Marking the Centenary of Berlin's Scheunenviertel Pogrom

 It was, as claimed, the first pogrom in Berlin.

It took place in the Scheunenviertel (Barn) quarter in the first week of November 1923. It was termed the "Ostjudenpogrom". The area is today, less than one-half square mile, is now Berlin's Mitte district, not far from the historic city center, north of the city wall between Hackescher Markt and today's Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz.

Earlier in 1923:

the Berlin police chief Wilhelm Richter ordered a large-scale raid against the Jewish population in the Scheunenviertel, during which around 300 Jewish men [eventually to reach some 1500], women and children were picked up by the police and interned in a “Jewish camp” near Zossen, a chilling precursor to what would happen over the next 20 years.

That referred to

popular violence against Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe during the Weimar Republic, their incarceration in camps in Pomerania and Bavaria during the early 1920s

Specifically,  the so-called Bavarian “Ostjuden Deportation” of October 1923 when Gustav Ritter von Kahr was appointed by Bavarian President Eugen von Knilling (BVP) as state commissioner general (Generalstaatskommissar) with dictatorial powers under Article 64 of the Bamberg (Bavarian) Constitution. Kahr refused to ban the Nazi Party newspaper Völkischer Beobachter, on 29 September he suspended the enforcement in Bavaria of the Law for the Protection of the Republic and in mid-October, Kahr had several hundred Jewish families who had immigrated from Eastern Europe decades earlier expelled from Bavaria (See: "The Expulsion of Jews with Polish Citizenship from Bavaria in 1923, Józef Adelson, POLIN, 2008). 

As reported in the JTA on Ocotober 29, 

Two hundred Jewish families have already been expelled from Bavaria and as many are awaiting deportation... including Jews who, while not subjects of the Bavarian State, are citizens of the Reich...A number of East-European Jews from Austria are also among the evicted. The houses owned by the deportees have been requisitioned for the alleged purpose of housing the refugees from the Ruhr district...The Voelkishe Beabachter, organ of Adolph Hitler, disregarding the Jews’ plea, continues the publication of the names of Jews not yet expelled, demanding the confiscation of their property as well as of those already deported.

Moreover, "an order has been issued by Dictator von Kahr to the Jews expelled from Bavaria, that their property must not be removed from the country. Jewish business men and manufacturers have received orders from the police authorities that the machinery and equipment of their factories as well as their products must remain in Bavaria, and their factories must be conducted in their absence by managers appointed for the purpose." 

The event went international at the end of November when

Foreign Minister Roman Dmowski of Poland has addressed a new note to Bavaria protesting the expulsions from Bavaria of Jews who are Polish citizens...the deportations are contrary to international law as well as the common principles of humanity. In conclusion, M. Dmowski threatens to order the deportation of German citizens on Polish soil if the expulsions of Polish citizens are continued.

Austria and Spain became involved.

To return to the events of the Berlin pogrom:

Jews of Berlin Attacked by Mob of 30,000  November 6, 1923

"...a mob of 30,000 stronge invaded the Jewish sections of the city and carried out the first pogrom in the history of Berlin. Anti-Jewish riots commencing in the afternoon in Grenadierstrasse, and Dragonerstrasse, inhabited largely by East-European Jews, 

Source

spread by the evening to all quarters of the city housing Jewish residents...No Jew was safe on Berlin streets yesterday and it is too early to say that greater security prevails today. Jewish passers by were stopped at every turn, were searched, maltreated, robbed of their possessions and stripped of their clothes, some being left only in their undergarments. Homes of Jews were searched for food and money, owners offering the least resistance being severely beaten.

Shops owned by Jews were plundered of their contents which were hurled through the windows smashed by the hooligans in order to gain entrance. Jewish tenement dwellers were dragged from their beds and driven to the streets in their night clothes.

...That the anti-Jewish riots were premeditated and well-organized is shown by the fact that on a given signal the plundering and mobbing would begin, and at a sign from a specially organized corp the anti-Jewish excesses would end.

