Jewish property tax
The Jewish property tax was an arbitrary special tax that German Jews had to pay during the National Socialist era .
After Herschel Grynszpan's assassination attempt on the German legation secretary Ernst Eduard vom Rath and the November pogroms in 1938 , Hermann Göring demanded a contribution of one billion Reichsmarks (RM) as an “ atonement ” for “the hostile attitude of Judaism towards the German people ”. The ordinance on the atonement of Jews of German nationality ( RGBl. I p. 1579) of November 12, 1938 was signed by Hermann Göring, who in 1936 had been given a general power of attorney to issue statutory ordinances.
On the same day, the ordinance on the elimination of Jews from German economic life and the ordinance on the restoration of the street scene in Jewish businesses were issued, three weeks later the ordinance on the use of Jewish assets .
occurrence
Adolf Hitler had already considered a comparable penalty tax in 1936 after David Frankfurter's assassination attempt on Wilhelm Gustloff , then approved a “plan to levy a special Jewish tax in principle” and had a law drafted that was to be promulgated immediately after the Gustloff trial. In a secret memorandum on the four-year plan , Hitler proclaimed in August 1936 that in order to achieve Germany's military-political goals, etc. a. a law should be enacted "that makes the whole of Judaism liable for all damage caused by individual specimens of this criminality to the German economy and thus to the German people". On December 18 of the same year, the State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, Wilhelm Stuckart , informed Reich Economics Minister Hjalmar Schacht in confidence that Hitler had “basically approved the levying of a Jewish tax” and had ordered “the preparation of a corresponding draft law to be accelerated so that the possibility would be given To proclaim the law after the end of the Gustloff process ”. These plans grew to a bill that imposed special surcharges on wage and property taxes for all Jews for the 1937 financial year. However, for reasons of foreign policy, but also because of concerns of the ministerial bureaucracy, Hitler refrained from implementing it, "obviously with the intention of waiting for a more favorable situation".
On November 10, 1938, Reich Economics Minister Walther Funk learned from Joseph Goebbels that Adolf Hitler had ordered that all Jews be eliminated from the German economy. On the same day Göring and Goebbels met with Hitler, and Goebbels suggested that the Jews be charged a contribution. At the Nuremberg trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Tribunal , Göring assured that Hitler was also behind the aims of the other laws that were passed shortly thereafter:
“I would like to emphasize that although I have had a written mandate and order, both oral and written, from the Führer to implement and enact these laws, I take full and complete responsibility for these laws that I have drawn, because I have them and am therefore responsible for them and do not think of hiding behind the [sic] order of the Führer in any way. "
In a “meeting about the Jewish question ” lasting several hours on November 12, 1938, in front of more than a hundred participants, Göring outlined the goal of “achieving a very clear, profitable action for the Reich” on the Jewish question. The damage caused by the pogrom was supposed to be repaired by the Jews themselves; Insurance benefits were confiscated. Jewish businesses were to be expropriated below appraisal value and transferred to German buyers at market value. Shares and securities had to be exchanged for imperial treasury orders. Goering said during this meeting:
“I will choose the wording that the German Jews as a whole will receive a contribution of 1 billion as punishment for their nefarious crimes, etc., etc. That will work. The pigs won't commit a second murder anytime soon. Incidentally, I have to state once again: I don't want to be a Jew in Germany. "
execution
An ordinance on the registration of property of Jews had already been issued in the spring of 1938 . Jews had to declare their assets by the end of July if the value exceeded 5,000 RM. An implementing ordinance on the atonement of the Jews of November 21, 1938 (RGBl. I p. 1638 f.) Fell back on it and stipulated that all Jews with assets over 5,000 RM 20% of it in four installments by August 15, 1939 had to pay their tax office. In the regulation it was expressly reserved that further payments could be requested if the total amount of one billion Reichsmarks would not be reached in this way. In fact, another ordinance called for a fifth installment, which was due on November 15, 1939. The total sum came to RM 1,126,612,495.00.
| Tax year | Tax revenue in RM |
|---|---|
| 1938 | 498.514.808 |
| 1939 | 533.126.504 |
| 1940 | 94.971.184 |
| Total: | 1,126,612,496 |
Financial background
The Reich's financial plight had worsened - not least because of the armament of the Wehrmacht . There was a lack of foreign exchange and loans from abroad; Mefo bills had to be repaid in 1939 . There was a considerable gap in the budget: in 1938 there was a cash deficit of two billion Reichsmarks. Walther Bayrhoffer from the Reich Ministry of Finance feared in mid-November 1938 "the possibility that the Reich would become insolvent". A representative of the Foreign Office noted after Göring's internal speech on November 18, 1938:
“Very critical situation of the Reich finances. Remedy initially through the billion imposed on the Jews and through the Reich profits from the Aryanization of Jewish enterprises. "
The financial tight spot the German state found itself in in November is evident from the fact that the urgently anticipated fines from the “Jewish fine” were pre-financed with the help of major German banks. With 1 billion Reichsmarks, the Reich's income rose at one stroke from 16 to 17 billion marks, i.e. by a good 6 percent.
