Effie Engel
Effie Engel was born in Dresden in 1921. She came from a working-class family who had close links with the German Communist Party (KPD) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP). In 1933 her father was a victim of the violent tactics of the Sturmabteilung (SA): "In 1933, I was twelve years old. I noticed that something had changed when my father came back from a large metal workers demonstration directed against the Nazis. Like many of the demonstrators, he was horribly beaten up by the SA. The metal workers association had called the demonstration to protest Hitler's seizure of power. I can still remember that when he came home all black and blue, my mother cursed up a storm because he had gone there in the first place." (1)
Growing up in Nazi Germany
Adolf Hitler held very strong opinions on education. All school textbooks were withdrawn before new ones were published that reflected the Nazi ideology. Additional teaching materials were issued by Nazi teachers' organizations in different parts of the country. A directive issued in January 1934 made it compulsory for schools to educate their pupils "in the spirit of National Socialism". Children were encouraged to go to school wearing their Hitler Youth and German Girls' League uniforms. School noticeboards were covered in Nazi propaganda posters and teachers often read out articles written by anti-semites such as Julius Streicher. (2)
Teachers who did not support the Nazi Party were sacked. One girl who successfully left Nazi Germany when she was sixteen later wrote: "Teachers had to pretend to be Nazis in order to remain in their posts, and most of the men teachers had families which depended on them. If somebody wanted to be promoted he had to show what a fine Nazi he was, whether he really believed what he was saying or not. In the last two years, it was very difficult for me to accept any teaching at all, because I never knew how much the teacher believed in or not." (3)
Effie Engel pointed out: "The progressive teachers in our school all left and we got a number of new teachers. In my last two years of school, we got some teachers who had already been reprimanded. The fascists allowed them to be reinstated if they thought they were no longer compromised by anything else. But I also knew two teachers who never got a job again in the entire Hitler period.... One of the new teachers was in the SA and came to school in his uniform. I couldn't stand him. In part, we couldn't stand him because he was so loud and crude." (4)
Her uncle had been active in the Social Democratic Party and he was arrested in 1933: "During his interrogation he was supposed to testify about who his comrades were, but he only told them that they wouldn't get anything from him. And so, amongst other things, the Nazis broke all of his fingers... they beat him up terribly. After this they sent him to Hohenstein, to the concentration camp, and he was held there for about a year and a half... All kinds of harassment and beatings went on there too." (5)
Great pressure was put on young girls to join the German Girls' League (BDM) and by 1936 it had a membership of over 2 million. (6) In some industrial areas girls had some success in not joining the BDM. Effie Engel lived in Dresden: "We were constantly getting enlistment orders in school for the BDM. You were supposed to report and join up... In our area we had a lot of workers, left-wing oriented workers, there were many students in my class who said that they preferred sports and that they would never join up. In the end, almost half the class refused to join. So my class succeeded in this. But that hardly was possible for the classes after us, as they were put under a lot of pressure to join." (7)
Kristallnacht
Ernst vom Rath was murdered by Herschel Grynszpan, a young Jewish refugee in Paris on 9th November, 1938. At a meeting of Nazi Party leaders that evening, Joseph Goebbels suggested that night there should be "spontaneous" anti-Jewish riots. (8) Reinhard Heydrich sent urgent guidelines to all police headquarters suggesting how they could start these disturbances. He ordered the destruction of all Jewish places of worship in Germany. Heydrich also gave instructions that the police should not interfere with demonstrations and surrounding buildings must not be damaged when burning synagogues. (9)
Heinrich Mueller, head of the Secret Political Police, sent out an order to all regional and local commanders of the state police: "(i) Operations against Jews, in particular against their synagogues will commence very soon throughout Germany. There must be no interference. However, arrangements should be made, in consultation with the General Police, to prevent looting and other excesses. (ii) Any vital archival material that might be in the synagogues must be secured by the fastest possible means. (iii) Preparations must be made for the arrest of from 20,000 to 30,000 Jews within the Reich. In particular, affluent Jews are to be selected. Further directives will be forthcoming during the course of the night. (iv) Should Jews be found in the possession of weapons during the impending operations the most severe measures must be taken. SS Verfuegungstruppen and general SS may be called in for the overall operations. The State Police must under all circumstances maintain control of the operations by taking appropriate measures." (10)
