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A Jewish “Nature Preserve”: League of Nations Minority Protections in Nazi Upper Silesia, 1933–1937

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2013

Brendan Karch*
Affiliation:
Harvard University

Extract

In October 1936, Herbert Levy, a thirty-year-old German Jew living in Breslau, the capital of Silesia, moved to the eastern stretches of the region in order to become a doctor. Against all odds and repressive trends in Nazi Germany at the time, Levy applied for a spot to study medicine in Hindenburg, a mining town near the Polish-German border. While his application was predictably rejected based on his Jewish identity, Levy's response was less predictable, at least to an outsider. He appealed his case, arguing that he had the law on his side. Levy was right. Although more than three years of Nazi decrees and persecution had driven many Jewish doctors out of the practice and made the study of medicine all but impossible, Levy enjoyed the protections of international law.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 2013

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References

1 Levy's petition to the League of Nations can be found in League of Nations Archives (hereafter LNA) C 819/2246. The German administrative response can be found in Archiwum Państwowe w Opolu (hereafter APO), RO II, Syg. 2011. On the persecution of Jewish doctors in Nazi Germany, see Kater, Michael H., Doctors Under Hitler (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), chap. 6Google Scholar.

2 The 1925 census counted 10,068 Jews in Upper Silesia. The June 1933 census count of 9,228 reflected the flight of hundreds of Jews in the months after the Nazi takeover. Technically the protections extended to the former plebiscite zone of Upper Silesia, an area that excluded the western fringes of the Upper Silesian administrative district, and included a small slice of neighboring Lower Silesia. For purposes of simplicity, the former plebiscite area will be referred to simply as Upper Silesia. The population statistics are in Volkszählung. Die Bevölkerung des Deutschen Reiches nach den Ergebnissen der Volkszählung 1933,” Statistik des Deutschen Reiches, vol. 451, no. 3Google Scholar, Die Bevölkerung des Deutschen Reiches nach der Religionszugehörigkeit, 37; Maser, Peter and Weiser, Adelheid, Juden in Oberschlesien. Teil 1: Historischer Überblick. Jüdische Gemeinde (Berlin: Mann, 1992)Google Scholar, 48 fn. 124, 71.

3 A relatively small literature, most in German or Polish, deals with various aspects of the protections. See Graf, Philipp, Die Bernheim-Petition 1933. Jüdische Politik in der Zwischenkriegszeit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008)Google Scholar; Cartarius, Julia, “Schutz und Verfolgung. Die oberschlesischen Juden in den Jahren 1933–1938,” in “Durst nach Erkenntnis . . .” Forschungen zur Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa, ed. Müns, Heike and Weber, Matthias (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 2007)Google Scholar; Jonca, Karol, “Jewish Resistance to Nazi Racial Legislation in Silesia, 1933–1937,” in Germans Against Nazism: Nonconformity, Opposition, and Resistance in the Third Reich, ed. Hoffmann, Peter, Nicosia, Francis R., and Stokes, Lawrence D. (New York: Berg, 1990)Google Scholar; Jonca, Karol, Polityka Narodowościowa Trzeciej Rzeszy Na Śla¸sku Opolskim (1933–1940) (Katowice: Śla¸sk, 1970)Google Scholar. Cartarius is currently researching the topic for a Ph.D. dissertation.

4 On the context of the Bernheim Petition, see especially Mazower, Mark, “The Strange Triumph of Human Rights, 1933–1950,” The Historical Journal 47, no. 2 (2004): 338Google Scholar; Fink, Carole, Defending the Rights of Others: The Great Powers, the Jews, and International Minority Protection, 1878–1938 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 331–35Google Scholar; Dwork, Deborah and van Pelt, R. J., Flight from the Reich: Refugee Jews, 1933–1946, 1st ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), 78Google Scholar. Fink noted that the Bernheim case reaffirmed for many minority activists the need for more individualized protections. Upper Silesia was one of the only minority protection zones where individuals could bring complaints that represented an entire minority. While Mazower only cursorily notes that “Bernheim's petition itself did lead to compensation for himself and others,” he links the Bernheim Petition to the crisis in the League's ability to defend Jewish protections across Europe in 1933. Dwork and van Pelt noted in their account of Jewish refugees that, as a result of the Bernheim Petition, “The Jews of German Upper Silesia gained a few years of calm.”

