Report:  German Studies Association 2002 Session Nr. 59, Holocaust und
Finanzverwaltung:  Neue Forschungen

Moderator:  Alan E. Steinweis, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

"'... im Kampf gegen das Judentum in vorderster Front eingesetzt':  Die
Finanzverwaltung und die Verfolgung der Juden in Bayern"
Christiane Kuller, Universitaet Muenchen

"'Wie mir bekannt geworden ist, beabsichtigen Sie auszuwandern . . .'
Die Rolle der Oberfinanzdirektion Hannover bei der Vertreibung der
Juden"
Claus Fuellberg-Stolberg, Universitaet Hannover

"'wie Judensachen zu behandeln':  Die Behandlung der Sinti und Roma
durch die Finanzverwaltung"
Hans-Dieter Schmid, Universitaet Hannover

Commentator:  Peter Hoffmann, McGill University


The fact that properties of Jews were expropriated or simply stolen in
Germany from 1933 onward has been known since the 1930s and 1940s.   New
evidence has been introduced here in three contributions:
1 - a report on a research project based upon the files of the Bavarian
superior fiscal authorities (Oberfinanzpraesidien);
2 - an account of the role of the Hannover superior fiscal authority
(Oberfinanzdirektion) in the fate of one Jewish family; and
3 - a consideration of the treatment of some Sinti and Roma by fiscal
authorities in the jurisdiction of the same superior fiscal authority
(Oberfinanzdirektion) in Hannover.

Dr. Kuller highlights the fact that the fiscal authorities were being
"deployed in the frontline of the battle against Jewry", as the Deutsche
Steuerzeitung of 28 January 1939 had it.  The joint research project of
the Ludwig-Maximilian-Universitaet in Munich and the Bavarian Finance
Ministry which Dr. Kuller discussed, seeks to demonstrate the
expropriation of Jews and the disposition of their assets, including
cases of restitution after the war, but apart from the better-researched
"Aryanisation" processes.  The apparently quite preliminary findings
seem to suggest that there was little of the resistance to anti-Jewish
policies in the financial administrations which Uwe Dietrich Adam
reported based upon post-war testimony from Reich Minister of Finance
Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk.[1] A good deal of her paper employs
supposition.

Other questions arise.  What is the historical background of fiscal
constraints when people emigrated?  When emigrants after about 1885 had
to abandon their pension entitlements, their personal wealth was
adversely affected.  A recent Habilitationsschrift, by Jochen Oltmer at
the University of Osnabrueck, examines migration policies during the
Weimar Republic.[2]  There are also a number of works on the
Reichsfluchtsteuer, notably that by Dorothee Mussgnug.[3]  The
Reichsfluchtsteuer, decreed in the 4. Verordnung des Reichspraesidenten
zur Sicherung von Wirtschaft und Finanzen und zum Schutze des inneren
Friedens of 8 December 1931, was designed to counter the effects of the
Depression.  The tax was 25% of a person's assets that were subject to
property tax (Vermoegenssteuer).  Through all its extensions and
expansions, it never referred to Jews. [4]  How many Jews, and how many
non-Jews were subjected to it?  Under this decree, Thomas Mann would
have owed RM 97,000 in Reichsfluchtsteuer, had he emigrated through
regular procedures.  Only he did not return from a lecture tour after 30
January 1933, and his son Golo was able to slip back into Germany to
withdraw RM 60,000 and smuggle them into Switzerland.  Thomas Mann's
house and car in Munich, however, were confiscated; Thomas Mann lost
about 75% of his total assets.[5]

Claus Fuellberg-Stolberg describes the fate of the Seligmann family in
Ronnenberg near Hannover.  He describes in fact more than the title of
his paper promises, by including the collaboration of the
Oberfinanzdirektion with the foreign-currency office of the
Oberfinanzdirektion in Hannover, the customs police (Zollfahndung) and
the Secret State Police (Gestapo).   The logic of what
Fuellberg-Stolberg presents is that by a certain point in the process
the Seligmanns had no assets, no savings and no income, apparently by
1938.  But how did they survive?  A little later in his paper
Fuellberg-Stolberg reveals that the younger Seligmanns indeed emigrated
and that from 1936 and 1937, respectively, they were living in Brazil
and Uruguay, and that the elder Seligmanns followed a year later.  Other
members of the family also succeeded in emigrating.  It appears also
that the Devisenstelle approved expenditures for ship's passage and
visa.  But not all family members escaped from Germany.  Did they stay
voluntarily?  Had they delayed emigration too long?

