Description
Book Synopsis Before the Nazis took power, Jewish businesspeople in Berlin thrived alongside their non-Jewish neighbors. But Nazi racism changed that, gradually destroying Jewish businesses before murdering the Jews themselves. Reconstructing the fate of more than 8,000 companies, this book offers the first comprehensive analysis of Jewish economic activity and its obliteration. Rather than just examining the steps taken by the persecutors, it also tells the stories of Jewish strategies in countering the effects of persecution. In doing so, this book exposes a fascinating paradox where Berlin, serving as the administrative heart of the Third Reich, was also the site of a dense network for Jewish self-help and assertion.
Trade Review “Kreutzmüller's well written study deals with resistance offered by Berlin's Jews in the face of Hitler's legal machinery to destroy their economic selfreliance. The exhaustive research... abundant examples and case studies complement the data, making the book useful for both research and teaching.” • Choice
“[Kreutzmüller’s] exhaustive research and trenchant analysis make this book a landmark contribution to Jewish economic history and the study of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.” • Canadian Journal of History
“Christoph Kreutzmüller's book is vigorously researched, elegantly structured and well-written, and succeeds in providing new information on a subject already exhaustively studied, namely ‘Aryanization’ and the destruction of business, that extends beyond the borders of Berlin.” • H-Net
Table of Contents List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I: CONTEXT
Chapter 1. Berlin
Chapter 2. Economy
Chapter 3. Jewish Commercial Activity
PART II: ATTACKING JEWISH COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY
Chapter 4. Violent Persecution
Chapter 5. Bureaucratic Persecution
Chapter 6. Voyeurs and Profiteers
Chapter 7. The Destruction of Jewish Commercial Activity
PART III: ASSERTING JEWISH COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY
Chapter 8. Institutional Counter-Strategies
Chapter 9. Individual Counter-Strategies
Chapter 10. Emigration
Chapter 11. Case Studies
PART IV
Chapter 12. The Deportation of Jewish Businesspeople
Summary
Bibliography
Index
