Jewish wealth in 1933's Germany

[Mori]

This thread is going on a strange path...

Back to the original question, which could be worded as "how much did the nazi state steal from his own population, and from all populations which he came to dominate, even briefly?". A full analysis is in Götz Aly's Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State. I suggest you start there.

Aly's book has tons of insights on the 'way it worked' but some of his estimates have shortcomings, e.g., the way he accounts for inflation. Also see Adam Tooze's article here: http://campuspress.yale.edu/adamtooze/f ... rected.pdf

[wm]

The answer is they stole all of it, but benefited little.
They didn't benefit from the wealth of the German Jews.
In Eastern Europe the rich Jews mostly kept their money abroad, in Switzerland or somewhere else, so they were out of reach. Or invested them in land/real estate - and it was hard to convert land or buildings into tanks.
The main benefit was all the confiscated furniture and clothes - given to bombed out Germans it really helped to keep their morale.

[wm]

My home had an extensive library. Reference books on language and usage, commercial law,agriculture, building trades. Books on history, philosophy, religion.

There were Jews with libraries, and millions of Jews without libraries.
Those without were mostly poor, religious, and ignorant of the outside world - so they didn't survive the Holocaust.

[shamirnewell]

My home had an extensive library. Reference books on language and usage, commercial law,agriculture, building trades. Books on history, philosophy, religion.

There were Jews with libraries, and millions of Jews without libraries.
Those without were mostly poor, religious, and ignorant of the outside world - so they didn't survive the Holocaust.

I agree.

[Futurist]

It's not IQ because it was shown IQ and success are poorly correlated. But both IQ and success depend on good family environment and its wealth.

Your link here appears to say nothing about success, though; rather, it talks about the heritability of IQ.

[wm]

You are right, I meant rather one of this (personality has a larger effect on success than IQ), or this (Does IQ Really Predict Job Performance? - we don't know because we are measuring it badly).

It's not really about the IQ, but rather about the conclusion "Jews in past centuries had to work harder ... just to survive", the others forced us to do it - i.e. to be wealthy and successful.
Firstly, it's the usual marxist/socialist nonsense "wealth is sin".
Secondly, it's not true.

It sounds bad that: "Jews were only later emancipated in Greece (1830), Great Britain (1858), Italy (1870), Germany (1871), and Norway (1891)".
But even more bad is: "Women were only later emancipated in Greece (1952), Great Britain (1928), Italy (1925), Germany (1918), and Norway (1913)".
Or that: "The poor were only later emancipated in Greece (1830), Great Britain (1918), Italy (1912), Germany (1871), and Norway (1898)"
Or that serfdom (basically slavery by another name) was abolished in Eastern Europe in 1861.

So the statement "Jews in past centuries had to work harder", should be at least "Jews, women, poor, peasants had to work harder".

[CroGer]

You are right, I meant rather one of this (personality has a larger effect on success than IQ), or this (Does IQ Really Predict Job Performance? - we don't know because we are measuring it badly).

It's not really about the IQ, but rather about the conclusion "Jews in past centuries had to work harder ... just to survive", the others forced us to do it - i.e. to be wealthy and successful.
Firstly, it's the usual marxist/socialist nonsense "wealth is sin".
Secondly, it's not true.

It sounds bad that: "Jews were only later emancipated in Greece (1830), Great Britain (1858), Italy (1870), Germany (1871), and Norway (1891)".
But even more bad is: "Women were only later emancipated in Greece (1952), Great Britain (1928), Italy (1925), Germany (1918), and Norway (1913)".
Or that: "The poor were only later emancipated in Greece (1830), Great Britain (1918), Italy (1912), Germany (1871), and Norway (1898)"
Or that serfdom (basically slavery by another name) was abolished in Eastern Europe in 1861.

So the statement "Jews in past centuries had to work harder", should be at least "Jews, women, poor, peasants had to work harder".

Next the question: why are the "Roma people" (I guess Gypsies is now politically incirrect) almost the opposite of the jews in terms of success?

Btw. I am not an expert on jewish history. But many ashkenazi jews have "wealth" in their names. Typical jewish names are:
Goldstein
Silverstein
Rubin/Rubinstein
Bloom/Bloomfeld/Bloomberg
Rosenthal/Rosenberg
Gewirtz/Gewurtz (germanic for "spices")
or simply "Reich" (german for rich)

There is a nice story about the Elephant of Charlemagne

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abul-Abbas

Abul-Abbas was brought from Baghdad, the capital city of the Abbasid empire, by a Frankish Jew named Isaac,[2][6] who along with two other emissaries, Lantfrid and Sigimund,[2] had been sent to the caliph on Charlemagne's orders. That the only surviving member of the group of three, Isaac, was being sent back with the elephant was heralded as advance news to Charlemagne from two emissaries he met in 801: one was sent by the caliph Harun al-Rashid himself, another by Abraham (Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab), who was governor of Africa.[2][7] Charlemagne then ordered a man to Liguria (the province around Genoa) to commission a fleet of ships to carry the elephant and other goods.[2]

I think jews could accumulate a lot of wealth in the trade with the middle east and in the mediterrenean. It you look at how jews were spread across europe, northern africa and the middle east, it is entirely possible that the jewish community formed a kind of a "silk road", since the beginning if the diaspora. Hence the jewish "feature" of owning a lot of books - learning about the country you plan to settle in or travel to for business purposes, you need to first know where they are, understand not only the language, but also about the practices and the economic centers and key figures of those places.

