The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy 1933-1945 (31 page)

Tips from official or semi-official bodies of Party and state passed on to the Gestapo were hardly less flawed than those volunteered by ordinary citizens. The SD post in Schweinfurt asked the Wurzburg Gestapo in September 1940 to investigate a charge that a Jewish man, Heinrich Kahn, was making a large number of purchases in town, and there was a rumour that he was in the company of a non-Jewish female. As it happened, Kahn had been given special permission to do the shopping, and the woman in question was blonde but, it happened, Jewish.''
In November 1941 the same office wanted another rumour checked, this one pertaining to Jews in nearby Theilheim. That case was dropped after the mayor there said he was getting fed up checking out such complaints when nothing of a criminal nature ever turned up.22
The DAF in Wurzburg 'was informed' that there might be 'race defilement' involving one Julius Frank, and on 29 May 19 36 asked the Gestapo to investigate. Some of those living in the neighbourhood of the elderly and crippled Herr Frank's business who had a view into his flat were interrogated, but none thought there could possibly be anything more to the charge than that someone was seeking revenge; it was also possible that someone had seen various women being entertained in the sublet apartment next door to
Frank's. Young Lorenz Fredl, a non-Jew, had lived there for a time. (Friedl had been named in the original complaint as under suspicion of being accessory to 'race defilement'.) The police concluded that nothing further should be done concerning the matter.23

Erna Schmeltzer, aged 27, 'appeared voluntarily' at Wurzburg's Gestapo post on 14 May 1941 to report that on a works outing in the rural area near the forest-house Gutenberg she noticed a man of 'Jewish appearance' of about 45 to 50 years of age in the company of a younger woman (20 to 25) with medium-blonde hair, non-Jewish in appearance. She did not know either of them, but said she would be able to identify them; she provided a detailed description of the couple, especially what they were wearing. The denouncer worked as a seamstress in the Franz Kreisel uniform factory, and perhaps some of the patriotism had rubbed off. In any case, she managed to identify the man from police pictures. Brought to Gestapo headquarters he turned out to be Jewish, but so was the woman in his company that day.24

Schmeltzer's act might have had something to do with 'idealism', but, as the preceding chapter has shown, numerous denunciations took place to gain satisfaction in some personal matter, and some were able to connect their intended victims with suspicions about social or sexual relations with Jews. Denouncers were well advised to protect themselves from the wrath of the police by ensuring that there was some plausibility to the charge. Just after the outbreak of hostilities, on 9 September 1939, the Gestapo in Wurzburg was alerted by neighbours that 17-year-old Anna Reising, of Wurzburg, was having visits from a 'suspicious man'. The Reising house was thereupon placed under surveillance. The family and neighbours were subsequently brought in, although it turned out that the man was neither particularly suspicious nor Jewish, but Anna's boyfriend. She explained that the whole uproar was really about a toilet:

As I have already mentioned, with those people [the denouncers] there is always an argument, and in fact only because of the matter of the toilet. Fourteen of us had to use one toilet, while only two of them used another. We finally managed to get it established that their toilet was to be used by us and other parties in the house, and since that time hatred has existed. We have not spoken to these people for io years
.21

Correspondence from the Gestapo elsewhere in Germany makes it clear that laying false charges, even concerning the serious crime of 'race defilement', was not uncommon. A letter of 12 July 1937 from the Gestapo in Neustadt a.d. Weinstrasse to all police authorities of the Palatinate indicates that the police were sometimes too quick to act. The letter explained that
because the charge of 'race defilement' was itself so serious it could have 'lifelong' consequences for the persons involved; under the circumstances, especially as baseless accusations were being filed on occasion, it was important for local officers to be very conscious 'of the weight of their responsibility in the investigation of these latter cases'; they should keep firmly in view the 'extreme responsibility they held in their hands in regard to the happiness and future of German women and girls'."
A report of the Karlsruhe Gestapo for April/May 1938 noted that of the two charges of 'race defilement' it had just handled, one was false and the other a 'baseless suspicion of a sick and jealous married woman'.27

