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Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria Evan Burr Bukey explores the experience of intermarried couples – marriages with
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Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00285-2 - Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria Evan Burr Bukey Frontmatter More information
Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria
Evan Burr Bukey explores the experience of intermarried couples – marriages with Jewish and non-Jewish partners – and their children in Vienna after Germany’s seizure of Austria in 1938. These families coped with changing regulations that disrupted family life; pitted relatives against each other; and raised profound questions about religious, ethnic, and national identity. Bukey finds that although intermarried couples lived in a state of fear and anxiety, many managed to mitigate, delay, or even escape Nazi sanctions. Drawing on extensive archival research, his study reveals how hundreds of intermarried couples pursued ingenious strategies to preserve their assets, to improve their “racial” status, and above all to safeguard the position of their children. It also analyzes cases of intermarried partners who chose divorce, as well as persons involved in illicit liaisons with non-Jews. Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria concludes that although most of Vienna’s intermarried Jews survived the Holocaust, several hundred Jewish partners were deported to their deaths, and children of such couples were frequently subjected to Gestapo harassment. Evan Burr Bukey is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Arkansas. He is the author of Hitler’s Hometown: Linz Austria, 1908–1945 (1986) and Hitler’s Austria: Popular Sentiment in the Nazi Era, 1938–1945 (2000), as well as numerous articles and reviews. Professor Bukey was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge in 1993–94. He received the National Jewish Book Award in 2000 and the Austrian Cultural Book Prize in 2001.
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Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00285-2 - Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria Evan Burr Bukey Frontmatter More information
Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria
EVAN BURR BUKEY University of Arkansas
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Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00285-2 - Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria Evan Burr Bukey Frontmatter More information
cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo, Mexico City Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013-2473, usa www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107002852 © Evan Burr Bukey 2011 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2011 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Bukey, Evan Burr, 1940– Jews and intermarriage in Nazi Austria / Evan Burr Bukey. p. cm. isbn 978-1-107-00285-2 (hardback) 1. Intermarriage – Austria – Vienna. 2. Jews – Austria – Vienna. 3. Interfaith marriage – Austria – Vienna. I. Title. hq1031.b795 2010 306.84Ł30899240436–dc22 2010031512 isbn 978-1-107-00285-2 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
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Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00285-2 - Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria Evan Burr Bukey Frontmatter More information
To the memory of my parents
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Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00285-2 - Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria Evan Burr Bukey Frontmatter More information
Contents
List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgments Glossary and Abbreviations 1
page ix x xi xv
Prologue: Jews and Intermarriage in Austria The Problem of Intermarriage in the Third Reich Jews and Intermarriage in Vienna before the Anschluß Impact of the Anschluß Nazi Policy Toward Families of Mixed Blood The Initial Response of Mixed Families and the Consideration of Choices
2
Contesting Racial Status: Successes and Failures Irregularities in Nazi Racial Policy The Dilemmas of Ancestral Proof The Appellate Process Administrative Appeals Nazi Activists Minors Soldiers and War Widows Biological Exemptions Marital Exemptions Other Exemptions Judicial Appeals Minors Adults The Elderly Conclusions
1 1 4 9 14 17 23 23 25 28 33 36 41 46 48 58 59 60 62 68 75 78
vii
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Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00285-2 - Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria Evan Burr Bukey Frontmatter More information
Contents
viii
3
4
Intermarried Divorce, 1938–1945 The Option of Divorce: Choice or Coercion? Marriage and Divorce in Austria, 1783–1938 Impact of the Anschluß and the Marriage Law of 1938 Intermarried Divorce: Political or Personal? Preliminary Proceedings Standardizing Procedures Matrimonial Repeals and Annulments Conventional Divorces Court Proceedings, 1938–1941 The Impact of Deportations to the East Court Proceedings 1941–1945 Suits Filed on Charges of Desertion Exile Divorce Suits against Deportees Other Cases Conclusions