The scandinavian Jews for example came with the "germanic" Hanse that ruled the trade in the baltic sea, until the 30y war.

Then you have a selection pressure. If you were a jew and neither wealthy or well connected, you would became a victim of the many "pogroms". You couldn't just travel somewhere else of buy your way out.

So you could attribute the jewish wealth and the ashkenazi intelligence to
a) a tradition
and
b) selection

Some theories.

[DavidFrankenberg]

By the end of the year, with regulations concerning the sale of real estate firmly in place, virtually all Jewish wealth remaining within the Reich was accounted for and the Reich's exchequer was several billion Reichsmarks to the good. To avoid confusion, it is worth stressing that this was a purely financial transfer.
These acts of persecution in no way improved the overall position of the German economy. Of course, some gains in efficiency were to be expected from closing down the many small and inefficient craft businesses belonging to Jews. But too much should not be made of this rationalization effect. Given the small scale of such businesses, the amount of labour and other resources released by these means cannot have been more than trivial.
Nor should we exaggerate the fiscal benefits reaped by the Reich. According to the records of the Finance Ministry, revenue from the two main taxes levied on the Jews, the wealth tax and the flight tax, in the 1938-9 fiscal year came to 498.5 million and 342.6 million Reichsmarks respectively.
This was just 5 per cent of total Reich revenue from taxes and customs. In 1939 the percentage was less.

The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze

So Germany got about 840 million Reichsmarks, in the grand scheme of things, a trivial amount, basically nothing.

If i understand well, 840 millions are only the sums of the taxes for 1938 and 1989. Are these figures useful to estimate the jewish wealth in 1938/9 ?

We are still far from an estimate of the jewish wealth in 1933.
We could get the total amount values of what the german state aryanized in Germany from 1933 to 1939.
We should add all the jewish wealth which has flew abroad since 1933, because many jews sent their money abroad since Hitler came to power in 1933. Many saved their whealth this way. Swiss banks especially benefited this, but it was so also in UK and USA.

[wm]

Next the question: why are the "Roma people" (I guess Gypsies is now politically incirrect) almost the opposite of the jews in terms of success?

Well, the Romani say they are successful, we are the losers.
The former communist regime forced them to live a sedentary life, gave them apartments and jobs. They took the apartments but didn't want to work - free people don't work, that's for slaves.
The point is although many of them are uneducated or simply ignorant, their lifestyle is their deliberate choice, nobody has forced them to live like that.

I suppose both groups weren't really "successful" - success needs change, and both group didn't change with time. The Jews were tradesmen/bourgeoisie at the beginning of the Middle Ages, and they were tradesmen/bourgeoisie at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The Romani were travelers then and later.
Europe was heavily class based, there were princes, aristocrats, nobles, clergy, tradesmen/bourgeoisie, peasants. The choice was very limited, so once tradesmen always tradesmen. Once traveling outsiders always traveling outsiders.

Btw. I am not an expert on jewish history. But many ashkenazi jews have "wealth" in their names. Typical jewish names are:
Goldstein
Silverstein

According to Jewish legends (which maybe true) you had to pay (a bribe) for such a nice name. They wouldn't give it to nobody. "They" were your local rabbi, and a local king's official - both had to accept your choice.
But there were lots of mundane and even funny names. The mundane/funny names didn't make through the Holocaust.

Then you have a selection pressure. If you were a jew and neither wealthy or well connected, you would became a victim of the many "pogroms". You couldn't just travel somewhere else of buy your way out.

The Western Jews relocated to East Europe during the Black Death pandemics, because Western Europe was becoming a shit-hole fast and the locals were restless.
In Eastern Europe they were allocated (by law) their own class, above the bourgeoisie and below the nobles. And that arrangement basically survived till the WW2.

[wm]

If i understand well, 840 millions are only the sums of the taxes for 1938 and 1989. Are these figures useful to estimate the jewish wealth in 1938/9 ?

According to an estimation made by the Reichsbank in 1938 the entire stock of Jewish wealth invested in Germany was between 2.2 and 5.15 billion Reichsmarks. According to the Finance Ministry 7.1 billion.
Anything better is unlikely to be found. Factories/shops don't have fixed prices, you have to sell them on an open market to get their true value. And they weren't sold, but confiscated.

