Official circular – “Secret” regulations concerning the exclusion of Jews from all areas of life in Nazi Germany ...

Official circular – “Secret” regulations concerning the exclusion of Jews from all areas of life in Nazi Germany, the dispossession of their property, and racial segregation. Hanover, February 1939

"Rundschreiben 20/39 – Subject: Jews" - Circular No. 20 for the year 1939, Subject: Jews. Issued by the National Socialist German Workers’ Party – South Hanover – Brunswick, District Headquarters – “Secret.” An official circular reporting on decisions made by the Führer (Adolf Hitler) following recommendations by Hermann Göring and signed by Martin Bormann – concerning new restrictions on the Jews of Hanover and its surroundings in matters of property and mixed marriages. Dated February 9, 1939, the circular was intended to implement these regulations in this region.

Among the regulations listed: to act so that Jews are concentrated in a single building; priority to be given to Aryanization (the transfer of property, businesses, and assets owned by Jews into “Aryan” hands) of Jewish-owned businesses and shops, agricultural lands, and forests. Restrictions on the use of train cars by Jews; limitations on their access to bathhouses, spas, and public squares; reduction of pension allowances for Jews; Jewish-held patents are to be classified as “assets” and will now also be subject to Aryanization. Regarding mixed marriages – the Jewish party’s property is to be transferred to the Aryan spouse. Furthermore: “Families are not to be temporarily housed in Jewish residences, as the children will be required to serve in the labor service and in the Wehrmacht, and they must not be exposed to Jewish incitement.” If the German wife of a Jew divorces him, she reverts to the status of a person of German blood and all restrictions on her are annulled. And more.

These regulations represented an especially advanced and institutionalized stage in Nazi Germany’s anti-Jewish policy, a stage in which persecution no longer consisted merely of violence, boycotts, or symbolic legislation, but was now expressed through a comprehensive bureaucratic regulation of all aspects of Jewish life, as a conscious preparation for complete exclusion from the economic, social, and public spheres. Following Kristallnacht in November 1938, and in light of decisions made at the highest levels of the regime by Adolf Hitler based on proposals by Hermann Göring, a policy was formulated aimed at physically concentrating Jews, socially isolating them, and systematically eliminating their independent economic existence in Germany. The clustering of Jews into shared buildings was intended not only to streamline control and supervision, but also to release “Aryan” apartments for the use of the German population, constituting an early step in urban ghettoization. The prioritization of Aryanization of businesses, shops, agricultural lands, and forests aimed to exploit Jewish property for the benefit of the Reich, through the orderly transfer of assets into German hands—often at coerced prices or through legal confiscation. The inclusion of Jewish patents as assets subject to Aryanization extended the policy’s reach even further, so that knowledge, innovation, and intellectual property rights were also defined as property to be severed from their Jewish owners and placed at the disposal of the German economy. The regulations concerning mixed marriages were in fact the core of racial ideology: the transfer of property from the Jewish partner to the “Aryan” side, the revocation of all rights from the Jew, and the reinstatement of the divorced German woman’s status as a “person of German blood, ” free from all restrictions, while severing all ties between her and her Jewish spouse. The stipulation that German families must not be temporarily housed in Jewish residences, due to the fear of “Jewish influence and incitement” - particularly in light of the children’s future service in the labor corps and the Wehrmacht - underscored the perception of Jews as an ideological and educational threat. This set of regulations, phrased in cold administrative language, illustrates how Nazi antisemitism evolved from a policy of discrimination and persecution into a comprehensive system of dispossession, isolation, and conscious preparation for future deportation. It marks a decisive stage in the transformation of the Jews in Germany from discriminated citizens into a population whose legal, economic, and social status was almost entirely dismantled—even before the outbreak of the war.

[3] Leaf. Filing holes. Good condition.