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The Lawyer Who Mocked Hitler, and Other Jewish Commentaries on the Nuremberg Laws

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2017

Douglas G. Morris
Douglas G. Morris*
Affiliation:
Independent Scholar
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Abstract

Nazi Germany’s Nuremberg Laws of 1935 generated legal commentary by Nazi jurists who eagerly extended its antisemitic principles—but not by Jewish lawyers, for whom the discrimination was too blatant and the risks of public criticism too dangerous. In the winter of 1936-37 in Leipzig, however, one obscure lawyer named Max Hellmann made an incisive commentary about the laws. Faced with prosecution for employing a female “Aryan” cook, Hellmann, a convert and widower in despair, responded boldly: he subpoenaed Adolf Hitler to testify and even moved to imprison him pending the judge’s decision. His defense was, in fact, a satire. It mocked the so-called Führerprinzip (leadership principle), i.e., the idea of law as the Führer’s will, at the heart of the Nazi legal system. Persistently contrasting the need for legal procedures with the primacy of irrational will, Hellmann showed that the leadership principle was incoherent with regard to the separation of powers, the role of the judiciary, the process of legislation, and the very nature of law itself. He provided a detailed critique of Nazi law that insiders, such as Nazi jurists, dared not think, and that outsiders, such as Jewish lawyers, had no reason to develop.

Die Nürnberger Gesetze des Jahres 1935 brachten Gesetzeskommentare nationalsozialistischer Juristen hervor, die begierig deren antisemitische Prinzipien weiterführten; von jüdischen Anwälten dagegen war nichts zu vernehmen, da die Diskriminierung zu offensichtlich und die Risiken öffentlicher Kritik zu groß waren. Aber im Winter 1936/37 lieferte ein obskurer Rechtsanwalt namens Max Hellmann einen scharfsinnigen Kommentar. Nachdem aufgrund seiner Beschäftigung einer weiblichen, arischen Köchin Strafverfolgung gegen ihn aufgenommen wurde, unternahm der Konvertit und verzweifelte Witwer Hellmann einen gewagten Schritt: Er berief Adolf Hitler in den Zeugenstand und beantragte in Erwartung der richterlichen Entscheidung sogar dessen Inhaftierung. Seine Verteidigung war dabei eine Satire, in der das Führerprinzip, nämlich dass der Wille des Führers das Recht verkörpere – die zentrale Idee des nationalsozialistischen Rechtssystems – verhöhnt wurde. Indem er beharrlich die Notwendigkeit legaler Prozeduren mit dem Primat eines irrationalen Willens kontrastierte, zeigte Hellmann, dass das Führerprinzip mit der Gewaltenteilung, der Rolle der Judikative, dem Prozess der Gesetzgebung und der eigentlichen Natur von Gesetzen an sich nicht vereinbar war. Er lieferte dabei eine detaillierte Kritik nationalsozialistischer Rechtsprechung, die nationalsozialistische Juristen nicht zu denken wagten und jüdische Rechtsanwälte keine Veranlassung hatten zu entwickeln.

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Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 49 , Issue 3-4 , December 2016 , pp. 383 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © Central European History Society of the American Historical Association 2016 

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References

1 Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York, memoir collection, ME 249, Berthold Haase, “Mein Leben, was in ihm geschah und wie ich es erlebte, 1874–1935,” 1935, 78.  All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.

2 Morris, Douglas G., “Discrimination, Degradation, Defiance: Jewish Lawyers under Nazism,” in The Law in Nazi Germany: Ideology, Opportunism, and the Perversion of Justice , ed. Steinweis, Alan E. and Rachlin, Robert D. (New York: Berghahn Books, 2013), 105–35, 111–13, 119–20Google Scholar.

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11 See Szobar, “Telling Sexual Stories,” 152–55.

12 See Essner, Die “Nürnberger Gesetze,” 197–200, 203, 215–18; Kempner, Ankläger einer Epoche, 126; Przyrembel, “Rassenschande,” 333, 344–48; Szobar, “Telling Sexual Stories,” 144–45.

13 See Müller, Hitler's Justice, 105; Przyrembel, “Rassenschande,” 365.

14 See Fraenkel, Daniel, “Jewish Self-Defense under the Constraints of National Socialism: The Final Years of the Centralverein,” in Probing the Depth of German Anti-Semitism: German Society and the Persecution of the Jews, 1933–1941, ed. Bankier, David (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000), 347 Google Scholar.

