Klaus Schickert

Klaus Schickert (born May 23, 1909 in Königsberg (East Prussia) ; † after 1945) was a German historian and author of racist and anti-Semitic writings on the “ Jewish question ” in the National Socialist sense.

Life

Schickert was a student of the Munich historian Karl Alexander von Müller . On the 15th German Student Day in Königsberg in July 1932, Schickert was a member of the board of the German Student Day. After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists, he finished his studies with Müller and was born in Hungary in 1937 with his dissertation The Jewish Question. Jewish assimilation and anti-Semitic movement in the 19th and 20th centuries for Dr. phil. PhD. The Jewish question in Hungary was published in 1937 as Volume 1 of the series “The Jews in the Life of the Nations. Writings on the Jewish Question of the Present ”published by the Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in the Essen publishing house . In it, Schickert made the claim that anti-Semitism arose in Hungary .

From 1937 to 1941 Schickert worked at the German news office in Bucharest .

On March 27, 1941, Schickert appeared as a speaker on the occasion of the opening of the Institute for Research into the Jewish Question in Frankfurt am Main . This "institute" was designed by Alfred Rosenberg as a branch of the NSDAP High School, which was to be established on Hitler's orders . On October 28, 1943, Schickert von Rosenberg, succeeding Wilhelm Grau , was appointed provisional director of the institute (full director from September 1, 1944). He also took over from Peter-Heinz Seraphim as the editor of the associated organ Der Weltkampf at the Hoheneichen-Verlag .

Schickert's dissertation, Die Judenfrage in Ungarn , appeared in the 2nd revised edition in 1943 (with a new chapter on anti-Jewish measures in Hungary since 1938, which Schickert did not go far enough) and was reviewed by Franz Ronneberger in the world struggle on this occasion . This second edition was sponsored by the "Antisemitic Action" of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.

By the end of March 1943 at the latest, Schickert planned an anthology series of anti-Semitic essays entitled Sources and Representations on the History of the Anti-Jewish Movement , for which u. a. Fritz Zschaeck compiled a bibliography of the writings of Wilhelm Marr ; Herwig Hartner-Hnizdo supervised the work on a new edition of the handbook on the Jewish question . Günther Franz also commissioned Peter Aldag and Heinz Ballensiefen to write articles for this series.

In mid-February 1944, Schickert became a member of the Foreign Office 's “Anti-Jewish Foreign Action ” led by Horst Wagner in order to force the Holocaust . On behalf of the Foreign Office, Schickert traveled to Southeastern Europe between March and April 1944 and met local anti-Semites and German Jewish officials there . Schickert also met several times Zoltán Bosnyák , head of the of Heinz Ballensiefen launched " Hungarian Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question " ( ung. Zsidókérdést Kutató Magyar Intézet ), whose writings Schickert had mentioned in his thesis. With Bosnyák, Schickert was also involved in the preparation of the anti-Jewish congress planned by Alfred Rosenberg , which was to take place in Krakow in the summer of 1944 , but which could no longer be realized due to the course of the war, and he came into conflict with Hans Hagemeyer .

In mid-1944, Schickert elaborated once again his understanding of the term “Jewish question” in the context of propaganda , politics and science on the basis of the central question “Is there such a thing as a scientific treatment of the Jewish question?” And wrote in response:

“To answer this question, we delimit our field of work from politics on the one hand and propaganda on the other.
The politician solves the Jewish question with the means at his disposal. The propagandist explains: What does the 'Jewish question' mean, why does it have to be resolved, for what reasons does the government go its way? The scientist, on the other hand, has nothing to do directly with political or propaganda actions. But indirectly: Politics can make use of the insights that science develops and, for its part, will set tasks that are the task of the 'experts' to manage scientifically. What is made clear to the people through the art of propaganda was once the subject of research. Good propaganda is based on whether something has been proven - or it is on weak feet. Science is not propaganda, but it provides the material, the secure foundation, the weapons. "

In addition, Schickert planned the publication of a lexicon of Jews in the theater written by Elisabeth Frenzel in early 1945 , which was to appear as Volume 1 of the series “Publications of the Institute of the NSDAP for Researching the Jewish Question”. Volume 2 was the only volume in the series, the Lexicon of Jews in Music , to which Schickert himself contributed names of Hungarian Jews. The original Volume 1, a Talmud dictionary by Johannes Pohl , never appeared - just like Frenzel's Lexicon - however.

