Jewish card index

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On August 17, 1935, shortly before the Nuremberg Race Laws were enacted , Reinhard Heydrich requested material for a central Jewish register and a district register from the local Secret State Police . Membership lists of Jewish associations and religious communities were evaluated as data. In 1937 this incomplete card index was to be expanded and, if possible, should include all “racial Jews” who converted to Christianity, as well as “ Jewish mixed race ” and “ Jewish relatives ”. In order to avoid duplication of work, the security service of the Reichsführer SS, in agreement with the Reich Ministry of the Interior , decided to use a "supplementary card" to query the religious affiliation of the grandparents in the census planned for 1938 . This census was later postponed to May 17, 1939. The evaluation of the data collected for the Jewish card index dragged on until March 1941; the supplementary cards were presumably delivered to the Reichssippenamt at the end of 1941 .

The Jewish files of the district offices were used in the so-called Poland Action as well as in the November pogroms in 1938 and the subsequent arrest campaign. To what extent the data collected during the 1939 census were used for the lists of the deportation of German Jews is a matter of dispute.

The main file at the Gestapo in Berlin was destroyed towards the end of the war . The “supplementary cards” remained in the Reichssippenamt until 1945, were handed over to the Central State Archives of the GDR and are now available as a film in the Federal Archives in Berlin-Lichterfelde and as a digitized database on the website of Tracing the Past eV

Similar "Jewish registers" were obtained in the occupied countries and among the European allies.

Preforms

Even before the National Socialist “ seizure of power ”, Achim Gercke had set up a file on a private initiative which, among other things, was supposed to provide “family history evidence of the Jewish and Judged university professors and judges”. In 1931 Gercke's card index was used by the "NS-Information at the Reichsleitung der NSDAP" to check the descent of party candidates. In 1932, 400,000 genealogical records of Jews in Germany were already collected in this card index . The constantly expanding card index was taken over and expanded in 1933 by the Reich Office for Family Research .

Heinrich Himmler , as deputy head of the Reich Propaganda , planned as early as 1928 to set up a comprehensive internal party reporting system through which all “Jews, including baptized Jews as far as possible, should be recorded with precise details of person, age, occupation and home”, “in order to finally find a reliable Jewish Statistics in the context of the total population ”. In May 1935, before the Nuremberg Race Laws were passed , the district office in Frankenthal (Palatinate) tried to list Jews of German and foreign citizenship. In Lübeck there was an early Jewish index in the local registration office .

Data collection

A census planned since 1929 had been postponed several times for financial reasons and was only carried out on June 16, 1933. The evaluation lasted until 1936; around 505,000 "religious Jews" were recorded in the census. The number of Jews living in Germany was far overestimated by the National Socialists. Reichsärzteführer Leonardo Conti and the Reich Ministry of the Interior wrongly assumed in 1935 that, in addition to the religious Jews, there were 300,000 "full Jews" of non-Jewish faith and 750,000 "half-breeds" living in Germany. In fact, the census of May 1939 only found around 23,000 “full Jews” or “full Jews” who had converted to Christianity and 110,000 “mixed race 1st and 2nd degree”.

On August 17, 1935, Reinhard Heydrich issued a circular order to all state police stations to request all Jewish organizations and associations in their area to give them their membership lists in triplicate. The organizations should be advised that they would be disbanded in the event of false information on punishment. Two copies should be sent to the head office by November 1, 1935, the third list should be evaluated at the respective office and used to set up a district index. Changes would have to be reported on the first of the next quarter. It was assumed that at least 80% of the “full Jews” could be recorded through the membership registers of organized Jews. In fact, the percentage was considerably higher because the number of Jews baptized as Christian was overestimated. Since then, the security service has had a fairly comprehensive register of Jews. Those responsible spared no effort to close the suspected gaps that still existed.

Further capture

On October 12, 1936, Heinrich Müller asked the head of the Ordnungspolizei in Berlin to oblige those subject to registration to make it easier to “monitor Judaism”, not just to indicate their religious affiliation. Rather, they would also have to provide information as to whether they were Jews within the meaning of the Nuremberg laws . Allegedly after the "seizure of power" it was established that "a large part of the Jews living in Germany had been baptized as Protestants or Catholics " in order to no longer appear as Jews in the population registers after changing their place of residence . In fact, this assumption was unfounded.