15 See ibid., 347–49; Margaliot, Abraham, “The Reaction of the Jewish Public in Germany to the Nuremberg Laws,” Yad Vashem Studies 12 (1977), 76–77 Google Scholar; Joseph Walk, “Reactions of the Jewish Press in Germany to the Nuremberg Laws,” in Bankier, Probing the Depth of German Anti-Semitism, 333–36.

16 See Fraenkel, “Jewish Self-Defense,” 354–56; Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York, memoir collection, ME 287b. MM 34,  Ernst Herzfeld, “Meine letzten Jahre in Deutschland: 1933–1938,” 1938, 25–28; Margaliot, “Reaction of the Jewish Public,” 79, 100; Matthäus, Jürgen and Roseman, Mark, Jewish Responses to Persecution, vol. 1, 1933–1938 (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2010), 218 Google Scholar.

17 See Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, 167–68; Majer, Diemut, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich: The Nazi Judicial and Administrative System in Germany and Occupied Eastern Europe, with Special Regard to Occupied Poland, 1939–1945 (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1993), 52–54 Google Scholar; Margaliot, “Reaction of the Jewish Public,” 76–78, 90–91, 97–99, 105–6; Matthäus and Roseman, Jewish Responses to Persecution, 1:190–91, 215–18; Schleunes, Karl, The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy toward German Jews, 1933–1939 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 126 Google Scholar; Walk, “Reactions of the Jewish Press,” 334.

18 See Böckenförde, Ernst-Wolfgang, “The Origin and Development of the Concept of the Rechtsstaat,” in State, Society, and Liberty: Studies in Political Theory and Constitutional Law (New York: Berg, 1991), 48–53 Google Scholar; Neumann, Franz, “The Concept of Political Freedom,” Columbia Law Review 53, no. 7 (November 1953): 906–12Google Scholar.

19 Organization of State Zionists, manifesto, stencil, ca. late 1935, bequest of Georg Kereski, Ramat Gan, Israel (probably now in the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, record no. P 82), quoted in Margaliot, “Reaction of the Jewish Public,” 91. See also ibid., 85; Fraenkel, “Jewish Self-Defense,” 346–47; Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, 167–68; Nicosia, Francis R., Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008): 106–8, 181–206Google Scholar.

20 See Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich, 50–51, 54–55, 617 n. 128.

21 Dwork, Debórah and Pelt, Robert Jan van, Flight from the Reich: Refugee Jews, 1933–1946 (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), 93 Google Scholar.

22 Kempner, Ankläger einer Epoche, 136–37.

23 Dr. Hubert Lang discovered the case of Max Hellmann. See Hubert Lang, “‘Der Führer wünscht keine besonderen Maßnahmen’: Das Ende eines deutschen Rechtsanwalts,” BRAK-Mitteilungen 3 (2003): 113–14, http://www.hubertlang.de/5_maxh1.html.

24 Unless otherwise noted, the archival material below is all from Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde, Signatur R 3001, Nr. 059785, Reichsjustizministerium (Reich Ministry of Justice), personnel files of Max Hellmann. These files are missing some important documents, but many documents, such as legal submissions and court decisions, refer to, quote extensively, or quote in full from earlier documents.  For this reason, some of the following footnotes will cite documents that are later than the events discussed in the text.  Further references use the following abbreviations: AG = Amtsgericht (lower court, local court, or district court); Ankl = Anklage (charge, accusation, or indictment); AnklB = Anklagebehörde (prosecuting authority); AnklSch = Anklageschrift (indictment, written legal submission in support of the charges); BA = Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde; EhrG = Ehrengericht (disciplinary court); GstAn = Generalstaatsanwalt (prosecutor at the regional court); OLG = Oberlandesgericht (higher regional court, court of appeals); OstAn = Oberstaatsanwalt (senior or chief prosecutor); RAK = Rechtsanwaltskammer (bar association); RMJ = Reichsminister der Justiz (Reich Minister of Justice); RRAO = Reichs-Rechtsanwaltsordnung (Reich Lawyer's Code); SchG = Schöffengericht (court of lay assessors); SG = Sondergericht (special court); StAn = Staatsanwalt (prosecutor).

