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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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necessary to obtain the consent or at least the
toleration of the people for what the central authority would do to the Jews.
On the other hand, all participation of the masses, except at two particular
moments (the boycott of 1933 and the "Kristallnacht" of November 1938) was
forbidden. The anti-Jewish movement was to be strictly hermetic, thus
centralized; but in spite of that it was to be known as one of the "great
actions" of the regime. The Party, a mass movement, occasionally went beyond
these principles. Severe instructions coming from the top were then addressed
to the diverse Nazi authorities. In March 1934, the Nazi professional
organization for commerce and artisanry manifested its intention to provoke a
boycott of Jewish stores. Rudolf Hess sent it a severe warning (CXLV-519)
condemning every anti Jewish action undertaken without an order from the
Führer, given the repercussions of such comportment abroad. In April 1935,
Hess sent a circular to all members of the Party to warn them that all personal
contact with a Jew and, on the other hand, all spontaneous anti Jewish activity
would be sanctioned by exclusion from the Party. In August of the same year, R.
Ley, chief of organization of the Party, pronounced in a circular the same
prohibition to the Party and its ramifications (the SA, the SS, etc.). At the
same time, Himmler addressed the following order to the members of the SS:
"1) I strictly forbid any individual
action on the part of any member whatsoever of the SS against the Jews; 2) The
solution of the Jewish question is a matter in the competence of the
Führer as it has been until now for the solution of all questions, and not
of no matter what individual; 3) Violations, even slight, will be penalized by
exclusion from the SS." (10)
In February 1936, Frick, Minister of the Interior, and R. Hess addressed a
strictly confidential order (CXLV-531) to the civil and police administrations
and to the directors of Party districts forbidding all anti Jewish
demonstrations at the time of the assassination of Gustloff, chief of the Swiss
Nazis, by a Jew.
In a circular of April 21, 1936 (CDXXXVII-46), the
Ministry of the Interior clearly emphasized to all regional administrations
that in the Jewish question, which was developing by stages, there was no
reason to go ahead of the government, whose activity had not yet exceeded the
regulation of citizenship and had not yet touched upon economic questions.
This circular reveals that Hitler was still waiting for the moment when
he would inaugurate the solution of the Jewish question. But neither during
this waiting period nor during the future activity was the German citizen to be
excited. It was sufficient that he be comprehensive about the rude measures
that the Führer would take or approve against the Jews. This detachment as
to Jewish affairs is underscored in a work which analyzes the reports edited by
the SD on the internal situation of the Reich: (11)
"In the echo that Hitler and his
conception of the world provoked among the German people, anti Semitism
scarcely played the central role which it no doubt held in the ideology of
Hitler."
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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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