Economic Entjudung in Nazi Europe,
1933-1945: Its Place in the Overall Nazi
Antisemitic Enterprise’
Dan Michman
Introduction
An important aspect of the investigations of the Independent Commis-
sion of Historians: Liechtenstein — Second World War (Unabhängige
Historikerkommission Liechtenstein Zweiter Weltkrieg), headed by
Peter Geiger and of which I was a member, touched upon economic
issues, especially regarding the Jewish victims of Nazi persecution.?
Though economic spoliation had been dealt with in one way or another
as from the early stages of research about the Holocaust (or Shoah, in
Hebrew), the work of the Liechtenstein committee triggered me to
rethink the place of the economic aspect in the overall picture of Nazi
anti-Jewish policies. This — the broader picture of the Shoah: its essential
features, the radicalization of persecutions and the broad variety of ide-
ological, cultural and social drives that made the implementation of the
Nazi antisemitic enterprise possible within such a short time (the Third
Reich existed only for twelve years) — is a topic which needs much con-
templation, because there is a considerable gap between commonly
accepted knowledge about the Shoah and its realities.’ Within this con-
text, I would like to tackle in this article the question whether the eco-
nomic aspect of Nazi anti-Jewish policies differed in some essential way
1 This article is an updated and much expanded version of a keynote address delivered
at the international conference “Spoliés! Aryanization and the Spoliation of Jews in
Nazi Europe (1933-1945)” which was convened in Grenoble, France, June 1-3,
2010; see: hutp://irice.univ-paris1.fr/spip.php ?article580.
2 For the final and partial reports of the committee see: Peter Geiger et al., Liechten-
stein in der NS-Zeit.
3 See Michman, The Jewish Dimension of the Holocaust in Dire Straits?; Michman,
“The Holocaust’ — Do We Agree What We Are Talking About?.
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