The NSDAP The
NSDAP created a Leipzig chapter in 1922, indicating the first Nazi presence in the area. The
NSDAP regional administrative authority, along with the head revenue office and state police, were responsible for the implementation of Anti-Jewish policies. In the fall of 1939, the NSDAP created
Judenhauser, in which Jewish residents and non-Jewish spouses of "mixed-marriages" were forced to live in close quarters. The majority of the 47
Judenhauser were located in the
Nordvorstadt and the
Waldstraßenviertel, bordered by Nordstrasse and Funkenburgstrasse. Families were constantly shuffled throughout
Judenhauser, with some forced to move seven times in a year.
Emigration Leipzig's Jewish community assembled a department to deal with the anticipated emigration of the city's Jewish families. The department worked closely with
Palastina-Ami to ensure safe arrival to
Erez Israel, and with
Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland for emigration to all other countries. However, receiving the proper paperwork to emigrate was rather difficult for Leipzig's Jews. In order to obtain the necessary certificates, Jews had to be trained for specific types of labor in which their target country was in need of. Because many of Leipzig's Jews worked in business and the fur trade which was not needed in the country they wished to emigrate to, many of them enrolled in re-training courses where they learned blue-collar jobs such as bricklaying or carpentry.
Political life The city's mayor from 1930 to 1937,
Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, although being national-conservative, was a noted opponent of the
Nazi regime in Germany. He resigned in 1937 when, in his absence, his Nazi deputy ordered the destruction of the city's statue of
Felix Mendelssohn. In mid-1938, Jews were first banned from using park benches in the
Rosental Park. By the end of the year, Jews would be banned from all public parks in the city.
First deportations On October 28, 1938, Leipzig experienced its first large-scale deportation of fifty-percent of its Jewish inhabitants as part of the
Polenaktion. Those considered as
Polish nationals or stateless were to be deported, however the local Polish Consulate was able to shelter 1,300 Polish Jews, preventing their deportation. The remainder was transported to the Polish border by railway and dropped in
Zbąszyń, a forested area just across the border between Poland and Germany. Martin Kapel experienced this deportation first hand when he and his family were forced onto a crowded train, transported across the country, and forced to march into Poland following the lead of the SS. He notes that some of the prisoners on the march were too old to walk, others carrying children, and some were taken straight from their hospital beds. In accordance with a separate account, Zindel Grynszpan testified that he and his family were forced off of the train nearly a mile away from the Polish border. The Brody Synagogue and the mourning hall of the Jewish cemetery, built according to a design by Wilhelm Haller, were also damaged heavily on this night. Jewish tombstones were broken and graves exhumed, and of those exhumed, nearly 10 peoples remained unburied for nearly a week because many grave diggers had been arrested. Along with Jewish places of worship, Jewish businesses like Bamberger and Hertz were damaged during
Kristallnacht. The Nazis wished to avoid the creation of a ghetto but did not want to have a scattered Jewish population throughout the city. Meanwhile, Jewish men and women were deported from various German-occupied countries to
subcamps of the
Buchenwald concentration camp, operated in the city. The Leipzig-Schönau subcamp contained 500 Jewish female prisoners, whereas the subcamp at the local
HASAG armaments factory held 5,000 female prisoners of various nationalities, a third of whom were Jewish. They were subjected to
slave labour there, and sick and pregnant women and those considered unable to work were deported to other concentration camps. Following the deportation of Leipzig's Jews, the Germany's Revenue office visited the abandoned homes to confiscate any furniture, jewelry, and clothing that was left behind. These belongings were later sold by the Revenue office and the Hans Klemm Auction House for cheap prices to
"Aryan" purchasers. In February 1945, 180 women were deported from the Leipzig-Schönau subcamp to a subcamp in
Bernburg. On April 13, 1945, the SS sent most prisoners of local subcamps on
death marches to other camps. Through racially biased economic policies,
boycotts fueled by propaganda, and overall confiscation of Jewish property, the Nazi regime was able to exclude the Jews from German business life and eventually from the general populace which, in turn, systematically drove the Jewish emigration out of Germany.