Reactions
Victor Klemperer writes in his diaries for November 13, 1938 and December 6:
“In Leipzig we also learned the billions of dollars that the German people had judged the Jews. […] In the property tax, however, we seem to benefit from our poverty. [...] I (will) probably be below the 5,000 mark limit, because the surrender value of the life insurance will only be a few hundred marks and the current value of the house barely 17,000, of which 12,000 are a mortgage. "
In fact, only a fraction of the Jews remaining in Germany paid this penalty tax. In Hamburg, for example, only 16 percent had to submit an asset declaration that was used as the basis for the Jewish property tax. The popular notion of “the wealth of the Jews” was legend.
According to the secret domestic political mood reports that were collected by the security service, parts of the population criticized the senseless destruction of property during the "Reichskristallnacht". By contrast, the lump-sum fine imposed on Jews was seen as a just punishment in many cases. The Bamberger Volksblatt described the alleged wealth of the Jews and justified the "atonement": "A small part of this property, which has been taken from the German people by fraud, is returned to the possession of the German people through the fine now imposed."
literature
- Götz Aly : Hitler's People's State. Robbery, Race War and National Socialism. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-10-000420-5 .
Web links
- Jewish property tax in the glossary of the Lower Saxony State Archives
- Notification of the Jewish property tax , exhibit of the German Historical Museum
Individual evidence
- ^ Ordinance on the implementation of the four-year plan (RGBl. 1936 I p. 887).
- ↑ Quoted from Uwe Dietrich Adam: Jewish policy in the Third Reich. Düsseldorf 2003 (published from 1972), ISBN 3-7700-4063-5 , p. 112.
- ↑ a b Quoted from Avraham Barkai : From boycott to "de-Jewification": The economic struggle for existence of the Jews in the Third Reich 1933–1943 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-596-24368-8 . P. 126.
- ↑ Uwe Dietrich Adam: Judenpolitik ... , p. 114.
- ↑ Uwe Dietrich Adam: Judenpolitik ... , p. 146, with reference to IMT, vol. XIII, p. 131.
- ↑ Uwe Dietrich Adam: Judenpolitik ... , p. 146, with reference to IMT, vol. IX, p. 313.
- ↑ IMT: The Trial against the Major War Criminals ... , reprint, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7735-2522-2 , Vol. IX, p. 314.
- ^ IMT: The Trial against the Major War Criminals ... , reprint, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7735-2522-2 , Vol. XXVIII, p. 506 = Document PS-1816.
- ^ IMT: The Trial against the Major War Criminals ... , reprint, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7735-2522-2 , Vol. XXVIII, p. 538 = Document PS-1816.
- ↑ " Second Implementing Ordinance on the Atonement of the Jews " of October 19, 1939 (RGBl. I p. 2059)
- ↑ Götz Aly : Hitler's People's State . Robbery, Race War and National Socialism. Frankfurt a. M. 2005, ISBN 3-10-000420-5 , p. 63.
- ^ Raul Hilberg: The Destruction of European Jews , Volume 1, Fischer Verlag 1982, ISBN 3-596-24417-X , pp. 144ff
- ↑ Götz Aly: Hitler's People's State , pp. 61/62.
- ↑ Götz Aly: Hitler's People's State , p. 62.
- ↑ Victor Klemperer: I want to give testimony to the last. Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-351-02340-5 , Vol. I, pp. 438 and 442.
- ↑ Götz Aly: Hitler's People's State , p. 56.
- ↑ Peter Longerich: 'We didn't know anything about that!' Munich 2006, ISBN 3-88680-843-2 , p. 130; Otto Dov Kulka; Eberhard Jäckel: The Jews in the secret Nazi mood reports 1933–1945. Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-77001-616-5 .
- ↑ Peter Longerich: 'We didn't know anything about that!' , P. 139.