5 Standard accounts that integrate the perspective of international reputation include Schleunes, Karl A., A Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy Toward German Jews, 1933–1939 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1970)Google Scholar; Friedländer, Saul, Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, 1st ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1997)Google Scholar.

6 Gruner, Wolf, ed., Das “Großdeutsche Reich” und die Juden. Nationalsozialistische Verfolgung in den “angegliederten” Gebieten (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2010)Google Scholar; Kaufman, Menahem, “The Daily Life of the Village and Country Jews in Hessen from Hitler's Ascent to Power to November 1938,” Yad Vashem Studies 22 (1992): 147198Google Scholar.

7 Cohn, Willy, Kein Recht, Nirgends. Tagebuch vom Untergang des Breslauer Judentums, 1933–1941 (Cologne: Böhlau, 2006), 162CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Weissmann, Georg, “Die Durchsetzung des jüdischen Minderheitsrechts in Oberschlesien 1933–1937,” Bulletin des Leo Baeck Instituts 22 (1963): 189Google Scholar.

9 For a detailed analysis of the pogroms and negotiations leading to the Polish minorities protection treaty, see Fink, Defending the Rights of Others, chaps. 5–8.

10 The equality clause is found in Article 7 of the original treaty, reprinted in Robinson, Jacob et al. , Were the Minorities Treaties a Failure? (New York: Institute of Jewish Affairs of the American Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Congress, 1943), 314–17Google Scholar.

11 Bentwich, Norman, The League of Nations and Racial Persecution in Germany (London: Grotius Society, 1934), 78Google Scholar.

12 International groups that hoped to hold Hitler to the 1919 German pledge turned to an unlikely dispute over Greenland. The International Court ruled in September 1933 that an oral pledge made by Norway's Foreign Minister to Denmark to give the latter full territorial control over Greenland counted as a legal obligation. While certain Jewish groups hoped to apply the same legal logic to Germany based on its 1919 pledge to honor minority protections, Nazi intransigence and withdrawal from the League made such a move implausible. For a discussion of the Greenland case, see Dwork and Pelt, Flight from the Reich, 77. The Jewish Community of Katowice echoed this argument in a letter dated May 19, 1933, to the League Council. LNA, R3928/3643.

13 Kamusella, Tomasz, Silesia and Central European Nationalisms: The Emergence of National and Ethnic Groups in Silesia, 1848–1918 (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2007), 173Google Scholar. Bilingual speakers typically spoke Polish at home and learned German in schools. Census statistics reveal heavy pockets of Polish-speaking households in villages and suburban mining towns, with city centers typically dominated by German speakers. APO, RO I, Syg. 2096.

14 Tim Wilson, in comparing communal violence in Upper Silesia to contemporaneous violence in Ulster, argued that the muddled ethnic divisions contributed to a greater level of violence. Wilson, Tim, Frontiers of Violence: Conflict and Identity in Ulster and Upper Silesia, 1918–1922 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 The League Council admitted the impossibility of drawing entirely fair borders along rational, simple lines given the variable voting results across counties and even within neighboring villages. See the League Council report of August 29, 1921, in League of Nations Official Journal (hereafter LNOJ) (Dec. 1921): 1222–1223. For general accounts of the plebiscite, see Bjork, James E., Neither German nor Pole: Catholicism and National Indifference in a Central European Borderland (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2008), chap. 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tooley, T. Hunt, National Identity and Weimar Germany: Upper Silesia and the Eastern Border, 1918–1922 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Wilson, Frontiers of Violence.

16 LNOJ (Dec. 1921): 1224.

17 Ibid., 1225–1231. A length of fifteen years as a transitional period was articulated previously in Article 90 of the Versailles Treaty, where the original guidelines for the Upper Silesian plebiscite were established.

