Having stolen most of the Jewish wealth, which prevented Jewish people from maintaining their businesses or starting new ones, the Nazis next declared that only specific pawn shops could be used by the Jews to sell their jewelry, which it was no longer legal for them to own. In 1939, in return for their stolen wealth, the Nazis issued war bonds to the Jews that paid a small amount of interest, and would only be honored if Germany were to win the war that had begun on Septemwith Germany's invasion of Poland. That is when he came up with a diabolical plan to make it appear that German Jews were being treated fairly. This was Hitler's first step in fueling anti-Semitism, long before he made a move against Jewish lives, as Götz Ally explains in his probing and well-researched study of Nazi economic policy, Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State.įeedback from his ambassadors in other countries, however, made Göring realize that Germany would be harshly criticized if perceived to be outright stealing the Jewish community's assets. Hitler pointed to their wealth in order to pit many economically stressed German citizens against German Jews. Due to this discrimination, many Jews adapted by turning to entrepreneurship and some had become quite successful by the twentieth century. Persecution of European Jews was widespread during the Crusades, beginning in 1095, when Jewish communities along the Rhine and the Danube were massacred. Anti-Semitism had a long history in Europe: it was largely influenced by the Christian belief perpetuated in the Middle Ages that the Jewish people were collectively responsible for the death of Jesus. The Nazis considered German Jews "a foreign race"-but they were also very interested in their wealth.
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