Persecution of the Jews in Schleswig-Holstein (1933–1945)

Like other areas under Nazi Germany, Jews were persecuted in the northernmost German state Schleswig-Holstein. Before the Nazis came to power in 1933, an estimated 1,900 Jews lived in Schleswig-Holstein, mostly in Lübeck and Kiel. By the time of Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945, many of Schleswig-Holstein's Jews had been murdered in the Holocaust.

History of the Jews in Schleswig-Holstein prior to 1933 Most of the German population of the Middle Ages were baptized Christians. The Jewish minority was subjected to a centuries-long persecution. This changed following the Jewish emancipation during the Enlightenment. In Prussia, under the rule of Frederick the Great, there was limited tolerance towards the Judenregal or Schutzjudea 'protected Jewish' status for German Jews granted by the imperial, princely, or royal courts. Jews were increasingly likely to assimilate into their Christian environment, for example, by receiving baptism and changing their names. During the Napoleonic Wars, the principle of Jewish emancipation, which had been applied in France since 1791, was applied to the occupied territories of Germany. For example, with the Prussian Edict of Emancipation of 1812, Jews living in Prussia became Prussian citizens, albeit with significant legal restrictions. The new constitutions of the North German Confederation (1866–1871) introduced a strict separation of church and state and thus placed Jews on an equal footing with German Christians. The Constitution of the German Empire (1871–1918) intendedat least in legal termsto make all German Jews full citizens.

The introduction of Basic State Law in Schleswig-Holstein on 15 September 1848 provided a limited framework for Jewish emancipation but was only valid until 1851. Jewish emancipation also occurred in Lübeck (1848, 1852), Schleswig (1854), and Holstein (1863), and emancipation was considered formally complete with the founding of the German Reich in 1871. Until 1871, Jews in Schleswig-Holstein were mostly restricted to living in small towns.Jews in Schleswig-Holstein. Society for Schleswig-Holstein History, http://www.geschichte-s-h.de/juden-in-schleswig-holstein/

However, the movement for legal equality for Jews met with limited approval among the Christian majority and was only hesitantly implemented in everyday life. A growing number of people, especially the bourgeoisie, held religiously motivated anti-Jewish views and believed in various antisemitic stereotypes. Thousands of citizens organized themselves in antisemitic organizations such as the Pan-German Leaguewhich was influential in the educated middle class and in politicsand later in the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) to obstruct formal equal treatment of Jews, or to oppose non-Aryans. This zeitgeist was described during a 2011 commemoration as: "In everyday life, the members of the Jewish faith community were excluded, professionally massively disadvantaged and isolated in their social environment."Commemoration - 6 December 2011 - 70th anniversary of the deportation of Jews from Schleswig-Holstein. Background. Series of publications by the State Center for Political Education Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel 2011, pp. 10–21

These antisemitic movements affected the willingness of Jews to emigrate. In 1925 in Germany, 563,733 people, or 0.9% of the population, considered themselves as members of the Jewish religious community; the proportion fell to 499,682 (0.8%) under the influence of the Nazi persecution of Jews in the census of 16 June 1933. By 1939, the number of Jews in the German Reich had drastically decreased to 233,973 (0.34%).

Nazi policies considerably expanded the number of persons officially registered as Jews, categorizing them according to line of descent rather than active following of Judaism. According to the German minority census of 17 May 1939, Jews had to state in detail on so-called 'supplementary forms', under threat of punishment, whether they had one or two Jewish grandparents. On this basis, the Nazi state classified them as either "full Jews" ("racial Jews") or "half Jews".

According to this racial delimitation, a total of 1,742 people of "Jewish descent" lived in Schleswig-Holstein in 1939, of whom 755 were so-called "full Jews", 473 "first-degree Jewish half-breeds", and 514 "second-degree Jewish half-breeds". Of the "full Jews", 575 were regarded as "Jews of faith", 136 as members of the regional Protestant or free churches, and 7 as Roman Catholics.Jewish population in Germany on 17 May 1939. Statistics of the German Reich, Volume 552.4, Berlin 1944. 'The Jews and Jewish half-breeds in the German Reich and in the parts of the Reich according to descent and religious affiliation', German Reich, overview 1a, p. 4/6. Under the increased pressure of persecution, many Jews emigrated. For example, 17,000 mostly male adult Polish Jews living in Germany were deported in trains from Germany to Poland on 28 and 29 October 1938, within the framework of the 1938 expulsion of Polish Jews from Germany.The Jewish Population in the German Reich 1933–1945, ibid. However, the mass deportation of Polish Jews from Schleswig-Holstein initially failed due to bureaucratic mishaps; it resumed in the spring of 1939, when Jews were threatened with being deported to concentration camps if they did not leave Germany themselves in a timely manner. Most of those affected fled to Poland, Netherlands, France, and Belgium, where the German occupying power arrested them again after the start of World War II and deported them to extermination camps. The few Polish Jews who remained in the regional capital of Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel, were first deported by the Gestapo to a (, in a ghetto) in Leipzig and from there to a concentration camp.Goldberg, Bettina (2016): "Jews in Schleswig-Holstein - A historical overview." In: Hering, Rainer (ed.): The "Night of Crystals" in Schleswig-Holstein: The November Pogrom in Historical Context. Hamburg: Publications of the Schleswig-Holstein State Archives, Volume 109, p. 45

The proportion of Jews was relatively higher in the big cities than in the countryside. This was not only due to the comparatively higher attractiveness of city life but also reflected the centuries-long official restriction of Jewish settlement. For example, Berlin had a Jewish share of 3.8%, Frankfurt 4.7%, Wrocław (Breslau) 3.2%, Cologne 2.0%, Hamburg 1.5%, Hanover 1.1%, and Kiel 0.2%. In general, there was a north–south divide in the proportion of Jews in the total population of Germany, with significantly lower proportions of Jews living in Northern Germany. Moreover, 64% of the Jewish population in Schleswig-Holstein was concentrated in the two major cities, Lübeck and Kiel, while the remaining Jews were spread over 123 smaller towns and villages.Goldberg, Bettina (2016), p. 29

In 1933, about 1,900 Jews lived in Schleswig-Holstein, a relatively small number. They made up only 0.13% of the state's total population, or 0.34% of all Jews in the German Reich. Within a decade, the proportion continued to decline in the face of increasing persecution. In November 1942, only 59 Jews were still living in Schleswig-Holstein, spread over 18 towns. Over 1,600 had already been deported, most of them murdered. After the war, according to the census of 29 October 1946, there were again a total of 949 people of the Jewish faith in Schleswig-Holstein, 464 of them in displaced persons camps.

Persecution of the Jews in the Nazi regime (1933–1945) Persecutors In addition to the main Nazi Party (NSDAP) members responsible for the Holocaust, some groups and persons from Schleswig-Holstein were involved in the mass deportation and extermination of Jews both locally and in occupied territories (for instance, in the Riga Ghetto, the Reichskommissariat Ostland, and the Minsk Ghetto). The following (incomplete) table details some NS groups involved in mass killings.

The table only includes larger and exemplary smaller mass shootings.Compiled from Dieter Pohl: Persecution and mass murder in the Nazi era 1933-1945. Darmstadt 2003, p. 73 and 96; Peter Longerich: Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. 2010, pp. 196-198. Abbreviations for Einsatzgruppen = EG, Einsatzkommando = EK, Lithuanian Activist Front = LAF, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists = OUN, Police Battalion = PB, Special Command = SK, Security and Order Police = OP. (source: Wikipedia). +Mass killing of Jews in Schleswig-Holstein (1941–1942) Location Date Criminal unit victim Garsden 24 June 1941 EK Tilsit 200 men, one woman Białystok 27 June 1941 Police Battalion 309 2,000 men and women Lviv 30 June – 2 July 1941 OUN 4,000 men Daugavpils 1–2 July 1941 EC 1a 1,150 men Riga early July 1941 EG A, Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalions 400 Zolochiv, Lviv Oblast early July 1941 SK 4b, OUN, SS Vikings 2,000 Ternopil 7 July 1941 SK 4b, OUN 800 Lutsk 2 July 1941 SK 4a 1,160 men Lviv 2–6 July 1941 EC 5, 6, e.g. b. V. 2,500 men Kaunas 4–6 July 1941 EC 3 2,977 men Brest, Belarus 6 July 1941 PB 307 4,000 men Białystok 8 July 1941 PB 316, 322 3,000 men Jelgava 15 July 1941 EC 2 Jelgava massacres 1,550 Kaunas 25–28 July 1941 LAF 3,800 Lviv 29–31 July 1941 OUN 2,000 Pinsk 7–8 August 1941 SS Cavalry Brigade 9,000 Kamianets-Podilskyi 27–29 August 1941 PB 320, SS Kamianets-Podilskyi massacre 26,500 Zhytomyr 19 September 1941 EG C, D 3.145 Kyiv, Babi Yar 29–30 September 1941 SK 4a, PB 45, 314 33,771 Belarus from October 1941 707th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht) 19,000 Dnipro 13–14 October 1941 PB 314 11,000 Rivne 5–6 November 1941 EK 5, PB 320 15,000 Riga 30 November, 7–8 December 1941 all PB, Command Arājs 26,000 Simferopol 13–15 December 1941 EG D, Wehrmacht 12,000 Kharkiv from 1 January 1942 PB 314 12,000 Minsk 28–30 July 1942 OP 10,000 Lutsk 19–23 August 1942 OP 14,700 Volodymyr (city) 1–3 September 1942 OP 13,500 Brest, Belarus 15–16 October 1942 OP, PB 310 19,000 Pinsk 28 October 1942 PB 306, 310 18,000

Individual perpetrators in Schleswig-Holstein (1933–1945) head of the Jewish Department II B 5 of the Gestapo in Kiel (1941–1943); one of the main organizers of the deportations of Jews from Schleswig-Holstein (from 1941 to 1945). 1931 local NS-group leader of Pinneberg who was appointed as the successor to Dr. Adolph Herting in Schleswig and rewarded with the office of mayor in Schleswig (1934–1936). In January 1936, he was appointed Gauamtsleiter ('Gau office leader') for local affairs. He made a significant contribution to the implementation of Nazi administrative principles in all local authorities of his jurisdiction in accordance with the municipal code revised in 1935.Schartl, Matthias (2003): A clique 'old fighters' – rise and fall of regional NSDAP elites in the city and district of Schleswig. In: Democratic History (DG), Volume 15 (2003), pp. 161-221, Malente: Advisory Board for History in the Society for Politics and Education in Schleswig-Holstein e.V., p. 195