18 During negotiations the issue of Polish expropriation of German property became the final sticking point before an agreement was reached that barred seizures during the fifteen-year period. Kaeckenbeeck, Georges, The International Experiment of Upper Silesia: A Study in the Working of the Upper Silesian Settlement, 1922–1937 (London: Oxford University Press, 1942), 1419Google Scholar.

19 Articles 65–72 of the May 15, 1922, Geneva Accord in ibid., 600–609. See also the Polish minorities treaty of June 28, 1919, in Robinson et al., Were the Minorities Treaties a Failure?, 313–317.

20 According to the 1933 census for German Upper Silesia, 89 percent of residents were Catholic, and 10 percent Protestant. Jews registered 0.6 percent of the population, although this count came after the initial flight of several hundred Jews following the Nazi seizure of power. The statistics from 1840 for the district of Upper Silesia depict a confessional balance of 85 percent Catholic and 13 percent Protestant. For the 1933 statistics, see Volkszählung. Die Bevölkerung des Deutschen Reiches nach den Ergebnissen der Volkszählung 1933,” Statistik des Deutschen Reiches, vol. 451, no. 3Google Scholar, Die Bevölkerung des Deutschen Reiches nach der Religionszugehörigkeit, 37. For the 1840 statistics, see Belzyt, Leszek, Sprachliche Minderheiten im preussischen Staat 1815–1914 (Marburg: Herder-Institut, 1998), 274Google Scholar.

21 For a list of bilateral treaties with League backing, see Robinson et al., Were the Minorities Treaties a Failure?, 57 fn. 19. Some of these treaties, such as the mandatory exchange of Greek and Turkish populations in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, contradicted the initial aims and spirit of minority protection.

22 Fink, Defending the Rights of Others, 283 ff.

23 A breakdown of year-by-year statistics can be found in Rogowski, Stanisław, Komisja Mieszana dla Górnego Śląska, 1922–1937 (Opole: Instytut Śląski, 1977), 70Google Scholar. Many of the complaints were issued in “class-action” style petitions.

24 Stone, Julius, Regional Guarantees of Minority Rights: A Study of Minorities Procedure in Upper Silesia (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1933), 2021Google Scholar.

25 On Calonder, see Stauffer, Paul, Polen—Juden—Schweizer. Felix Calonder (1921–1937), “Exilpolens” Berner Emissäre (1939–1945), Die Schweiz und Katyn (1943) (Schlieren: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 2004)Google Scholar.

26 Calonder's written judgment of November 26, 1923, in Warderholt, J. P. [Paul van Husen], Das Minderheitenrecht in Oberschlesien. Die Stellungsnahmen des Präsidenten der Gemischten Kommission in der Zeit von Juni 1922 bis Juni 1929 (Berlin: Brückenverlag, 1930), 172179Google Scholar.

27 Stone, Regional Guarantees of Minority Rights, 37–38.

28 On the Permanent Court's decision on national subjectivity, see ibid., 38–39.

29 Stauffer, Polen—Juden—Schweizer, 34–35.

30 Although more than 13,000 individuals claimed grievances under the Upper Silesian minority protections, Calonder issued only 127 written judgments in his fifteen-year tenure. Rogowski, Komisja Mieszana dla Górnego Śląska, 74.

31 For example, in 1924–1925 Calonder worked behind the scenes to improve language training for teachers in Polish minority schools in German Upper Silesia. January 1925 report in Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz (hereafter GStA PK) I.HA, Rep. 77, Tit. 856, Nr. 449. In another case in 1925, Calonder pressured the German regional government to hire Polish-speaking civil servants to avoid formal complaints. APO NO I, Syg. 321.

32 “Polnische Minderheitsschulen,” APO, NO I, Syg. 145–146.

33 Minutes of meeting between Calonder and Upper Silesian President Proske, April 14, 1924, APO, NO I, Syg. 321.

34 On the theater incident, see APO, NO I, Syg. 265. For Polish retaliation, see Schlesische Zeitung, May 8, 1929, no. 233.