...The Tageblatt and the Local Anzeiger remark it is significant that the mob attack was not sporadic, but broke out simultaneously in the Muezastrasse, Gormmanstrasse, Linienstrasse, Grenadierstrasse, Dragonerstrasse. Lilienstrasse, where many residences and practically all shops were systematically plundered, the wares being distributed among the waiting crowd. Especially in the clothing and piece-goods district were the wares seized and cut up to be carried away by the rioters...Herr Kopf, manager of the “Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith” received several blows from a black-jack as he was caught in a crowd swarming towards the Boerse and shouting “Death to Jews”.

Reports {as referenced in Dunker, Der Reichsbund judischer Frontsoldaten 1919-1938: Geschichte eines judischen Abwehrvereins, 53; "Der Bund judischer Frontsoldaten vor Gericht," Judische Rundschau, no. 40 (1924)}  noted

While the police had not arrived members of the Reichsbund Judischer Frontsoldaten (Jewish Veteran Association) assembled at the Jewish community centre on the nearby Rosenstrasse. Cadres of members, some of which were armed with pistols and rubber truncheons were formed and began patrolling the area, guarding synagogues and defending local Jews against the looters. On Bulowplatz, the Reichsbund cadres clashed with a group of some hundred rioters. In this situation, the veterans seek support from a passing by police patrol that refuses and leaves the area. In the following melee, a shot rang out fatally wounding a rioter.

The failure of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch in Bavaria did not deter the authorities there from halting the earlier deportations.

A precursor to the atmosphere which allowed Hitler to commence the Holocaust.

^

The Germans Wouldn't Meet

Seems the flap with Germany's Foreign Minister had a truly bizarre aspect, which, as the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports (ht JW) as does Der Spiegel had Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accusing Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel of 

instinctual instability (or better, extremely insensitive)

The paper continues (original German below*) that 

Gabriel had also denied [Netanyahu's] clarifying discussion after the altercation. "I wanted to call on Foreign Minister Gabriel to explain my point of view and to clean up the matter, but he declined a telephone call."

What was the official German Foreign Office explanation?  They contradicted it

According to Gabriel, Netanyahu had already offered a telephone call instead of a meeting before his cancellation, but only under two conditions: Gabriel should not participate in the meeting with the government-critical peace activists themselves, but send a representative. In addition, a formal representative of a Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territories should attend the meeting. The German side did not want to agree to this. The Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories are, from a German perspective, illegal.

Just because you presume we are "illegal" we are outside the sphere of diplomacy?  German diplomats never met illegal groups or persons? There were no "secret contacts" in the 1970s? In 1989, PLO spokesman Bassam Abu Sharif met on Oct. 16 German Foreign Ministry officials, even if Arafat was too high profile to be received then.

Let's not forget Menachem Begin's run-in with the thinking in circles of policy that Hitler’s persecution of the Jews was responsible for the creation of Israel, specifically advanced by former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who said Germany has a special responsibility toward the Palestinians because of the consequences of the Nazi era.

But that Netanyahu pushed for a meeting with a Yesha community representative is good news.


______________________

P.S.  I know see here that Gabriel said that he

rejected the cancellation of the meeting on domestic policy motives. "I think that we can not now become the game of domestic politics in Israel," he said in Jerusalem. 

Whoa.

Who was playing a game of domestic politics if not Germany which funds domestice NGOs that act as agents of change to please foreign state donors?



============

* Der israelische Regierungschef Benjamin Netanjahu hat Außenminister Sigmar Gabriel Instinktlosigkeit vorgeworfen. 

