1. Nazism in Power Historical Overview Reichstag Elections
Hitler as Chancellor
Elite Cooperation
Aryanization
Talk of Annihilation
Conclusion

2. Klaus Mann, Mephisto (1936)
“I hope to God these madmen never come to power. If they did I wouldn’t want to stay in this country any longer…It’s the underworld crying out for power”
Barbara to Hendrik
March Violets, 1933

3. I. Historical Overview
How, When, and Why Nazis determined this policy?
Intentionalists vs. Functionalists
Intentionalists: genocide was long planned ahead
Functionalists: genocide a product of the course of the war

4. II. Reichstag Elections Representation, German Parliament, 1928-1933
KPD
11%
SPD
30%
Liberals
26%
Conservatives
22%
Other 9%
N 3%
1930
KPD
13%
SPD
25%
Liberals 21%
Conservatives
14%
Other 8%
Nazis
18%
1932 July
KPD
15%
SPD
22%
Liberals
15%
Cons. 8%
O2%
Nazis
37%
1932 Nov.
KPD
17%
SPD
20%
Liberals
14%
Cons.
12% O 2%
Nazis
33%
1933
March
KPD
12%
SPD
18%
Liberals
14%
Cons.
11%
O2%
Nazis
44%
1933
Nov.
Nazis
100%

5. iii. Hitler as Chancellor, 1933
Part of a Conservative Coalition
Nazis: 3 of 12 seats in cabinet
Conservatives believed that they could control Hitler
Capitalize on his popularity
Felt Nazis were “flash in the pan”
Then when done…discard him
Hitler’s First Cabinet, 1933

6. Iv. Elite Cooperation: Conze, Frei, Hayes, and Zimmerman
Range of responses to the Nazis in power: “Old Guard”
Baron Konstantin von Neurath, FM, and Bernhard Wilhelm von Bülow
Make Hitler “a second Mussolini”
Revisionist Foreign Policy
Weaken Parliament, Stronger army
With other senior members stayed in office
Rejected National Socialism, but…
This a transitional period until Hitler fell
“one does not leave his country in the lurch because it has a bad government”
Konstantin von Neurath

7. Iv. Elite Cooperation Friedrich von Prittwitz und Gaffron
Ambassador to the US
Resigned to Neurath, March 1933
“for reasons of both personal decency and professional duty” not continue to serve without “betraying himself”

8. Iv. Elite Cooperation
Foreign Office disseminated materials to legitimize anti-Semitic policies
Vicco von Bülow-Schwante ( )
Foreign Office’s “German Section”
“Jewry in general an influence in public life, government, the judiciary, and the bureaucracy inappropriate to its proportion of the population.”
Overrepresented in “criminals” and “mentally ill in need of hospitalization.”
Reich to protect middle class from “Bolshevik menace” and justify persecution of Jewish population

9. iv. Elite Cooperation: Summary
Foreign Office not inspired by Propaganda Ministry or any Party Office
“Not satisfied with mere implementation, but seeking to participate in and advise on policy as well”
German conservative elites mostly cooperated/enabled growing Nazism,

10. V. Aryanization: Avraham Barkai
Gradual “Social Death” of German Jews in the 1930s
Institutional groups (doctors, lawyers, and retailers) viewed Jews as competitors
Exclude them
Reaction against modern society
Reaction against Weimar

11. V. Aryanization 1933, 1 April: Boycott of Jewish Stores
SA Action
Boycott ineffective, but… “set the stage”
Law for the Reestablishment of the Professional Civil Service
Removal from Civil Service and Military
Exceptions limited the scope
Model for other exclusion laws (doctors/lawyers/university)

12. V. Aryanization
Various discriminatory policies at local level by party members, small-town mayors, and non-Jewish economic interest
Large Jewish retailers somewhat immune due to size and number of non- Jewish employees
Discrimination created a “Jewish Economic Sector” where Jewish professions service each other

13. V. Aryanization 1935: Nuremberg Racial Laws
“Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor”
Prohibited any non-Jewish German from marrying a Jew and outlawed sexual relations between Jews and Germans
Deprived Jews of citizenship: exclusions ended
Last government officials/university teachers dismissed
As Germany economy strengthened Nazis more emboldened for further targeting of Jews
Informal “Ghettoization” furthered an internal Jewish economy
British Library: List of Anti-Jewish Decrees

15. V. Aryanization 1938: decree to register Jewish assets
Prelude to confiscation
Further employment restrictions in 1938 nearly eliminates Jews from economy
1938: November 9-10, Kristallnacht
Goebbels: central figure of organization
C killed, 7500 shops smashed, 200 synagogues burned/damaged, 30,000 sent to camps

16. V. Aryanization “German” response?
Spectrum of responses
Disapprove but dare not voice disapproval
Schadenfreude
Jewish Emigration: , 120k left
More Anti-Jewish Laws followed
Decree on the Elimination of the Jews from Economic Life
SA/SS bureaucrats get spoils of departed
US Holocaust Memorial Museum, David and Janka Penner
in their dry goods store, courtesy of Ilona Penner Blech

17. Jewish population of Germany: 1933-1945 (Estimated, From Various Sources)
1933: 525,000
1934: 500,000
1937: 300,000
1938: 260,000
1939: 185,000
1941: 164,000
1943: 51k
1945, 15,000

18. VI. Talk of “Annihilation”
Ernst von Weizsäcker
Foreign Office, 1938
Deportation or annihilation
“Jews, What Now?” Nov. 1938
Relocation, Ghettoization, Annihilation
Hitler’s Reichstag Speech, January 30, 1939
War would bring annihilation

19. VII. Concluding Thoughts
From Between Dignity and Despair, Marion Kaplan
What non-Jewish Germans believed?
Many Germans denied knowing about the genocide because they had erased Jews from their consciences
Social liquidation preceded physical annihilation
Jews had already been condemned to a social death
Signboard for Der Stürmer, "Die Juden sind unser Unglück!" ("The Jews are our misfortune!")

20. Concluding Thoughts
Most Germans suspended the exercise of decency and the normal civilities that make a society function and suspended them before laws and decrees required them to do so. 
German culpability in ferreting Jews out and getting their possessions
Many Germans took an active role in persecuting Jews and German racism was deep
“Ordinary” Germans balked at rampant violence against Jews—not bent on killing them inasmuch as ostracizing them
Racism made them hope they’d disappear and to avert their eyes when this process escalated

21. Further reading Why? Peter Hayes Defying Hitler, Sebastian Haffner
Between Dignity and Despair, Marion Kaplan
Mephisto, Klaus Mann