35 Estimates of the number of “subjective” Germans in Polish Upper Silesia range from 250,000 to 370,000. More than 430,000 on the Polish side of the partition had voted for Germany in the plebiscite, although tens of thousands fled or later moved westward to Germany. Most of the large factories and estates in Polish Upper Silesia were held by nobility or elites who considered themselves German. While language statistics for German Upper Silesia claimed an even greater number of Polish or bilingual speakers than Germans in Polish Upper Silesia, the nationally active population of Poles remained much smaller, and assimilationist trends were stronger. See Blanke, Richard, Orphans of Versailles: The Germans in Western Poland, 1918–1939 (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1993), 3031Google Scholar. See also Marek Masnyk, “Die Situation der Polen im Oppelner Regierungsbezirk in den zwanziger und dreißiger Jahren. Ein Problemüberblick,” and Nordblom, Pia, “Die Lage der Deutschen in Polnisch-Oberschlesien nach 1922,” both in Oberschlesien nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Studien zu einem nationalen Konflikt und seine Erinnerung, ed. Struve, Kai (Marburg: Verlag Herder-Institut, 2003)Google Scholar, 101 and 112–13, respectively.

36 Rogowski, Komisja Mieszana dla Górnego Śląska, 70. The preponderance of complaints by the German minority can also be traced to mass petitions against discriminatory Polish school laws in the late 1920s, which attracted thousands of complainants whose grievances were resolved collectively.

37 For a Polish view on Grażyński's battle against “Germanization,” see Musialik, Wanda, Michał Grażyński, 1890–1965: Biografia Polityczna, 1st ed. (Opole: Instytut Śląski w Opolu, 1989), 214 ffGoogle Scholar.

38 Piotrowski, Jacek, “The Policies of the Sanacja on the Jewish Minority in Silesia, 1926–1939,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 14, Jews in the Polish Borderlands, ed. Polonsky, Antony (Oxford and Portland, OR: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2001), 152Google Scholar.

39 Stauffer, Polen—Juden—Schweizer, 66–67.

40 German Foreign Office statement of April 7, 1933, in Gruner, Wolf, ed., Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945, vol. 1 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2008)Google Scholar, Doc. 28.

41 Konstantin von Neurath to Wilhelm Frick, April 21, 1933, quoted in Stauffer, Polen—Juden—Schweizer, 67.

42 On Stresemann as champion of minorities at the League of Nations, see Fink, Defending the Rights of Others, chap. 10.

43 Outline of Neurath policy speech from April 1933, in Heineman, John Louis, Hitler's First Foreign Minister: Constantin Freiherr von Neurath, Diplomat and Statesman (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1979), 98Google Scholar.

44 Graf, Die Bernheim-Petition 1933, 109 ff.

45 The Deutsches Familien-Kaufhaus, where Bernheim had worked, ran an advertisement on March 31, 1933, declaring that their store personnel were now “judenfrei.” LNA, C762/1347.

46 Original petition printed in Lauren, Paul Gordon, The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998)Google Scholar, 128. League documents pertaining to the case can be found in LNA, C 762/1347.

47 “Treaty Rights Invoked: Upper Silesian Refugee's Petition Asks Voiding of German Laws,” The New York Times, May 21, 1933, A1. “See Reich Retreat of Silesian Jews,” The New York Times, May 22, 1933, A9.

48 “Treatment of Jews in Upper Silesia,” London Times, May 22, 1933, 13.

49 Graf, Die Bernheim-Petition 1933, 184 ff.

50 LNOJ, no. 7, Pt. 1 (July 1933): 833. See also League of Nations Archives, C.351.1933.I. The instructions from Konstantin von Neurath were sent in Telegram 246 of the Foreign Ministry, May 24, 1933, in Gruner, ed., Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden, vol. 1, Doc. 46Google Scholar.

51 Minutes of the May 30, 1933, Council meeting. LNOJ, no. 7, Pt. 1 (July 1933): 841.

52 Report of Sean Lester to Department of External Affairs, “Jewish Petition,” June 6, 1933, LNA, S 1/1.

53 Ein Jude macht dem Völkerbund mobil,” Völkischer Beobachter (Munich Edition), no. 151, May 31, 1933Google Scholar; and Der internationale Jude,” Völkischer Beobachter (Munich Edition), no. 154, June 3, 1933Google Scholar.

