So, about those German Jews prior to World War II
Yesterday’s post on the percentage of Jews in Germany prior to WWII (about .75%) engendered a few questions in the comments section that I figured were interesting enough that they deserved a post of their own.
First we have “matthew49,” who asks:
By “just prior to WWII” many Jews had already left Germany. Likely the percentage of Jews in Germany in 1933 was significantly higher than in 1939. Do you have a number for the pre-Nazi Jewish percentage of the population?
Good question, and I wasn’t sure of the answer. The link for the .75% figure (totaling about 500,000 Jews), just said this was the German “prewar” population of Jews. What actually seems to have occurred was this according to the Holocaust Museum. Apparently that 500,000 (.75%) figure represented the pre-Nazi figures. The great majority of the Jews of Germany had emigrated in a series of waves prior to the 40s, with great difficulty because of strict quotas around the world. By 1941 it was impossible to leave, but those who remained were predominantly the elderly.
In fact, the vast majority of Jews who were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust were rounded up from the other countries of Europe and especially eastern Europe rather than from Germany, although the remaining German Jews were killed as well,and some of the Jews caught in other countries had originally escaped from Germany. Ann Frank and her family were examples of the latter; although they were residents of Amsterdam and hid there, they had emigrated to Holland from Germany in 1933, not long after Hitler come to power.
Here’s a summary of the trends in Germany during the 1930s for the Jewish population of Germany:
In January 1933 there were some 523,000 Jews in Germany, representing less than 1 percent of the country’s total population. The Jewish population was predominantly urban and approximately one-third of German Jews lived in Berlin. The initial response to the Nazi takeover was a substantial wave of emigration (37,000”“38,000), much of it to neighboring European countries (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, and Switzerland). Most of these refugees were later caught by the Nazis after their conquest of western Europe in May 1940…
During the next two years there was a decline in the number of emigrants. This trend may partly have been due to the stabilization of the domestic political situation, but was also caused by the strict enforcement of American immigration restrictions as well as the increasing reluctance of European and British Commonwealth countries to accept additional Jewish refugees.
Despite the passage of the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935 and subsequent related ordinances that deprived German Jews of civil rights, Jewish emigration remained more or less constant.
The events of 1938 caused a dramatic increase in Jewish emigration. The German annexation of Austria in March, the increase in personal assaults on Jews during the spring and summer, the nationwide Kristallnacht (“Night of Broken Glass”) pogrom in November, and the subsequent seizure of Jewish-owned property all caused a flood of visa applications. Although finding a destination proved difficult, about 36,000 Jews left Germany and Austria in 1938 and 77,000 in 1939.
The sudden flood of emigrants created a major refugee crisis…
September 1939, approximately 282,000 Jews had left Germany and 117,000 from annexed Austria. Of these, some 95,000 emigrated to the United States, 60,000 to Palestine, 40,000 to Great Britain, and about 75,000 to Central and South America, with the largest numbers entering Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Bolivia. More than 18,000 Jews from the German Reich were also able to find refuge in Shanghai, in Japanese-occupied China.
At the end of 1939, about 202,000 Jews remained in Germany and 57,000 in annexed Austria, many of them elderly. By October 1941, when Jewish emigration was officially forbidden, the number of Jews in Germany had declined to 163,000. The vast majority of those Jews still in Germany were murdered in Nazi camps and ghettos during the Holocaust.
So there were never many Jews to begin with in Germany, and their numbers declined greatly during the 1930s, although even more Jews wanted to leave than were able to do so. Which brings us to another question, this time from “DNW”:
One wonders just how the Germans, or those that did, got so worked up over the Jews. Though it seems to have been something of a tradition in Germany, and one amplified in the circles of late 19th century German neo-paganism.
There are thousands of books on anti-Semitism, as well as how it arose and solidified in Germany during the Holocaust. I can’t possibly add too much to it. But I will say that no one should ever underestimate the influence of deliberate propaganda. Germany had a fair amount of anti-Semitism to begin with (and read Luther to start to appreciate some of its antiquity and depth). But until the Nazis came to power, the Jews of Germany were among the most assimilated and Germany was considered one of the best countries for Jews.
People are generally very susceptible to propaganda, and the Nazis were masters of propaganda. Once they decided to do marginalize the Jews, eliminate them from German life, and then do away with them all around Europe, they played on the existing milder anti-Semitism that was common in Germany and whipped it into a much deeper feeling of hatred. You can find some typical documents here, and a lot more here. There were anti-Jewish books, pamphlets, posters, films, and newspapers—a true media blitz.
