Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history
Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Nazi Anti-Semitism radicalized
Summary: Jews banned from commercial activities, businesses forced to
         register as "Jewish," Jewish doctors denied right to treat
         "Aryan" patients, and Jews forced to adopt "Jewish" first names
Reply-To: kmcvay@nizkor.org
Followup-To: soc.history
Organization: The Nizkor Project
Keywords: 

Archive/File: documents/documents.004
Last-modified: 1993/09/23 

As Europe moved closer to war, Hitler's anti-Jewish program was intensified.
As we now know, the "Nuremberg Laws" of 1935 were just the beginning. The
Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews was gathering steam:

   "During 1938 the relatively stable position which the Jews had held
   since 1935 began steadily to disintegrate.  This development was part
   of a general radicalizing of the regime which followed the purge of
   conservatives in the winter of 1937-38.  The process began in the
   economic field, where the replacement of Schacht as Minister of
   Economics in December 1937 had removed a conservative influence which
   had helped to restrain extreme antisemitism in the economy.  

   Measures taken against Jews before 1938 had affected their way of
   life in a wide range of activities, professional, cultural,
   political, personal and also economic.  But there was as yet
   officially no general exclusion of Jews from economic affairs,
   although discriminative practices had had the effect of restricting
   their activities.  For many years Jewish firms continued to function,
   some even enjoying Government subsidies.  Jewish business skills
   often proved indispensable.  In 1938 the gradually developing
   practice of the 'Aryanization' of businesses proceeded on a much
   greater scale.  Jews had attempted to evade this practice by
   transferring their assets in name to 'Germans', but in April 1938 the
   Ministry of the Interior stepped in to establish some order with a
   decree demanding the disclosure of Jewish property over the value of
   5000 marks and Article 7 of the decree laid down that 'The Deputy for
   the Year Plan [Goring] is empowered to take such measures as may be
   necessary to guarantee the use of reported property in accordance
   with the requirements of the German economy.' 

        Decree on the changing of first names, 17 August 1938 

   Further decrees followed in the summer of 1938, all laying more
   restrictions and prohibitions on Jewish activities in economic and
   professional life.  On 6 July, changes in the industrial code
   introduced a total ban on Jews in specified commercial occupations,
   and the third regulation under the Citizenship Law of 14 July
   demanded the registration of Jewish businesses.  The fourth
   regulation prohibited all Jewish doctors from treating 'Aryan'
   patients.  Senior Jewish doctors had already been excluded from
   hospitals since December 1935.  On 17 August, in order to facilitate
   identification, a decree was introduced forcing Jews to adopt Jewish
   first names: 

      Section 1 

      1 .  Jews must be given only such first names as are specified in
      the directives issued by the Reich Minister of the Interior
      concerning the bearing of first names.  

      2.  Section I does not apply to Jews of foreign nationality.  

      Section 2 

      1.  If Jews bear first names other than those authorized for Jews
      by Section I, they must, from 1 January 1939, adopt another
      additional first name, namely 'Israel' for men and 'Sarah' for
      women.  

   Restrictions were imposed also on the movement of Jews in Germany.
   From July 1938 Jews were required to have special identity cards, and
   on 5 October a new decree on Jews' passports demanded that these
   should bear the letter J (for 'Jew')." (Noakes, 471-472)  

Followups to alt.revisionism

                              Work Cited

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

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