Name Change Ordinance
The second ordinance for the implementation of the law on the change of family names and first names of August 17, 1938 (RGBl I, 1044) aimed to identify Jewish Germans by their first names. Unless they already had a Jewish first name, which was “regarded as typical among the German people”, from January 1939 they also had to adopt the first name Israel or Sara .
The underlying law on changing surnames and first names and the related ordinances were developed by the Reich Ministry of the Interior and drafted by Hans Globke . This executive order is described as "the first attempt at a general, outward identification of the Jews".
Content of the regulation
Jews within the meaning of the 1st ordinance to the Reich Citizenship Law were only allowed to include those "typically Jewish" first names that were listed in the guidelines on the use of first names issued by the Reich Minister of the Interior. German Jews who previously had different first names were obliged to use Israel or Sara as first names. This name change had to be reported to the responsible registry office and the local police by January 31, 1939.
In addition, German Jews were obliged by this ordinance to give at least one first name in legal and business dealings, which identified them as Jewish. Anyone who negligently neglected to do so was punished with imprisonment for up to one month; in the case of intent, the sentence could last six months.
In the future, " German-blooded " children should only receive German or German first names.
Validity
The provisions also applied to Jews of German nationality who had taken up residence abroad. The ordinance came into force on January 1, 1939; Its scope was extended to Austria and the Sudeten German territories by an ordinance of January 24, 1939 .
The ordinance was repealed by the Control Council Act No. 1 regarding the repeal of Nazi law in 1945.
background
As early as 1934 Wilhelm Frick had voiced his fear that Jews could hide their identity by changing their names. On July 19, 1935, he submitted a draft to Hitler, according to which Jews were only allowed to change their names if the new name could be identified as Jewish. Descendants of Jews who had adopted princely German names at the beginning of the 19th century were to be forced, at the suggestion of Franz Gürtner, to discard this family name and take on the earlier Jewish name. In autumn 1936 Martin Bormann asked the staff of the deputy leader that all Jews should add “Jew” to their family names . This submission was not processed further in the Reich Ministry of the Interior; even the plans cited above did not immediately lead to corresponding ordinances.
According to the law on changing surnames and first names of January 5, 1938 (RGBl. I, p. 9), a name change that was approved before January 30, 1933 could be revoked by December 31, 1940 if this name change was "not to be regarded as desirable". This law also authorized the Reich Minister of the Interior to issue regulations on the use of first names.
The "Third Announcement about the compulsory identification card" of July 23, 1938 (RGBl. I, p. 922) obliged all German Jews to apply to the responsible police authorities for an identification card by December 31, 1938 and for applications they address official or party official agencies aimed to point out their status as Jews without being asked.
Reactions
At least the assimilated German Jews rejected the names on the list as “strange-sounding Yiddish or ghetto names”. “Then in the evening the new blow fell that we were waiting for. […] Not Jonas, Josua, Benjamin, who could be endured, but the most terrible, hardly known, sometimes insulting names, and what comes into consideration for Fr. [Friedrich], who has other first names, has to give them, as a man: Israel , as a woman: add Sara. "
Jochen Klepper noted in the diary: “Eighty percent of the list of first names that is established for newborn Jewish children is a sadistic mockery. The biblical, famous names are closed to the Jews. "The 76-year-old Hedwig Jastrow committed suicide on November 29, 1938 in order not to have to bear the compulsory name:" [...] And I want to be buried with the name mine Parents have given to me and partly bequeathed to me and to which there is no stain. I don't want to wait for someone to put a shame on him. Every convict, every murderer keeps his name. It screams to heaven! "
See also
Web links
- Bilge Buz-Aras: On the background of the law on the change of family names and first names (NamÄndG) of 5.1.1938. Berlin, without a year. Online (PDF, 2.7 MB), accessed on September 9, 2019
- Get rid of the Nazi paragraphs!
Individual evidence
- ↑ Circular of the RMI of August 23, 1938 printed in: Stefan Petzhold: Juden in Bergedorf - Schlossheft Nr. 8, ed. Association of Friends of the Museum for Bergedorf and Vierlande, Hamburg o. J., p. 33 / as well as in: Guidelines on the use of first names . Circular. In: Ministerial-Blatt (RMBliV.), August 18, 1938, pp. 1345–1348 ( Wikisource )
- ^ Erik Lommatzsch: Hans Globke (1898–1973). Civil servant in the Third Reich and State Secretary Adenauer. Campus, Frankfurt 2009 ISBN 978-3-593-39035-2 , p. 75.
- ↑ Uwe Dietrich Adam: Jewish policy in the Third Reich. Unv. Reprinted in Düsseldorf 2003, ISBN 3-7700-4063-5 , p. 120.
- ↑ List from the RMI circular of August 23, 1938, printed in: Stefan Petzhold: Juden in Bergedorf / Schlossheft Nr. 8, ed. Association of Friends of the Museum for Bergedorf and Vierlande, Hamburg o. J., p. 33 / see also web links
- ^ The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 Volume 2: German Reich 1938 - August 1939 . Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-58523-0 , p. 269.
- ↑ Saul Friedländer: The Third Reich and the Jews. Viewed special edition. Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-56681-3 , p. 152.
- ↑ Uwe Dietrich Adam: Jewish policy in the Third Reich. Unv. Reprinted Düsseldorf 2003, ISBN 3-7700-4063-5 , p. 111.
- ↑ Victor Klemperer : I want to bear witness to the last - diaries 1933-1941. 2nd Edition. 1995 Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-351-02340-5 , p. 419 (as of August 24, 1938).
- ^ Document VEJ 2/86 in: The persecution and murder of the European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933-1945. Volume 2: German Reich 1938 - August 1939 . Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-58523-0 , p. 272 (Luise Solmitz diary, August 24, 1938).
- ↑ Hildegard Klepper (Ed.): Under the shadow of your wings - from the diaries of the years 1932-1942 by Jochen Klepper. German Book Association, Berlin, p. 631 (as of August 23, 1938).
- ↑ Document VEJ 2/181 in: The persecution and murder of European Jews ... Volume 2: Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-58523-0 , S. 512th