A second part of Fuellberg-Stolberg's paper deals with some views
(particularly those of Ernst Fraenkel and Franz Neumann) of the
government and its police and Party agencies which engaged in
persecution and robbery. In the light of the new research, these older
views appear incomplete or misleading.   Fuellberg-Stolberg concludes
that the activities of the Devisen- and Zollfahndungstellen des
Oberfinanzpraesidenten in Hannover have been vastly underestimated, and
that this agency had become, by 1936, "the most effective instrument in
the expulsion [Vertreibung] and robbing of the German Jews" - in the
frontline, as the Deutsche Steuerzeitung said three years later.

Fuellberg-Stolberg finally repeats some of his findings and gives them
general force, although it is not clear whether a documentary base for
generalisations has been researched and compiled; in his paper he
sketches only the events in the expulsion of the Seligmann family, apart
from a brief reference to Westphalia.

Hans-Dieter Schmid poses the question whether the treatment of the Sinti
and Roma by German fiscal agencies was analogous to or significantly
different than that of the Jews.  He uses the example of the deportation
of the Sinti from the administrative district (Regierungsbezirk) of
Hildesheim in the jurisdiction of the Oberfinanzpraesidium Hannover in
1943, and of a further family from Hannover in 1944.  He explored the
files of the fiscal authorities in Hannover and Hildesheim.

Even his exposition of the question indicates an important difference:
deportations, not pressure to emigrate or expulsions, triggered the
expropriation of the Sinti.  The timing is also different than in the
events of the previous two papers:  the deportations of Sinti began in
1940, and continued in 1943 and 1944.[6]   Schmid makes the no doubt
valid point that a fear that the Sinti might escape helped delay their
expropriation until or beyond their deportation rather than preceding it
as it did in the case of the Jews.  But the process of expropriating the
Jews was also evolutionary: it was new territory for the NS authorities,
the co-operation of the fiscal authorities had to be tested, and secured
gradually.  Foreign-policy considerations might have temporarily
superseded the government's resolve to expel the Jews.

There are certainly parallels:  the deported Sinti were thoroughly
robbed of their assets.  But the dimensions of their assets bear no
comparison with those of the expropriated Jews.  The 57 Hildesheim Sinti
together had the "comparatively large sum" of RM 672.49 confiscated from
them, of which RM 260.40 came from the head of one of the two families.
Sundry decrees were issued for the confiscation of cash and other
assets, and a substantial operation was set in train to get hold of
assets.  These were "to be treated like Jewish assets".  But the result
was negligible:  the Oberfinanzpraesident of Hannover refers only to
"minor movable assets" without putting any value to them.  Schmid
mentions, as a sort of substitute example, the sum of RM 637.67
resulting from auctioning the property of two Sinti families in
Lueneburg, and similarly small sums from Braunschweig. More was
confiscated from the family who was deported from Hannover in 1944 - a
total of about RM 6,500.  This represented a house, a lot, furniture
(horses as well?).  In another case, the confiscated dwellings were in
such rotten condition that they had to be burned down.  Were they
perhaps the primitive huts of a municipal Zigeunerlager (ghetto)?  An
appreciation of what happened to Sinti property will have to be based
upon comprehensive statistics.

Conclusions:  While the fact that Jews in Germany were robbed or
otherwise expropriated has been well known since 1933, historiography
has only recently begun to give serious attention to the role of the
fiscal authorities in that process: to Oberfinanzpraesidien,
Oberfinanzdirektionen, Devisenstellen, Zollfahndung, Steuerbehoerden,
Liegenschaftsaemter, or later the Haupttreuhandstelle Ost.  Deployed
"against Jewry in the frontline", they used discriminatory taxation,
Judenvermoegensabgaben, prosecution for alleged infractions of
foreign-currency regulations (Devisenstrafverfahren), intensified audits
(verschaerfte Betriebspruefungen).  The opening of the files of various
regional and local financial administrations was indispensable, although
income tax files are, so far as I am aware, still closed to
researchers.

The three presenters have great merit in having embarked upon the
charting of largely unresearched territory.  They have not yet charted
it.  As they point out, there are not many studies of the subject.  But
the exhibition "Legalisierter Raub.  Der Fiskus und die Auspluenderung
der Juden in Hessen 1933-1945", which was prepared by Dr. Susanne Meinl
of the Fritz Bauer Institut and Dr. Bettina Hindemith of Hessischer
Rundfunk deserves to be mentioned.[7]  Fuellberg-Stolberg also mentions
a study on Westphalia.[8]  The presenters raise and seek to answer
questions.  Fuellberg-Stolberg explains the contradiction between the
wish and effort to expel the Jews and the obstacles placed in their
path, by the wish to impoverish and degrade the Jews, to make them
appear as "parasites" and to increase antisemitism abroad.  But these
obstacles may have been powerful incentives to emigration; the middle
and older generations particularly were reluctant to give up their homes
and homeland, until they either fled in desperate circumstances, or
waited for their deportation to the death camp.