It doesn’t matter that the Jews were such a small percentage of the population. The better to demonize them, right?
One of the best theories I have seen about antisemitism is the middleman theory.
http://faculty.washington.edu/charles/562_f2011/Week%207/Bonacich%201973.pdf
In short, some communities, from which Jews are likely to be the most known or important one, were specialized in middleman jobs (bankers, agents, traders and so). Those jobs give you the advantage of having liquidity: you can gather your capital easily and move on to another country. Communities that were hightly educated and didn’t take roots neither get mixed with their host country were prone to take those jobs.
The problem is that those job are seen for many people as unproductive. When people of a community is likely to take those jobs, this community is likely to be seen as wealth extractive.
As the pdf reports, that has happened before: jews in Europe, but armenians in Turkey too, chinese in south asia, parsis in India. The difference is that when hate reach such a level that you fear for your life and decide to move to another country, chinese can go back to China, armenians can go back to Armenia. Jews couldn’t go back anywhere, so hate just has been growing for centuries.
I am reading Robert Harris’s book “An Officer and a Spy” which is another noel based on the Dreyfus affair.
You are never quite sure how much credence to lend to historical fiction, although you hope the writer has captured the essence of the period. Harris seems to have done extensive research. So, the fact that leaps at me from this one is the virulent anti-Semitism in France in the late 19th century.
Another message is the depths that Bureaucracies, in this case the French Army, will sink to protect the insiders. A modern example could be the IRS. But, that is another issue.
“Despite the passage of the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935 and subsequent related ordinances that deprived German Jews of civil rights, Jewish emigration remained more or less constant. The events of 1938 caused a dramatic increase in Jewish emigration. Although finding a destination proved difficult, about 36,000 Jews left Germany and Austria in 1938 and 77,000 in 1939. The sudden flood of emigrants created a major refugee crisis…”
So between September of 1935 and 1938 the handwriting was on the wall and approx. half of Germany’s Jews ignored that ‘handwriting’.
“Normalcy Bias”.
“The sudden flood of emigrants created a major refugee crisis…” and the USA admitted 95,000. Haw! We ‘admit’ tenfold that number of Latinos in a year and no one notices, and we feed, educate, house and doctor on them with our nickels.
Can’t make this crap up. 20 illiterate dependent Latinos are worth more than one educated self-supporting German Jew?
There’s some weird deep problem with humanity. Recently, I read ‘Civil Government in the United States’ by John Fiske. The appendix includes the text of the Magna Carta. I just perused it but was surprised, even then, the Jews were singled out.
10. If any one have borrowed anything of the
Jews, more or less, and die before the debt be satis-
fied, there shall be no interest paid for that debt, so
long as the heir is under age, of whomsoever he may
hold ; and if the debt falls into our hands, we will only
take the chattel mentioned in the deed.
11. And if any one shall die indebted to the Jews,
his wife shall have her dower and pay nothing of that
debt \ and if the deceased left children under age, they
shall have necessaries provided for them, according to
the tenement of the deceased ; and out of the residue
the debt shall be paid, saving, however, the service due
to the lords, and in like manner shall it be done touch-
ing debts due to others than the Jews.
JKB – just reading the last line of your Magna Carta excerpt makes me think that Jew in this case is merely shorthand for a money lender and does not have any anti-Semitic overtones. It is likely in that period that money lenders would be Jewish. BTW I’m English and Jewish.
JKB…
What’s missing from such documents are the terms of contract normal and customary at the time.
In the case of Jewish money lending so many centuries ago, by all modern standards, their terms would be deemed usurious in the extreme — similar to a MAFIA loan shark.
This was compounded by the universal reality that the land owning Christians were entirely innumerate.
This mathematical and financial ignorance was deemed pious behavior by the the Church. A pious knight was to know nothing of money.
This social tick also existed in the Orient. Even to this day, in Korean society, running the family finances is considered strictly a wife’s duty. Famously, the single biggest stock market speculator — going on for years — was a Korean house-wife/ widow. She was a multi-billionaire thirty-years ago.
And, of course, no Samurai would deign to follow his purse. His woman was expected to handle everything — to include paying off his mistresses and geishas!