82 82 85 88 92 98 100 102 110 111 116 118 119 122 124 129 133
Tightening the Noose: Arrests, Deportations, and Forced Labor, 1941–1945
141
Berlin’s Renewed Assault on Intermarried Couples and Their Offspring The Situation in Vienna: Local Initiatives and Official Policy Gender Differences Wives and Mothers Husbands and Fathers The Assault on the Mischlinge, 1942–1943 Policing “Interracial” Love Affairs Dissolving Legal “Mixed” Liaisons Resistance? The Viennese League of Mischlinge Viennese Mischlinge before the Nazi Bench Conscription and Compulsory Labor, 1943–1945
5
Epilogue and Conclusions
Bibliography Index
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141 148 153 153 157 163 165 173 178 183 186 190 201 209
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Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00285-2 - Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria Evan Burr Bukey Frontmatter More information
Tables
1. Racial Reclassification in Vienna, 1938–44 page 31 2. Age Distribution of “Racial” Appellants in Gau Vienna, 1938–44 32 3. Gender of “Racial” Appellants in Gau Vienna, 1938–44 33 4. Administrative “Racial Reclassification” in Gau Vienna, 1938–44 34 5. Judicial “Racial Reclassification” in Gau Vienna, 1938–44 34 6. Marriage and Divorce Numbers in Vienna, 1935–48 93 7. Intermarried Couples in Vienna, 1939–45 95 8. Intermarried Divorces in Vienna, 1938–45 97 9. Duration of Marriage among Mixed Couples in Vienna and Hamburg 98
ix
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Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00285-2 - Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria Evan Burr Bukey Frontmatter More information
Figures
1. Lotte Freiberger and Her Mother Marie, 1929 2. Chart of Nuremberg Laws Depicting Degrees of “Jewishness” 3. Anthropological Field Kit Used in Biological Examinations 4. Dr. Josef Wastl (1892–1968), Vienna’s Foremost Racial Scientist 5. Gusti Moser and Her Sons, Gustav and Otto, 1899 6. Anton Wintersperger, President of the Viennese Court of Civil Affairs, 1938–45 7. Marie, Lotte, and Moritz Freiberger on the Kärtnerstrasse, 1939 8. Otto Horn (1923–91), Founder of the “Mischlingliga”
page 14 16 51 52 71 102 180 182
x
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Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00285-2 - Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria Evan Burr Bukey Frontmatter More information
Acknowledgments
This study of the fate of Jewish–Gentile couples in Hitler’s Vienna grew out of numerous telephone conversations with Henry Friedlander and John Lukacs, both of whom spent hours relating harrowing tales of their adolescent years in wartime Europe. Henry answered questions about the views of his non-Jewish relatives in Berlin prior to his own deportation to Lodz; John offered fascinating details of a renegade life protecting his bridge-playing Jewish mother in a cellar during the German occupation and Russian siege of Budapest. For their assistance and wise counsel over the years I am most indebted. I also wish to express my gratitude at the outset of this project to Marian Kaplan and Beate Meyer, the foremost authorities on Jewish life in the Third Reich, for offering helpful email hints on how to investigate the Nazi state’s reach into home and family. Most of the unpublished records examined in Vienna for this project are housed in the Wiener Stadt – und Landesarchiv, now located in a shopping center in the renovated Gasometer. Working in such a comfortable up-to-date environment greatly facilitated my research, particularly with the gracious assistance of numerous archivists such as Dr. Brigitte Riegele. Longtime colleagues and friends in other Viennese repositories also deserve heartfelt gratitude. Among them are the General Director of the Austrian State Archives, Dr. Lorenz Mikoletzky, and the staff of the Documentation Archives of the Austrian Resistance, particularly Dr. Ursula Schwarz, Dr. Elisabeth Klamper, and my old friend Dr. Jonny Moser. Most of all, I wish to thank Dr. Winfried Garscha, who also serves as the Co-Director of the Austrian Research Center for Postwar Justice. He took an interest in this project from its inception, opened many doors, and spent many hours explaining the oxymoronic features of the Nazi xi
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Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00285-2 - Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria Evan Burr Bukey Frontmatter More information
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Acknowledgments