Many saved their whealth this way. Swiss banks especially benefited this, but it was so also in UK and USA.

This is the usual nonsense pushed by the Holocaust industry. Those benefited who were able to use their services to save their wealth.
Without those banks their wealth would directly benefit the Nazis.

[DavidFrankenberg]

If i understand well, 840 millions are only the sums of the taxes for 1938 and 1989. Are these figures useful to estimate the jewish wealth in 1938/9 ?

According to an estimation made by the Reichsbank in 1938 the entire stock of Jewish wealth invested in Germany was between 2.2 and 5.15 billion Reichsmarks. According to the Finance Ministry 7.1 billion.

Any source please ?


Donald Niewick , The Jews in Weimar Republic, 1980, p.12-18 :

75% of them made their living from trade, commerce, banking, and the professions, especially medicine and law (...) about 25% of the non jewish population was similarly employed. Professed jews were 0.9% of the population, they held more than 3.5% of all positions in trade.
More than 61% of all gainfully employed Jews were engaged in some from of trade or commerce, 50% were self-employed and 75% retailers. (...) in 1930 jews owned 4.000 (40%) of wholesale textiles firms, nearly 60% of all wholesaleand retail clothing businesses were in jewish hands (...) around 25% of all wholesalers of agricultural products were jewish (...) jews were also importyant in the wholesale metal trades and the retail grocery business.
(...) in 1932 department stores owned by jews accounted for 79% of all business done by such enterprises.
(...) almost half of all private banks were owned by such famous jewish families like the Mendelsson, Bleichröders and Schlesinger (...) jewish managers inc luded some of the largest and most successful of the credit banks : Arthur Salomonson directed the Disconto-Gesellschaft and engineered its fusion with the Deutsche bank just before his death in 1930, thus creating the DD bank (...° the equally important Dresdner Bank was directed by Eugen Gutmann till 1925 and after that by Henry Nathan. JAkob Goldschnmidt direktor of the Darmstadt and National Bank (...)
(...) the largest of the silesian iron and steel concerns was directed until 1930 by Leo Lustig (...) more than 50% of the upper silesian industry was owned or diretced by Jews before 1933.
(...) in the publishing industry were jews unquestionably leaders. The two largest publishing houses in Germany, the Ullstein and Mosse concerns, published large numbers of books magazines newspapers
(...) jews were 11% of germany's doctors, more than 16% of german'ys lawyers, and notaries public, and 13% of its patented attorneys.
(...) between 1923 and 1930 the jewish share of the metal trade dropped from 72% to 57% (...) the scrap metal trade was a virtual jewish monopoly

It appears they were leaders in many fields. How many $$$ was it ? I have found some figures in Richard Evans Third Reich that i wd post later.

[DavidFrankenberg]

Following Richard Evans Third Reich, chapter "Aryanization" :
Tietz family owned 58 department stores in the country with 31.500 employees and 128 millions RM of revenues.
Wertheim family possessed 7 department stores with 10.500 employees and 128 millions of RM of revenues.
Tietz business is aryanized in 1934 ; the family sold her parts for 1.2 million of RM.
Wertheim business is aryanized in 1938 only ; the boss transfered the property of the business to his aryan wife, avoiding aryanization.
The jewish stores survived despite the boycott decreted by the nazis. Indeed many Germans kept on buying in jewish stores, they just changed their habits : going in another town in order not to be recognized and denounced by anybody. In 1936 even Göring was going in a jewish shop to buy some things. There were queues in front of some jewish shops. Evans asserts that the boycott of jewish shops was a failure.
The most famous brand shoes was Salamnder which was owned at 50% by a jewish family who sold their parts for 1 million of RM in 1933.
In Hamburg, there were more than 1500 of jewish businesses specialized in import/export.
25% of private banks were owned by jews in Germany.

In 1933 there was like 100.000 jewish businesses in Germany. In 1938, there was 30.000 jewish businesses. In 1939, i guess they were no more ?
In 1932 Brüning taxed at 25% the outflow of capital ; in 1933 it made less than 1 millon, in 1936 it made 45 millions, in 1938 it made 80 millions and in 1939 342 millions. If we consider that the outflow is the only consequence of the aryanization of the economy, it would imply that the jewish businesses' value was like 666 millions of RM.

Evans add that the Deutsche Bank alone earned several millions by deducting only 2% of the aryanization operations. He doesnt give the precise number.

[Gorque]

Hi David:

The tax imposed upon the captal assets of those emigrating from Germany was not fixed in rate, but increased as time progressed. The rate of tax reached 96% by 1939.

[DavidFrankenberg]

Thank you for the correction Gorque.

[wm]

Any source please ?

It's from The Wages of Destruction.