In all of these feudal societies, money lending was solely performed at usurious rates. Even today, consumer loans in Japan are practically not to be had. When available, they are priced at 2-4% per month compounded. !!!!
So, it’s no wonder that Chinese, Koreans and Japanese housewives stash money away. They can’t look to anyone to cover any shortfalls.
All of their savings are directed — by the central governments — towards heavy industries that export to the USA. Consequently, every one of those lands has a stunted consumer sector. This is compounded by a total lack of residential volume. No-one has any closet space to store goodies, anyway.
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The cited provisions only obtained for secured loans against real property. All other loans would’ve been in the form of pawn. Most had nothing to pawn in the first place. Portable wealth scarcely existed centuries ago.
%%%
The most famous debtor in history was the 17th Earl of Oxford, by way of his pen name: Shakespeare.
His library is now owned by Oxford University — and it’s dog-eared to the max with obvious linkages to his plays and poems.
He picked up his pen name by royal edict. He was getting into too many sword fights — with lethal outcomes. So Elizabeth forbade him.
His real world troubles flowed into his plays. Both Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet are over flowing with personal references that key on actual events.
At the top of the list was when Shakespeare was captured by French pirates — and he talked them out of even demanding a ransom. This event became tucked into Hamlet.
Elizabeth’s prohibition against sword play closed up Romeo and Juliet.
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But, the key to Shakespeare was his innumeracy — and above all his debt to two notorious (Jewish) lenders. In real life, Elizabeth paid off his nut. Then she ran them out of the country — on pain of death — giving them just 73 hours to split. That’s close to the time required to reach the channel ports — in the 16th Century.
Later, Shakespeare pilloried them for all time in Hamlet. He simply crossed over their names — which made the insult transparent to even the low born.
They hailed out of a Venetian house. Hence, Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. (He could’ve picked Genoa — the Jewish lending syndicate in that city-state was THE primary lender to Philippe II, the deadbeat of all time.)
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It should be remarked that the primary reason any peer ever borrowed (Jewish) money was to wage war.
Which makes the above cited provisions most relevant. He who makes war — may die. The fact that he’s borrowing is one ‘tell’ that he’s up against it from the outset.
^^^^
By today’s standards of morality, none of the players back then would have smelled sweet. Consequently, it’s best — all the way around — to not draw too many inferences from such a distant era. You just can’t trust anything. All context has been lost.
It seems the same strategy of propaganda is being used in reverse in this country today regarding homosexuals.
They still comprise a small percentage of the population, but apparent influence seems to be everywhere.
Propaganda is pernicious.
How about the theory that Jews are hated and despised because they are God’s Chosen People? It has ever been thus.
“The Jew” by merely existing is a challenge, for example, to a certain Muslim Theology on the one hand, and a certain progressive theology on the other.
On the 3rd hand “The Jew” is used as the paradigmatic victim, the hatred of whom galvanizes and unifies the community that uses them as a projection for all of their own failings.
Reality: If the Arabs acted more like the Jews, they would be prosperous and would not have to hate the Jews. If the secular post-modernist were more like the Jews, they wouldn’t be such a hateful destructive arse and might actually help the world instead of harming it.
Geoffrey Britain:
Did you actually read the quote or the post? Are you aware of the realities that faced the Jews of Europe when trying to emigrate? You write:
“So between September of 1935 and 1938 the handwriting was on the wall and approx. half of Germany’s Jews ignored that ‘handwriting’.”
What part of this did you not understand?
Read the entire link. Also read this previous post of mine on the subject.
The majority of the Jews of Germany were trying to get out the whole time. The world made it very very very difficult. Even so, most of them did get out. Trouble is, the net ended up being cast so wide that it encompassed all of Europe, and they were caught.
neo…
During the Great Depression the authorities didn’t want to approve any immigrants that were so broke that they’d need financial assistance straight off. (How times change.)
Consequently, the Nazis were able to entirely throttle Jewish flight by just hanging on to/ stealing/ super-taxing Jewish portable wealth — and fixed properties.
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Those Jews fleeing to America usually had to depend upon kin to stump up enough monies/ pledges so as to get an immigration visa.
As an American, I’m ashamed and embarrassed that FDR did not intervene and rule in favor of Hitler’s victims. It would’ve been trivially easy for him to — with executive authority — set aside the asset provisions on the obvious basis that the Nazi government had just STOLEN said assets. All such stolen assets are to be added back, and deemed ‘in hand’ for the purposes of determining the economic worth of anyone fleeing political persecution.