There were also false and frivolous charges in those files of the Dusseldorf Gestapo treated by Gordon as pertaining to 'opponents'. One instance is a case from mid-1935, a tragic example of a false charge of 'race defilement', included in Gordon's sample of 452 cases. A 36-year-old Catholic man from Odenkirchen, who was already separated from his wife, in the summer of 1935, apparently wanted to be free of her for good. He described himself as a 'merchant' (Kaufmann), but the Gestapo remarked in the file that he 'had a bad reputation and 'was generally considered a swindler'. The man accused his estranged wife and a Jewish man of having a sexual relationship; though this was not actually a crime until later (after the Party rally in September), it was a serious accusation well before. The Jew was taken into custody, whereupon he committed suicide. An investigation of the affair established 'no basis [for the allegation] since the national rising', that is, since Hitler's appointment in 1933, and the Gestapo released the woman from 'protective custody'. Her husband, however, was promptly placed under arrest (on 17 August 1935) 'for having caused the arrest of his wife and the Jew ... by way of false accusations'
.28

Gordon is well aware that tip-offs to the police were occasioned by numerous motives; denouncers took advantage of anti-Semitism to advance their careers, and 'could run the entire gamut from real Jew-haters to revengeseekers, opportunists, and even rejected lovers'.29
If these were the kinds of people who denounced suspects in Dusseldorf because of possible acts of 'race defilement' or for 'friendship to the Jews', it is unlikely that they would restrict themselves only to bona-fide charges. Revenge-seekers and opportunists, let alone rejected lovers or vindictive spouses, are rarely quite so level-headed or scrupulous. Nor does Gordon deny that some people used the most outlandish charges 'to take their rivals out of circulation'."'
It is clear that there were
some people who, in order to take advantage of the novel situation after 1933, were not above 'establishing a rival's guilt by referring to Jewish association in the past'.31

At any rate, not everyone in a Gestapo dossier, nor even everyone brought to court because of alleged 'political' criminality of some kind or another, was guilty, a fact attested by a number of sources, especially the post-war trials, where some of the more serious false denouncers were brought to justice. One study of 'race defilement' charges that managed to reach the courts in Hamburg, Cologne, and Frankfurt shows that while 522 were found guilty, 58 were declared innocent of the charges-slightly over io per cent.32
The high percentages of false and baseless charges in the files-most of which did not come to court-is not surprising in view of the large number of amateur 'helpers' on the trail of 'crime', the susceptibility of the laws to misuse, and the willingness of the Gestapo and other authorities to follow up the tips.

3. NON-COMPLIANCE WITH NAZI ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE WURZBURG CASE-FILES

As a result of the vigilance of volunteer denouncers, official and semi-official snoopers, the extensive information-gathering and police network, the many Party operatives, and so on, it is clear that in Nazi Germany the 'more or less protected enclaves' that are the 'one prerequisite' for expressions of disobedience were gradually eliminated.33
In spite of the odds, some noncompliance with Nazi anti-Semitism shows up in muted form in the Gestapo documents. In fact, the Gestapo files may well underestimate the degree of rejection of Nazi anti-Semitism for the obvious reason that a person would be foolhardy to speak openly about reservations he or she might have on that score when brought in for interrogation. All Jews and non-Jews did not simply give in to the inevitable and conform to official anti-Semitism.

The Jews had been a part of German social, cultural, economic, and political life for many centuries, and all social relations could hardly be eliminated overnight. In Lower Franconia and elsewhere, workers employed in Jewish firms or peasants enjoying established economic ties with the Jews only reluctantly dissolved those links, despite official and semi-official pressure; restraining customers from shopping in Jewish retail stores was not as simple or uncomplicated as had been thought.
14

But personal or sexual relationships across the ethnic boundary were immediately placed under the greatest pressure, since it represented the vital area in which the dreaded 'racial mixing' occurred, claimed by Hitler's Mein Kampf to be the single most important cause for the fall of civilizations. Jewish men caught violating the Nuremberg Laws were to be tried for 'an attack on German blood', while 'German' men were brought to court for 'treason against their own blood'. Though Hitler himself insisted initially that women (Jewish or not) were not subject to prosecution, Heydrich issued a secret order to the Gestapo on 12 June 1937 to take Jewish women involved in such relationships into custody, as also similarly involved non-Jewish women who had Jewish relatives or otherwise undesirable political views.35

'Race defilement' was suspected in the relationship between Oskar Spahn, a distinguished Jewish medical doctor in Wurzburg, and Elisabeth Speiss, a non-Jewish woman who had begun to work for him as secretary-receptionist in 1924, aged 21. Dr Spahn's wife had died three years earlier. He was (it seems) much older than Speiss, but in time he became attached to her and admitted later to the Gestapo that he had wanted to marry her before the 'seizure of power' in 1933, but had not done so because of the strenuous objections of her relatives. She continued, however, to work for him even beyond 1933, when their behaviour turned from being merely undesirable in the eyes of her relatives into being potentially 'criminal'.