...Gabriel habe zudem ein klärendes Gespräch nach dem Eklat verweigert. "Ich wollte Außenminister Gabriel anrufen, um meinen Standpunkt zu erläutern und die Sache zu bereinigen, aber er lehnte ein Telefonat ab."  Das Auswärtige Amt widerspricht dieser Darstellung. Nach Angaben aus Gabriels Umfeld hatte Netanjahu bereits vor seiner Absage ein Telefonat statt eines Treffens angeboten, aber nur unter zwei Bedingungen: Gabriel sollte an dem Treffen mit den regierungskritischen Friedensaktivisten nicht selbst teilnehmen, sondern einen Vertreter schicken. Außerdem sollte ein förmlicher Vertreter einer jüdischen Siedlung in den Palästinensergebieten an dem Treffen teilnehmen. Darauf wollte sich die deutsche Seite nicht einlassen. Die jüdischen Siedlungen in den palästinensischen Gebieten sind aus deutscher Sicht völkerrechtswidrig.

^

Germany's Two-State Solution

Here's the headline:

You would think that if it didn't work out for them, why should they force it on Israel?

^

German Foreign Ministry Mistranslates Own Document

The from the Joint statement by the Foreign Ministers of France, the United Kingdom and Germany on the situation in Middle East (as per IMRA) who are Laurent Fabius, Foreign Minister of France, Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Foreign Minister of Germany, in the official German FO translation:

...We call upon all parties immediately to return to a cease-fire. We fully support the ongoing efforts by Egypt to this end.
...To be sustainable, a ceasefire must envisage steps to address both Israeli security concerns and Palestinian requirements regarding the lifting of restrictions on Gaza.

"Palestinian requirements"?

Reports at WSJ and a German news site.


Well, I did my own checking.  It isn't up at the UK Foreign Office.  Or France's Ministry site.

The original German reads

als auch die palästinensischen Anforderungen für eine Aufhebung der Blockade gleichermaßen berücksichtigen.

and that is translated as

taken into account as well as the Palestinian demands for a lifting of the blockade alike.

I don't think an aggressor and one that has basically lost a miliitary campaign has any real "demands" especially one concerning a legal blockade placed on its capabilities to generate hostilities and terror attacks.

And Gaza and Israel are not "alike".

^ 

Dear German Jewish Parents

Dear parents, Jews in Germany, who have just been blessed with the birth of your son, I have read of your dilemma:

The Berlin Jewish Hospital has announced it will cease to conduct circumcisions following a ruling by the district court in Cologne to outlaw them. According to the hospital's spokesman, "As a result of the lack of legal clarity, the institution has been forced to cease circumcision surgeries for religious purposes until further notice."

My advice?

Go to Chabad.

They circumcised in Soviet Russia, so Germany should be no problem.

^

Tfu, tfu on Tutu

Omri of Mere Rhetoric highlights Desmond Tutu's perversion of history, whereby the Reverend asserts:

...the Palestinians and the Arabs are paying "penance" for the Holocaust...But who pays the penance? The penance is being paid by the Arabs, by the Palestinians. I once met a German ambassador who said Germany is guilty of two wrongs. One was what they did to the Jews. And now the suffering of the Palestinians." Israel is mistaken to think it can achieve security through force, he said. "The lesson that Israel must learn from the Holocaust is that it can never get security through fences, walls and guns," Tutu said.

Two points.

The first, as I have expanded on several times at this blog, the Arabs of Mandate Palestine and specifically the Mufti, bear a direct responsibility for the Holocaust. Not only for what they did (the Mufti broadcast radio propaganda for Hitelr, raised a battalion for the Waffen SS and intervened to halt rescue attempts for Jewish children) but for their political pressure on Great Britain during the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939 which caused Gt. Britain to issue the 1939 White Paper which doomed European Jewry.

The second, the furtherance of this corrupt idea that since Germany did what it did to the Jews, the Jews are doing what the Nazis did to Arabs, is a perversion of history and implies that Arabs can do to Jews what the Nazis did to them. And this is what is going on in European capitals, like in Sweden, for example.