As was evident after the war, anyone that could amass wealth, hold an occupation, etc. in Nazi Germany will do extremely well in America — and in very short order, too.
IIRC, when American Jewry attempted to stump up pledge monies to establish a general waiver for fleeing Jews, the FDR administration wouldn’t accept it. FDR stayed stuck on the scheme that required specific nominees to step up and pledge for each Jew.
Obviously, it was a stiff and rigid scheme. It didn’t allow any American Jew to spread his beats. A single, specific, Jewish refugee was always at risk of blowing one’s personal finances up.
Further, the pledging American Jew would have to (typically) pledge that he, personally, had a job slot for the refugee, a place of residence, … and on down the line.
These provisions were largely at the discretion of the authorities. FDR kept looking over his shoulder at the slew of bigots and America-firsters that fought any step towards an open door.
The national unemployment rate was so high, that FDR was always sensitive to the argument.
He had it backwards, of course. Highly talented people CREATE net employment.
Heinlein put it this way:
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded – here and there, now and then – are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
It’s not for nothing that Europe has never truly recovered from WWII.
Losing your minds is going to leave a mark.
%%%
The financial provisions — even then — were aimed at deadbeat Mexicans. They always constituted a threat against the nation and the government, by way of destitution and dependency.
That Barry Soetoro is all fine with that, is obvious.
During the Great Depression, Democrats understood that a flood of desperately poor Mexicans would blow up FDR’s social safety nets. Indeed, FDR deported Mexicans, en masse. He shut down the labor-trade deal all together.
It was the fulsome termination of Mexican fruit picking that had the Joads and every other dust bowl family heading off to California. The eviction of the Mexican farm hands was the predicate for the migration. This is a sore topic among Mexicans — to this very day.
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Barry Soetoro is setting up this current wave of Executive Orders based immigrants for a repetition of the FDR expulsion. Regardless of which party sits in the White House, the pressure to expel Barry’s kids will become simply overwhelming.
We’re financing his entire project on a credit card. Everything gets reversed when it gets tapped out.
If apology could make amends for all the wrong done to the Jews, I apologize. There aren’t enough phrases.
Don Carlos Says:
September 6th, 2014 at 3:56 pm
Yeah. I wonder where productive white middle-class Americans are supposed to go.
Since we are clearly unwelcome and unrepresented in what used to be “our” country.
One wonders just how the Germans, or those that did, got so worked up over the Jews.
they used the thing that the feminists use today and racialists… they take the percentage and compare it to their assets as a group… then that proves that they are scheming and in collusion… just like white men in the US as the target (cause they defended jews and a percentage of them are jews)…
i once put up the articles in german from a college, but neo deleted the refeerences as they were at the end of a long post on this subject (but years ago, so it was before its time).
the newspapers kept pointing out how many businesses they owned, how many banks they ran, and so on… you know… like women make 73% of what men make…
you live in the same steeming soup of shiza but have no idea of it, as most are ignorant of the PROCESS and have a cartoon view of the situation. (otherwise the question of these posts would not be a question)
disparate impact was the way they did it, however, they did not call it that then… just as they did not originally call it a holocaust, it was a conflagration – but if they did not change the word, you would then read that engels marx and others required the process to remove such people from the earth as they stood in the way of utopia (that no matter where they went they would outperform the public)
living nazi doctrine is easy
knowing your living it is hard
as those who would need to be convinced
do not want to believe it
and those that know, have no reason to try
arguing with liberals is akin to playing chess with a pigdeon… it knocks over the pieces, shi*s on the board, and then runs around with its chest out claiming it won.
been recommending reading certain things but that was years ago, and its futile for me to repeat it. so i wont. ie. your on your own… (no reason for me to put up the facts if i will be attacked for them by the peopel who are ignorant of them… easier ot know and just be quiet given the respect, regard and all that one gets for providing informaiton)
Art…
A HUGE factor in the SD/ SS ethos turned on psychotic officers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Eicke
“Theodor Eicke (17 October 1892 — 26 February 1943) was an SS-Obergruppenfé¼hrer (German General), commander of the SS-Division (motorized) Totenkopf [Death’s Head — 3rd SS] of the Waffen-SS [ in reality a newly rebuilt, fully equipped, SS panzer division by the time of his death ] and one of the key figures in the establishment of concentration camps in Nazi Germany.”
