Statutory prescriptions and the increasing pressure of a Party-inspired boycott have forced three out of every four Jewish lawyers to leave the bar since January, 1933. According to official statistics just released, there remain 1,700 Jews, among the 17,360 lawyers now practising throughout the Reich. When Hitler assumed power five years ago, Jewish lawyers numbered about 7,000.
Viewed in terms of “Aryanization,” there is no question of the signal victory achieved in the legal field by the National Socialist Party. With Jewish lawyers dropping out at the current rate of about 500 a year, it will only be a short time before the profession is almost 100 per cent “Aryanized.” But if what the Nazis wanted — and many of their leaders have so declared themselves – was to give an “Aryan” a job for every one lost by a Jew, then their achievement in the legal profession has been less impressive.
The fact is that while 5,300 Jewish attorneys have been driven out of their profession in the last five years, the total number of lawyers throughout the Reich has also decreased by at least 3,000. It is evident that some 2,300 Jewish attorneys have not been replaced by “Aryans” or anyone else, but have simply disappeared from the legal scene.
Informed observers read into these figures not only the wrecking of Jewish participants in the profession, but a decline in the profession as a whole since the Nazis came into power. While no exact statistics are available as to the earning power of lawyers, there is reason to believe that with many of them, business is poor and becoming poorer.
The situation may be ascribed to several factors. In the first place, the police power under any dictatorship is inflated to the point where, in many instances, the police are a law unto themselves. Under such circumstances the opportunities for the defendant to acquire a lawyer are limited and the need of the state for one is minimized. A case in point is the famous “Volksgerichtshof” or Peoples’ Tribunal of the present regime, where the president of the court must approve defendant’s choice of counsel and may even replace him at will during the course of a trial. Such procedure, of course, stifles free competition among attorneys; only those with sound Party records are chosen.
Another important factor is the “Schiedsgerichte,” or Arbitration Courts, set up under the present regime within practically every commercial, professional, industrial and trade association or group. Many of these Arbitration Courts dispense with lawyers altogether. Their primary purpose – they are not official state courts – is to keep internal association matters out of public litigation so far as is possible.
Whatever the general situation of lawyers, there is no question as to the increasing distress of the Jewish ones. Legally their status was clearly defined in the first few months of the Nazi regime when all were disbarred who (1) had not fought in the front lines in the war or (2) were not practising attorneys before 1914. Subsequent regulations have barred Jewish attorneys from the right of appointment by the state to defend poor prisoners and in many districts, of the right to practice before Labour Courts.
From January to June, 1933, during the first fierce attack on Jewish life by the Nazis, some 4,000 Jewish lawyers were disbarred or forced to retire for one reason or another. Since that time no large scale legal onslaught has been made against Jewish attorneys. Yet so thorough and efficient has been the extra-legal officially-inspired boycott that since June, 1933, some 1,300 more Jews have given up any attempt to earn a living in the legal profession – at least in Germany.
National Socialist regulations forbid party members or civil servants or any kind to use Jewish lawyers. In the provinces “Aryans” generally eschew them either by choice or through fear. In the Larger cities there is undoubtedly a proportion of the better known Jewish attorneys who are still doing well and who even may have many “Aryan” clients. But it is probable that in many instances the Jewish attorneys biggest civil practice arises from the business troubles of his compatriots, who need help in winding up their affairs.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