judicial system. My wife joins me in thanking him and his wife, Ulli, for their many acts of kindness, solicitude, and hospitality during our sojourns in Vienna. Immense gratitude is also due to Professor Gerald Stourzh of the University of Vienna, who spent two long afternoons sharing his vast knowledge of Jewish–Christian conversions and interfaith marriages in Austria prior to 1938. My understanding of the plight of mixed families during the Anschluß era was enhanced enormously by lengthy conversations with several survivors. These included Dr. Jonny Moser, the late Alfred Kessler, and the recently deceased Elisabeth Welt Trahan. I am particularly grateful to Lotte Rybarski, a most charming and amiable woman, who spent many hours graphically recounting the sense of fear, uncertainty, and danger endured by herself and her parents between 1938 and 1945. In the United States I am beholden to attorneys Mark R. Killenbeck, Stephen Sheppard, and my brother David Bukey, for explaining recondite aspects of family law, most notably divorce procedures in Europe and America. I am also grateful to Donald Bobbit, former Dean of the Fulbright College, for allowing me to retain my office for months after retirement to complete a substantial portion of my study. For a critical reading of chapters of the original manuscript, I wish to thank James B. Powers, Ernst Hanisch, James F. Tent, and David Chappell, each of whom detected errors or made suggestions for conceptual improvement. Two anonymous readers for Cambridge University Press saved me from numerous pitfalls by insisting on greater clarity in categorizing and analyzing the many individual cases discussed in these pages. They also elucidated conflicting aspects of Nazi policies toward intermarried Jews that worked unwittingly to the advantage of some, while leading to the deaths of others. Above all, I wish to extend my gratitude to my colleague and friend Kurt Tweraser, who not only read versions of this study with meticulous care, but throughout four decades has provided much-needed aid and assistance in understanding the complexities of his native Austria. I am also most grateful to the editors and personnel of Cambridge University Press. Lewis Bateman encouraged me to undertake this study in the first place, while Eric Crahan guided me through the production process with aplomb, good cheer, and great skill. I also wish to thank Jason Przybylski for his technical suggestions and assistance, and Bindu Vinod for her sage advice on coping with copyediting problems. All errors, omissions, and shortcomings, however, must be regarded as mine alone.
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Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00285-2 - Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria Evan Burr Bukey Frontmatter More information
Acknowledgments
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Finally, I wish to thank my wife, Anita. In the course of a difficult decade, she spent many hours discussing the structure of this book as well as assisting in the interpretation of statistical data. She also devoted considerable time detecting an inexcusable number of arithmetical and typographical errors. For her love, devotion, and unstinting support, words of gratitude and affection do not suffice.
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Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-00285-2 - Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria Evan Burr Bukey Frontmatter More information
Glossary and Abbreviations
Abstammungsbescheid Abstammungsnachweis Ahnenpass BDM DÖW
Full-Jews Geltungsjuden
Gausippenamt Gestapo HJ IKG KPÖ Kreisleiter Mischlinge Mischlinge of the First Degree
Ancestral decision Certificate of Descent Ancestral passport Bund Deutscher Mädchen, League of German Girls Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes, Documentation Archives of the Austrian Resistance,Vienna Observant Jews or persons having three Jewish grandparents Jewish converts or partial-Jews enrolled in the Jewish Religious Community, “counting as Jews” District Kinship Office Geheime Staatspolizei (secret state police) Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (Jewish Religious Community) Kommunistiche Partei Österreichs (Communist Party of Austria) Circuit leader(s) of the Nazi Party “Half-breeds,” persons having one or two Jewish grandparents “Half-Jews,” persons with two Jewish grandparents xv
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Mischlinge of the Second Degree NSDAP
Ostmark OT Rassenschande RPA RSA RSHA SD SS Volksgerichtshof WSLA
Glossary and Abbreviations
“Quarter-Jews,” persons with one Jewish grandparent Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) Eastern March; Nazi name of incorporated Austria Organization Todt, forced labor and construction organization Racial defilement Rassenpolitsches Amt, Racial Political Office Reichssippenamt, Reich Kinship Office Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Reich Security Main Office Sicherheitsdienst (security and intelligence service of the SS) Schützstaffel (elite guard of the NSDAP) Peoples’ Court Wiener Stadt-und Landesarchiv, Viennese Municipal and Provincial Archives
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