Judenvermögensabgabe

The Judenvermögensabgabe ("Jewish Capital Levy") was an arbitrary special tax that German Jews had to pay during the National Socialist era.

After the assassination attempt on the German Legation Secretary Ernst Eduard vom Rath and the November pogroms in 1938, Hermann Göring demanded a contribution payment of one billion Reichsmark (RM) as "atonement" for "the hostile attitude of Judaism towards the German people". The decree of 12 November 1938 on the expiation of Jews of German nationality (RGBl. I p. 1579) was signed by Hermann Göring, who had been granted a general power of attorney in 1936 to issue ordinances.[1]

On the same day, the "Ordinance on the Elimination of Jews from German Economic Life" and the "Ordinance on the Restoration of the Street Image in Jewish Commercial Operations" were issued, followed three weeks later by the "Ordinance on the Use of Jewish wealth".

Realizations

Adolf Hitler had already considered a comparable penalty tax in 1936 after the assassination of Wilhelm Gustloff, to which a "plan to raise a special Jewish tax approved in principle" and had a law drawn up which was to be announced immediately after the Gustloff trial.[2] In August 1936, Hitler proclaimed in a "secret memorandum on the Four-Year Plan" that, in order to achieve Germany's military policy goals, a law was to be enacted, among other things, "which makes all Judaism liable for all damage caused by individual incidents of this criminalisim to the German economy and therefore to the German people".[3] On December 18 of the same year, Wilhelm Stuckart, State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, confidentially informed Reich Economics Minister Hjalmar Schacht that Hitler had "in principle approved the raising of a Jewish tax" and ordered "to accelerate the preparations of a corresponding draft law in such a way that it would be possible to already promulgate the law after the end of the Gustloff trial".[3] These plans prospered up to a bill which imposed special surcharges on all Jews for the accounting year 1937 on wage and property taxes. For foreign policy reasons, however, but also because of the ministerial bureaucracies reservations, Hitler refrained from implementation "obviously with the intention of waiting for a more favorable situation".[4]

On November 10, 1938, Reich Economics Minister Walther Funk learned from Joseph Goebbels that Adolf Hitler ordered to eliminate all Jews from the German economy. On the same day, Göring and Goebbels met with Hitler, and Goebbels suggested that a contribution be imposed on the Jews.[5] Göring assured the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trial against the main war criminals that Hitler was also behind the goal of the other laws enacted shortly thereafter:

"I would like to stress that although I had written order and order, oral as well as written, from the leader to carry out and enact these laws, I take the full responsibility for these laws signed by me, because I have enacted them and am therefore responsible for them and do not think of hiding behind the [sic] order of the leader in any form."

— Göring, [6]

References

1. Verordnung zur Durchführung des Vierjahresplanes. Berlin: Reichsgesetzblatt. 1936. p. 887.
2. Adam, Uwe Dietrich (2003). Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich. Düsseldorf: Droste Taschenbücher. p. 112. ISBN 3-7700-4063-5.
3. Vom Boykott zur »Entjudung« : Der wirtschaftliche Existenzkampf der Juden im Dritten Reich 1933–1943. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. 1988. p. 126. ISBN 3-596-24368-8.
4. Adam, Uwe Dietrich (2003). Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich. Düsseldorf: Droste Taschenbücher. p. 114. ISBN 3-7700-4063-5.
5. Adam, Uwe Dietrich (2003). Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich. Düsseldorf: Droste Taschenbücher. p. 146. ISBN 3-7700-4063-5.
6. IMT: Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher…, Nachdruck, München 1989, ISBN 3-7735-2522-2, Bd. IX, S. 314.