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ABSTRACT
Incorporating space methodology and combining it with gender studies, this article looks at how German-Jewish men, in a space-specific environment, prewar Nazi concentration camps, came to adjust their understandings and practices of masculinity. The paper argues that performing pre-learned forms of military masculinity inside the camps vis-à-vis Nazi personnel, while simultaneously maintaining conventional gender norms in their letter exchanges to their families and spouses in the outside world, were of fundamental importance. Jewish men’s ability to adjust their practice of masculinity represented a defiant attempt of survival and control over their lives under an increasingly oppressive regime.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. See for instance Nils Roemer, German City, Jewish Memory: The Story of Worms (Brandeis University Press, 2010).
2. Simone Lässig and Miriam Rürup, eds. Space and Spatiality in Modern German-Jewish History (New York: Berghahn Books, 2017); and Michael Meng, Shattered Spaces: Encountering Jewish Ruins in Postwar Germany and Poland (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010).
3. Philipp Nielsen, “Book Review,” German History 36, no. 3 (2018): 464–466; and Jay Geller, “Book Review,” German Studies Review 41, no. 3 (2018): 654–656.
4. Sybil Milton, “Women and the Holocaust: The Case of German and German-Jewish Women,” in When Biology Became Destiny, eds. Renate Bridenthal, Atina Grossmann and Marion Kaplan (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1984); and Joan Ringelheim, “Genocide and Gender: A Split Memory,” in Gender and Catastrophes, ed. Ronit Lentin (London: Zed Books, 1997), 23.
5. Kim Wünschmann, Before Auschwitz: Jewish Prisoners in the Prewar Concentration Camps(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015), 102.
6. Nikolaus Wachsmann, “The Dynamics of Destruction: The Development of the Concentration Camps, 1933–1945,” in Nazi Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany: The New Histories, eds. Nikolaus Wachsmann and Jane Caplan (London: Routledge, 2009), 28.
7. Kim Wünschmann, “Männlichkeitskonstruktionen jüdischer Häftlinge in NS Konzentrationslagern,“ in Männlichkeitskonstruktionen im Nationalsozialismus: Formen, Funktionen und Wirkungsmacht von Geschlechterkonstruktionen im Nationalsozialismus und ihre Reflexion in der pädagogischen Praxis, eds. Anette Dietrich and Ljiljana Heisse (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2013), 235.
8. Wünschmann, Before Auschwitz, 43.
9. Technically, SS guards had no legal authority to kill camp prisoners unless it was used for the prevention of an escape. Guards, therefore, fabricated on death certificates that the perished prisoner was trying to escape.
10. For a comprehensive account of prisoner reports, see Ben Barkow, Raphael Gross and Michael Lenarz, eds. Novemberpogrom 1938: Die Augenzeugenberichte der Wiener Library London (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2000).
11. If known, I included the years of birth and death of the actors discussed in this essay. Though gender is a vital component of identity formation, it intersects with other categories such as age. When German-Jewish men negotiated forms of military masculinity in the NS-camps, for instance, age mattered. For instance, Jewish men of advanced age had a harder time to endure the physical and excruciating torture in the camps.
12. Herbert Luft, “Report,“ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, RG10.028, 5–6. Trans. S. Huebel.
13. Hans Reichmann, Deutscher Bürger und verfolgter Jude: Novemberpogrom und KZ Sachsenhausen 1937–1939, ed. Michael Wildt, trans. S. Huebel (Munich: Oldenbourg,1998), 120..
14. Christopher Forth, Masculinity in the Modern West. Gender, Civilization, and the Body (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008), 69.
15. Jane Caplan, “Gender and the Concentration Camps,” in Nazi Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany: The New Histories, eds. Nikolaus Wachsmann and Jane Caplan (London: Routledge, 2009), 99.
16. For works on masculinity in Nazi Germany, see Thomas Kühne, Kameradschaft: Soldaten des nationalsozialistischen Krieges und das 20. Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006); and Christopher Dillon, “‘Tolerance means weakness’: the Dachau Concentration Camp S.S., Militarism and Masculinity,” Historical Research 86, no. 232 (2013): 386.
17. See George Mosse, The Image of Man (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
18. Anonymous, “B194,“, in Novemberpogrom 1938: Die Augenzeugenberichte der Wiener Library London, eds. Ben Barkow, Raphael Gross & Michael Lenarz (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2000), 654. The abbreviation B likely stands for Bericht, or report. Trans. S. Huebel.
19. Wünschmann, “Die Konzentrationslagererfahrungen deutsch-jüdischer Männer nach dem Novemberpogrom 1938,“ 54.
20. Dillon, “Tolerance means weakness,” 388.
21. Alfred Schwerin, Memoirs, Leo Baeck Institute New York (from now on LBINY), ME593 MM69, 36. Trans. S. Huebel.
22. Ibid., 46. Trans. S. Huebel.
23. Harvey Newton, „Erinnerungen an das KZ Buchenwald Nov. – Dez 1938,“ LBINY, MM II22, 6. Trans. S. Huebel.
24. Anonymous, “B82,” in Novemberpogrom, 496. Trans. S. Huebel.
25. Anonymous, :B175,“ in Novemberpogrom, 551.
26. Harry Ross, “Interview Transcript,“ Gedenkstätte Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen, 8.
27. Anonymous, “B340,” in Novemberpogrom, 635.
28. Karl Guggenheim, quoted in Gregory Caplan, “Wicked Sons, German Heroes: Jewish Soldiers, Veterans and Memoirs of World War I in Germany,” (PhD diss., Georgetown University, 2001), 313.
