The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy 1933-1945 (17 page)

The Jews were also set apart from their neighbours in the villages of Lower Franconia. Julius Frank, born in 1889 in Steinach a.d. Saale (near Bad Kissingen), and the son of a cattle-dealer, writes of what everyday life was like for a Jewish family in the countryside. The Jews of Steinach made up about io per cent of the village population at the turn of the century, but, Frank says, they constituted the village 'middle class'. They spoke a different language-closer to High German with numerous Hebrew words mixed inthey habitually dressed better, ate different food, and frequently went to their own school, at least in the early grades, if the community was large enough to support one. According to Frank the Jews were conscious of their socially superior status and participated infrequently in the social life of the village, preferring, for example, to have their beer delivered rather than drink it at the local pub.34
He speaks of the lack of a 'genuine feeling of community' between the Jews and the other villagers, and sees a connection with 'a latent anti-Semitism'. Werner Cahnmann, who had experiences similar to Frank's in a comparable rural district to the west, thought that the Jews 'became the leaders in modernity' in rural areas. 'The village Jews were not peasants of a different ethnicity. They were urbanites transmuted into rural fold.'3S
According to a recent account, the social reception of the Jews, especially in the provinces, 'lagged in general far behind the degree to which they had been integrated into the national and economic life of Germany'.36

4. ANTI-SEMITISM

Anti-Semitism was not unknown in the cities of Lower Franconia, but, as in the countryside, much of it remained politically latent, since for one reason or another organizations did not openly embrace it. Alongside the traditional hostility towards Jews based on religious teachings, especially in areas where Jews were resident, there developed in the course of the late nineteenth century a racial and political variety; both types `existed side by side and provided mutual support for each other'.37
In Wurzburg the outbursts against the Jews were rare in the modern era, although one of the most infamous anti-Jewish riots broke out in the city in early August 1819, before sparking off similar events in Bamberg, Bayreuth (in Franconia), and some thirty additional cities. The riots of 18i g that began in Wurzburg were not, as is often claimed, a protest movement directed at the harsh regime and with a heavy student involvement. In fact, students did not participate, and, according to a recent study, the stimulus to the riots may have come `from those who saw themselves harmed by the entry of Jews into their occupations, namely, merchants who had previously enjoyed a monopolist position within the civic commerce. A brooding apprehension, perhaps even fear and terror, over infiltration of society by residents of the ghetto, who were held to be a dangerous element, was aroused in the population even when there was no actual, direct competition.
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Perhaps because many citizens were outraged at the so-called 'Hep! Hep!' riots in 1819, in which two people were killed, Wurzburg never developed a tradition of anti-Semitism. Only in the aftermath of the First World War, when a deep social crisis affected Germany as a whole, did anti-Semitism spread as never before.39
One of the most vitriolic of the national organizations was the German People's Protection and Defiance League (Deutschvolkischer Schutz- and Trutz-Bund), whose branch in Wurzburg demanded on its foundation in late 1918 the 'total destruction of the domination by national and racial foreign elements'.40
An impression of the kinds of messages it sought to convey locally over the course of its rather brief existence (it was outlawed by the government after the assassination of Walther Rathenau in 1922) is conveyed by a statement of 'advice' printed in its weekly for 26 October 1923. It was demanded that the Bavarian government take the following steps to 'solve the Jewish question':

I. It is absolutely necessary to kill the Jews ... ! Otherwise, the efforts of Christianity will be for nothing ... 3. It is absolutely necessary to nullify the law on the emancipation of the Jews. 4. It is absolutely necessary to burn down the synagogues and Jewish schools, and what remains of the walls after the burnings ought to be buried, so that no stone remains visible. 5. It is absolutely necessary to take away from the Jews all prayer-books and Talmuds because they learn from them the curses and lies.41

The overall effect of such organizations and of the affiliated student organization is difficult to assess, although the constant hate-mongering, exaggerating, and lying could not easily have been ignored, precisely because the organization was so active in exposing its doctrine in countless small waysfor example, by posting anti-Semitic graffiti in conspicuous places throughout the city. One of its leaders, the notorious Dr Otto Hellmuth, subsequently became the Nazi Gauleiter of Lower Franconia.