On May 28, 1937, the head of the Department for Jews , Dieter Wisliceny , stated in an internal memo that in the event of war the Jews of Germany would undoubtedly be placed under exceptional law. Wisliceny further wrote:

"The preparatory task of the security service for the A case can only be to set up a Jewish card index and specifically identify Jewish economic exponents, leading Jewish-political and Marxist- minded Jews."

On July 12, 1937, in the presence of Adolf Eichmann, the “Security Service of the Reichsführer SS” and the Secret State Police discussed the cooperation between the Party and the state in establishing a more comprehensive Jewish register. In the census planned for 1938, the religious affiliation of all four grandparents should be given on "supplementary cards", which would determine the "racial affiliation". For false information should prison be threatened. After evaluation, each local police authority will have a file of Jews, "Jewish mixed race" and "Jewish relatives". In order to avoid duplication of work, the compilation of a comprehensive Jewish index should be postponed until the census. Because of the annexation of Austria , the census was postponed to 1939. The evaluation of the collected data lasted until March 1941.

In 1938 penal ordinances on registering the property of Jews , compulsory identification cards and changing names were issued, which affected all Jews according to the definition of the Reich Citizenship Act . An ordinance in the Personal Status Act of May 19, 1938 ( RGBl. I, p. 533) stipulated that earlier membership of a Jewish religious community had to be noted. In addition to the population register, in August 1939, information about training, language skills, driver's license, etc. was asked for in a “people's index”. The helpers should mark people “known as Jews” on the index card with a “J”. All data collected in this way could supplement the Jewish files and serve for comparison.

In Vienna, at the instigation of Adolf Eichmann , the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde carried out a special census in September and October 1939, which was supposed to record all “religious Jews” and “non-Mosaic” Viennese Jews. In 1939 almost all Jews had to join the Reich Association of Jews in Germany as compulsory members. The Gestapo secured access to the membership file at an early stage. In doing so, she also obtained data from "non-believing Jews" who had left a Jewish community or religious community long before. The Reichsvereinigung was commissioned to continuously add to their lists and to correct them by comparing them with the housing authorities and issuing offices of identification cards and grocery cards . Until 1941, this data collection was presumably more comprehensive than the central Jewish card index, which was still being established. By March 1941 at the latest - after the population census had been evaluated - the "Security Service of the Reichsführer SS" had all the data for a complete Jewish card index, which also included "Jewish mixed race", recognized Jews and "Jewish relatives" from mixed marriages .

Occupied countries

Poland

As can be seen from a secret Reich case , the security service of the Reichsführer SS planned in May 1939 the “complete registration of Judaism in Poland”. To this end, they wanted to use the help of the German People's Association in Poland , which was led by the later Łódź district leader Ludwig Wolff .

In occupied Poland , people had to register with the district offices for registration in the population census. Anyone found after a deadline without a registration form could be killed immediately. By ordinance of November 23, 1939, Jews throughout the General Government were required to wear a white armband with a blue Zion star as a mark.

In contrast to Germany, where “ Jewish mixed race ” were better off, in Poland all “ half-Jews ” were treated as equal to “full Jews” and persecuted.

Netherlands

In the Netherlands in 1936 a population register created with the Hollerith system also recorded religious affiliation. Demands to remove all references to religious affiliation from the registers in view of the impending war were not implemented. At the beginning of the occupation there were also documents from a census from 1939, through which all persons belonging to the Jewish religious community were recorded separately, but not all Jews in the sense of a racial classification.

As early as the summer of 1940, the occupation authorities began preparing for a so-called “Jewish registration protocol”. Members of the Dutch authorities participated in the drafts. On January 10, 1941, an "Ordinance of the Reich Commissioner for the Occupied Dutch Territories on the mandatory registration of persons who are wholly or partially Jewish." All persons who had at least one Jewish grandparent had to register with the local residents' registration office. Those who did not comply with this reporting requirement faced imprisonment of up to five years and confiscation of the property.

In the registration offices, the index cards for Jews and Jewish mongrels were marked with different tabs; the registration form was sent to the “Reich Inspection of Population Registers” in The Hague and became part of the central “Jewish index”. In Amsterdam there was also another registry at the “Joodsche Raad”. At the beginning of July 1941, the registration was completely completed; 160,886 people “of Jewish blood” were recorded.

According to statistics, around 19,000 Jews were married to non-Jews. "Isolated" by the deportations that regularly called in the night of 10 to 11 May 1942, the Jewish wives in "were mixed marriages ". For their “exemption”, Jewish men had to prove that their children did not belong to the religious community and were therefore considered to be “Jewish mixed race”.