29. Franz Memelsdorff, “Erinnerungsbericht,“ in Im KZ: Zwei jüdische Schicksale, 1938/1945, ed. Angelika Benz (Frankfurt: Fischer, 2012), 38.
30. Schwerin, Memoir, 87.
31. Marion Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
32. Alan Steinweis, Kristallnacht (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009).
33. Anna-Madeleine Halkes-Carey, “Jewish Masculinity in the Holocaust,” (PhD diss., Royal Holloway College, University of London, 2014), 10.
34. Frederick Weil, “Justitia Fundamentum Regnorum: Mein Leben vor und nach dem 33. Januar 1933,“ LBINY ME671 MM80, 82.
35. Max Abraham, Juda Verrecke. Ein Rabbiner im Konzentrationslager, trans. S. Huebel (Teplitz-Schönau: Verlagsanstalt, 1934), 138.
36. Otto Schenkelbach, ”Letter to Father, September 11, 1938,” Schenkelbach/Feldbau Collection, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (from now on USHMM), AC2006.359.1. Trans. S. Huebel.
37. Max Tabaschnik, “Königsstein,“ in Konzentrationslager: Ein Appell an das Gewissen der Welt. Ein Buch der Greuel. Die Opfer klagen an. Dachau, Brandenburg, Papenburg, Königstein, Lichtenstein, Colditz, Sachsenburg, Moringen, Hohnstein, Reichenbach, Sonnenburg (Karlsbad: Verlagsanstalt Graphia, 1934), 49.
38. Beate Kosmala, “Jüdische Väter zwischen Ohnmacht und Überlebenskampf“ (paper presented at Carlebach Conference, Hamburg, Germany, May 10, 2014).
39. Günther Rosenthal, “Letter to his wife,“ Sammlung Günther Rosenthal, Jewish Museum Berlin, Doc. No. 87/1/147.
40. Felix Fechenbach, Mein Herz schlägt weiter. Briefe aus der Schutzhaft, ed. Walter Victor (Passau: Alexander-Haller Verlag, 1987), 12–13. The manuscript was originally published in 1936 by the Kultur Verlag St. Gallen. Supposed to be transferred to Dachau in August 1933, Fechenbach was murdered by SA/SS men in a forest.
41. Kreszentia Mühsam, Der Leidensweg Erich Mühsams (Zurich: Mopr Verlag, 1935), 25.
42. Ludwig Marum, Briefe aus dem KZ Kislau, eds. Elisabeth Marum-Lunau and Jörg Schadt, trans. S. Huebel (Karlsruhe: Müller Verlag, 1988), 50.
43. Ibid., 74.
44. Ibid., 77 and 82.
45. Anonymous, “B253,” in Novemberpogrom 1938, 663. Similar letters to the Kinderkommittee or the Royal Family in the Netherlands include ‘B260,’ and ‘B262.’ ‘B279’ explicitly refers to imprisoned, unemployed men and starving children. Trans. S. Huebel.
46. Hirsch Schulmann, “Letter from Dachau to Daughter, 15 January 1939” Sonja Schulmann Schwartz Collection, USHMM AC1993.124.19.
47. See also my upcoming article “Conceptualizing Gender and Fear: German-Jewish Masculinities in the Third Reich and the Dread of the Unknown,” History of Emotions, eds. Michael Pickering and Thomas Kehoe (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2019).
48. Marum, Briefe aus dem KZ Kislau, 68. Trans. S. Huebel.
49. Julius Einstein, “Letter to his children,” Julius and Selma Einstein Papers, USHMM, AC1998.162.1. Trans. S. Huebel.
50. Benjamin M. Baader, Gender, Judaism and Bourgeois Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007); Benjamin M. Baader, “Jewish Difference and the Feminine Spirit of Judaism in mid-19th century Germany,” in Jewish Masculinities: German Jews, Gender, and History, eds. Benjamin M. Baader, Sharon Gillerman and Paul Lerner (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012).
51. Carl Schwabe, “Memoir,” LBINY, ME586 MM68, 80. Trans. S. Huebel.
52. Hans Reichmann, Deutscher Bürger und verfolgter Jude: Novemberpogrom und KZ Sachsenhausen 1937–1939, ed. Michael Wildt (Munich: Oldenbourg,1998), 223.
53. Max Behrendt, “Briefe,“ in Was bleibt, ist Hoffnung. Eine Briefdokumentation aus Brandenburger Konzentrationslagern, Zuchthäusern und Gefängnissen der NS-Zeit 1933–1945, eds. Kurt Adamy, Werner Wölk and Hans-Joachim Wolff (Potsdam: Brandenburgische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung, 1995), 140–141.
54. Tabaschnik, “Königstein,” 105.
55. Falk Pingel, “Social Life in an Unsocial Environment: The Inmates’ Struggle for Survival,” in Nazi Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany: The New Histories, eds. Nikolaus Wachsmann and Jane Caplan (London: Routledge, 2009), 69.
56. Caplan, “Gender and the Concentration Camps,” 83.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Sebastian Huebel
Sebastian Huebel finished his doctorate at the University of British Columbia in 2017. His dissertation concentrates on German-Jewish masculinities in Nazi Germany. Sebastian has published a gender study of Victor Klemperer’s diaries in Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal and “Disguise and Defiance: German Jewish Men and Their Underground Experiences in Nazi Germany, 1941–45 in Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies in 2018. His latest article ‘Conceptualizing Gender and Fear: German-Jewish Masculinities in the Third Reich and the Dread of the Unknown’ was published in the edition Fear in the German Speaking World, 1600–2000 (Bloomsbury, 2020). His main areas of interest include 20th-century Germany, gender, social and cultural history and the history of the Holocaust. He teaches at the University of the Fraser Valley and Alexander College in Vancouver, Canada.