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A Historikerstreit? A Reply to Nathan Stoltzfus's Response

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Wolf Gruner
Wolf Gruner
Affiliation:
Institut Für Zeitgeschichte, Berlin
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Extract

During the brutal factory raid at the end of February 1943, the Gestapo rounded up thousands of Berlin Jews at their forced labor sites and brought them to various collection points. The Gestapo immediately singled out two thousand Jews in “mixed marriages” and transferred them to a separate building in the Rosenstrasse. The traditional view of the events, which Stoltzfus promotes, is that after a week-long demonstration by their relatives, Goebbels ordered the release of the inmates on March 6, 1943. Based on a variety of hitherto overlooked documents, I provided the reader with a different interpretation in my Central European History article: that special Gestapo orders at this point still exempted the Jews in mixed marriages from deportation. I argue that the real purpose of the arrest was to facilitate the deportation of hundreds of employees of Berlin's Jewish institutions who would be replaced by the Jews in mixed marriages. This interpretation forces us to reconsider key elements of the traditional account.

Type
Exchange
Information
Central European History , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , September 2005 , pp. 460 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 2005

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References

1 If Stoltzfus had read my article carefully, he would have found the basic documents cited and would not have claimed that I “asserted without evidence that the Rosenstrasse protest was obviously not the cause for the release of the Jews.” For the research, see Gruner, Wolf, “Die Reichshauptstadt und die Verfolgung der Berliner Juden 1933–1945,” in Jüdische Geschichte in Berlin. Essays und Studien, ed. by Rürup, Reinhard (Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1995), 229–66, esp. 251–54.Google Scholar

2 See for example, Gruner, Wolf, Öffentliche Wohlfahrt und Judenverfolgung. Wechselwirkungen lokaler und zentraler Politik im NS-Staat (1933–1942) (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, Zwangsarbeit und Verfolgung. Österreichische Juden im NS-Staat 1938–1945 (Innsbruck, Vienna, and Munich: Studien-Verlag, 2000)Google Scholar; see also idem, Jewish Forced Labor under the Nazis. Economic Needs and Racial Aims, 1938–1944 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2005).Google Scholar

3 See the overview and analysis in Gruner, Wolf, “Von der Kollektivausweisung zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland. Neue Perspektiven und Dokumente (1938–1945),” in Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus, Vol. 20: Die Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland. Pläne, Praxis, Reaktionen 1938–1945 (Göttingen: Wallstein-Verlag, 2004), 21–62.Google Scholar

4 Gruner, Wolf, Widerstand in der Rosenstraße. Die Fabrik-Aktion und die Verfolgung der “Mischehen” 1943, (Frankfurt/Main: S. Fischer-Verlag, forthcoming 2005).Google Scholar

5 How Stoltzfus deals with sources is demonstrated to us by his use of the “Himmler document of November 5, 1942.” For Stoltzfus, this decree leaves “little doubt that ‘full’ Jews in intermarriage wearing the Star of David must go, too.” The decree actually dated from October 5, 1942, and focused on the removal of Jewish concentration camp inmates to the concentration camps in Auschwitz and Lublin and had nothing to do with deportations. See decree of 5. 10. 1942 (PS-1063), cited in Adler, H. G., Der venvaltete Mensch. Studien zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1974), 253.Google Scholar

6 Stoltzfus slightly mistranslates the part he delivered in his response: “Anträge auf Unterbringung in einem Konzentrationslager gestellt werden” should not be translated as “preparing papers for their placement in a concentration camp,” but rather “to apply for permission to accommodate them in concentration camps.’

7 “Für die evtl. festgenommenen Juden sind mir verantwortliche Vernehmungen der Genannten umgehend zu übersenden;” Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv Potsdam, Pr.Br. Rep. 41 Großräschen, Nr. 272, Bl. 84–85: Decree Gestapo Frankfurt/Oder of February 24, 1943, in letter from Landrat of Calau of February 25, 1943; see Decree of Gestapo Frankfurt/Oder of February 24, 1943, in Gruner, Wolf, “Die Fabrik-Aktion und die Ereignisse in der Berliner Rosenstraße. Fakten und Fiktionen um den 27. Februar 1943–60 Jahre danach,” in Jahrbuch für Anttsemitismusforschung, 11 (2002), 137–177.Google Scholar

8 Meyer, Beate, “Jüdische Mischlinge.” Rassenpolitik und Verfolgungserfahrung 1933–1945 (Hamburg: Dölling und Galitz, 1999), 58–59.Google Scholar

9 “Transport aus Berlin, Eingang 7. März 43. Gesamtstärke 690 einschließlich 25 Schutzhäftlinge;” Fernschreiben aus Auschwitz vom 8. 3. 1943 to WVHA, in Topographie des Terrors. Gestapo, SS und Reichssicherheitshauptamt auf dem “Prinz-Albrecht-Gelände.” Eine Dokumentation, ed. Rürup, Reinhard (Berlin: W. Arenhövel, 1989), 119.Google Scholar

10 This fact was only recently proven and five children in the Rosenstrasse building identified; Leichsenring, Jana, ed., Frauen und Widerstand (Münster: Lit, 2003), 136.Google Scholar

11 Schnellbrief Frick vom 20. 3. 1943 mit Gesetzentwurf, in Akten der Parteikanzlei der NSDAP, ed. Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Munich: Saur, 1983), Teil I -Microfiche- Nr. 030740Google Scholar; entry of 21. 3. 1943, in von Joseph Goebbels, Die Tagebücher, ed. Elke Fröhlich im Auftrag des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte und mit Unterstützung des Staatlichen Archivdienstes Rußlands, Teil II, Bd. 7 (Munich: Saur, 1993), 603.Google Scholar

12 Klarsfeld, Serge, Vichy-Auschwitz. Die Zusammenarbeit der deutschen und französischen Behörden bei der “Endlösung der Judenfrage” in Frankreich (Nördlingen: Delphi Politik, 1989), 202Google Scholar; Bericht an das Auswärtige Amt vom 25.6.1943, in Topographie des Terrors, 149–50Google Scholar; Weisberg, Richard H., Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France (New York: New York University Press, 1996), 65, 233–34.Google Scholar