54 On continuing antisemitism, see reports of July-September 1933 from Jewish Synagogengemeindeverband to Calonder in LNA, C 898. See also the memoirs of a Jewish lawyer in Gleiwitz, Erich Schlesinger, “Geschichte der jüdischen Gemeinde Gleiwitz vom 31. Januar 1933 bis 24. Januar 1945,” n.d., 3, ME 566, Leo Baeck Institute Archives.

55 Weissmann, “Die Durchsetzung des jüdischen Minderheitsrechts,” 158.

56 Letters of support in LNA, R 3928/3643.

57 Weissmann, “Die Durchsetzung des jüdischen Minderheitsrechts,” 159–60.

58 Jewish Union complaints to regional officials covered issues such as loss of building or government contracts, loss of liquor licenses, and discriminatory hiring practices. APO, RO I, Syg. 2012.

59 Weissmann, “Die Durchsetzung des jüdischen Minderheitsrechts,” 162–63.

60 Ibid.; letter of August 4, 1933, by Synagogengemeindeverband to German Foreign Office, in Gruner, , ed., Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden, vol. 1, Doc. 67Google Scholar.

61 Communication between the League and the Jewish Union from August-November 1933 in LNA, C898. See also Weissmann, “Die Durchsetzung des jüdischen Minderheitsrechts,” 166–169.

62 Statistics from Rogowski, Komisja Mieszana dla Górnego Śląska, 70, Table 1. Summaries of individual case files can be found in LNA, C 678.

63 Rürup, Reinhard, “Das Ende der Emanzipation. Die antijüdische Politik in Deutschland von der ‘Machtergreifung’ bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg,” in Die Juden im Nationalsozialistischen Deutschland, 1933–1943, ed. Paucker, Arnold (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1986), 97114Google Scholar.

64 Blasius, Dirk, “Zwischen Rechtsvertrauen und Rechtszerstörung. Deutsche Juden 1933–1935,” in Zerbrochene Geschichte. Leben und Selbstverständnis der Juden in Deutschland, ed. Blasius, Dirk and Diner, Dan (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1991), 121137Google Scholar.

65 According to Weissmann the Jewish Union found in Calonder a figure of authority who they felt “was genuinely willing to help.” Weissmann, “Die Durchsetzung des jüdischen Minderheitsrechts,” 170.

66 The Stresemann-led policy of embracing the League of Nations minority protections to defend Germans abroad has generated a significant literature. For specific literature on the nexus of Weimar interest in the League and in minorities beyond its eastern borders, see Arnold, Georg, Gustav Stresemann und die Problematik der Deutschen Ostgrenzen (Frankfurt: Lang, 2000)Google Scholar; Madajczyk, Piotr, Polityka i koncepcje polityczne Gustawa Stresemanna wobec Polski: 1915–1929 (Warsaw: Instytut Nauk Politycznych, 1991)Google Scholar.

67 Weinberg, Gerhard, Hitler's Foreign Policy, 1933–1939: The Road to World War II (New York: Enigma Books, 2005)Google Scholar, 76 ff.

68 At a 1933 Geneva meeting, Józef Beck recalled how Goebbels stated Germany's desire for direct bilateral relations in terms of anti-League sentiment. Beck, Józef, Final Report, 1st ed. (New York: R. Speller, 1957), 2627Google Scholar.

69 Weinberg, Hitler's Foreign Policy, 192–93.

70 Oppeln Regierungspräsident to Interior Ministry, March 18, 1935, in Deutsche und Polen zwischen den Kriegen. Minderheitenstatus und “Volkstumskampf” im Grenzgebiet: Amtliche Berichterstattung aus beiden Ländern, 1920–1939, ed. Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Munich: Saur, 1997), 857–58Google Scholar.

71 “Bekanntmachung des Oberpräsidents der Provinz Oberschlesien,” August 8, 1934, reprinted in Weissmann, “Die Durchsetzung des jüdischen Minderheitsrechts,” 196.

72 The path of the Comité des Délégations Juives after the end of the Bernheim affair is traced in Graf, Die Bernheim-Petition 1933, chap. 5.

