Action 3

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Under the code name Aktion 3 , the Reich Ministry of Finance issued instructions in early November 1941 on how to confiscate their assets when the German Jews were deported . The deprivation of property and the realization took place in close cooperation of tax officials with the Gestapo and with the participation of city administrations, property managers, bailiffs, bank employees, auctioneers and freight forwarders.

The income achieved through "Aktion 3", which comes from the utilization of the inventory left in the apartments and the collection of the remaining assets, is estimated at around 778 million Reichsmarks .

background

The "Action 3" stands at the end of a series of measures with which the Jews in Germany were excluded, disenfranchised, plundered and abducted. When the Jews were deported, the National Socialists confiscated the rest of their possessions and had them used for the benefit of the state. "Financial death" was soon followed by physical annihilation.

The National Socialist state had already proceeded with the plundering of emigrants with legally designed laws, ordinances and decrees. Formally sealed by the injustice state, the responsible officials carried out such tasks in a bureaucratically correct manner like ordinary administrative acts.

Asset recovery

According to the law on the deprivation of citizenship of 1933, citizenship could be withdrawn if a Reich citizen abroad "violated the duty of loyalty to the Reich and the people". His property could be confiscated and confiscated for the benefit of the empire. Heinrich Himmler determined in 1937 that tax debts or "racial abuse" of Jewish emigrants could be considered sufficient grounds to access blocked accounts or to foreclose real estate.

Even before the mass deportation that began in October 1941, several thousand Jews were deported across the borders in 1940 during the so-called “ Wagner-Bürckel Action ” and in the spring of 1941 further Jews from Vienna . In these cases, an elaborate procedure was initiated to confiscate the deportees' assets by means of a formal administrative act. A bailiff handed the deportee a receipt against a receipt that was signed by the responsible district president. This order referred to two laws from 1933, which were originally aimed at the “confiscation of property that is hostile to the people and the state” from communist and social democratic organizations. As early as the summer of 1940, a directive from the Reich Ministry of Justice had declared all Jews living abroad to be “enemies” in the sense of an “ordinance on the treatment of enemy assets”.

Asset collapse

There is evidence of meetings of high ministerial officials in 1940 with the aim of revoking German citizenship from all Jews. In January 1941, several drafts were created, which were compared and finally led to the eleventh ordinance on the Reich Citizenship Act of November 25, 1941. Now a Jew automatically lost his German citizenship "with the transfer of his habitual residence abroad" and his assets fell to the Reich without further action. Destination areas of deportation trains such as the General Government , the Reichskommissariat Ostland and the Reichskommissariat Ukraine were to be treated as "foreign countries within the meaning of the Eleventh Ordinance" by order of December 3, 1941. Auschwitz and Litzmannstadt (Łódź) were included. After this date, the previously usual complex formal administrative act was only required for stateless Jews and for deportations to the Theresienstadt ghetto , which was part of the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia .

This form of asset removal was no longer an active "asset confiscation", but rather a passive "asset decline". The tax officials, trained for such fine distinctions, showed themselves to be "painstakingly tried" to distinguish the various 'legal titles' of the takeover of Jewish assets in their bookkeeping.

Instructions from the Reich Finance Minister

On November 4, 1941, the Reich Finance Minister informed fourteen Oberfinanzpräsident about the "deportation of Jews" that had already started and issued instructions on how the remaining assets of the deportees were to be administered and used. The multi-page letter ends with the request to use the designation "Action 3" as a cover word when making inquiries over the phone. The Berlin-Brandenburg Regional Finance Bureau should be responsible for the settlement of securities.

Except for an amount of 100 Reichsmarks and 50 kg of luggage, the property of the deportees should be confiscated. The secret state police carry out the "deportation", request property registers, seal the apartments and take the apartment keys. The confiscation orders would be served on the Jews by bailiffs. - This usually happened shortly before the deportation at the assembly points.

The tax offices designated for administration and exploitation should inquire about the dates of the deportations from the locally competent Gestapo and request the property registers and confiscation orders. The apartments should be vacated as soon as possible in order to minimize possible further rent claims. Auctioning of the inventory in the apartments themselves are undesirable "based on experience". Furniture and furnishings are preferred for the furnishing of offices, rest homes and training centers to be taken from the Reich Finance Administration. In return for appropriate payment, “people with aviation damage” could purchase items from Jewish households through the National Socialist People's Welfare Association or municipal authorities. The junk shop could take over larger items.