25 AnklSch, GStaAn, OLG to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 2; OStAn, Leiter, AnklB, SG, Freiberg, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 7, 1938, 2; Beschluss (decision), SG, Freiberg, Sept. 16, 1938, 2.

26 See, e.g., AnklSch, GStaAn, OLG to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 2. See also Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, 151.

27 Essner, Die “Nürnberger Gesetze,” 201; Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, 153–54; Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich, 60; Matthäus and Roseman, Jewish Responses to Persecution, 1:195–97; Wilhelm Stuckart und Rolf Schiedermair, “Rasse und Gesetzgebung” (1938), in Pauer-Studer and Fink, Rechtfertigungen des Unrechts, 426.

28 OStAn, Leiter, AnklB, SG, Freiberg, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 7, 1938, 4–5.

29 Cohn, Werner, “Bearers of a Common Fate? The ‘Non-Aryan’ Christian ‘Fate Comrades’ of the Paulus-Bund, 1933–1939,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 33 (1988): 328 Google Scholar; Kaplan, Marion, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 78 Google Scholar.

30 OStAn, Leiter, AnklB, SG, Freiberg, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 7, 1938, 4–5. See also Aschheim, Steven, Brothers and Strangers: The East European Jew in German and German Jewish Consciousness, 1800–1923 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982), chaps. 7–9 Google Scholar; Maurer, Trude, Ostjuden in Deutschland, 1918–1933 (Hamburg: H. Christians, 1986)Google Scholar; Wertheimer, Jack, Unwelcome Strangers: East European Jews in Imperial Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 3–4, 143–72Google Scholar.

31 OStAn, Leiter, AnklB, SG, Freiberg, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 7, 1938, 4–5.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid., 5. See also Matthäus and Roseman, Jewish Responses to Persecution, 1:252.

35 See AnklSch, GStaAn, OLG to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 2 (giving the date of her death as May 14, 1936); Beschluss, SchG, Leipzig, Jan. 15, 1938, 1 (giving the date of her death as mid-June 1936).

36 See, e.g., Szobar, “Telling Sexual Stories,” 143, 155–63.

37 Ankl, Oct. 30, 1937, charging a violation of §3 and §5, Absatz (section) 3.

38 See Przyrembel, “Rassenschande,” 309 n. 153.

39 See Ankl, Oct. 30, 1937; Präsident AG to RMJ, letter, Dec. 27, 1937.

40 Ankl, Oct. 30, 1937; AnklSch, GStaAn, OLG to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 2.

41 See GStAn, OLG, Dresden, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 25, 1938, 1–2; OStAn, Leiter, AnklB, SG, Freiberg, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 7, 1938, 5–6; AnklSch, SG, Freiberg, Aug. 14, 1938, 11, 12; Beschluss, SG, Freiberg, Sept. 16, 1938, 12, 15.

42 See Dölemeyer, “Die Frankfurter Anwaltschaft,” 81–83; König, Stefan, Vom Dienst am Recht: Rechtsanwälte als Strafverteidiger im Nationalsozialismus (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1987), 117–20Google Scholar; Königseder, Angelika, Recht und nationalsozialistische Herrschaft: Berliner Anwälte 1933–1945; Ein Forschungsprojekt des Berliner Anwaltsvereins (Bonn: Deutscher Anwaltverlag, 2001), 120 Google Scholar; Przyrembel, “Rassenschande,” 326–27, 338–42, 362–63.

43 See Max Hellmann, Zeugenladung (subpoena) to Hitler, Dec. 17, 1937.

44 Ibid., 4.

45 Ibid. (emphasis in the original).

46 OStAn, Leiter, AnklB, SG, Freiberg, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 7, 1938, 2.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.

49 Hellmann, Zeugenladung to Hitler, Dec. 17, 1937, 1.

50 Präsident, AG, Leipzig, to RMJ, letter, Dec. 27, 1937, 2.

51 AnklSch, GStaAn, OLG to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 6–8.

52 Hellmann, Zeugenladung to Hitler, Dec. 17, 1937, 5.

53 Präsident, AG, Leipzig, to RMJ, letter, Dec. 27, 1937, 2; AnklSch, GStaAn, OLG to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 3.