73 Politischer Lagebericht from Brückner to Interior Ministry, August 9, 1934, quoted in Jonca, Polityka Narodowościowa Trzeciej Rzeszy Na Śla¸sku Opolskim, 301 fn. 236.

74 Brückner's downfall came in the wake of an intense and bitter rivalry with Silesian SS commander Udo von Woyrsch and amid accusations of homosexual activity. Neubach, Helmut, “Helmuth Brückner. Gauleiter von Schlesien 1925–1934,” Jahrbuch der schlesischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Breslau 38/39 (1997/1998): 783798Google Scholar.

75 Summaries of selected case files resulting in reinstatements are in LNA C678/1364, 1429, 1569, 1570, 1576, 1577, 1601, 1602.

76 Two marriage applications were cited for August 1935 in regional administrative files, although one seems to have been rejected on a technicality, with the other approved. APO RO I, Syg. 2011. Another couple petitioned the League after encountering resistance in 1935 and were subsequently given permission to marry. See petition file in LNA C817/2200. A petition was filed for another couple in April 1937 after their marriage license was rejected, but Nazi administrators countered that the groom lived in Breslau, outside the protection area. The case was not resolved when the protections expired. A summary of the case is in LNA C678/2277. These cases do not include those who were married without the need to appeal to League authorities. Georg Weissmann claimed “a number of mixed marriages” even though he noted disapproval in Zionist circles. Weissmann, “Die Durchsetzung des jüdischen Minderheitsrechts,” 180–81. The 1939 census counted 148 marriages between Jews and “Deutschblütigen” throughout Germany in 1936 (the only full year between the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws and expiration of the Geneva Accord). Die Bevölkerung des Deutschen Reiches nach den Ergebnissen der Volkszählung 1939,” Statistik des Deutschen Reiches, vol. 552, no. 4Google Scholar, Die Juden und jüdischen Mischlinge im Deutschen Reich, 62.

77 Letter of August 27, 1935, by Wagner to Interior Ministry. APO, RO I, Syg. 2011.

78 LNA C765/1385.

79 Central Zionist Archive (hereafter CZA), A 38/13. The petition that brought about the lifting of the ban can be found in LNA C765/1382.

80 Kaplan, Marion A., Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 278CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Ascher, Abraham, A Community under Siege: The Jews of Breslau under Nazism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), 94Google Scholar.

81 Case summary concerning “Amtliches Schulblatt” in LNA, C 678/1519; summary of case resulting in banning of Der Stürmer in LNA, C 678/1567.

82 A summary of the benefits that accrued to the Jewish community can be found in Weissmann, “Die Durchsetzung des jüdischen Minderheitsrechts,” 172–178.

83 Stauffer, Polen—Juden—Schweizer, 82.

84 See, for example, Comité des délégations juives, Das Schwarzbuch: Tatsachen und Dokumente. Die Lage der Juden in Deutschland 1933 (Paris: Pascal, 1934), 176–78Google Scholar. While finalizing negotiations over kosher slaughter in August 1934, several Jewish newspapers prematurely printed reports of a settlement. This prompted the Upper Silesian Jewish Union to send letters to major papers asking that they be consulted on all further news. Letter of August 10, 1934, by Synagogengemeindeverband to Israelitische Familienblatt, CZA, A 38/13.

85 Jonca, Polityka Narodowościowa Trzeciej Rzeszy Na Śla¸sku Opolskim, 293; Weissmann, “Die Durchsetzung des jüdischen Minderheitsrechts,” 189. Weissmann claimed “some Jews” moved to Upper Silesia before 1937 to enjoy rights, while Jonca claimed the number “did not reach a mass scale.”

86 For the Herbert Levy case, see LNA C819/2246. For the Mai/Schäfer case, LNA C817/2200. In another case, a Jewish lawyer, Gustav Simon, disbarred in Breslau for alleged communist sympathies, reapplied for admission in Ratibor, Upper Silesia. His application was rejected and he was subsequently arrested. See Robinson et al., Were the Minorities Treaties a Failure?, 115; von Frentz, Christian Raitz, A Lesson Forgotten: Minority Protection under the League of Nations: The Case of the German Minority in Poland, 1920–1934 (Münster: Lit Verlag, 1999), 163Google Scholar.

