Jewish stamp

German passport with J-stamp and compulsory first name Israel

The so-called Jewish stamp was a stamp affixed to German passports by German authorities from 1938 in the form of a red “J”, with which the passport holder was identified as a Jew . The basis was the ordinance on passports for Jews of October 5, 1938.

According to a later police ordinance of July 7, 1941, the first page of the passport cover should also be stamped accordingly. The suggestion for this comes from a German consul.

Historical classification

With the J stamp, German Jews could be identified immediately when crossing the border. Depending on the entry regulations of the destination country, this could mean that Jews were denied entry. Switzerland only permitted the German Jews who could be identified in this way to enter the country if the responsible Swiss representation had issued a visa beforehand.

The invention of the Jewish stamp was long blamed on Switzerland , especially the head of the Aliens Police at the time, Heinrich Rothmund . Peter Rippmann made corresponding allegations in an article that appeared on March 31, 1954 in the journal Der Schweizerische Beobachter . However, recent research shows that the J stamp was introduced due to an agreement between Switzerland and Germany, but that it was based on a proposal by the German authorities, which wanted to prevent the introduction of the visa requirement for all German citizens required by the Swiss Federal Council . In 1998 , the observer qualified his accusation against Rothmund accordingly .

Switzerland itself did not specifically mark the passports of Swiss Jews. However, she only wanted "Jews belonging to the Reich [...] whose passport is provided with the [...] mentioned feature [...] to allow entry into Switzerland if the competent Swiss representation had an assurance in the passport Authorization to stay in Switzerland or to transit through Switzerland '. ”She did not usually accept German Jews as political refugees and denied Jews at risk entry into Switzerland without prior special application and authorization.

literature

• Switzerland and the refugees at the time of National Socialism: Revised and expanded version of the 1999 interim report . (= Publications of the Independent Expert Commission Switzerland - Second World War. Volume 17). Chronos-Verlag, Zurich 2001, ISBN 3-0340-0617-9 . ( Summary online ; PDF; 17 kB)
• Georg Kreis : The return of the J stamp: the story of a difficult coming to terms with the past . Chronos Publishing House. Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-905313-34-0 . ( Review by Zsolt Keller 2002 ; PDF; 13 kB)
• Georg Kreis: The passport with the Jewish stamp: A family history in a piece of world history 1925–1975. Munich 2001.
• Marco Jorio : Jewish stamp. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Written opinion of the Federal Council of November 25, 1998 on the interpellation by Maximilian Reimann of October 7, 1998.
• Carl Ludwig : The refugee policy in Switzerland from 1933 to the present: Report to the Federal Council for the attention of the federal councils. 1957. (PDF; 26.4 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Joseph Walk (ed.): The special right for the Jews in the Nazi state. 2nd Edition. Heidelberg 1996, ISBN 3-8252-1889-9 , p. 344.
2. ↑ Eckart Conze, Norbert Frei, Peter Hayes, Mosche Zimmermann: The office and the past - German diplomats in the Third Reich and in the Federal Republic. Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-89667-430-2 , p. 177.
3. ↑ Document VEJ 2/127.
4. ^ Dpa report of February 22, 2009 , Hagalil archive
5. ↑ Urs Rauber : Jewish stamp: correction of a half-truth. In: Swiss Observer . Issue 18 from August 9, 1998 ( archive version) ( Memento from July 4, 2012 on WebCite )
6. ↑ Document VEJ 2/127