54 AnklSch, GStaAn, OLG to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 3.

55 Hellmann, Zeugenladung to Hitler, Dec. 17, 1937, 5 (emphasis in the original).

56 AnklSch, GStaAn, OLG to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 8.

57 Hellmann, Zeugenladung to Hitler, Dec. 17, 1937, 5.

58 Ibid., 6; AnklSch, GStAn, OLG to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 8; GStAn, OLG, Dresden, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 25, 1938, 3.

59 AnklSch, GStAn, OLG, to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 8.

60 Ibid., 1–2, 8; OStAn, Leiter, AnklB, SG, Freiberg, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 7, 1938, 3–4.

61 AnklSch, GStaAn, OLG to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 8.

62 Beschluss, SchG, Leipzig, Jan. 15, 1938, 2–3.

63 See Essner, Die “Nürnberger Gesetze,” 237–43. See also Noam, Ernst and Kropat, Wolf-Arno, eds., Juden vor Gericht, 1933–1945: Dokumente aus hessischen Justizakten (Wiesbaden: Kommission für die Geschichte der Juden in Hessen, 1975), 175–76Google Scholar.

64 GStAn, OLG, Dresden, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 25, 1938, 2.

65 Hauptmann a.D. [Fritz] Wiedemann, Adjutant of the Führer, to Reich Justice Minister Gürtner, letter, March 29, 1938; notation, April 9, 1938, on RJM to GStAn, Dresden, letter, March 29, 1938.

66 GStAn, OLG, Dresden, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 25, 1938, 1.

67 Beschluss, SchG, Leipzig, Jan. 15, 1938, 4; AnklSch, GStAn, OLG, to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 9; Beschluss, SG, Freiberg, Sept. 16, 1938, 11–12.

68 Beschluss, SchG, Leipzig, Jan. 15, 1938, 3.

69 AnklSch, GStAn, OLG, to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 9.

70 Ibid.

71 Ibid.; AnklSch, SG, Freiberg, Aug. 24, 1938, 1.

72 GStAn, OLG, Dresden, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, May 10, 1938; OStAn, Leiter, AnklB, SG, Freiberg, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 7, 1938, 4.

73 OStAn, Leiter, AnklB, SG, Freiberg, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 7, 1938, 5. See also Beschluss, SG, Freiberg, Sept. 16, 1938, 13, 16.

74 Beschluss, SG, Freiberg, Sept. 16, 1938, 1, 16.

75 RMJ to GStAn, Dresden, letter, March 29, 1938; AnklSch, GStAn, OLG to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 9; GStAn, OLG, Dresden, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, May 10, 1938; Beschluss, SG, Freiberg, Sept. 16, 1938, 10.

76 AnklSch, GStAn, OLG, to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 1.

77 GStAn, OLG, Dresden, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, May 31, 1938; Präsident, RAK, Dresden, to GStAn, OLG, Dresden, for delivery to RMJ, letter, June 7, 1938; Beschluss, EhrenG, RAK, Dresden, June 7, 1938.

78 Beschluss, EhrG, RAK, Dresden, Dec. 12, 1938.

79 OStAn, Leipzig, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, Dec. 7, 1938.

80 Lang, “Der Führer wünscht keine besonderen Maßnahmen,” 340; Kimberly Kwan, Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora, e-mail messages to author, Oct. 27–28, 2016. See Buchenwald, Gedenkstätte, Buchenwald Concentration Camp, 1937–1945: A Guide to the Permanent Historical Exhibition (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2004), 76–77 Google Scholar.

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82 See Szobar, “Telling Sexual Stories,” 143.

83 OStAn, Leiter, AnklB, SG, Freiberg, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 7, 1938, 5–6; GStAn, OLG, Dresden, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 25, 1938, 2; AnklSch, SG, Freiberg, Aug. 24, 1938, 1; Beschluss, SG, Freiberg, Sept. 16, 1938, 15.

84 Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “satire.”

85 Press Release, “Jude wollte den Führer als Zeugen”, Leipzig, Jan. 18, 1938, deposited in Pressearchiv; OStAn, Leiter, AnklB, SG, Freiberg, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 7, 1938, 6; GStAn, OLG, Dresden, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 25, 1938, 2.

