Judenvermögensabgabe
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The ''Judenvermögensabgabe'' ("Jewish Capital Levy") was an arbitrary special tax imposed on
German Jews The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish commu ...
under the
Nazi dictatorship Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
. The tax was only a part of a larger series of actions taken by the Nazis to systematically plunder Jewish assets. After the assassination attempt on the German Legation Secretary Ernst Eduard vom Rath and the November pogroms in 1938,
Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician, aviator, military leader, and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which gov ...
demanded a contribution payment of one billion
Reichsmark The (; sign: ℛ︁ℳ︁; abbreviation: RM) was the currency of Germany from 1924 until the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945, and in the American, British and French occupied zones of Germany, until 20 June 1948. The Reichsmark was then replace ...
() as "
atonement Atonement, atoning, or making amends is the concept of a person taking action to correct previous wrongdoing on their part, either through direct action to undo the consequences of that act, equivalent action to do good for others, or some othe ...
" for "the hostile attitude of
Judaism Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...
towards the
German people Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...
". 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. 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 Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
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 Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...
drawn up which was to be announced immediately after the Gustloff trial. 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 criminality to the German economy and therefore to the German people". On 18 December of the same year, Wilhelm Stuckart, State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, confidentially informed Reich Economics Minister
Hjalmar Schacht Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht (); 22 January 1877 – 3 June 1970) was a German economist, banker, politician, and co-founder of the German Democratic Party. He served as the Currency Commissioner and President of the Reichsbank during the ...
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". 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". On 10 November 1938, Reich Economics Minister
Walther Funk Walther Immanuel Funk (18 August 1890 – 31 May 1960) was a German economist and Nazi official who served as ''Reichsminister'' for the Economy from 1938 to 1945 and president of the Reichsbank from 1939 to 1945. Funk oversaw the mobili ...
learned from
Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and philologist who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief Propaganda in Nazi Germany, propagandist for the Nazi Party, and ...
that 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. Göring assured the
International Military Tribunal International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...
at the Nuremberg Trial against the main war criminals that Hitler was also behind the goal of the other laws enacted shortly thereafter:
In a "Discussion on the Jewish Question" lasting several hours on 12 November 1938, Göring outlined the goal in front of more than a hundred participants, "to come to a very clear action profitable for the Reich" pertaining to the Jewish question. The damage caused by the
pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...
was to be repaired by the Jews themselves; insurance benefits were confiscated. Jewish business enterprises were to be expropriated at an estimated value and transferred to German buyers at market value. Shares and securities had to be exchanged for Reich Treasury notes. Göring said during this meeting:


Implementation

Already in the spring of 1938 a decree had been issued on the registration of the property of Jews. Jews had to declare their assets by the end of July if the value exceeded . A decree of 21 November 1938 (RGBl. I p. 1638 f.) on the expiation of the Jews made use of this and determined that all Jews with assets of more than had to pay 20% of it in four instalments to their tax office by 15 August 1939. The ordinance expressly reserved the right to demand further payments if the total sum of one billion Reichsmark was not reached in this way. In fact, another decree demanded a fifth instalment, which became due on 15 November 1939. The total sum finally amounted to .


Financial policy background

The financial plight of the Reich had worsenednot least because of the armament of the ''Wehrmacht''. There was a lack of foreign currency and loans from abroad; for the year 1939 the repayment of
Mefo bills A Mefo bill (sometimes written as MEFO bill) was a six-month promissory note, drawn upon the dummy company MEFO, Metallurgische Forschungsgesellschaft (Metallurgical Research Corporation), devised by the Reichsbank, German Central Bank President, ...
was due. There was a considerable gap in the budget: In 1938 there was a cash deficit of two billion Reichsmarks. In mid-November 1938, Walther Bayrhoffer of the Reich Ministry of Finance feared "the possibility that the Reich might become insolvent". A representative of the Foreign Office noted after an internal speech by Göring on 18 November 1938: The financial squeeze that the German state was in in November became apparent from the fact that the urgently awaited fines from the "Jewish Penalty" were pre-financed with the help of major German banks. 1 billion Reichsmark increased Reich revenue from 16 to 17 billion marks in one fell swoop, i.e. by a good 6 percent.


Reactions

Victor Klemperer Victor Klemperer (9 October 188111 February 1960) was a German literary scholar and diarist. His journals, published posthumously in Germany in 1995, detailed his life under the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, the fascist Nazi Germany, Third ...
writes in his diaries of 13 November 1938 and 6 December: In fact, only a fraction of the Jews remaining in Germany paid this penalty tax. In
Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...
, for example, only 16 percent had had to submit a declaration of assets, which was used as the basis for the Jewish wealth tax. According to the secret domestic political reports raised by the Security Service, parts of the population criticized the senseless destruction of material assets during the " Reichskristallnacht". In contrast, the fine imposed on the Jews was in many cases considered a fair punishment. The Bamberger Volksblatt described the alleged wealth of the Jews and justified the "atonement": "This property taken from the German people by fraud is to a small extent returned to the possession of the German people through the fine now imposed".


Repayment

Following the war, the American occupation forces issued "Military Government Law No. 59; Restitution of Identifiable Property", which ordered the payment of restitution to people who were wrongly deprived of their property and assets. The German Restitution Laws passed in 1953 included limitations and unfavorable calculations in § 21, which were lifted in the revision of 1956 in § 59. The refund payments were part of a larger program of ''
Wiedergutmachung ''Wiedergutmachung'' (; German: "compensation", "restitution", lit: "make good again") refers to the reparations that the German government agreed to pay in 1953 to the direct survivors of the Holocaust, and to those who were made to work at ...
'', also including repayments of the ''Reich'' Flight Tax.


See also

* ''Reich'' Flight Tax *
Taxation of the Jews in Europe Taxation of the Jews in Europe refers to taxes imposed specifically on Jews in Europe, in addition to the taxes levied on the general population. Special taxation imposed on the Jews by the state or ruler of the territory in which they were living ...
* ''
Varlık Vergisi The Varlık Vergisi (, "wealth tax" or "capital tax") was a tax mostly levied on non-Muslim citizens under the Republican People's Party (CHP) government in Turkey in 1942, with the stated aim of raising funds for the country's defense in case of ...
'' (lit. "wealth tax"), in 1942 in Turkey


References

{{Holocaust Germany History of taxation Nazi terminology 1938 in politics 1939 in politics Nazi looting Kristallnacht Economy of Nazi Germany