Works of art of value are to be reported to the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts . Precious metals and stamp collections should be sent to the pawn shop in Berlin; Securities are to be delivered to the Reichshauptkasse Berlin. Land should be taken into administration. For the re-registration in the land register, the collection order must be submitted with a certificate of service.

Practical implementation

The regional tax offices created their own bloated departments for the administration and exploitation of Jewish assets. Despite a few meetings to “share experiences”, the division of competencies and tasks between the regional tax authorities was not uniformly regulated. In larger cities, separate collection agencies were often set up and tax officials were seconded there; In some cases, real estate agencies were responsible under the supervision of a head of the tax office.

Identification card for the Vugesta auction, May 1941

There were also differences in the exploitation of Jewish property. While in smaller places the inventory in the apartments was publicly auctioned, this was unusual in cities, and auction dates in collection centers were only published in exceptional cases. In Frankfurt the household effects were sold by tax officials to National Socialist organizations and individuals, in Vienna the Gestapo founded the Vugesta for this purpose and in Kassel an “Association for People's Welfare. e. V. "commissioned to sell furniture and furnishings, tableware, cutlery, linen and clothing for private sale to" aviation victims "and to transfer the proceeds after deducting expenses. From the summer of 1942, it was generally the case that “aviation victims” should be given preference. Some mayors were asked to buy furniture at an estimated value and to store the furniture as a precaution. 

The tax officials closed the accounts of the deported Jews, collected residual wage payments, the surrender value of life insurance policies, outstanding lease income and income from real estate that was registered as a community of heirs. They checked claims for outstanding rent payments and for necessary renovation work, paid gas, electricity and water bills and paid freight forwarders, appraisers and warehouse rents.

Difficulties arose with the registration of real estate in the land register: There was no required proof that claims by third parties did not exist. Sometimes a Jewish owner inherited a piece of land but was not yet entered in the land register. In addition, the pseudo-legal legal title of a deterioration in assets was not provided for the civil-legal procedure of a land register transfer. The only remedy was an “Ordinance to Simplify the Land Register Procedure” of October 5, 1942, which was tailored to such cases. 

Numerous interested parties stormed the tax authorities and wanted to take over rental apartments or purchase land from Jewish property. The Reich Minister of Finance issued a ban on sales in April 1942 in order not to allow soldiers returning home to go empty-handed. However, there were numerous exceptions for certain groups such as “fighters of the national insurrection”, “expelled Germans abroad” or surviving dependents of war participants.

Reich Security Main Office as a profiteer

During the final baggage check and body search in the assembly camp, the Gestapo acted as an auxiliary body for the tax authorities and confiscated jewelry, valuables and even valid postage stamps and low-value “scarce goods” such as soap and toothpaste. All items were carefully listed and some were sent to the recycling center, some were taken over for "official use" or given to the "National Socialist People's Welfare" for distribution. The transport costs - including those of the escort team - were meticulously settled; nevertheless, the Reich Security Main Office occasionally had a "transport profit" of a few thousand Reichsmarks.

The Reich Main Security Office enriched itself with substantial sums of money through the compulsory organization it oversees, the Reich Association of Jews in Germany , which concluded home purchase contracts for the so-called "Theresienstadt Old Age Ghetto" . In addition to a lump-sum payment based on age, a progressively increasing compulsory tax of 25% to 80% of total assets was required; a generous “voluntary donation” was also expected. For payments in favor of the Reichsvereinigung, there was a "special account H", which the Reich Security Main Office could access. The Reich Security Main Office set up a "Special Account W" for further asset recovery. In an internal protocol of March 9, 1942, it says: “It is requested that the Jews be encouraged to make substantial 'donations' for the 'W' account in the near future. So far, apparently due to the misunderstanding [of the initiating officials] that the Jews benefit directly from the fund, few amounts have been received ”.