In time the regime's anti-Semitism, which was applied to one group or branch of Jewish professionals after another, also hit the medical doctors. On 30 September 1938 Dr Spahn was forced to close his practice, but his secretary, Speiss, stayed on to administer his property. Her brother was by then the (first) state attorney at the Bamberg Special Court, probably also a Party member, and was concerned about the persistence of the relationship between his sister and the doctor. He would have been the man who actually pressed the charges of race defilement against people in just such a 'criminal' union as existed between his sister and Dr Spahn. In response to his written request for Gestapo 'support', secret police headquarters in Wiirzburg put pressure on his sister to leave Dr Spahn's service, and began investigation of the relationship in search of evidence of 'race defilement'. This was a harassment tactic as much as an effort to uncover a 'crime'. The pressure of family and state proved more than Speiss could take, and on 8 March 1940 she finally resigned her job.

Little is said about Dr Spahn in the file-not even his age is given-nor what eventually happened to him or to Speiss. Nothing ever turned up to substantiate the suspicion of 'race defilement'. It is reasonably clear that a close relationship had existed. The Gestapo report comments that Speiss 'had
been so much under the influence' of Dr Spahn, 'that she suffered an attack of hysteria on the occasion of the forced separation'. She certainly showed a good deal of civil courage and non-conformity with Nazi teachings. At the same time, given that they were in the public eye-he a known Jewish doctor, she his receptionist-they also had to watch their every move lest they fell victim to a denouncer, who might simply be a passer-by in the street, a patient in the office, the cleaning person, or the caretaker. That they were never denounced may reflect the scrupulousness with which they controlled their relationship."'

Non-conformity with Nazi anti-Semitism could be witnessed in other social spheres, such as the workplace. Employers have taken advantage of their employees for centuries in order to obtain sexual favours. That did not stop with the Nazi 'seizure of power'. However, as the next chapter makes clear, when there was even a hint that a Jewish employer was acting in this way, the Gestapo was quick to pounce. Trouble was also in store for non-Jewish German employers who developed emotional attachments to a (female) Jewish worker. On 26 April 1937 the Nazi Welfare Association (NSV) in Grombuhl reported that Heinrich Schelling (born 1899) was having an affair with Luzie Weigert (born 1896, divorced, with a grown daughter), a Jewish woman who worked as a clerk in his radio retail business. The complaint made its way to the Kreisleitung of the NSDAP in Wurzburg, which asked the Gestapo to investigate. (Here, incidentally, was yet another example of the role of the NSDAP and affiliated organizations in the police network.) The tip-off ultimately brought to light the testimony of factory-owner Albert Bottling (born 1875), a neighbour, who over many years had observed (and 'often heard, through the wall') the couple arguing and even hitting one another. He was convinced that they were intimate. Bottling also spoke of the help Weigert had given Schelling when the man was down on his luck in the years between 1928 and 1932. He suggested that the Gestapo also call on the ordinary policeman ('Hauptwachtmeister') Leimeister, who happened to be a neighbour of Luzie Weigert and could see into her bedroom.

Ordered to Gestapo headquarters in mid-1937, Schelling insisted that he had had no 'race defilement' relations with Weigert. In fact, he said that a bladder infection made sexual intercourse impossible for him. The infection was attested to by a doctor, 'race defilement' charges were dropped, and in the short run Weigert continued in Schelling's employ. For her part, Weigert maintained that she was not Jewish, and in due course appealed to the authority of last resort, the Reich Hereditary Office (Reich
ssippenamt).
s' That plea was rejected, but in view of the labour shortages of the time she was allowed to carry on, under condition that she stay out of the showroom of
the business. Not surprisingly, Weigert's restricted movement in the small firm proved impossible, and, when spotted by a vigilant observer, the two were once again reported to the Gestapo. This cost Weigert two weeks in police custody and the removal of permission to work for Schelling. He escaped punishment when called up to the army. Schelling wrote letters on Weigert's behalf to Wurzburg's police director, but these were received as indicative of the man's 'wrong-headed' attitude. One letter closes with the remark that 'while I formally did not behave entirely properly, that cannot be a justification for the innocent to suffer'. In April 1942 Weigert was 'evacuated' to the east to a fate unknown. These were two people whose relationship went back more than fifteen years, beginning well before 1933. Enforcing racial policy in such cases would have been impossible without the information brought forward by sources outside the Gestapo, including that offered by next-door neighbours.31