Eicke was actually pretty wacko straight off. He would’ve fit perfectly within the Parallax Corporation.
“In March 1933, less than three months after Hitler’s rise to power, Eicke returned to Germany. Eicke had political quarrels with Gauleiter Joseph Bé¼rckel, who had him arrested and detained for several months in a mental asylum.[4] Also during the same month, Himmler set up the first official concentration camp at Dachau.[5] Hitler had stated that he did not want it to be just another prison or detention camp. In June 1933, Himmler obtained the release of Eicke from the asylum and promoted him to an SS-Oberfé¼hrer. On 26 June 1933, Himmler appointed him commandant of Dachau after complaints and criminal proceedings against former commandant SS-Sturmbannfé¼hrer Hilmar Wé¤ckerle following the murder of several detainees under the “guise of punishment”.[6] Eicke requested a permanent unit and Himmler granted the request; the SS-Wachverbé¤nde (Guard Unit) was formed.[7]”
ibid
Eike’s record has been seriously cleaned up by Wiki.
He used his standing in the SS to deliberately recruit psychos from German prisons — ESPECIALLY if they were imprisoned for violent crimes, anti-Semitic crimes. Some were serving LIFE SENTENCES until recruitment.
These demented souls were brought immediately to Dachau, where they were promptly given elevated rank, typically that of a non-commissioned officer. To really make rank they had to display unrestrained psychotic behaviors.
e.g. ‘guards’ that were caught beating a victim to death — especially with their fists or truncheon — were given ‘field promotions’ on the spot. Some novelty was required, as such promotions were only given to those who had particularly violated all custom.
Capricious terror was especially esteemed by Eicke. He wanted to really keep the inmates on their knees. Hence ‘sleeping cots’ formed of barbed wire. (It was against camp rules to sleep on the floor. You slept on barbed wire or were beaten to death. )
Amon Goeth was in many ways typical.
“SS doctors diagnosed Goeth as suffering from mental illness and he was committed to a mental institution in Bad Té¶lz, where he was arrested by the United States military in May 1945.[36]”
%%%
In sum: the despot put psychotics in charge of the repression. This scheme was not an accident.
Wiki typically omits the deep medical files, but Eike systematically selected the psychotic. HE went through the medical files hunting for just such souls. It’s with that history in mind that The Parallax View script was written:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNMi8fXi5Os
The camps were structured insanely, because they were administered by the insane.
Similar metrics were, no doubt, used by the NVKD for it’s camps. The Soviets had ‘Amon Goeths’ running all through their camp system.
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Deliberately using the mentally disturbed largely explains the internal insanity of the NKVD, SD, et. al. I have no doubt that if you were lift the rug, the Khmer Rouge would evidence the same bent.
Meet the Muslims who sacrificed themselves to save Jews and fight Nazis in World War II
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/09/08/meet-the-muslims-who-sacrificed-themselves-to-save-jews-and-fight-nazis-in-world-war-ii/?tid=trending_strip_6
jh
That’s a pure case of somnolent propaganda.
THE core tenet of Islam is that every last Jew on Earth is liquidated… which, BTW, would also apply to every last Christian, too.
The purpose of such somnolent propaganda is to put the proles to sleep.
To spew it while ISIS is lopping heads… is classic.
One should expect that the WaPo has a ‘bank’ of such somnolent propaganda — which will be trickled onto the national consciousness when the Muslim elites deem it necessary.
Both the NYT and WaPo are massively compromised by Muslim interests. It’s the money.
If you recall, the NYT down played the Holomordor and the Holocaust — BOTH.
Most Americans never knew that the NYT had a reporter in the center of the Killing Fields. It took the movie for his ‘heroism’ to become public knowledge. This is but a tribute to how the NYT soft peddled the Killing Fields, too. In a pre-peat of Saddam, the NYT didn’t want to get their man on the scene in hotter water, so they ‘faded’ the brutal reality.
And then, there’s Saddam. CNN famously faded their entire story arc, lest it offend Saddam! Consequently, their Baghdad bureau sat on countless tales of woe — so that they could “keep on reporting.”
Whatever that could mean considering that they gagged themselves!
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Anyhow, it’s fit and proper that you brought this item to this blog post.
Cheers.