86 OStAn, Leiter, AnklB, SG, Freiberg, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 7, 1938, 5.

87 Beschluss, SG, Freiberg, Sept. 16, 1938, 13.

88 Ibid., 15.

89 See Buchheim, Hans, “The SS—Instrument of Domination,” in Anatomy of the SS State, ed. Krausnick, Helmut et al. . (New York: Walker and Co., 1968), 128–29Google Scholar; Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich, 14, 590 n. 27; Püschel, “… der Angeklagte ist Jude,” 12.

90 AnklSch, GStAn, OLG to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 3.

91 See Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich, 13.

92 See Manfred Fauser, “Das Gesetz im Führerstaat” (1935), in Pauer-Studer and Fink, Rechtfertigungen des Unrechts, 357; Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich, 12.

93 See Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich, 16.

94 AnklSch, SG, Freiberg, Aug. 24, 1938, 11.

95 Hellmann, Zeugenladung to Hitler, Dec. 17, 1937, 5–6. See also Beschluss, SG, Freiberg, Sept. 16, 1938, 12.

96 Hellmann, Zeugenladung to Hitler, Dec. 17, 1937, 2. See also Beschluss, SG, Freiberg, Sept. 16, 1938, 11.

97 See Becker, Erich, “Diktatur und Führung” (1935), in Pauer-Studer and Fink, Rechtfertigungen des Unrechts, 315–16Google Scholar; Fauser, “Das Gesetz im Führerstaat,” 359; Franzen, Hans, “Gesetz und Richter” (1935), in Pauer-Studer and Fink, Rechtfertigungen des Unrechts, 379–83Google Scholar; Huber, Ernst Rudolf, “Verfassungsrecht des Grossdeutschen Reiches” (1939), in Pauer-Studer and Fink, 332; Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich, 16 Google Scholar. See also Püschel, “ … der Angeklagte ist Jude,” 10.

98 AnklSch, GStAn, OLG, to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 3.

99 See Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich, 12–13.

100 See Franzen, “Gesetz und Richter,” 382–83; Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich, 18–24; Püschel, “… der Angeklagte ist Jude,” 12; Schmitt, Carl, “Der Führer schützt das Recht” (1934), in Pauer-Studer and Fink, Rechtfertigungen des Unrechts, 327–28, 330Google Scholar.

101 See Böckenförde, “Origin and Development,” 54–60; Neumann, “Concept of Political Freedom,” 911.

102 Fauser, “Das Gesetz im Führerstaat,” 366. See also Buchheim, “SS—Instrument of Domination,” 139.

103 See Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich, 13, 18.

104 See Becker, “Diktatur und Führung,” 317–18; Fauser, “Das Gesetz im Führerstaat,” 359; Huber, “Verfassungsrecht des Grossdeutschen Reiches,” 332–36; Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich, 19.

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107 Hellmann, Zeugenladung to Hitler, Dec. 17, 1937, 4 (emphasis in the original).

108 See Friedlander, Henry, “German Law and German Crimes in the Nazi Era,” in The Holocaust's Ghost: Writing on Art, Politics, Law, and Education, ed. Decoste, F. C. and Schwartz, Bernard (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2000), 283–84Google Scholar.

109 See Becker, “Diktatur und Führung,” 318–19, 324; Buchheim, “SS—Instrument of Domination,” 129; Fauser, “Das Gesetz im Führerstaat,” 359; Huber, “Verfassungsrecht des Grossdeutschen Reiches,” 339; Koellreutter, Otto, “Deutsches Verfassungsrecht” (1938), in Pauer-Studer and Fink, Rechtfertigungen des Unrechts, 349 Google Scholar.

110 Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich, 13–14, 589 n. 24 (quotation on p. 13). See also Fauser, “Das Gesetz im Führerstaat,” 360–61.

111 See Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich, 14.

112 AnklSch, GStAn, OLG, to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 7; see also Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich, 13.

113 See Buchheim, “SS—Instrument of Domination,” 127.

114 See ibid., 127–29.

115 See also Neumann, Behemoth, 161–71.

116 Friedlander, “German Law and German Crimes,” 285.

117 See Neumann, “Concept of Political Freedom,” 906–8.

118 See Evans, Richard J., The Third Reich in Power: How the Nazis Won Over the Hearts and Minds of a Nation (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), 37–38 Google Scholar; Müller, Hitler's Justice, 31, 33–34; Neumann, “Concept of Political Freedom,” 907.

