Robbing the Jews
The Confiscation of Jewish Property in the Holocaust, 1933–1945

Penetrating revelations of Nazi confiscation of Jewish property, and of robbery's intimate relationship to the Holocaust.

Martin Dean (Author)

9780521129053, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 18 January 2010

448 pages
23.4 x 15.6 x 2.3 cm, 0.64 kg

"Robbing the Jews adeptly demonstrates the usefulness of financial documents in studying the Nazi regime and its persecution of Jews, especially for those already versed in the history of this period...the text is a carefully crafted, helpful study of confiscation politics."
German Studies Review, Kara Ritzheimer, Oregon State University

Robbing the Jews reveals the mechanisms by which the Nazis and their allies confiscated Jewish property; the book demonstrates the close relationship between robbery and the Holocaust. The spoliation evolved in intensifying steps. The Anschluss and Kristallnacht in 1938 reveal a dynamic tension between pressure from below and state-directed measures. In Western Europe, the economic persecution of the Jews took the form of legal decrees and administrative measures. In Eastern Europe, authoritarian governments adopted the Nazi program that excluded Jews from the economy and seized their property, based on indigenous antisemitism and plans for ethnically homogenous nation-states. In the occupied East, property was collected at the killing sites - the most valuable objects were sent to Berlin, whereas items of lesser value supported the local administration and rewarded collaborators. At several key junctures, robbery acted as a catalyst for genocide, accelerating the progression from pogrom to mass murder.

Part I. Economic Persecution Inside the Third Reich, 1933–41: 1. The Nazis' initial confiscation measures
2. Mounting obstacles to Jewish emigration, 1933–9
3. The Anschluss and Kristallnacht: accelerating aryanization and confiscation in Austria and Germany, 1938–9
4. Blocking Jewish accounts and preparations for mass confiscation, 1939–41
Part II. Jewish Property and the European Holocaust, 1939–45: 5. Destruction and plunder in the occupied east: Poland, the Soviet Union, and Serbia
6. Settling accounts in the wake of the deportations
7. 'Plunder by decree': the confiscation of Jewish property in German-occupied Western Europe
8. Sovereign imitations: confiscations by states allied to Nazi Germany
9. Receiving stolen property: neutral states and private companies
10. Seizure of property and the social dynamics of the Holocaust.

Subject Areas: Judaism: life & practice [HRJP], Judaism [HRJ], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD]