Berlin, Vienna and Other Municipalities : A Comparative View on Local Anti-Jewish Policies in the Third Reich

After 1933a countless number of the over 400,000 mayors and municipal officials in Germany took part actively or passively, directly or indirectly in the persecution of the Jews. Both National Socialist and non-Party members introduced anti-Jewish measures which went beyond political guidelines and the new laws promulgated by the government. Because detailed political directives from above were lacking, the municipalities as Berlin, and later Vienna enjoyed enormous freedom of action at the local level, which their officials often used to the disadvantage of the Jewish inhabitants. In its promotion of anti-Jewish activities municipal policy frequently anticipated central policy and was, therefore, a driving force behind the persecutory measures which has been totally underestimated in research. At first such practices occurred at random, but soon the Gemeindetag, founded in 1933, began to coordinate such actions as the expulsion of Jews from public facilities throughout the Reich. Anti-Jewish segregation at the municipal level provided the impetus for new government measures of 1938. Introduced after the annexation of Austria, those central decrees synchronized local practises throughout the Reich. Nevertheless, Vienna and other municipalities pressed ahead with the process of segregation. After the November pogrom that year, the National Socialist leadership took the decision to systematically shield the pauperized Jewish population from German society. Within this framework of persecution, however, municipalities did take over the responsibility for the gettoization of the Jews. Hence, particularly in the years before 1938, but often even later, local governments played a decisive part in the shaping of anti-Jewish policy in the NS state