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Aryanization (German: Arisierung) was the Nazi term for the seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews, and the forced expulsion of Jews from economic life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. It entailed the transfer of Jewish property into "Aryan" or non-Jewish hands.
"Aryanization" is, according to Kreutzmüller and Zaltin in Dispossession: Plundering German Jewry, 1933-1953, "a Nazi slogan that was used to camouflage theft and its political consequences."[1]
The process started in 1933 in Nazi Germany with transfers of Jewish property and ended with the Holocaust.[2][3] Two phases have generally been identified: a first phase in which the theft from Jewish victims was concealed under a veneer of legality, and a second phase, in which property was more openly confiscated. In both cases, Aryanization corresponded to Nazi policy and was defined, supported, and enforced by Germany's legal and financial bureaucracy.[4][5][6][7][8]
Michael Bazyler wrote that the Holocaust was "both the greatest murder and the greatest theft in history". Between $230 and $320 billion (in 2005 US dollars) was stolen from Jews across Europe,[9] with hundreds of thousands of businesses Aryanized.[10]
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Before Hitler came to power, Jews owned 100,000 businesses in Germany. By 1938, boycotts, intimidation, forced sales, and restrictions on professions had largely forced Jews out of economic life. According to Yad Vashem, "Of the 50,000 Jewish-owned stores that existed in 1933, only 9,000 remained in 1938."[3]
Exclusion and dispossession of Jews starting in 1933
Starting in 1933, through the Aryan paragraph and later the Nuremberg Laws, Jews were largely excluded from public life in Germany. Jews were removed from jobs in the public sector, such as the civil service and teaching, and further restrictions were introduced through the Nazi period. Jewish university faculty were removed from departments in German universities in cities including Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Breslau, Heidelberg, Bonn, Cologne, Würzburg, and Jena.[11]
Later on, an increasing number were incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps, and finally deported to the east where they were murdered directly in death camps or shot by the Einsatzgruppen.
By 1 January 1938, German Jews were prohibited from operating businesses and trades and offering goods and services. On 26 April 1938, Jews were ordered to report all wealth over 5,000 Reichsmarks, and their access to bank accounts was restricted. On 14 June 1938, the Interior Ministry ordered the registration of all Jewish businesses. The state set the sales value of Jewish firms at a fraction of their market worth, and used various pressure tactics to ensure sales only to desired persons. Among the largest "Aryanization profiteers" were IG Farben, the Flick family, and large banks. The proceeds from "Aryanized" firms had to be deposited in savings accounts, and were made available to their Jewish depositors only in limited amounts, so that in the final analysis, Aryanization amounted to almost compensation-free confiscation.
In the autumn of 1938, only 40,000 of the formerly 100,000 Jewish businesses were still in the hands of their original owners. Aryanization was completed on 12 November 1938 with the enactment of a regulation, the Verordnung zur Ausschaltung der Juden aus dem deutschen Wirtschaftsleben (Regulation for the elimination of Jews from German economic life), through which the remaining businesses were transferred to non-Jewish owners and the proceeds taken by the state. Jewelry, stocks, real property, and other valuables had to be sold. Either by direct force, government interventions such as sudden tax claims, or the weight of the circumstances, Jewish property changed hands mostly below fair market value. Jewish employees were fired, and self-employed people were prohibited from working in their respective professions.
After Kristallnacht
After the "Kristallnacht" pogroms, the pressure of Aryanization was drastically increased. On 12 November 1938, Jews were forbidden to function as business managers, forcing Jewish owners to install "Aryan" surrogates. These people, who were often promoted by the party, first took over the office, and soon thereafter usually the whole business. "Compliant Aryans" (Gefälligkeitsarier) were threatened with punishment according to the Regulation against Complicity with the Camouflage of Jewish Firms (22 April 1938). Because the Jews were burdened with heavy payments as "atonement" for the damage done by the SA and antisemitic mobs during Kristallnacht, the selling off of Jewish property was only a question of time. On 3 December 1938, the value of Jewish landed property was frozen at the lowest level, and valuables and jewels were permitted to be sold only through state offices. The impoverishment of the Jewish population caused by Aryanization often stood in the way of its goal – promoting emigration through persecution – because those affected lacked the means to emigrate. They became victims of the Final Solution.
Many important businesses were sold and re-sold in the course of the process, some of which (such as the Hertie department store) played an important role during the post-war Wirtschaftswunder years in West Germany. After the war, the Federal Republic of Germany paid some restitution for the material losses.[12][13][14]
Eviction, erasure and cultural appropriation
The term Aryanization is sometimes used to refer to eviction of Jewish scientists and people engaged in the cultural sector and in a context of cultural appropriation, for example the Nazi project to provide works such as Handel's Judas Maccabaeus with a new text removed from the intended Old Testament setting.[15] The titles of artworks depicting Jewish people, such as Klimt's famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer were changed ("The Lady in Gold") to erase their Jewish connection.[16]
Complicity in Aryanization
The heads of the public 'Landessippenämter' (state offices of mores) and in particular the Protestant pastors and the Evangelical Lutheran Church played an important role in the preparation of Aryanization. They were responsible for Aryan evidence, family and rural farm research, migration movements as well as biographical and local cultural research. In these functions, they were significantly involved as desk clerks and responsible for the ideological propaganda of the Nazi regime in general and the implementation of Nazi racial policy in particular.[17]
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After Austria merged into the Third Reich in the Anschluss on March 12, 1938, Austrian Jews were plundered and thousands of properties seized through Aryanization.[18] Major landmarks owned by Jews, like the Wiener Riesenrad, which had belonged to Eduard Steiner, were Aryanized and their owners murdered.[19][20] Large and small businesses, from the biggest banks to the smallest family run businesses, were seized from Jews under the guise of Aryanisation.[21] The Vugesta Nazi looting organisation played a key role in disposing of assets of plundered Jews.[22]
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In Vichy France, Aryanization was governed by a July 22, 1941 law of the French state, which was following the October 18, 1940 Nazi ordinance for the occupied zone. Historian Henry Rousso gives the number 10,000 for the Aryanized businesses.[23] In 1942, the Jewish Telegraphc Agency (JTA) reported that the Nazis claimed that 35,000 French businesses had already been Aryanized.[24] Since the 1990s, there has been considerable research on the subject, and several monographs have been published.[25]
Large and small businesses, including art galleries, were transferred to non-Jews.[26] Examples of companies Aryanized in France include Galeries Lafayette.[27]
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 | You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (July 2021) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
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In July 1938, the Manifesto of Race, which declared the Italians to be descendants of the Aryan race.[clarification needed] In October 1938, it was followed by the Racial Laws in the Kingdom of Italy, which stripped the Jews of Italian citizenship and governmental and professional positions.[28] The aim of these measures was to achieve the "Aryanization" of Italian society by excluding Jews from various areas of economy, education and social life and having to emigrate.[29]
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In Romania, the Aryanization process was encouraged by tax incentives, as well as outright confiscation. Hardliners complained that some Jews were able to evade the regulations by transferring their businesses to Romanian owners (only on paper). Although Aryanization was to an extent inspired by similar policies in Germany, the Romanian authorities made the key decisions with regards to the implementation of Aryanization.[30]: 49
Aryanization also occurred in the Slovak State. About 12,300 Jewish businesses existed in 1940. By 1942, 10,000 had been liquidated, and the remainder "Aryanized" by transfer to non-Jewish owners.[31]
- The 1965 Oscar-winning Czechoslovak film The Shop on Main Street (Obchod na korze) addressed Aryanization in the Slovakia.
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