Belgium

In Belgium, data on religious affiliation had not previously been collected, so that the German occupiers did not have any official statistics that they could use for their purposes. Citing the constitution, the Belgian general secretaries rejected the German military commanders' request to create an ordinance to register Jews and their property and to dismiss all Jews from public service. Thereupon the “military commander in Belgium and northern France” Alexander von Falkenhausen issued the first “Jews Ordinance” on October 28, 1940, in which a “definition of the Jew” was defined and the communities were obliged to create a “Jewish register” within one month. The identity cards were marked accordingly. In addition, a registration requirement for Jewish companies, a ban on the disposal of land and the labeling of Jewish restaurants were ordered. However, the Belgian administration did not participate in the registration of Jewish companies and their Aryanization .

In the index of the "Judenreferat der Brusselser Sipo-SD" 55,671 persons were listed. Presumably, not all Jews were recorded: After the war, around 65,000 Jews who were in Belgium in 1940 could be identified by name. However, it could not be clarified how many of them managed to escape shortly before or after the German invasion.

Luxembourg

In August 1940, the task force in the Luxembourg CdZ area was set up with the Jewish officers Paul Schmidt and Otto Schmalz. With the help of the Luxembourg Administrative Commission, a kind of substitute government, the necessary documents were taken from the files of the residents' registration offices. The police compiled a register of the Jews living in Luxembourg, and upon request a list of names of 480 Polish Jews from the immigration police's registers was sent to the Jewish Department.

France

In the occupied part of France , the "Chief of the Military Administration in France" Alfred Streccius issued a first anti-Jewish ordinance on September 27, 1940, to register all Jews and identify their identity documents. On October 3, 1940, the Vichy regime issued the first “Jew Statute”, which defined who was to be considered a Jew in the sense of the racial laws. On February 22nd, 1942, Theodor Dannecker reported on the Jewish files there as a Jewish officer for the security service in France. It is thanks to "local influence" that since the end of 1940 the prefect of police in Paris has had an exemplary Jewish index. Even if this does not represent a complete card index of the occupied area, it is still an indispensable preparatory work for the later deportation.

The registration of all Jews in France was ordered by Philippe Pétain on June 2, 1941. The data collected went far beyond the information that had been determined by the German side in the autumn of 1940 in the zone occupied by them, and inadvertently formed the basis for the later deportation.