The inclusion of the historical background, the compilation of
comprehensive statistics, and various categories of comparison (in terms
of chronologically; Jews and non-Jews; Germans and non-Germans, i.e.
10,000 Poles in 1938), would help to fully appreciate the severity of
the anti-Jewish and anti-Sinti fiscal policies.  How did some emigrants,
Jews and non-Jews, manage to get out with more than most of the others?
What was the role of the consulates of foreign states who might have
admitted potential immigrants and of the Haavara Agreement concerning
emigration to the British Mandate territory of Palestine?  Have the
files of all regional financial agencies been released simultaneously?
Why?  How many financial agencies are under investigation?  Are the
files of municipal residency registration offices (Einwohnermeldeaemter)
being examined?   The wider implications of the findings are a new shock
in a continuing process:  Even more Germans were involved in the
persecution of the Jews than previously known, in addition to   the
homeland policemen who did "frontline service" in the campaign against
the Soviet Union; in addition to the SS and Party organisations; and in
addition to the brutalised soldiers.  Now the spotlight is on the fiscal
administrations where there were blameless civil servants of the state,
guardians of the (fiscal) laws, instructed by their superiors to
interpret the laws in line with the National Socialist world view.

Were still greater numbers of the German population involved in robbing
the Jews and Sinti than we are becoming aware of?  Have we only
scratched the surface?

The discussion added no additional points.


[1] Uwe Dietrich Adam, _Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich_ (Duesseldorf:
Droste Verlag, 1972), pp. 96-97.

[2] Jochen Oltmer, "Migration als Gefahr.  Transnationale Migration und
Wanderungspolitik in der Weimarer Republik" (Habilitationsschrift,
Universitaet Osnabrueck, 2001), forthcoming in 2003 by Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, Goettingen.

[3] Cf. J.F.H. Peters, _Die Reichsfluchtsteuer_ (Cologne:  Otto Schmidt,
1938); Kerstin Wolf, Frank Wolf, _Reichsfluchtsteuer und
Steuersteckbriefe, 1932-1942_ (Berlin:  Biographische Forschungen und
Sozialgeschichte, 1997); Dorothee Mussgnug, _Die Reichsfluchtsteuer
1931-1953_ (Berlin:  Duncker & Humblot, 1993).

[4] _Reichsgesetzblatt I 1931_ (Berlin:  Reichsverlagsamt, 1931), pp.
699-745; RGBl. I 1932 (ext. to 31 Dec. 1934), p. 572; nothing in RGBl. I
1933; RGBl. I 1934  (ext. to 31 Dec. 1937), p. 941; RGBl. I 1934 (18 May
1934 lowered amounts subject to RFlSt), pp. 392-393; nothing in RGBl. I
1935 and 1936; RGBl. I 1937 (ext. to 31 Dec. 1938), p. 1385.  See also
Klaus Gerteis, "Auswanderungsfreiheit und Freizuegigkeit in
Deutschland.  Das 18. und 19. Jahrhundert im Vergleich", in  Guenter
Birtsch, ed., _Grund- und Freiheitsrechte von der staendischen zur
spaetbuergerlichen Gesellschaft_ (Goettingen:  Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1987), pp. 330-344; Guenter Birtsch, ed., _Grund- und Freiheitsrechte im
Wandel von Gesellschaft und Geschichte. Beitraege zur Geschichte der
Grund- und Freiheitsrechte vom Ausgang des Mittelalters bis zur
Revolution von 1848_ (Goettingen:  Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981).

[5] Klaus Harpprecht, _Thomas Mann.  Eine Biographie_ (Reinbek bei
Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1995), pp. 722-750.

[6] Cf. Henry Friedlander, _The Origins of Nazi Genocide_ (Chapel Hill &
London:  The University of North Carolina Press, 1995), pp. 246-262.

[7] Cf. Francis R. Nicosia, _The Third Reich and the Palestine Question_
(Austin:  University of Texas Press, 1985), p. 48.

[8] Gerd Blumberg, "Etappen der Verfolgung und Ausraubung und ihre
buerokratische Apparatur", in Alfons Kenkmann, Bernd-A. Rusinek, eds.,
_Verfolgung und Verwaltung.  Die wirtschaftliche Auspluenderung der
Juden und die westfaelischen Finanzbehoerden_ (Muenster:
Oberfinanzdirektion Muenster, 1999).

Peter Hoffmann
McGill University


For a complete listing of all sessions at the 2002 German Studies
Association Conference, please visit <http://www.g-s-a.org>.

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