In the period of Weimar's `stable' years Wurzburg's political parties, at least those of the centre and right of centre, for the most part did not regard opposition to anti-Semitism as part of their work. The Catholic Bavarian People's Party (Bayerische Volkspartei, BVP) openly flirted with the racist movement at least until Hitler's attempted putsch in November 1923. Local conservative parties, the DNVP and DVP, displayed some anti-Semitism and put up candidates for federal elections known to be anti-Semitic. The leftwing SPD and KPD, along with the trade-union movement and the liberals (DDP), did what they could to fight the contagion of anti-Semitism.42

5. RESPONSE TO NAZISM

In the last days of Weimar, Lower Franconia, in contrast to other parts of Germany, was in a relatively stable economic condition. That is not to say that the area was not affected by the depression that hit Germany in 1929. In fact, there was an economic crisis in the countryside even during the years of stability (1924-9), a result of increased farm indebtedness, the flight of labour to the cities, and rural 'over-population' caused by an ancient Frankish law of inheritance, according to which land was distributed equally to all the sons. The net effect was to make rural poverty difficult to avoid.43
Still, of the three Franconian subdistricts, this area's peasants were on average the least in debt, but their holdings were the smallest (suggesting the need to supplement income by hiring themselves out as labourers elsewhere). Not surprisingly, Lower Franconia had the lowest unemployment quota of the three, but that
was a result of the absence of industry.44

Lower Franconia's overwhelming Catholicism was consistently reflected in the politics of the district, and before 1914 the tradition of voting for a candidate of the Catholic Centre was well established.45
The pronounced district-wide party identification with the Catholic Centre Party continued into the Weimar era, although the more democratic voting procedures, coupled with the crises resulting from the lost war, inflation, economic rationalization, and depression, produced some movement. Nevertheless, though there was some decline in support for the Centre's offshoot, the BVP, over the course of the Weimar Republic's federal elections it remained at approximately 5o per cent throughout, so that it is clear that this party had a firm hold on its 'political space' and that any others entering the arena of Lower Franconian politics would very likely be competing for what remained.46
Apart from the Catholics, the two left-wing parties made up a second block of votes. They consistently rallied a smaller, but no less loyal, clientele and largely held on to it during the crisis that came with the depression.41
There was little space open to the Nazis in the third block of voters, the so-called 'bourgeois Protestant' group, so the scope for eliciting support for the NSDAP was limited.4"

Lower Franconia gave the NSDAP the smallest percentage of support in all of Bavaria. One obvious factor is Catholicism, which in 1933 was the religion of 76.8 per cent of the population of Wurzburg (the figure was 82.5 per cent in the district as a whole).41
However, not only the religious factor was at work in dampening enthusiasm for the Nazis, since Lower Franconia gave less support to the NSDAP than parts of Bavaria with a higher percentage of Catholics. By tradition Wurzburg and district are an area considered to be `resistant to politically extreme points of view'."'
The NSDAP was also poorly organized and badly led, with few branches and sparse finances. Only 17.7 per cent of Wurzburg's vote went to the Nazis in the federal election of 1930;
that was just about the same as the overall figure for Bavaria (i 7.9 per cent), but ahead of Lower Franconia as a whole (12.3 per cent). In the election of July 119 the percentage in Wiirzburg rose, but only to 22.8 per cent (in Bavaria it was 32.9 per cent, in Germany as a whole 37.3 per cent); the second election that year saw it fall to 119.9 per cent in W0rzburg (30.5 per cent in Bavaria; 33.1 per cent in Germany as a whole).51