87 On the financial motivations and costs of emigrating, see Barkai, Avraham, From Boycott to Annihilation: The Economic Struggle of German Jews, 1933–1943 (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1989)Google Scholar, 99 ff.

88 Rogowski, Komisja Mieszana dla Górnego Śląska, 70.

89 LNA, C 678/2123.

90 “Synagogengemeinde für Nichtanstellung der Juden als Beamte,” APO, USMO, Syg. 487.

91 For examples of monetary settlements, see the case summaries in LNA C678/1476, 1478, 1485, 1505, and 1551.

92 Complaint 1347 summarized in LNA, C 678. Bernheim emigrated to the U.S. in 1934 and lived in New York until his death in 1990 at age 91. Graf, Die Bernheim-Petition 1933, 287.

93 APO, USMO, Syg. 393.

94 Letter of May 19, 1937, by Wagner to German Minority Office, APO, RO I, Syg. 2011.

95 Summaries of unresolved cases in LNA, C678/2195, 2224, 2277, and 2278.

96 Minutes of October 11, 1935, meeting in LNA, C 898.

97 See multiple reports from July 1934 in CZA, A 38/4.

98 Schlesinger, “Geschichte der jüdischen Gemeinde Gleiwitz vom 31. Januar 1933 bis 24. Januar 1945,” 4.

99 Frieda Rosenwasser, “Von Oberschlesien nach Samarkand. Geschichte einer Familie,” n.d., ME 534, Leo Baeck Institute Archives.

100 Schlesinger, “Geschichte der jüdischen Gemeinde Gleiwitz vom 31. Januar 1933 bis 24. Januar 1945,” 3.

101 Jonca, “Jewish Resistance,” 83–84; Weissmann, “Die Durchsetzung des jüdischen Minderheitsrechts,” 174.

102 APO, RO I, Syg. 2011.

103 LNA C 800/1885.

104 Ibid. Weissmann authored the original complaint on July 26, 1935. See also APO, RO I, Syg. 2011 for police admission of sanctioning the demonstration.

105 On the wave of “racial defilement” and general antisemitic attacks in summer 1935 and the subsequent drafting of the Nuremberg Laws, see Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, 121–22, 137–44. Contemporary reports are provided in Deutschland-Bericht der Sopade, vol. 2 (Prague: Sopade, 1935), 920–33Google Scholar.

106 LNA C800/1885.

107 Letter by Gleiwitz Polizeipräsident to Regierungspräsident, APO, RO I, Syg. 2011.

108 APO, RO I, 2011.

109 Cohn, Kein Recht, Nirgends, 162. Cohn also noted better conditions in Upper Silesia on 105, 128, 129.

110 These words came from the memoirs of Nathan Feinberg, a Jewish leader associated with the Comité, quoted in Graf, Die Bernheim-Petition 1933, 282.

111 See Cohn, Kein Recht, Nirgends, 162, 166; Weissmann, “Die Durchsetzung des jüdischen Minderheitsrechts,” 189; Stauffer, Polen—Juden—Schweizer, 83.

112 Notable recent literature on nature conservation in Nazi Germany includes Lekan, Thomas M., Imagining the Nation in Nature: Landscape Preservation and German Identity, 1885–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), chaps. 4–5Google Scholar; Uekötter, Frank, The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany, Studies in Environment and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brüggemeier, Franz-Josef, Cioc, Mark, and Zeller, Thomas, eds., How Green Were the Nazis? Nature, Environment, and Nation in the Third Reich (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Radkau, Joachim and Uekötter, Frank, eds., Naturschutz und Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt [am Main]: Campus, 2003)Google Scholar.

113 Teschner, Gerhard J., “Saargebiet,” in Das “Großdeutsche Reich,” ed. Gruner, 4974Google Scholar.

114 In 1929 there were 10,488 Jews counted in Danzig. Levine, Herbert S., Hitler's Free City: A History of the Nazi Party in Danzig, 1925–1939 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), 127Google Scholar.

