The Germans and the Holocaust

For decades, historians have debated how and to what extent the Holocaust penetrated the German national consciousness between 1933 and 1945. How much did "ordinary" Germans know about the subjugation and mass murder of the Jews, when did they know it, and how did they respond collectively and as individuals? This compact volume brings together six historical investigations into the subject from leading scholars employing newly accessible and previously underexploited evidence. Ranging from the roots of popular anti-Semitism to the complex motivations of Germans who hid Jews, these studies illuminate some of the most difficult questions in Holocaust historiography, supplemented with an array of fascinating primary source materials.

For decades, historians have debated how and to what extent the Holocaust penetrated the German national consciousness between 1933 and 1945. How much did “ordinary” Germans know about the subjugation and mass murder of the Jews, when did they know it, and how did they respond collectively and as individuals? This compact volume brings together six historical investigations into the subject from leading scholars employing newly accessible and previously underexploited evidence. Ranging from the roots of popular anti-Semitism to the complex motivations of Germans who hid Jews, these studies illuminate some of the most difficult questions in Holocaust historiography, supplemented with an array of fascinating primary source materials.

Preface
List of Abbreviations
List of Figures

Introduction: The German People and the Holocaust
Alan E. Steinweis and Susanna Schrafstetter

Chapter 1. Antisemitism in Germany, 1890-1933: How Popular Was It?
Richard S. Levy

Chapter 2. German Responses to the Persecution of the Jews as Reflected in Three Collections of Secret Reports
Frank Bajohr

Chapter 3. Indifference? Participation and Protest as Individual Responses to the Persecution of the Jews as Revealed in Berlin Police Logs and Trial Records, 1933-45
Wolf Gruner

Chapter 4. Babi Yar, but not Auschwitz: What Did Germans Know about the Final Solution?
Peter Fritzsche

Chapter 5. Submergence into Illegality: Hidden Jews in Munich, 1941-1945
Susanna Schrafstetter

Chapter 6. Where Did All “Our” Jews Go? Germans and Jews in Post-Nazi Germany
Atina Grossmann

Appendixes

1. Proclamation of the Alliance against the Arrogance of Jewry, 1912
2. Reports from American Diplomat George S. Messersmith to the State Department (Excerpts), 1933
3. Police Precinct Report, Berlin, 1938
4. Social Democratic Party (SoPaDe) Report on the November 1938 Pogrom (Excerpts), 1938
5. Report from the Mayor of Amt Borgentreich to the Gestapo in Bielefeld (Excerpt), 1938
6. SD Reports on German Popular Opinion during World War II (Excerpts), 1943-44
7. Berlin Memories of Marcella Herrmann (Excerpt), Early 1940s
8. Statement from Dr. Sophie Mayer (Excerpts), 1946
9. Moses Moskowitz, “The Germans and the Jews: Postwar Report” (Excerpts), 1946

Contributors
Index