revolution in Germany was swift and brutal -- particularly for the Jews

Within days of Hitler's ascendancy to the post of chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933, his Nazi Party went on a rampage against Jews throughout Germany. The persecution and atrocities intensified after the Feb. 27 fire at the Reichstag, blamed on the communists but widely believed to have been set by the Nazis themselves.

Like every catastrophe, expecting the wave and being swept up by it are very different. Many in the Jewish community leadership in Germany rightfully feared Hitler. In September 1930, the Nazis rampaged throughout Berlin and attacked anybody who looked like a Jew. Instead of being outlawed, the party won 10 times the number of seats in the Reichstag.

But many of the 500,000 Jews still believed that democratic and liberal Germany would stop or at least slow down Hitler's agenda. They knew President Paul von Hindeburg as a fair man, who, if necessary, would order the military to pick the Nazis up by their ear and throw them back in the gutter.

It didn't happen. Instead, the Jewish leadership became the target of Hitler. By March, prominent Jews fled Berlin. Some hid in the provinces; others in the homes of their still-gentile friends.

The Nazi reign of terror took place under the cover of darkness. They would break into the home of a Jewish politician or professional that had been placed on a black list. On March 13, Wilhelm Spieger, an attorney and candidate for the German Socialist Party, was awakened by banging on the door of his home in Kiel. The voices on the other side claimed they were the police. The strangers were let in and Spieger was taken to an adjacent room and shot dead. Then, they left. [1]

"We knew we were in a hostile world," Guy Stern, recalled in a film for the U.S. Holocaust Museum. [2]

Amid the killings, some leading Nazis maintained a dialogue with Jews. They had either benefited or worked with the Jews for years and were now being asked to explain their hatred and persecution.

Ludwig Freund knew these Nazis. As an officer, Freund fought valiantly in World War II. Then he studied in university where he received his doctorate. From 1930, he was director of the Reich Association of Jewish Frontline Soldiers and editor of its magazine Der Schild.

"We have often been told unofficially by leading National Socialists that the anti-Jewish agitation was used only for propaganda purposes," Freund wrote weeks after the Nazis seized power.

Freund didn't believe it. But many of his colleagues did. They saw themselves as the most patriotic of Germans who made invaluable contributions to science and the economy. They preached assimilation, a process that resulted in conversion, intermarriage and childless marriages. At this rate, the Jews would virtually disappear by the end of the century.

But for Hitler, this would not be fast enough. First, he established what was known as the "Lynch Law." Basically, it permitted Jews to be hunted down and killed without fear of retribution. Nobody was safe, regardless of how far away he lived from Berlin or Munich. [3]

On March 9, days after the Reichstag fire, the state made persecution official. The reasons varied: The Jews were criminals, communists, enemies of the state. A camp reserved largely for Jews was set up in Dachau, and killing was commonplace. Soon, there would be many more such facilities.

Jewish ritual slaughter was outlawed in Hessen; Jews were expelled from their homes, their bank accounts frozen. Albert Einstein's home in Berlin was ransacked. The official reason was that he was believed to have concealed weapons. The Nobel Prize winner was in the United States. [4]

In neighboring Austria, Nazis attacked Jews throughout Vienna, particularly at the university. "Perish the Jews" was their cry. Even in Jerusalem, a city with a Jewish majority, the Germans raised a flag with a swastika above the German consulate. [5]

By April, the purge of the Jews in Germany was in full swing. Judges were dismissed. Others were dismissed from civil service, schools, public medicine and the military. Books believed written by Jews were torched in public ceremonies.

You feel it like a slow moving pressure system, an anxiety of exclusion and downward mobility. Maybe you first noticed it at your workplace. Or maybe it hit when you or your children applied to college or graduate school. It could have been something as simple as opening up the Netflix splash page. It’s gauche to count but you can’t help yourself: In academia, Hollywood, Washington, even in New York City—anywhere American Jews once made their mark—our influence is in steep decline. [Jacob Savage]

By 1935, the Nazis made anti-Semitism the credo of all Germans. Traditional parades were exploited to demonize the Jews. Jews were hung in effigy everywhere. Signs warned gentiles to have nothing to do with the Jews and how to identify those who concealed their religion.

At the same time, genocide was being prepared. Sterilization became policy and some 350,000, including blacks, gypsies and the handicapped, were subjected to the procedure. By the end of the 1930s, gas chambers were constructed and tested.

Until well in the 1930s, prominent German Jews believed that they would be safe from Hitler. Some of them donated to the Nazi Party in an effort to become so-called honorary Aryans. Others tried to integrate in the Zionist movement, the only Jewish body tolerated in Germany.

Can this happen again in a liberal democracy? A few weeks ago, writer Andrew Savage traced the disenfranchisement of the Jews in the academia, media, science, politics and every other privileged sphere in the United States. It's become the new normal.

If Putin or Orban reduced their universities’ Jewish populations by 50%, the ADL would be howling. But Harvard and Yale can magically lose nearly half their Jewish students in less than a decade and we’ll take it on the chin. That this is occurring with the full acquiescence of a terrified liberal Jewish establishment should tell you just how much power Jews in America still have.

Freund didn't bother to stick around Germany. In 1934, he escaped to Czechoslovakia. From there, he received a visa for the United States, where he found a job as a dean at a Wisconsin college. He later joined U.S. military intelligence. After World War II, he gave up his American citizenship and returned to his former homeland. In 1967, he received the Konrad Adenauer Prize from the German Foundation. He had come full circle.

Notes

1. "The Most Helpless of the Nazi Victims." Palestine Post. March 21, 1933. Page 1

2. "From Citizens to Outcasts. 1933-1938. https://www.ushmm.org/learn/holocaust/path-to-nazi-genocide/chapter-3/from-citizens-to-outcasts-1933-1938

3. "German Jews in Hiding to Escape Lynch Law." Palestine Post. March 26, 1933. Page 1

4. "Expulsion of Jews Begin" Palestine Post. March 24, 1933. Page 1.

5. "Swastika in Jerusalem" Palestine Post. March 20, 1933. Page 1

Below: Village sign reads "The local residents want no contact with Jews."