Henchmen and buyers

It was not until the 1990s that the role of the financial bureaucracy and its relatives, the questions of their motivation, their options for action and responsibilities, was discussed more broadly. Individual studies show that the functionaries were mostly not “fanatical National Socialists”, but rather kept a distance from parts of Nazi ideology and politics, but still professionally carried out every required task. At the beginning of 1942, the tax officials must at least have suspected that they were disposing of the property of the murdered. The routine of bureaucratic and professional processes and structures based on the division of labor displaced questions about the whereabouts of the often frail deportees. As a result, the officers involved "consciously or unconsciously became henchmen in the extermination process".

Large sections of the population benefited from the plundering of the last possessions of the German Jews. Public auctions of so-called “non-Aryan assets” developed into downright “bargain hunts”. In Hamburg alone the property was offered to 30,000 Jews from Western Europe and acquired by around 100,000 buyers.

Frank Bajohr speaks of a “moral indifference” on the part of the buyers, who materially benefited from the extermination policy and justified their behavior by stating that the property was state property because it was auctioned by tax officials for the benefit of the German Reich. As “bomb victims”, they defined themselves as “victims of the war”, suppressed any scruples and unabashedly demanded that those who had been bombed should be compensated with Jewish property.

See also

literature

  • Wolfgang Dreßen : Subject: "Action 3". Germans recycle Jewish neighbors. Aryanization documents. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-351-02487-8 .
  • Martin Friedenberger, Klaus-Dieter Gössel, Eberhard Schönknecht (eds.): The realm finance administration in National Socialism. Presentation and documents (= publications of the House of the Wannsee Conference Memorial and Education Center. Vol. 1). Edition Temmen, Bremen 2002, ISBN 3-86108-377-9 .
  • Christiane Kuller: “First principle: hoarding for the Reich Finance Administration.” The utilization of the property of the deported Nuremberg Jews. In: Birthe Kundrus , Beate Meyer (ed.): The deportation of the Jews from Germany. Plans - Practice - Reactions. 1938–1945 (= contributions to the history of National Socialism . Vol. 20). Wallstein, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-89244-792-6 , pp. 160-179.
  • Christiane Kuller: Financial administration and persecution of Jews. Anti-Semitic fiscal policy and administrative practice in National Socialist Germany. In: zeitblicke. Vol. 3, No. 2, 2004, online .
  • Susanne Meinl , Jutta Zwilling: Legalized robbery. The plundering of the Jews under National Socialism by the Reich Finance Administration in Hesse (= scientific series of the Fritz Bauer Institute. Vol. 10). Campus, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2004, ISBN 3-593-37612-1 .
  • Hans-Dieter Schmid : "Financial death". The cooperation between the Gestapo and the tax authorities in the plundering of the Jews in Germany. In: Gerhard Paul , Klaus-Michael Mallmann (ed.): The Gestapo in the Second World War. "Home Front" and Occupied Europe. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2000, ISBN 3-89678-188-X , pp. 141–154.
  • Katharina Siefert: Guidelines for the “accelerated clearance of Jewish apartments”. The recovery of Jewish assets in Baden and a wooden box in the Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe . In: Journal for the history of the Upper Rhine . Volume 167, 2019, pp. 391-399
  • Katharina Stengel (ed.): Before the destruction. The state expropriation of the Jews under National Socialism (= Scientific Series of the Fritz Bauer Institute. Vol. 15). Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38371-2 (several articles on responsibility and scope for action in bureaucracy).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Christiane Kuller: Financial administration and persecution of Jews. In: zeitblicke. Vol. 3, No. 2, 2004, online .
  2. ↑ Hans G. Adler : The administered person. Studies on the deportation of Jews from Germany. Mohr, Tübingen 1974, ISBN 3-16-835132-6 , p. 183.