A large number of young people took part in what became known as Kristallnacht (Crystal Night). (11) Erich Dressler was a member of the Hitler Youth in Berlin. "Of course, following the rise of our new ideology, international Jewry was boiling, with rage and it was perhaps not surprising that, in November, 1938, one of them took his vengeance on a counsellor of the German Legation in Paris. The consequence of this foul murder was a wave of indignation in Germany. Jewish shops were boycotted and smashed and the synagogues, the cradles of the infamous Jewish doctrines, went up in flames. These measures were by no means as spontaneous as they appeared. On the night the murder was announced in Berlin I was busy at our headquarters. Although it was very late the entire leadership staff were there in assembly, the Bann Leader and about two dozen others, of all ranks.... I had no idea what it was all about, and was thrilled to learn that were to go into action that very night. Dressed in civilian clothes we were to demolish the Jewish shops in our district for which we had a list supplied by the Gau headquarters of the NSKK, who were also in civilian clothes. We were to concentrate on the shops. Cases of serious resistance on the part of the Jews were to be dealt with by the SA men who would also attend to the synagogues." (12)
Demonstrations against the Jews also took place in Dresden. "Just across from us there was a small fabric store that had a Jewish owner. You knew that because of his name. I was still an apprentice at the time of the Kristallnacht, when the Nazis, especially the SA, went around the city destroying all the shops. And those of us in our office were in the immediate vicinity when we watched them smashing up that shop over there across from us. The owner, who was a small, elderly man, and his wife were intimidated and just stood by and wept.... After this the shop was closed. They had stolen everything and cleared it out, and then the two Jews were picked up and they disappeared and never showed up again." (13)
Primary Sources
(1) Effie Engel, interviewed by the authors of What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany (2005)
In 1933, I was twelve years old. I noticed that something had changed when my father came back from a large metal workers demonstration directed against the Nazis. Like many of the demonstrators, he was horribly beaten up by the SA. The metal workers association had called the demonstration to protest Hitler's seizure of power. I can still remember that when he came home all black and blue, my mother cursed up a storm because he had gone there in the first place. At the time she was very nonpolitical. So that was actually my first impression of the new era.
(2) Effie Engel, interviewed by the authors of What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany (2005)
The progressive teachers in our school all left and we got a number of new teachers. In my last two years of school, we got some teachers who had already been reprimanded. The fascists allowed them to be reinstated if they thought they were no longer compromised by anything else. But I also knew two teachers who never got a job again in the entire Hitler period.... One of the new teachers was in the SA and came to school in his uniform. I couldn't stand him. In part, we couldn't stand him because he was so loud and crude.
(3) Effie Engel, interviewed by the authors of What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany (2005)
We were constantly getting enlistment orders in school for the BDM. You were supposed to report and join up. But my mother always said, "You'll be sorry if you go." And since in Ubiger we had a lot of workers, left-wing oriented workers, there were many students in my class who said that they preferred sports and that they would never join up. In the end, almost half the class refused to join. So, my class succeeded in this. But that hardly was possible for the classes after us, as they were put under a lot of pressure to join....
And then, after 1936, I was an apprentice and I only went to school twice a week. The rest of the time I was working in a small factory. The boss, who had previously been a manual worker, and was in the SA and always came to work in a uniform, continuously asked me why I wasn't in the BDM. My answer always was that it didn't interest me because I was an enthusiastic athlete and I practiced every day. And, in fact, this was true.
In the department where I worked later on, my boss was a former SPD man and another man working there was a former communist and had been in Hohenstein concentration camp. So there was no pro-fascist atmosphere there and that suited me fine. Still there was one guy, the air raid warden, who was said to have denounced a lot of former workers holding leftist opinions. He was a very nasty individual.
(4) Effie Engel, interviewed by the authors of What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany (2005)
Just across from us there was a small fabric store that had a Jewish owner. You knew that because of his name. I was still an apprentice at the time of the Kristallnacht, when the Nazis, especially the SA, went around the city destroying all the shops. And those of us in our office were in the immediate vicinity when we watched them smashing up that shop over there across from us. The owner, who was a small, elderly man, and his wife were intimidated and just stood by and wept.
One of my colleagues and I then said to our boss, who was a Nazi, "Well, Herr Klose, do you think this is right? We think it's outrageous." We basically put him under a bit of pressure. And then he said, "I can't approve of that either." Even he thought that things had gone too far.
After this the shop was closed. They had stolen everything and cleared it out, and then the two Jews were picked up and they disappeared and never showed up again. I didn't know them personally. I only knew them by sight.
Student Activities
Adolf Hitler's Early Life (Answer Commentary)
Heinrich Himmler and the SS (Answer Commentary)
Trade Unions in Nazi Germany (Answer Commentary)
Adolf Hitler v John Heartfield (Answer Commentary)
Hitler's Volkswagen (The People's Car) (Answer Commentary)
Women in Nazi Germany (Answer Commentary)