'Aryanisation' in Hamburg: The Economic Exclusion of Jews and the Confiscation of Their Property in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945 (review)

Frank Bajohr's path-breaking work is an excellent regional study that anticipated the direction of much recent scholarship and points the way for others to follow. When first published in 1997, his monograph went against the predominant line of research on Nazi Germany, a trend that had sought to explain the persecution of the Jews mainly in terms of the centralized structures of Himmler and Heydrich's security forces. Bajohr, by contrast, focuses on the early period of persecution before the start of the war and describes the participation of many different strata of the population in the economic persecution and spoliation of Germany's Jews. His analysis of the progressive exclusion of Jews from the local economy, the "Aryanization" of their businesses, and the seizure of their property emphasizes the cumulative and self-radicalizing nature of this process.

For Bajohr, Aryanization was above all a "political process" that served to reconcile conflicting pressures within the Nazi Party and also to attract new followers by supplying material benefits. In particular, Bajohr stresses the regional focus of much of the key decision-making with regard to Aryanization, as well as the multiplicity of party, state, and private actors involved. In the initial years of Nazi rule, while antisemitic activists in the party and medium-sized businesses pressed for the elimination of Jews from the economy, Hitler's regime actually took a more reserved line. However, in 1936, once the German economy had stabilized and begun to grow rapidly, concerns about possible economic fallout or responses overseas were cast aside, and the pace of Aryanization quickened.

A prime example of Bajohr's innovative approach is his ability, on the basis of local case files, to identify the key role that the regional currency offices played. He demonstrates that changes to the foreign currency exchange laws at the end of 1936 and especially their aggressive implementation against Jewish businesses greatly increased the pressure on Jews to shut down or sell off their businesses and emigrate. Subsequent regional studies by Gerd Blumberg in Münster and Claus Fülberg-Stollberg in Hanover have underscored the decisive role played by the currency offices and other branches of the customs and financial administration in quickening the pace of Jewish emigration by means of financial sanctions and harassments.

Bajohr is also careful to include the Jewish businessmen's perspective: he examines a number of case studies on specific companies, detailing both the responses of individual owners and their ultimate fate. In a few rare instances, Jewish owners were able to salvage something of their wealth. The owner of the Hamburg-based Fairplay tugboat company, for example, arranged for three tugboats to steam off overseas by cutting a deal with Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann. In return, Kaufmann was able to divert most of the company's other assets into a special foundation he had established. This case reflects the somewhat unusual circumstances in Hamburg, where, because of the significance of international trade in the city's economy, the pace of Aryanization ran somewhat behind the general trend.

Bajohr includes comparisons with other regions, such as Munich and Westphalia, both to point out crucial differences and to underline the important role local actors played throughout the Reich. This decentralization persisted even into the period of compulsory Aryanization, which began in 1938 and accelerated rapidly after Kristallnacht. Bajohr argues that Göring's December 1938 claims that Aryanization was a "function of the state" and now had to take place "only on a strictly legal basis" should not be taken too seriously. From the perspective of Hamburg, it appears that such claims were seen rather as "helpless attempts to ensure that developments that had run out of control did...