Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history
Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Restrictions upon Jews in Berlin
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File: pub/places/germany/kristallnacht/documents.008
Last-Modified: 1993/09/24

                    "Restrictions upon Jews in Berlin 

   The Kristallnacht of November 1938 and the policy decisions following
   it marked a major stage in the development of Jewish policy since
   they brought about a greater commitment by the State to settle the
   Jewish question.  With the flood of new legal restrictions on Jews
   the State machinery became increasingly involved in the
   administration of this policy.  The weaknesses of earlier
   policies -- terror, boycott, legislation and emigration -- were becoming
   clear.  The reappraisal after the pogrom revealed glimpses of the
   more thorough-going policy which led ultimately to extermination.
   Goebbels's threat to remove Jews from public places was soon carried
   out, and new regulations for the social segregation of Jews from
   other Germans pointed towards the creation of ghettos.  On 4 December
   1938 the Police-President of Berlin issued this order: 

      In accordance with Reich Police Decree of 28 November 1938 with
      regard to the appearance of Jews in public, the President for the
      State Police District of Berlin has issued a first order, which
      will become effective on 6 December 1938.  It decrees that
      streets, squares, parks, and buildings which come under the
      restrictions against Jews are not to be entered or driven through
      in vehicles by Jews of German citizenship or by Jews without
      citizenship.  

      If such Jews are still residents of a district which comes under
      the restrictions against Jews, at the time when this decree
      becomes effective, they will have to use a permit issued by the
      police station of that residential district in order to cross the
      boundary of the restricted area.  With effect from July 1939 and
      thereafter, permits for residents of the restricted area will no
      longer be issued.  

      - The restrictions against Jews in Berlin include: 

      1.  All theatres, cinemas, cabarets, public concert and lecture
      halls, museums, amusement places, the exhibition halls at the
      Messedamm including the exhibition area and radio tower, the
      Deutschlandhalle and the Sportsplatz, the Reich Sports Field, and
      all sport places including the ice-skating rinks.  

      2.  All public and private bathing establishments and indoor baths
      as well as open-air baths.  

      3.  The Wilhelmstrasse from the Leipziger Strasse up to Unter den
      Linden including the Wilhelmsplatz.  

      4.  The Voss-strasse from the Hermann-Go"ring-Strasse up to the
      Wilhelmstrasse.

      5.  The Reichsehrenmal including the sidewalk on the north side of
      Unter den Linden from the university to the Zeughaus (Military
      Historical Museum).  Exempted from articles 1-2 are such
      institutions and events as are open to Jewish visitors in
      accordance with properly authorized permission.  Intentional or
      negligent violation will be punished with a fine of up to 150
      Reichsmarks or up to 6 weeks' detention.

      In addition it is announced, among other things, that even more
      thorough executive orders will be issued.  This restriction
      against Jews does not apply to foreign Jews.  It is probable that
      the restriction against Jews, which has no time limit, will soon
      be extended to include a large number of Berlin streets.  In this
      respect the main streets and thoroughfares of Berlin especially
      come into considera- tion, because even now, in these streets in
      particular, Jewry more or less dominates the street scene.  The
      rows of streets in the centre and the north of Berlin, where the
      Jewish element has predominated for centuries (for example, Munz,
      the Linien, and Grenadier-Strasse) will probably not be included
      in the districts banned to Jews.  It is therefore advisable for
      any Jew to start immediately looking for another residence in one
      of the above-mentioned parts of Berlin, and perhaps to effect an
      exchange of residence with one of the pure-blood Germans residing
      there.

      Furthermore, the Jews can expect to be restricted to purely
      Jewish inns in the future.  

                 Further social restrictions upon Jews 

      The attempt to enforce a principle always ran up against practical
      difficulties of administration, in this case the provision of
      alternative accommodation for those Jews evacuated from certain
      areas.  The anti-mixing regulations were obliged to deal with two
      fundamental problems, namely, housing and marriage.  At the
      conference on 12 November, Heydrich had raised the question of
      epidemics breaking out if ghettos were established.  He also
      doubted whether his police could regularly supervise daily life in
      such ghettos.  Goring's answer in his decree of 28 December was to
      concentrate the Jews in houses instead of areas.  Another
      outstanding matter was the intermarriages which had existed before
      the Blood Protection Law of 1935.  That measure had applied only
      to marriages contracted after it came into force.  In the same
      decree Goring introduced a new classification in the case of such
      marriages based on the criterion of the children's religious
      affiliation.  Another determining factor was which spouse was the
      Jewish partner in the marriage.  The Jewish wife was given better
      treatment than the Jewish husband, presumably because her German
      husband was assumed to be the owner of the family house: 

      At my suggestion.  the Fuhrer has made the following decisions
      concerning the Jewish problem: 

      SECTION A 

      I.  Housing of Jews 

      1(a).  The tenant protective law is not, as a rule, to be
      abrogated for the Jews.  On the contrary, it is desired, if
      possible, to proceed in particular cases in such a way that the
      Jews are quartered together in separate houses in so far as the
      housing conditions allow.  