The M. Joske & Co. department store For almost 30 years, Michaelis-Max Joske ran two department stores in Leipzig, one on Windmühlenstrasse and a smaller one on
Karl-Heine-Strasse 43–45 in the west of Leipzig named M. Joske & Co. During the April boycott of 1933, his two sons, Hans and Julius, who were acting managers and partners, were ordered to stand at the entrance of the store while they were taunted and humiliated. Activists intimidated customers and blocked the entrance to the shop. Additionally, on the windows of the M. Joske department store, as well as many other shops,
anti-Semitic slogans were drawn. Due to this interaction between the two sons and the boy-cotters, the store's customers began to slowly avoid making purchases here and new customers were not taking their place. Eventually, due to this loss in revenue, Julius had to file for bankruptcy which resulted in the company being liquidated and sold at auction. Following this confrontation, only a few employees received a termination of their contracts, but internal pressure was starting to bubble up beneath the board of members. As a result of this internal pressure, many Jewish-owned or operated branches and firms were purged or sold. In the end, more followed and between 1932 and 1935, Jewish-owned firms dropped from 100,000 to nearly 75,000. By the end of 1937, this number had fallen to only 33,000 currently operating branches. The demand for the firing of Jewish employees and board members was not the only way firms were "aryanized" or in which they aided in the process such as the Deutsche Bank. During this time, notably 1935–1940, state agencies had also been increasing the tax burden on such enterprises. Specifically, the rate of
corporate tax was increased from 20% in 1935 to 40% in 1939–40. Additionally, a new supplemental tax (
Mehreinkommensteuer) was introduced in early 1939 which added an additional 15% to profits that had increased from 1937 to 1938. Through the 1930s, businesses along the Brühl contributed to one-third of the world's fur trade. In 1933 when the Nazis began influencing politics, Jewish fur traders and their families in Leipzig suffered. While most areas which came under regular attack included banking and department stores, the garment/shoe trade and cattle dealing were also prone to attack for being "Jewish". In Leipzig, most of the trading took place in medium-sized specialty shops where its owners were regularly held responsible for macroeconomic forces such as drastic increases in inflation. Although these businesses were not subjects of the later systemic "aryanization" used by the Nazis in which legislation was the driving force, and, instead, were harassed, in the early stages, by party functionaries and competitors, they were often still sold or even destroyed by these factors. Henri, a successful businessman and philanthropist soon became a target of discrimination and exclusion carried out by the
Berufs- und Standesorganisationen der Musikverleger (Music Publisher's Association). After many years of pressure and discrimination, only 17 approved "Jewish" music publishers still existed in Germany, one of those being C.F. Peters. On November 10, 1938, however, chaos reached an extreme as the firm's headquarters was ransacked and the music was burned. Many large and internationally affiliated companies were finally caught in the "aryanization" process such as the C.F. Peters House. By the end of the next year, 1939, the German economy had essentially been successfully "cleansed" of Jewish influence and movements now shifted towards residential areas. In particular, Jews were beginning to be evicted from their homes and relocated in sections known as "
Judenhäuser" (German: Jew houses). making it the sixth-largest Jewish community in Germany and the largest one in
Saxony. Although Antisemitism was still prevalent, the community was thriving and uninfluenced by Nazi policies. The effect of Nazi policies in Leipzig is reflected in the significant decrease in Jews living in Leipzig from 1935 to 1939. The German Reich completed a population consensus on May 19, 1939. They determined that fifty-percent of Leipzig's citizens were Jewish, where 4,470 were Jews by descent and 4,113 by religion. The decrease in Leipzig's Jewish community from 1935 to 1939 may be attributed to Nazi persecution and emigration, however, the population is still significant in size at this time. ==Community services==