  3. ^ Hans-Dieter Schmid: "Finanztod". In: Gerhard Paul, Klaus-Michael Mallmann (ed.): The Gestapo in the Second World War. 2000, p. 143.
  4. ↑ Facsimile in: Wolfgang Dreßen: Subject: "Action 3". Germans recycle Jewish neighbors. 1998, p. 95; as well as in Linde Apel (ed.): Sent to death. The deportations of Jews, Roma and Sinti from Hamburg 1940 to 1945. = Sent to their deaths. The deportations of Jews, Roma and Sinti from Hamburg, 1940 to 1945. Metropol, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-940938-30-5 , p. 119.
  5. ↑ Law on the Confiscation of Property Hostile to the People and the State . RGBl. (1933) I, p. 479; Law on Confiscation of Communist Property . RGBl. (1933) I, p. 293. An additional decree RGBl. (1941) I, p. 303 , designates the Reich Ministry of Finance as the executive body.
  6. ↑ Uwe Dietrich Adam: Jewish policy in the Third Reich. Unchanged reprint of the original edition published in 1972 with a foreword. Droste, Düsseldorf 2003, ISBN 3-7700-4063-5 , p. 207.
  7. ^ Hans-Dieter Schmid: "Finanztod". In: Gerhard Paul, Klaus-Michael Mallmann (ed.): The Gestapo in the Second World War. 2000, p. 150 f.
  8. ↑ Susanne Meinl, Jutta Zwilling: Legalized robbery. 2004, p. 137.
  9. ↑ Christiane Kuller: “First principle: hoarding for the Reich finance administration.” In: Birthe Kundrus, Beate Meyer (ed.): The deportation of Jews from Germany. 2004, p. 166.
  10. ^ Walter Rummel: The expropriation of the Jews as a bureaucratic procedure. In: Katharina Stengel (ed.): Before the destruction. 2007, p. 69.
  11. ↑ Document 30 in: Martin Friedenberger, Klaus-Dieter Gössel, Eberhard Schönknecht (ed.): The Reich Finance Administration in National Socialism. 2002, pp. 70-74. Excerpt from: Walther Hofer (Ed.): The National Socialism. Documents 1933–1945 (= Fischer 6084 history ). 50th edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-596-26084-3 , p. 298.
  12. ↑ Susanne Meinl, Jutta Zwilling: Legalized robbery. 2004, p. 147 f.
  13. ↑ a b Götz Aly : Hitler's People's State. Robbery, Race War and National Socialism. 3. Edition. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-10-000420-5 , p. 141.
  14. ↑ Stefan Laube: "According to a message from our office on May 20, Mr. Oppenheimer is said to be a Jew". About dealing with life insurance policies in the Third Reich. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. Vol. 51, No. 3, 2003, pp. 339–361, here especially p. 352, digitized version (PDF; 7.01 MB) .
  15. ^ Walter Rummel: The expropriation of the Jews as a bureaucratic procedure. In: Katharina Stengel (ed.): Before the destruction. 2007, p. 67.
  16. ↑ Document 40 in: Martin Friedenberger, Klaus-Dieter Gössel, Eberhard Schönknecht (Ed.): The Reich Finance Administration in National Socialism. 2002, p. 88 f.
  17. ↑ Example in: Wolfgang Dreßen: Subject: "Aktion 3" , p. 39.
  18. ^ Hans-Dieter Schmid: "Finanztod". In: Gerhard Paul, Klaus-Michael Mallmann (ed.): The Gestapo in the Second World War. 2000, p. 150.
  19. ↑ Susanne Willems: The resettled Jew. Albert Speer's housing market policy for the Berlin capital construction (= publications of the Memorial and Educational Center House of the Wannsee Conference. Vol. 10). Edition Hentrich, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89468-259-0 , p. 409.
  20. ↑ Hans G. Adler: The hidden truth. Theresienstadt documents. Mohr (Siebeck), Tübingen 1958, p. 763.
  21. ↑ Hans G. Adler: The hidden truth. Theresienstadt documents. Mohr (Siebeck), Tübingen 1958, p. 10, see also p. 50.
  22. ↑ Katharina Stengel (ed.): Before the destruction. 2007, pp. 12-15.
  23. ^ Frank Bajohr : "Aryanization in Hamburg." The repression of the Jewish entrepreneurs 1933–1945 (= Hamburg contributions to social and contemporary history. Vol. 35). Christians, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-7672-1302-8 , p. 345, (also: Hamburg, Universität, Dissertation, 1996/1997).
  24. ^ Frank Bajohr: "Aryanization in Hamburg." The repression of the Jewish entrepreneurs 1933–1945 (= Hamburg contributions to social and contemporary history. Vol. 35). Christians, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-7672-1302-8 , p. 336 and p. 345 f.
  25. ^ Frank Bajohr: Parvenus and Profiteurs. Corruption in the Nazi era (= Fischer pocket books 15388 era of National Socialism ). Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-596-15388-3 , p. 187.