115 For provisions, see Mason, John Brown, The Danzig Dilemma: A Study in Peacemaking by Compromise (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1946), 279–82Google Scholar.

116 Hagen, William W., “Before the ‘Final Solution’: Toward a Comparative Analysis of Political Anti-Semitism in Interwar Germany and Poland,” The Journal of Modern History 68, no. 2 (June 1, 1996): 357CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Levine, Hitler's Free City, 65.

117 Bogacz, Daniel, Fremde in einer freien Stadt. Deutsche, Polen und Juden in Danzig 1920–1939: Zur Minderheitenforschung in Ostmitteleuropa (Bonn: n.p., 2004), 196Google Scholar.

118 Weinberg, Hitler's Foreign Policy, 196–198.

119 Beck's speech to League Assembly on September 13, 1934, in Stachura, Peter D., Poland, 1918–1945: An Interpretive and Documentary History of the Second Republic (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), Doc. 70, 91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

120 Raitz von Frentz, A Lesson Forgotten, 246.

121 Foreign Ministry memorandum of February 19, 1935, in Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945, Series C, vol. 3 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1959), Doc. 496Google Scholar.

122 Memorandum of February 21, 1935, by Konstantin von Neurath, in ibid., Doc. 498.

123 The decision to halt funds is referred to in footnote 6 of the February 19, 1935, memorandum; ibid., Doc. 496.

124 Tomaszewski, Jerzy, “The Civil Rights of Jews in Poland, 1918–1939,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 8, Jews in Independent Poland, 1918–1939 (Oxford and Portland, OR: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004), 125Google Scholar; Melzer, Emanuel, No Way Out: The Politics of Polish Jewry, 1935–1939 (Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College Press, 1997), 7Google Scholar.

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126 Tomaszewski, “The Civil Rights of Jews in Poland,” 125.

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129 APO, USMO, Syg. 550.

130 Beck, Final Report, 130.

131 Ibid., 131.

132 Efforts at renewal detailed in Weissmann, “Die Durchsetzung des jüdischen Minderheitsrechts,” 183–87.

133 Minutes of the Conference of Heads of Departments Concerning Upper Silesia from December 18, 1936, in Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945, Series C, vol. 6 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, n.d.), Doc. 134, 271Google Scholar.

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135 Diary entry from June 8, 1937, in Cohn, Kein Recht, Nirgends, 440.

136 “Rassengesetzgebung in Westoberschlesien,” Völkischer Beobachter, July 5, 1937, no. 186, 3.

137 Weissmann, “Die Durchsetzung des jüdischen Minderheitsrechts,” 189.

138 Individual attacks were recorded by regional officials in APO, RO I, 2012. See also the September 1937 report of “Union für Recht und Freiheit” from Prague in LNA, R3912. The Jewish Central Information Office, which claimed the “pogrom-like attacks,” filed a comprehensive report of antisemitic actions in Upper Silesia on August 11, 1937; reprinted in German in Gruner, , ed., Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden, vol. 1, 691–95, Doc. 292Google Scholar.

139 Quoted in Cartarius, “Schutz und Verfolgung,” 136.

140 Gruner, ed., Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden, vol. 1, Doc. 292Google Scholar. More than 1,000 Jews of Polish citizenship continued to enjoy rights exceeding those of German Jews after July 1937, thanks to the advocacy of the Polish counsel in Upper Silesia. Any protections were rendered moot by the expulsion of non-German Jews from all of Germany in October 1938. See Weissmann, “Die Durchsetzung des jüdischen Minderheitsrechts,” 188.

141 Cassin, Réné, “La déclaration universelle et la mise en œuvre des droits de l'homme,” Recuil des Cours, de l'Academie de Droit International 79 (1951): 242Google Scholar; http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/ridc_0035-3337_1955_num_7_3_9552.

142 Mazower, Mark, No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moyn, Samuel, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010)Google Scholar.

143 On the context of the May 17, 1933, speech, particularly in relation to German foreign policy toward Poland, see Weinberg, Hitler's Foreign Policy, 76–81.