Weimar Law vs. the Street

By Steve Rodan

Leipziger Strasse was known as a shopping center in the center of Berlin and a base for upscale Jews. Hitler and his thugs had long looked on with envy and disgust at this example of Jewish affluence.

The Nazis had used violence against Jews for more than a decade. But in 1930, Hitler believed that pogroms would bolster his party's standing in that year's parliamentary elections. His stormtroopers could be counted on to break Jewish heads, smash their shops and then flee before the police arrived. For the gentile pedestrians, this would be better than an afternoon in the cinema.

After each attack, Hitler made sure to evade responsibility. He claimed the Nazis had nothing to do with organized violence against the Jews. He insisted that this was the work of the communists.

"An anti-Semitism that provokes pogroms or indulges in the violent destruction of private property has no place in our political program," Hitler said. [1]

Meaningless guarantees

Weimar Germany marked a laboratory of how a liberal democracy can be manipulated to foster hate and genocide. From 1919 until 1933, the Jews were guaranteed more rights than in any other country in Europe.Germany was far more liberal than Britain or the United States. But Weimar did not enforce rights or maintain order. On the streets and campuses, the Jews could be targeted at moment's notice.

Anti-Semitism played a huge role in Hitler's strategy. The Nazi leadership regarded the Jews, including the 160,000 in Berlin, as the weak link of society. Attack the Jews and you undermine the government and shatter order. Blame the Jews for Germany's ills and there will be a ready audience, particularly among the hungry and the unemployed.

"From Hitler' point of view, therefore, the anti-Jewish campaign is of major importance," a leading American Jewish newspaper wrote. "The world now has an inkling of what German Jewry may expect from a Hitler regime." [2]

Hitler's pogroms had plenty of help from Heinrich Bruning, chancellor of Germany from 1930 to 1932. His austerity policies in wake of the Great Depression might have satisfied the victors of World War I, but they were unpopular in Germany. He ruled by emergency decree granted by President Paul von Hindenburg.

Expendable

Under pressure, the Jews were expendable. Bruning refused to take responsibility for the Jews, and foreign analysts went as far as to say that the chancellor preferred to throw the Jews to the Nazis to save himself. As one put it, "German Jewry stands between the devil and the deep blue sea. It does not know where to turn." [3]

Economic policies were not the cause of anti-Semitism in Germany. Even in times of plenty, the Jew was attacked and killed in the streets, often in broad daylight. Many Jews who rose rapidly during Weimar were assassinated, including Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau.

In November 1923, the Jewish quarter in Berlin was targeted. Most of the Jews were poor and came from Poland and Russia. Then, the mob arrived, greater than anything seen under the czar. On Nov. 5, about 30,000 people stormed the Jewish areas of the capital, broke into homes and businesses. Pedestrians were beaten, robbed and sometimes stripped naked. The police stood by and even abused the victims. [4]

The violence spread to other cities. Near Hanover, a Jewish home was bombed. Jewish journalists were threatened by police not to report details of the violence. [5]

The conservative and even some of the liberal media had little problem with the pogrom. They were sympathetic to the invective of the anti-Semites that Jews, particularly the foreigners, were "profiteers" who benefited from austerity measures, including the rise in the price of bread.

Blame the Ostjuden

For a while, the German Jewish elite tried to console themselves by noting that most of the victims were so-called Ostjuden, or Jews from the east. The Polish emigrants looked like Jews, attended synagogue and were downright embarrassing to the assimilated.

Hitler corrected that impression with the pogroms in the early 1930s. In 1931, he again targeted the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin. This was a boulevard filled with Jewish-owned department stores and offices. The Nazis chose Sept. 13, 1931, Rosh Hashanah, when even the bourgeois would dress up in their holiday finest and attend many of the Reform synagogues in the area.

The attack was led by the Sturmabteilung, or SA, the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. Nearly 1,000 SA thugs, many of them with crowbars, arrived in Kurfürstendamm, beating those who looked Jewish, smashing windows and looting. Some of them began to shoot. Blood flowed through the streets. The police, warned of the pogrom, did little.

The attackers then moved to synagogues where they pounced on Jews leaving services. Nearby, a megaphone screamed "Death to the Jews."

Sparing Nazi leaders

The police made several arrests. But they spared the Nazi leadership despite being told by suspects of that their orders had come from the top. In despair, the now-impoverished Jews began committing suicide. Some such as Emma Hesse and Gertrude Jacob turned on the gas oven. Alfred Jordan, a once-successful businessman, was found shot in a Berlin park. [6]

Still, the belief in the German government did not cease. The Board of the Central Union of German Citizens of Jewish Faith passed a resolution that recalled the repeated warnings that the Nazis would attack on Rosh Hashanah. Those warnings were ignored or termed exaggerated by the police and government.

"We hope that the Government will now realize the seriousness of the position for we feel that last night’s outbreak is the rehearsal for a real pogrom," the resolution, referring to fears of another attack on Yom Kippur, read. [7]

The German people kept the Jews at arm's length. A year earlier, many of them had voted for the Nazis, who became the second largest party in the Reichstag. They had shot from 12 to 107 seats overnight. Hitler and his Jew-hating agenda had turned mainstream.

The September 1930 victory called for a celebration. On Oct. 13, as the new session of the Reichstag opened, Nazis flooded downtown Berlin, smashing windows of Jewish-owned stores and yelling "Down with the Jews." They were directed by those with black arm bands and positioned on the corners. A crowd stood by and watched with approval.

The police arrived and 27 people were arrested. The judges handed down sentences of between nine and 21 months. They insisted that the Nazi command did not plan the pogrom.

The Jews got the message

Eventually, the Jews got the message that the guarantees of civil rights, elections, free speech and rule of law would not protect them. The Nazi pogroms were replaced by state-sponsored violence, particularly Kristallnacht in November 1938. The Jewish population in Berlin dropped to 80,000 between Hitler's ascent to power in 1933 and the start of World War II in 1939.

By the last years of Weimar, the government signaled that it had given up. Carl Severing, the interior minister of Germany and then Prussia, warned that a Nazi takeover would mark the end of the Jewish community. Severing said Hitler planned to starve the Jews by taking away their food cards and then force them to flee the country. All the Jews could do was hope.

"The Central Union of German Citizens of Jewish Faith hopes," its 1931 resolution read, "that all responsible citizens will join together against the Hitlerist infamy, so that foreign public opinion should see that the German people as such condemn pogroms." [8]

Notes

1. "Hitler Hints Reds Led Riot in Berlin." Guido Enderis. New York Times. Oct. 15, 1930.

2. "What is behind the Berlin pogroms." Miriam Sterner. American Jewish World. Oct. 24, 1930

3. ibid

4. "Jews of Berlin Attacked by Mob" Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Nov. 6, 1923

5. "Jewish Correspondent Arrested for Reporting Pogroms." JTA. Nov. 12, 1923

6. "Jewish Suicides in Germany Still Go on..." JTA. Sept. 11, 1931

7. "No Tashlik in Berlin this year." JTA. Sept. 15, 1931

8. ibid

Below: The aftermath of a pogrom in Berlin in October 1930. [Bundesarchiv]