In any case, I thought this would be a proper observation, from Yehuda Avner's article, to be included in his forthcoming book:

...The head of the delegation, Frank Lautenburg...asked if the prime minister would care to elaborate on...that the prime minister had had a serious quarrel with the German chancellor, and that, as a consequence, relations between the two countries were strained.

BEGIN...leaned across the table from the front edge of his chair and gazed into Lautenburg's eyes with great earnestness. "It is true, Frank," he said. "I reprimanded Helmut Schmidt in public."

"What had he done? What had he said?"

"He had gone to Saudi Arabia, and he had said in a public statement that Germany had obligations to various peoples, among them the Palestinians, but he made no mention of the Jews.

"I was beside myself with astonishment. Could it be, I said to myself, that he, of all people, had failed to make mention of Germany's obligation to the Jews - and in Saudi Arabia, of all places? So, yes, I told him what I thought of him in public."

"And how did he respond?"

"He demanded an apology, but I refused. I publicly told him that he had shown arrogance and callous disregard of the Jews exterminated by his people in World War II. And I counseled him to take an example from his predecessor, Chancellor Willy Brandt. I told him to do what Brandt did: to go to Warsaw. I told him to go to the site where the Jewish ghetto once stood.

"Go down on your knees, Mr. Schmidt, I told him. Go down on you knees and beg forgiveness of the Jewish people for what your countrymen perpetrated under the Nazi regime against my people, at a time when you, Mr. Schmidt, remained steadfast to the personal oath you had given to Adolf Hitler, as a soldier in the Wehrmacht."

And here's the official version:-

I will not apologize to Mr. Schmidt, either publicly or privately, whatever the conditions he puts.

Mr. Schmidt traveled to Saudi Arabia some time ago. During and after his visit he made some incredible statements, astonishing from every point of view, and particularly so from the standpoint of the head of government of a nation which bears historic responsibility for the extermination of six million Jews, amongst them a million and a half little children. Mr. Schmidt mentioned Auschwitz and said that he acknowledges the obligation of Germany towards a number of peoples - but the Jewish people was not listed amongst them. Mr. Schmidt spoke of Germany's obligation towards the Palestinians and said not a word of Germany's obligation towards the Jewish people.

In reaction to all those statements I said in a speech that according to a report I got, Mr. Schmidt, as a lieutenant in Hitler's army, was among the viewers of a film showing the hanging by piano wire of German officers who had rebelled against the National Socialist regime.

My friend, Dr. Gideon Hausner, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Committee, pointed out to me that Lieutenant Schmidt had not participated in the screening of the above film, but he had been invited to and participated in a trial presided over by the infamous Nazi judge Freisler.

I chose to rely upon the information given me by Dr. Hausner, and, accordingly, I informed Bundestag member, Mr. Blumenfeld, that I will not hesitate to admit the error concerning the film. However, participation in the above mentioned Nazi trial is of itself a most grave event in the biography of one of the tens of thousands of German officers during the Holocaust.

I will not apologize to Mr. Schmidt. Rather, I counsel him, speaking as a free man who fought for the continued existence and the liberation of the Jewish people, that he take an example from his predecessor Mr. Brandt, visit Warsaw, go to the site where the Jewish ghetto once stood, go down on his knees and ask the forgiveness of the Jewish people and of all nations loving justice and liberty for what his countrymen perpetrated under the National Socialist regime against my people at the time when Mr. Schmidt remained faithful to the personal oath he had given to Adolf Hitler as a soldier and officer in his army.

More here.

Do You Perceive A Connection Here?

Are these two news items somehow connected?

1.

Israeli author Amos Oz was presented on Saturday with a top German award for his political and literary work. Oz, 69, was honoured by the city of Dusseldorf with the Heinrich Heine Prize for combining "literary creativity with political sensibility and humanistic commitment."

The award, worth 50,000 euros (66,000 dollars), is named after the 19th century German poet. It has been presented every two years since 1972 to personalities who share Heine's values of tolerance, human rights and mutual understanding of peoples.

