Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question

The institute for studying the Jewish question was affiliated with the Goebbels Propaganda Ministry . It was founded in 1934/35. In 1939 the facility was designated as an anti-Semitic campaign and from 1942 as an anti-Jewish campaign .

Despite extensive cooperation, it should not be confused with the Institute for Researching the Jewish Question (since 1941) or the Institute for Researching and Eliminating Jewish Influence on German Church Life , which was established at the instigation of German Christians .

history

In 1934, Eberhard Taubert founded the Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question on behalf of the Reich Propaganda Ministry . Originally the institute was supposed to be a joint research center against Judaism , Freemasonry and liberalism . But the tasks were soon separated. Right from the start, the Propaganda Ministry tried to camouflage the fact that the institute was part of the government, as negative foreign policy consequences were feared - a “standard work on the general danger of world Jewry ” was planned.

In 1937 the institute published an edition of its journal Mitteilungen über die Judenfrage for the first time . In addition to spreading anti-Semitic ideas, the institute claimed a scientific character. In fact, the journal with its articles, reviews, and country reports corresponded to the usual schema of scientific journals. Nonetheless, the aim was to spread the government's anti-Semitic policies. The 1935 publication by the institute Die Juden in Deutschland contained chapters such as “Jews as Carriers of Corruption”, “The Jews and Immorality” and “The Criminality and Racial Degeneration of the Jews”.

During the Second World War , the institute concentrated its work on areas outside Germany. The supplement Judaism and Law was published in 1940 . As confidential material aimed at a narrow circle of addressees, it described the anti-Jewish jurisprudence and ordinances in the German-occupied territories.

After the “ final solution to the Jewish question ” in National Socialist Germany was largely completed by deportations , the institute concentrated on “world Jewry” and other anti-Semitic movements. The institute built up a network of around 400 employees abroad. These provided information, but also received anti-Semitic material and financial support from the institute.

Employee

Eugen von Engelhardt , director 1934–1935
Wilhelm Ziegler , director 1935–1939
Otto Rössler , propagated for the RSHA Hitler as the forerunner of the Mahdi in Arab countries
Wolff Heinrichsdorff , director 1939–1945
Heinz Ballensiefen , already working there as a student in the archive
Ludwig Franz Gengler , editor of the “Handbuch der Judenfrage” by Theodor Fritsch

Publications of the institute (selection)

Fritz Otto Hermann Schulz: Jew and Worker. A section from the tragedy of the German people. Nibelungen, Berlin & Leipzig & Bibliographisches Institut 1934; 2. through Edition 1942; 3rd ed. 1944. Edited in cooperation with the Antikomintern .
Friedrich Karl Wiebe: Germany and the Jewish question . Brochure, undated, undated [1939] (82 pages, also published in English and French).
The Jews in Germany. Ed. Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question. Franz-Eher-Verlag Nachf., Munich 1935 [with the chapters: Emancipation of the Jews; The population development of the Jews since the beginning of the 19th century; The Jews in Economic Life; Jews as carriers of corruption; The Jews in the press; The Jews in Politics; The Jews as administrators of German culture; The Jews and immorality; The Crime and Racial Degeneration of the Jews];
- 4th edition 1936 digitized ;
- 7th edition, 32nd - 36th Th., 1938;
- 8th edition, 37–41. Th., 1939.
Hans Krebs , Eugen von Engelhardt (ed.): The world front. Voices on the Jewish question. 1st episode. Nibelungen-Verlag, Berlin & Leipzig 1935 & 1938; Foreword by the institute.

Individual evidence

^ The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection), Volume 1: German Reich 1933–1937 (edited by Wolf Gruner) Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58480-6 , p. 624, no. 259.
↑ Dirk Rupnow: Destroy and remember. Traces of National Socialist memory politics. Göttingen, 2005, p. 137ff.
↑ On his attempt to explain the theologian Paul Tillich by hearsay in a lecture about Jews, see Art. Tillich
^ Authors were among others Alfred Rosenberg , Tibor von Eckhardt , Wilhelm Frick , Theodor Fritsch , Oswald Mosley , Madison Grant . Episode 2 ff. Did not appear. Exact content and author information in: Lexicon of German-Language Literature of the Baltic States and St. Petersburg , Volume 1, ISBN 3110193388 , p. 397.

[1] The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection), Volume 1: German Reich 1933–1937 (edited by Wolf Gruner) Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58480-6 , p. 624, no. 259.

[2] Dirk Rupnow: Destroy and remember. Traces of National Socialist memory politics. Göttingen, 2005, p. 137ff.

[3] On his attempt to explain the theologian Paul Tillich by hearsay in a lecture about Jews, see Art. Tillich

[4] Authors were among others Alfred Rosenberg , Tibor von Eckhardt , Wilhelm Frick , Theodor Fritsch , Oswald Mosley , Madison Grant . Episode 2 ff. Did not appear. Exact content and author information in: Lexicon of German-Language Literature of the Baltic States and St. Petersburg , Volume 1, ISBN 3110193388 , p. 397.