| …new from Monthly Review Press Defiance in a time of terror Postcards to Hitler is the story of a Munich family living as close neighbors to the demagogue who will become the primordial commander of the Nazis—as passionately told by one of their surviving relatives, Bruce Neuburger. “This profoundly researched book tells the story of the postcards Benno Neuburger wrote and posted in a desperate act of resistance against totalitarian oppression. While the story is told in a genre of historical fiction, the author displays a deep knowledge of Munich’s local history during the Nazi era… A book that has the power to draw you in and makes you think – about actions we do or do not take in our own times.” —Eva Tyrell, Public Historian, Kulturreferat der Landeshauptstadt München As the story begins, Europe has enjoyed many decades of peace on its own soil and Jews are enjoying a social renaissance in the industrializing, urbanizing rising star that is Germany. It is not at all clear that this good fortune might begin to unravel. Benno Neuburger, a modest German land investor from Munich, and Anna Einstein, daughter of a cattle dealer from Laupheim, marry in 1907. Their family life begins at a relatively prosperous moment in Germany – and a particularly optimistic time for German Jews. Even when news of an assassination in an “obscure” Balkan corner of the continent passes like a cold wind through Munich on a warm beer-garden July day in 1914, people shudder but feel no great alarm…. What follows is a prolonged and bloody war provoked by inter-colonialist competition, which gives way to German defeat, a revolution, and a brief socialist interlude in Munich soon cannibalized by a merciless counter revolution and the pitiless demagoguery of defeated generals. Living amidst this swirl, Benno and Anna cling to hope for a peaceful resolution to a period of prolonged crisis – but to no avail. Munich becomes the epicenter of German fascism fed by national resentment and racial madness, and their own families are caught up in the storms and terror that follow. Children turned refugees, a bloody pogrom, “resettlements” via train rides east, desperate acts of resistance, arrest and trials proceed as a Holocaust unfolds around them. Postcards to Hitler is a deeply researched narrative history drawn from direct interviews and a mass of archival documents of great personal import, including the Neuburgers’ final letters – describing daily lives in close proximity to the Fuhrer, and surrounded on all sides by a slow-moving parade of horror, until the perimeter between themselves and the Holocaust disappears. READ MORE From CHAPTER 11: MAX HOLZER, 1937 AFTER THE PASSAGE OF THE Nuremberg Laws of 1935 the Nazi press unleashed a campaign warning of the danger posed by Jewish sexual behavior. Julius Streicher’s paper Der Stürmer was the most strident and bloodthirsty. Non-Jewish men were alerted to the dangers their “Aryan women” faced from Jewish men. More “mainstream” and respectable publications also spouted anti-Jewish hype. Non-Jewish women, “Aryan” women, were warned to beware of Jewish men. Attacks on Jewish men by the legal system rose sharply. In 1936, 358 people were prosecuted for sexual crimes, a huge jump from the previous year. In 1937, this increased to 512. Two-thirds of those arrested and tried were Jewish men, even while Jews made up fewer than 1 percent of the population. The mainstream Nazi papers sensationalized trials of Jewish men accused of improper sexual behavior with German women.The definition of illicit sexual relations was extended to cover nearly any kind of bodily contact between Jews and non-Jewish Germans…. …Some Germans took advantage of the legal leverage this provided them. Businessmen threatened or arranged for Jews, including those involved in commercial competition with them, to be arrested on false charges of “racial defilement” in order to extort concessions and bribes from Jews. On November 26, 1937, Traunstein police accompanied by a Gestapo agent arrived at 6 Kernstrasse and demanded to see Max Holzer, the youngest son of Anna’s sister Fanny. This was not good news and Max’s first impulse was to leave the house. But he came to the door, and the uniformed men, one of them a well-known member of the town’s Nazi group, told him he was being arrested. “What is this about?” “You’ll find out soon enough,” the Gestapo man snapped… Anti- Jewish Measure November 8, 1938 The German government announces that all Jewish newspapers and magazines are to immediately cease publication. The order affects three Jewish newspapers with national circulation as well as four cultural papers, several sports papers, and several dozen community bulletins. Only one Jewish publication, the Jüdisches Nachrichtenblatt (Jewish Newsletter), is allowed to continue to publish so as to inform the Jewish community of the measures being imposed on them. Anti-Jewish Measure November 10, 1938 Hitler meets with Reich Propaganda Minister Goebbels at the Osteria Bavaria in Munich to finalize a draft of a decree to bring the pogrom to an end. They discuss ways to deny insurance compensation for Jews while speeding up the expropriation of Jewish businesses. Anti-Jewish Measures November 12, 1938 Head of the Nazi four-year economic plan, Herman Goering, convenes a conference at the Berlin Air Ministry. He rages at the assembled economic and domestic affairs functionaries over the losses Germany suffered in the November pogrom, such as the glass that had to be imported to replace shattered windows in Jewish businesses, the insurance claims that had to be paid to Jewish insurance holders to protect the insurance industry’s credibility, the economic loss as a result of goods stolen or destroyed from wrecked Jewish stores, and the loss of tax revenue from businesses put out of action. He demands measures to mitigate these losses. The conference comes up with policies to soften the blow to the German economy. Chief among these is a plan to confiscate Jewish insurance claims and impose a collective fine on the Jewish community of a billion Reichmarks (the equivalent of about 5 billion 2023 dollars) for the damage the nation sustained during the pogrom…. Above, you can watch a short film showed this spring in Berlin, featuring author Bruce Neuburger’s family, the subject of Postcards to Hitler. From CHAPTER 16: SHATTERED GLASS The top Nazi leadership was gathered in Munich on November 9 for the annual commemoration of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler spoke at the Burgerbraukeller, and later that evening he was at a dinner in Munich’s city hall when word came that the German consular official Vom Rath had died of his wounds. After consulting with Hitler about Vom Rath’s death, Joseph Goebbels rose to make an impromptu speech. In remarks filled with violent vitriol against Jews he threatened violent retribution for the killing of a “loyal servant of the Reich.” Goebbels noted in his diary that his speech was received with “thunderous applause. All are instantly at the phones. Now people will act.” Following Goebbels’s speech, the Nazi officials gathered from around the country called their local offices to inform them of the death and instruct them to attack Jewish businesses, synagogues, and other institutions. They were told to make the assaults look as much as possible like spontaneous responses from an outraged public. Care was to be taken to make sure that non-Jewish properties were not damaged in the rampage. A March to 6 Kernstrasse …The Nazis in Traunstein were having their own celebration of the Putsch anniversary on the night of November 9 when the call came in from Munich. As instructed, some uniformed marchers went home and changed into civilian clothes. Then, about forty marchers, led by their leader, Franz Werr, and the town’s vice mayor, Albert Aichner, marched to the Holzer family home. As they neared the Kernstrasse house, they began shouting, “Jews out of Traunstein!” “Holzers out!” Several pulled pistols and began firing into the house. Some of the men broke down the door and began trashing the house. A member of the family who was there at the time heard some of them shouting, “Where’s that bitch who was in Paris?” The oldest son, Benno, was upstairs when the Nazis broke in…. LEARN MORE And while you’re waiting for your copy to arrive, watch this video from one of the coeditors of A Land With A People, which describes the process of self-reflection among Jews questioning Zionism. Share Tweet Forward |
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