      1(b).  For this reason the Aryanization of house ownership is to
      be postponed until the end of the total Aryanization, that is to
      say, for the present the Aryanization of houses has to be carried
      out only in those individual cases where urgent reasons exist.
      The Aryanizing of industries, businesses, agricultural estates,
      forests, etc., is to be considered as urgent.  

      2.  Use of sleeping and dining cars is to be forbidden to the
      Jews.  At the same time, no special Jewish compartments are to be
      established.  In addition, the use of trains, streets cars,
      suburban railways, underground railways, buses, and ships cannot
      be prohibited to Jews.  

      3.  Only the use of certain public establishments, etc., is to be
      prohibited to Jews.  In this category belong the hotels and
      restaurants visited especially by Party members (for instance:
      Hotel Kaiserhof, Berlin; Hotel Vierjahreszeiten, Munich; Hotel
      Deutscher Hof, Nuremberg; Hotel Drei Mohren, Augsburg; etc.).  The
      use of bathing establishments, certain public places, bathing
      resorts, etc., can be prohibited to Jews; also health baths
      particularly prescribed by doctors may be used by Jews, but only
      in such ways that no offence is caused.  

      II.  Jews who were officials and have been pensioned are not to be
      denied their pensions.  Investigations must be made, however, as
      to whether these Jews can manage with a reduced allowance.  

      III.  The Jewish welfare organizations are not to be Aryanized or
      abolished, for so the Jews will only become a public charge; but
      they may be supported by Jewish welfare organizations.  

      IV.  Jewish patents are property, and as such must be Aryanized.
      (A similar pro- cedure towards Germany was carried out by the USA
      and other countries during World War I.) 

      SECTION B 
      Mixed Marriages 

      I,1.  With children (part-Jews, 1st.  class) (a) Where the father
      is a German and the mother a Jewess, the family may stay in future
      in its present lodging.  The regulations for the exclusion of Jews
      are not to be applied to such families as far as their housing is
      concerned.  

      In these cases, the property of the Jewish mother can be
      transferred to the German husband or to the mixed children.  

      (b) Where the father is a Jew and the mother a German, these
      families are also not to be moved for the present into Jewish
      quarters, because the children (part-Jew, 1st.  class) must serve
      in the labour service and the armed forces in the future and must
      not be exposed to Jewish propaganda.  As far as the property is
      concerned, one must for the present proceed in such a way that it
      can be completely or partly transferred to the children.  

      I,2.  Without children 

      (a) If the husband is a German and the wife a Jewess, the
      provisions of 1(a) are valid accordingly.  

      (b) If the husband is a Jew, and the wife a German, these
      childless couples are to be proceeded against as if they were
      full-blooded Jews.  The husband's property cannot be transferred
      to the wife.  Both husband and wife can be moved into Jewish
      houses or Jewish quarters.  Especially in case of emigration, such
      married couples are to be treated as Jews, as soon as increased
      emigration is begun.  

      II.  If a German wife divorces a Jew, she re-enters the German
      racial community and all disadvantages for her discontinue.

   The Jewish question in terms of numbers was largely an urban matter.
   According to the 1933 census, one-third of the Jews in Germany lived
   in Berlin, and 74 per cent of the Jewish population was concentrated
   in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants.  This tendency
   increased during the first six years of the Third Reich so that by
   the 1939 census the proportion of Jews living in large cities had
   risen to 82 per cent.  The Jewish population in Germany (the area
   confined by the boundaries of 1937) had been reduced during the same
   period as a result of death and emigration from 515,000 to 350,000,
   but the acquisition of Austria in 1938, with its relatively large
   Jewish population of 190,000, reversed the process.  Consequently,
   the policy of emigration received more urgent attention in 1938-39.
   In August 1938, a Central Office for Jewish Emigration had been
   established in Vienna to speed up the course of emigration.  This
   solution was soon adopted in Germany itself and involved a scheme to
   assist poorer Jews to emigrate, whereby richer Jews were obliged to
   finance the emigration of the poorer.  Goring established a central
   office by decree on 24 January 1939 which was placed under the
   direction of the Chief of the Security Police, Reinhard Heydrich."
   (Noakes, 482-485)

                              Work Cited

Noakes, Jeremy, and Geoffrey Pridham. Documents on Nazism 1919-1945. New
York: Viking Press, 1974

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