As of i January 1933, Lower Franconia had the lowest proportion of its population enlisted as Nazi Party members, not only in Bavaria, but out of all thirty-two districts across Germany.52
It is all the more surprising, therefore, that Lower Franconians flocked to become members after Hitler assumed power. In fact, from 1933 the district led all Nazi Gaue in Bavaria in the proportion of its population that joined the Party (the so-called March converts), and ranked third nationally. Some of the shift can be accounted for by the abnormally low percentage previously on the books.S3
A recent study claims that the massive expansion of Party cells and blocks reported for the city of Wurzburg, which began again when the freeze on membership was lifted in 1937, 'was an exercise in fantasy and wishful thinking for the NSDAP could hardly claim to have rallied the entire population of Wurzburg to its cause', as would have been the case had it (as announced to Munich headquarters) established'34 Ortsgruppen, 159 cells and 831 blocks', so that in effect the network embraced'36,668 households or 132,444 inhabitants', virtually the entire population.54
But there is good reason to maintain that the figures were probably not too far off the mark. It is very doubtful that Munich headquarters could be duped so easily, for the new officials would be expected to provide regular reports, and new joiners would not only be assigned individual membership numbers but would also be expected to pay dues.

Obstacles to Party membership to some extent had been removed on 28 March 11933, when German Catholic bishops suspended the ban on Catholic membership. Initially, too, the Church took a positive attitude to the new regime and signed a concordat on 20 July 1933. In rural, devout areas such a reversal of opinion could give the impression that the Church was leading its flock to the Nazi ranks. Even after the leaders of the Church, especially Bishop Ehrenfried of Wiirzburg, switched to courageous opposition, the Church, once having apparently given its blessing to the Nazis, could not easily revert to a position of disapproval.

At any rate, by the early years of the Third Reich the political behaviour, social attitudes, and cultural traditions which seemed to set Lower Franconia apart from the national and even Bavarian norms were being eroded, with
many people adjusting to the new circumstances. Full-blooded enthusiasm of all the people was not necessary to the functioning of the new order. One writer claims that in the small city of Bad Kissingen, which provided a good deal of support for the NSDAP before 1933, `after the initial euphoria and fear ... the rural population assumed a massive indifference toward partystate policies, remained stubbornly loyal to the Catholic Church, and benign toward its Jewish citizens'.55
Another characterizes the struggle of the Catholic Church with the Nazi regime as a kind of `war of attrition', which developed as the previously enthusiastic hierarchy in the Church began to have second thoughts, reaching `a period of high tension between 1935 and 1938 and a final flare up to dramatic confrontation in 19411.56

The role of anti-Semitism in the 'success' of the Nazis in Lower Franconia is difficult to determine. William Allen's oft-cited conclusion about the small town of Nordheim is suggestive, but in the end hard to prove. He insists that local people 'were drawn to anti-Semitism because they were drawn to Nazism, not the other way around', and that 'many who voted Nazi simply ignored or rationalized the anti-Semitism of the party, just as they ignored other unpleasant aspects of the Nazi movement'.57
In Wurzburg anyone who voted for the NSDAP could hardly have been unaware that anti-Semitism occupied a prominent place in the Party's programme, a fact given abundant reinforcement by visits of Gauleiter Julius Streicher from neighbouring Middle Franconia. There had also been tasteless propaganda campaigns-for example, against the Jewish method of slaughtering livestock in accordance with ancient religious teachings, a campaign which was actually crowned by success when Bavaria introduced a prohibition in 1930.

Scandal-mongering against the Jews turned ugly in March 1929, when a murdered child was found in Manau, a small village in the area. Immediately the Nazis resuscitated the medieval superstition that the murder of a young child was somehow required by Jewish religious practice. Such nonsensical claims led to a spectacular court-case, played out for all it was worth by the two men formally charged with libel (Julius Streicher, and the Sturmer's editor, Karl Holz). Though they were found guilty and sent to gaol for several months, the affair was cleverly exploited and, in the words of one account, 'it really was rather a victory for the NSDAP', who gained invaluable publicity from it.58

Counter-demonstrations in Wurzburg by Jews and others, though successful in expressing disgust, amplified the importance of the charges and
added to the publicity. At one meeting 1,500 people gathered in protest, most of whom were outraged at the right-wing radicals, although the 300-400 Nazis who infiltrated the meeting caused an uproar. Holz and Gauleiter Hellmuth, who were present, charged prominent local officials with being 'slaves to the Jews [Judenknechte]. Mayor Hans Li ffler, accused of being the 'Jews' Mayor', asked the assembled to recall that just as Wurzburg had been the scene of the last burning of witches during Europe's witch-craze in the early modern era, it should'also be the last city in which one became inflamed over ritual murder'.
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