In the post-war period, Schickert worked as a managing director in Cologne. His dissertation was placed on the list of literature to be sorted out in the Soviet occupation zone .

Publications (selection)

• The emancipation of the Jews in Southeast Europe and its end . In: The world struggle . Verlag der Hohe Schule der NSDAP , 1941, pp. 30–42; Manuscript, 16 pages: Federal Archives NS 15/357.
• The Jewish question in Hungary. Jewish assimilation and anti-Semitic movement. Essen publishing house , Essen 1937, again 1943.
• Hungary's Jewish question as an economic and intellectual problem . In: German ethnic group in Romania (ed.): People in the East , Hermannstadt, May / June 1943, pp. 41–52
• Research into the Jewish question in the southeast region . In: Der Weltkampf: The Jewish Question in Past and Present , Issue 1, January – April 1944, pp. 1–8.
• Sense and nonsense on the way to the political university. In: The German student. Journal of the German Student Union. Editor Gerhard Schröder (CDU) , Breslau 1933 (August), pp. 21–26.

literature

• Alan E. Steinweis , Studying the Jew: Scholarly Antisemitism in Nazi Germany , Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2006 ISBN 978-0-674-02205-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 521.
2. ^ ^{A b} Patricia von Papen-Bodek: "The Hungarian Institute for Research into the Jewish Question and Its Participation in the Expropriation and Expulsion of Hungarian Jewry", in: Pieter M. Judson and Marsha L. Rozenblit (eds.): Constructing nationalities in East Central Europe . Berghahn Books, Oxford 2005, p. 238. ISBN 978-1-57181-175-2 .
3. ↑ For a more detailed analysis of the book see Alan E. Steinweis: Studying the Jew. Scholarly Antisemitism in Nazi Germany . Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2006, pp. 102ff. ISBN 978-0-674-02205-8 .
4. ↑ Patricia von Papen-Bodek 2005, p. 237.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Patricia von Papen-Bodek 2005, p. 227.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Patricia von Papen-Bodek: Anti-Jewish Research of the Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage in Frankfurt am Main between 1939 and 1945, in: Jeffry M. Diefendorf (Ed.): Lessons and Legacies VI: New Currents in Holocaust Research . Northwestern University Press, Evanston 2004, pp. 187. ISBN 978-0-8101-2001-3 .
7. ↑ ^{a b} Patricia von Papen-Bodek 2004, p. 168f.
8. ↑ Patricia von Papen-Bodek 2005, p. 225, and online: Minutes of the conference in Krummhübel from 3. – 4. April 1944, on which Franz Six presented the "physical elimination" of all Eastern Jews as a war goal.
9. ↑ Patricia von Papen-Bodek 2005, pp. 227f.
10. ↑ ^{a b} Patricia von Papen-Bodek 2005, p. 234.
11. ^ Jan Björn Potthast: The Jewish Central Museum of the SS in Prague . Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 338. ISBN 3-593-37060-3 .
12. ↑ Klaus Schickert: "Research on Jews in Science", in: Stuttgarter NS-Kurier , June 25, 1944, quoted from: Dirk Rupnow: Vernichten und Erinnern . Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2005, p. 210. ISBN 3-89244-871-X .
13. ↑ ^{a b} Dieter Schiefelbein: “The 'Institute for Research on the Jewish Question Frankfurt am Main'. Anti-Semitism as a career springboard in the Nazi state ", in: Fritz Bauer Institute (Ed.): " Elimination of Jewish Influence ... "Anti-Semitic research, elites and careers under National Socialism . 1998/99 yearbook on the history and impact of the Holocaust. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main & New York 1999, p. 58. ISBN 3-593-36098-5 .
14. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-s.html