Oz, who was born in Jerusalem in 1939, is one of Israel's best-known authors and political voices. He is a co-founder of the Israeli peace movement and a prominent champion of Palestinian rights.

In his acceptance speech, Oz said the Arab-Israeli conflict could only be resolved in the context of European values of tolerance, rationality and pragmatism. However, it "is being kept alive by fanatics on both sides."

2.

German exports to Iran are up 10 percent this year, prompting Israel's ambassador to Berlin to say the German authorities are "not doing enough" to keep Tehran isolated until it abandons its alleged efforts to develop nuclear arms.

"Germany is doing something [to isolate Iran], but apparently it is not doing enough," Ambassador Yoram Ben Ze'ev told Haaretz last week.

Germany's Federal Statistical Office released data showing the increase occured over the first three quarters of 2008. Germany's exports to Iran are expected to total 4 million euros this year, close to the record it set in 2004 and 2005.

During the first seven months of 2008, the German government approved 1,926 transactions with Iran, a 63 percent increase over last year. This has further cemented Germany's position as Iran's largest trade partner.

Do you think Amos Oz should be proud to receive a prize from Germany just now?

Really Filthy Words

"Wörterbuch der 'Vergangenheitsbewältigung'" by Thorsten Eitz and Georg Stötzel is a new dictionary that highlights Nazi words to avoid

...To modern German ears, "Endlösung" will forever be associated with Hitler's genocidal "Final Solution to the Jewish Question," while "Selektion" is now verbum non grata due to its use to refer to the death camp practice of "selecting" inmates to be executed.

Now a new dictionary examines just what roles such terms play in the collective German psyche. The "Wörterbuch der 'Vergangenheitsbewältigung'" ("Dictionary of 'Coming to Terms with the Past'") examines around 1,000 words and phrases -- everything from "Anschluss," used to refer to the 1938 "annexation" of Austria, to "Wehrmacht," the name of the Nazi-era armed forces -- looking at how the meaning and usage of the terms have developed since the end of World War II.

...For many, the simple power of the words and their associations made them literally unspeakable. That applied especially to victims of the Nazis. "Survivors simply couldn't bear to hear the word 'Lager,'" says Stötzel, referring to the German term for concentration or death camp.

Another reason for avoiding Nazi terms in public discourse is the fact that the speaker runs the risk of being accused of harboring Nazi sympathies...Just using the same rhetorical techniques as Joseph Goebbels, king of Third Reich propaganda, and other leading Nazis can land you in hot water. Former Vice Chancellor Franz Müntefering found this out the hard way in 2005 when he described hostile foreign investors as "locusts." Müntefering, who belongs to the left wing of the Social Democratic Party, was criticized for comparing people with animals, a trope considered deeply problematic due to the Nazi practise of portraying Jews as parasites and vermin.

...But perhaps the taint of at least some Nazi terms may fade with time. Take the word "Mädel," for example, a dialect word for "girl" which was favored by the Nazis. Its Third Reich connotations appear to be lost on young Germans today, many of whom use the word -- often ironically -- without a second thought. "Young people don't know it was used by the Nazis," says Stötzel.

Well, It's Better That Gassing and Cremation Ovens

Jewish babies never had it this good:-

Desperate mothers are being urged to drop their unwanted babies through hatches at hospitals in an effort to halt a spate of infanticides that has shocked Germany.

At least 23 babies have been killed so far this year, many of them beaten to death or strangled by their mothers before being dumped on wasteland and in dustbins.

Police investigating the murders are at a loss to explain the sudden surge in such cases, which have involved mothers of all ages all over the country.

Now city councils have launched an advertising campaign to highlight the problem and to promote greater use of the Baby-Klappe hatches that allow women to drop off their babies to be found and cared for without having to give their names. Posters were being put up in cities and towns across Germany yesterday, urging women to make use of the Baby-Klappe, with the slogan “Before babies land in the rubbish bin . . .”