Billy Joel’s Family Forced to Sell Their Business During the Nazi Era
How Josef Neckermann profited from the “Aryanization” of the Jewish-owned textile manufacturing company Karl Joel
In the early 1930s, the Karl Joel textile and clothing company in Nuremberg was one of the leading businesses in the industry. But when the Nazis began systematically excluding Jews from economic and public life in Germany, Karl Amson Joel, grandfather of well-known American musician Billy Joel, was forced to sell his business to mail-order retailer Josef Neckermann for far less than it was worth. The story of the Joel family shows how non-Jewish companies profited from the persecution and expropriation of Jewish families.
“Germans! Defend Yourselves! Don’t buy from Jews!” – a boycott of Jewish businesses was launched under this slogan on April 1, 1933. Once the Nazis came to power in Germany, they began forcing Jews out of economic life. When the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” was enacted on April 7, 1933, many Jewish doctors and lawyers lost their licenses, while civil servants who were classified as “non-Aryan” by the Nazis were forced into retirement. Arbitrary arrests and violent attacks followed, often targeting prominent Jewish businesspeople.
Under these circumstances, more and more Jewish business owners found themselves forced to shut up shop and sell their property to non-Jewish buyers for much less than it was worth. Approximately 100,000 shops and businesses were Jewish-owned in 1933, but by 1938, that number had fallen by two-thirds – due to closures, transfers of ownership, and forced sales to non-Jewish buyers.
From the fall of 1938 onward, the Nazi regime used various pieces of legislation to systematize the exclusion and dispossession of the Jewish population. For example, the “Decree on the Elimination of Jews from German Economic Life,” issued on November 12, 1938, prohibited Jewish-owned companies from operating retail stores, mail-order businesses, or trade businesses. From that point on, Jews were no longer allowed to run a commercial enterprise or hold a managerial position. The Nazi regime appointed a non-Jewish trustee to every remaining Jewish business to oversee its forced sale to a non-Jewish buyer.
Antisemitic smear campaign against Karl Joel
Nuremberg textile entrepreneur Karl Amson Joel was one of the many Jewish businessmen who fell victim to “Aryanization.” Together with his wife Meta, the grandfather of the famous American singer and pianist Billy Joel had opened a mail-order business and a textile and clothing company in Nuremberg in 1928. Karl Joel had bed linens, aprons, and work clothes made in his modern sewing workshop, and the business was extremely successful. His textile and clothing company soon became one of the most important businesses in the industry.
This drew him to the attention of Julius Streicher, the Nazi Party’s regional leader in Franconia, who set his sights on destroying the successful Jewish businessman. Streicher was the editor of the antisemitic tabloid newspaper “Der Stürmer” and had organized the “Judenboykott,” the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses throughout the Reich. He publicly denounced Karl Joel as the “prototype of the criminal Jew” and used the derogatory epithet “Wäschejude Joel” (literally “laundry Jew Karl Joel”) to refer to him in his hate-filled tabloid.
Hoping to escape Streicher’s antisemitic tirades and local anti-Jewish public sentiment, Karl Joel moved his company’s headquarters to Berlin in 1934. He rented buildings in Berlin-Wedding for packing and shipping his textiles. It took 160 railroad cars to transport all the merchandise and equipment to the German capital. The family moved into a villa in Berlin-Charlottenburg. The couple’s son Helmut was 9 years old at the time.
Karl Joel was forced to appoint a managing director who was classified as “Aryan” according to the Nazis’ racist criteria. Packages from the Joel textile and clothing company had to be marked with a “J” for “Jew,” and soon afterwards, the Jewish-owned company was no longer allowed to advertise in newspapers.
Forced sale for less than the company’s value
In 1938, Karl and Meta Joel left Germany. They initially emigrated to Switzerland, where their son Helmut attended a boarding school. The Joels had to sell the business in Berlin and the sewing workshop in Nuremberg for far less than they were worth. The purchase price was ultimately set at 2.3 million Reichsmarks. The buyer was mail-order retailer Josef Neckermann.
Nazi party member Josef Neckermann had already purchased other “Aryanized” businesses by that time and unilaterally reduced the purchase price to 1.14 million Reichsmarks, which he paid into a trust account in Berlin. The textile and clothes company “Wäschemanufaktur Karl Joel” was renamed “Wäsche- und Kleiderfabrik Josef Neckermann Textilversandhaus.”
However, the Joel family – now in Switzerland – waited in vain for the money to be paid out. In March 1940, two years after their emigration, the Nazis expatriated the Joels. The Nazi regime used the formal act of expatriation to strip political opponents – especially Jews – of their citizenship.
The Joel family in the expatriation card file
As announced in the “Deutsche Reichsanzeiger,” the official gazette of the Nazi regime, the National Socialists stripped the Jewish Joel family of their German citizenship on March 13, 1940. Their personal details are included in the expatriation card file. This card file is part of the “expatriation card file” and belongs to the collection of the German National Library’s German Exile Archive 1933–1945.
From business profiteer to war profiteer
While Karl, his wife, and his son, were living in poverty in a one-room apartment in Zurich, waiting to leave the country, Josef Neckermann took over the Joel family’s villa in Berlin, complete with furniture and a chauffeur. The business thrived, especially once the war broke out, because Neckermann started making work clothes for forced laborers and winter uniforms for the Wehrmacht. Adolf Hitler awarded him the War Merit Cross, 1st Class, for his contribution to the war effort.
Long after the war had ended, Josef Neckermann still expressed pride in his “achievements.” In archival film footage, he describes “Special Program A” which produced clothing for foreign forced laborers as “absolutely magnificent.” With reference to the prisoners who sewed clothing for the Neckermann company, in various concentration camps, including Theresienstadt, he has been quoted as saying: “We were convinced we were doing something good for them.” During denazification proceedings in 1948, he was classified as a “follower.”
Flight to Cuba
In 1938, the Joels managed to flee to Cuba via England. They were hoping to be reunited with Karl’s brother Leon and his wife Johanna there. But Leon and Johanna were traveling on the passenger ship St. Louis, which was originally bound for Cuba, but was forced to return to Europe after a weeks-long and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to find a port where its passengers could disembark.
A new start in the USA
Karl, Meta, and Helmut Joel managed to obtain visas for the U.S. and they emigrated to New York. The family had to rebuild their lives from nothing and began selling handmade hair bows to department stores. Helmut was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943 and fought against Nazi Germany as a GI. He returned to the United States after the war and got married in New York. He went on to have two children, Judith-Anne and William Martin, who later became known as Billy Joel.
After the war, Karl and Meta Joel spent years fighting a legal battle against the mail-order entrepreneur Josef Neckermann. In 1959, they won compensation amounting to two million Deutschmarks. In 1964, they returned to Nuremberg – by then, Karl was 75 and Meta was 71. They are buried at the New Jewish Cemetery in Nuremberg, along with their son Helmut, who died in 2011.
Bibliography:
Steffen Radlmaier, Billy & The Joels. Der amerikanische Rockstar und seine deutsche Familiengeschichte. 3. Auflage 2024, ars vivendi verlag GmbH & Co. KG
Die Akte Joel, Dokumentarfilm von Beate Thalberg, 2001.