page_title: Aryanization
section_title: Kristallnacht
hierarchical_section_title: Aryanization / Nazi Germany / Kristallnacht
caption_attribution_description: עברית: מפעל משפחת פרופר בטפליצי, צ'כיה
context_page_description: Aryanization was the forced expulsion of Jews from business life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. It entailed the transfer of Jewish property into "Aryan" hands in order to "de-Jew the economy".
  The process started in 1933 in Nazi Germany with transfers of Jewish property and ended with the Holocaust. Two phases have generally been identified: a first phase in which the theft from Jewish victims was concealed under a veneer of legality, and a second phase, in which property was more openly confiscated. In both cases, Aryanization corresponded to Nazi policy and was defined, supported and enforced by Germany's legal and financial bureaucracy.
  Before Hitler came to power Jews owned 100,000 businesses in Germany. By 1938, boycotts, intimidation, forced sales and restrictions on professions had largely forced Jews out of economic life. According to Yad Vashem, "Of the 50,000 Jewish-owned stores that existed in 1933, only 9,000 remained in 1938."
  Michael Bazyler writes that "[t]he Holocaust was both the greatest murder and the greatest theft in history"; between $230 and $320 billion was stolen from Jews across Europe.
context_section_description: After the "Kristallnacht" pogroms, the pressure of Aryanization was drastically increased.  On 12 November 1938, Jews were forbidden to function as business managers, forcing Jewish owners to install "Aryan" surrogates.  These people, who were often promoted by the party, first took over the office, and soon thereafter usually the whole business.  "Compliant Aryans" (Gefälligkeitsarier) were threatened with punishment according to the Regulation against Complicity with the Camouflage of Jewish Firms (22 April 1938).  Because the Jews were burdened with heavy payments as "atonement" for the damage done by the SA and antisemitic mobs during Kristallnacht, the selling off of Jewish property was only a question of time.  On 3 December 1938, the value of Jewish landed property was frozen at the lowest level, and valuables and jewels were permitted to be sold only through state offices.  The impoverishment of the Jewish population caused by Aryanization often stood in the way of its goal — of promoting emigration through persecution — because those affected lacked the means to emigrate.  They became victims of the Final Solution.  Aryanization combined the racial motives of National Socialism with traditional antisemitic resentments within the middle classes (Mittelstand) and the expansionist tendencies of big business.  The fear of being too late to share in the booty produced a fateful coalition of greed, so that little opposition to Aryanization arose.  After the war, the Federal Republic of Germany paid some restitution for the material losses.
  Many important businesses were sold and re-sold in the course of the process, some of which (such as the Hertie department store) played an important role during the post-war Wirtschaftswunder years in West Germany. Victims who were murdered by the Nazis in the camps were deprived of their last remaining property such as gold teeth, wedding rings, hair and all clothing. Body cavities were also searched for any hidden valuables by the Sonderkommando.
  In a broader sense, the term Aryanisation is sometimes used to refer to eviction of Jewish scientists and people engaged in the cultural sector.
caption: Jewish-owned factory in Teplitz-Schönau, Sudetenland
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