The Nazi Party and its Violence Against the Jews, 1933-1939: Violence as a Historiographical Concept
In his masterpiece, Behemoth, first published in 1942, Franz Neumann referred to violence as “not just one unimportant phenomenon in the structure of National Socialist society.” Violence, Neumann argued, “is the very basis upon which the [Nazi] society rests.”1 He regarded violence as a technique of dominating the masses from above, and the ministerial bureaucracy, the armed forces, the industrial and agrarian leadership and the Nazi party all aimed to dominate German society by using violence. Violence served, in Neumann’s own words, to establish totalitarian control over German society. From his point of view, violence throughout the Third Reich was used as a rational instrument of political power. Hence, Neumann supported Max Weber’s fundamental insight that, in each political association, violence is an inevitable element for maintaining power.2
Neumann's assumptions concerning the functions of violence for Nazi Germany have been the basis of all historical research on this regime. Indeed, there can be no doubt that Nazi Germany was violent, even, to a striking degree, when compared to other non-democratic regimes in the twentieth century.3 The impact of Nazi violence has been described thoroughly, primarily focusing on the terror and brutality of the Gestapo4 and the SS.5 During the Nazi period, these two agencies were at the center of the violence, with their actions directed against their declared enemies--Communists and Social Democrats, the Catholic Church, Homosexuals, so-called Gypsies, and Jews. Most historical studies on this violence have concentrated on the persecution of the Jews and later on the Holocaust.6 This is not surprising, for the Holocaust marked the pivotal point of all Nazi politics.
As far as the persecution of the Jews between 1933 and 1939 is concerned, little is known about the anti-Jewish violence of the Nazi party, its divisions (Gliederungen) and affiliated organizations (angeschlossene Verbände).7 This is somewhat strange because, after the Nazi rise to power on January 30, 1933, violent acts against Jews were mainly perpetrated by members of the Nazi party. There was also a certain continuity to this anti-Jewish violence from the so-called “time of struggle” (Kampfzeit) of the Nazi party between 1925 and 1932. During this period the SA terrorized Communists, Social Democrats, and Jews.8 Regarding the Nazi party’s rise to the scope of a mass movement before 1933, its antisemitic propaganda seems to have been far more important than most scholars have assumed until now.9 Dirk Walter points out that, after World War I, anti-Jewish violence had been a widespread phenomenon in German society.10 This became even truer of the Third Reich.
This article will analyze the anti-Jewish violence of the Nazi party between 1933 and 1939. It will evaluate both the forms and the functions of violent acts against the Jews as far as the Nazi party, its divisions and affiliates as a political body is concerned. Following the sociologist Heinrich Popitz, I define violence as “every action of power that leads to an intended physical injury of others.”11 His definition of violence includes three power actions: actions that are physically harmful; actions that cause economic damage; and actions that lead to a decreased social participation.12 Popitz, unlike Weber, for example, does not restrict violence to an inevitable act for maintaining power within associations. Popitz defines it as an execution of power actions that inflict pain. With this definition, it is possible to analyze violent actions of individuals or social groups that are institutionalized to a minor degree. The Nazi party was actually a political body whose integrational force, as compared to communist parties, was low.13 The Nazi party only aspired to be a totalitarian organization, but in reality this was never the case.14
Michael Wildt has made an important contribution to the topic of antiJewish violence in Nazi Germany in general.15 His empirical analysis primarily evaluates anti-Jewish violence in the middle Franconian town of Treuchtlingen, looking for the prerequisites for the disintegration of civil values and legal norms that led to violent actions against the Jews. Wildt is interested in how violent actions against Jews spread and in how bystanders were transformed into perpetrators. He thoroughly describes the different forms of violent actions against the Jews in Treuchtlingen, mainly promoted by local SA and SS activists. As far as his questionnaire is concerned, Wildt remains rather vague; nor does he explore the genesis of violent acts against the Jews or offer explanations of the functions of anti-Jewish violence for the Nazi party.
https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/academic/nazi-party-and-violence-against-jews.html
https://www.accidentaltalmudist.org/heroes/2020/06/17/the-righteous-nazi/
100
4:19