literature

  • The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945. Volume 1: 1933-1937. Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58480-6 .
  • Gudrun Exner, Peter Schimany: The census in Austria and the registration of the Austrian Jews. In: Rainer Mackensen (Ed.): Population research and politics in Germany in the 20th century . Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-531-15121-5 .
  • Jutta Wietog: Censuses under National Socialism. Documentation on population statistics in the Third Reich. Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-10384-X .
  • Götz Aly , Karl Heinz Roth : The complete coverage. 2nd Edition. Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 3-596-14767-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gudrun Exner, Peter Schimany: "The population census in Austria and the registration of Austrian Jews", in: Rainer Mackensen (Ed.): Population research and politics in Germany in the 20th century. Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-531-15121-5 , p. 138.
  2. ↑ Jutta Wietog: censuses under Nazism - a documentary for population statistics in the Third Reich. Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-10384-X , p. 276.
  3. ↑ Götz Aly, Karl Heinz Roth: The complete collection. 2nd Edition. Frankfurt / M. 2005, ISBN 3-596-14767-0 versus Jutta Wietog: Volkszählungen ... esp. Pp. 166–170.
  4. ↑ Jutta Wietog: censuses. .., p. 20.
  5. ↑ See (last accessed on November 4, 2014) the website of Tracing the Past eV
  6. ^ Peter Longerich: Heinrich Himmler: Biography Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88680-859-5 , p. 99.
  7. ↑ Jutta Wietog: Censuses .... P. 68.
  8. ↑ Document VEJ 1/159: The RMI informed on April 3, 1935, the estimated number of Jews. In: Wolf Gruner (Ed.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection): Volume 1: German Reich 1933–1937. Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58480-6 , P. 424; Jutta Wietog: Censuses ... p. 79.
  9. ↑ Beate Meyer: 'Jüdische Mischlinge' 2nd edition. Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-933374-22-7 ; P. 465 and 162 / Figures for Germany within the borders of 1937 - the number of Jews without ties to a Jewish religious community is estimated at 180,000 for 1933.
  10. ↑ Document VEJ 1/188 in: The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945. Volume 1: 1933-1937, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58480-6 , p. 470.
  11. ↑ Jutta Wietog: Censuses .... P. 71.
  12. ↑ Document VEJ 1/252 in: The Persecution and Assassination ... Vol. 1, pp 613th
  13. ↑ Document VEJ 1/283 in: The persecution and murder ... Vol. 1, p. 669.
  14. ^ Document VEJ 1/288 in: The persecution and murder ... Vol. 1, p. 680f.
  15. ↑ Fig. Of a supplementary map  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. pdf@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.archiv.sachsen.de  
  16. ↑ Jutta Wietog: Censuses .... P. 160.
  17. ↑ Gudrun Exner, Peter Schimany: The census in Austria ... S. 146f.
  18. ↑ Jutta Wietog: censuses. .. p. 261.
  19. ↑ Jutta Wietog: Population censuses .... P. 249f.
  20. ↑ The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945. (Source collection) Volume 4: Poland - September 1939-July 1941 (edited by Klaus-Peter Friedrich), Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-486-58525-4 , Document VEJ 4/2, pp. 75f.
  21. ^ Ingo Haar : Historians in National Socialism. German history and the 'national struggle' in the east. Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-525-35942-X .
  22. ↑ The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945. Volume 4, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-486-58525-4 , document VEJ 4/130, p. 315 with note 9.
  23. ↑ The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945. Volume 4, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-486-58525-4 , document VEJ 4/102, p. 266.
  24. ↑ Christoph Kreutzmüller: The registration of the Jews in the Reich Commissariat of the occupied Dutch territories. In: Johannes Hürter; Jürgen Zarusky (Ed.): Occupation, Collaboration, Holocaust - New Studies on the Persecution and Murder of European Jews. Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58728-9 , p. 23.
  25. ↑ VEJ 5/54 = Katja Happe, Michael Mayer, Maja Peers (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection) Volume 5: Western and Northern Europe 1940 – June 1942. Munich 2012 , ISBN 978-3-486-58682-4 , pp. 212-214.
  26. ↑ Christoph Kreutzmüller: The registration of the Jews .... P. 30.
  27. ↑ Christoph Kreutzmüller: The registration of the Jews .... P. 33 / as document VEJ 5/90
  28. ↑ Christoph Kreutzmüller: The registration of the Jews .... P. 37.
  29. ↑ Katja Happe, Michael Mayer, Maja Peers (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933-1945 (collection of sources) Volume 5: Western and Northern Europe 1940-June 1942. Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3 -486-58682-4 , p. 38 and Doc. 7/157
  30. ↑ Insa Meinen: The deportation of the Jews from Belgium and the German foreign exchange protection command. In: Johannes Hürter; Jürgen Zarusky (Ed.): Occupation, Collaboration, Holocaust - New Studies on the Persecution and Murder of European Jews. Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58728-9 , p. 51 / as document VEJ 5/158
  31. ↑ Insa Meinen: The deportation of the Jews from Belgium .... p. 51. / Inaccurate figures (= 44,000 + 10,000 children) from Juliane Wetzel : France and Belgium. In: Dimensions of the genocide (edited by Wolfgang Benz), dtv Munich 1996, ISBN 3-423-04690-2 , p. 110.
  32. ↑ Änder High Garden: The National Socialist Jewish policy in Luxembourg. Commissioned by the Memorial de la Déportation in Luxemburg-Hollerich. 2nd, change Edition. 2004, p. 243.
  33. ↑ Änder High Garden: The National Socialist Jewish policy in Luxembourg. 2004, p. 34.
  34. ↑ VEJ (. Ed) - 5/238 Katja Happe, Michael Mayer, Maja peers: The persecution and murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 (source book) Volume 5: Western and Northern Europe 1940-June 1942. Munich 2012 , ISBN 978-3-486-58682-4 , pp. 596f.
  35. ^ Juliane Wetzel: France and Belgium. P. 112.
  36. ↑ Document 1210-RF in: IMT: The Nuremberg Trial against the Major War Criminals. Reprint Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7735-2527-3 , Volume 38 (Document Volume 14), p. 741.
  37. ↑ Document VEJ 5/271
  38. ↑ Katja Happe, Michael Mayer, Maja Peers (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection), Volume 5: Western and Northern Europe 1940 – June 1942. Munich 2012, ISBN 978- 3-486-58682-4 , p. 49.