119 See Morris, Douglas G., Justice Imperiled: The Anti-Nazi Lawyer Max Hirschberg in Weimar Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005), 303–4Google Scholar.

120 Isay, Aus meinem Leben, 81.

121 Hellmann, Zeugenladung to Hitler, Dec. 17, 1937, 3.

122 AnklSch, GStAn, OLG to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 6.

123 See Essner, Die “Nürnberger Gesetze,” 224; Faber, Rolf, Wiesbadens jüdische Juristen: Leben und Schicksal von 65 jüdischen Rechtsanwälten, Notaren, Richtern, Referendaren, Beamten und Angestellten (Wiesbaden: Magistrat der Landeshauptstadt Wiesbaden, Kulturamt, Stadtarchiv, 2011)Google Scholar.

124 AnklSch, GStaAn, OLG to EhrG, RAK, Dresden, May 4, 1938, 7–8; OStAn, Leiter, AnklB, SG, Freiberg, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 7, 1938, 3, 6; AnklSch, SG, Freiberg, Aug. 24, 1938, 11.

125 Beschluss, SG, Freiberg, Sept. 16, 1938, 14.

126 See Pauer-Studer, introduction to Rechtfertigungen des Unrechts, 69.

127 See Friedlander, “German Law and German Crimes,” 285; Neumann, Behemoth, 115; Püschel, “… der Angeklagte ist Jude,” 13; see also Becker, “Diktatur und Führung,” 320–25.

128 Freedman, Leonard, “Wit as a Political Weapon: Satirists and Censors,” Social Research 79, no. 1 (Spring 2012): 88 Google Scholar; Merziger, Patrick, “Humour in Nazi Germany: Resistance and Propaganda? The Popular Desire for an All-Embracing Laughter,” International Review of Social History 52 supp. 15 (2007): 282–86Google Scholar; Merziger, “‘Totalitarian Humour’? National Socialist Propaganda and Active Audiences in Entertainment,” History Workshop Journal 79, no. 1 (2015): 185–87Google Scholar. More generally, see Evans, Third Reich in Power, 210–15.

129 Merziger, “Humour in Nazi Germany,” 288–89; Merziger, “Totalitarian Humour?,” 185–87, 193.

130 See Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair, 5, 9, 150, 229, 239 n. 2.

131 OStAn, Leiter, AnklB, SG, Freiberg, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 7, 1938, 2; AnklSch, SG, Freiberg, Aug. 24, 1938, 2.

132 Beschluss, SG, Freiberg, Sept. 16, 1938, 12–13.

133 Beschluss, SG, Freiberg, Sept. 16, 1938, 16.

134 Undated questionnaire, question 19 (quotations);  OStAn, Leiter, AnklB, SG, Freiberg, to RMJ, Berlin, letter, June 7, 1938, 2.

135 See Hoffmann, Peter, German Resistance to Hitler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Large, David Clay, ed., Contending with Hitler: Varieties of German Resistance in the Third Reich (Washington, DC: German Historical Institute and Cambridge University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Mommsen, Hans, Alternatives to Hitler: German Resistance under the Third Reich (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

136 See Cohn, “Bearers of a Common Fate?”

137 Göppinger, Horst, Juristen jüdischer Abstammung im “Dritten Reich”: Entrechtung und Verfolgung (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1990), 118–21Google Scholar; Krach, Tillmann, Jüdische Rechtsanwälte in Preussen: Über die Bedeutung der freien Advokatur und ihre Zerstörung durch den Nationalsozialismus (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1991), 215–36Google Scholar.

138 See Matthäus and Roseman, Jewish Responses to Persecution, 1:195.

139 See Kwiet, Konrad, “The Ultimate Refuge—Suicide in the Jewish Community under the Nazis,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 24 (1984): 166 Google Scholar.

140 See Evans, The Third Reich in Power, 153, 217; Freedman, “Wit as a Political Weapon,” 88.

141 See Evans, The Third Reich in Power, 133–37.

142 RMJ, memo, April 14, 1938, paraphrasing Beschluss, SG Freiberg, Feb. 8, 1938.