“Expatriated”: The Unwelcome Opponents of the Nazi Regime
Thousands of volunteers are now working on the crowdsourcing initiative #everynamecounts and digitizing an extraordinary collection: the “expatriation card file” used by the Nazis to document the people they deprived of German citizenship from 1933 on. As a rule, the people concerned were Jews forced into exile or well-known critics of the regime, such as the Mann family of writers (photo). The Nazis made almost 40,000 people stateless by revoking their citizenship.
The Arolsen Archives and the German National Library’s German Exile Archive 1933-1945 have now made the “expatriation card file” available online for digitization at #everynamecounts. Thanks to the work of volunteers on the crowdsourcing platform, the fates of expatriated Germans will soon be online and available to the public for research. By launching this project, the institutions aim not only to remember the names and stories of these people, but also to enable research projects on Nazi expatriation to be undertaken.
The history of the expatriation card file
Beginning in July 1933, the National Socialists deprived tens of thousands of people of their German citizenship on the basis of the so-called Expatriation Law. It came into force a few months after the transfer of power to the NSDAP and was directed predominantly against Jews and political opponents. The police, the SS, the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and the Foreign Office coordinated expatriations and published lists of the names of expatriated Germans in the “Deutsche Reichsanzeiger,” the official gazette of the regime.
The “Reichsanzeiger” of July 12, 1940: On this day alone, the Nazis announced the expatriation of 171 people in all. Photo: Public Domain Mark 1.0, available here.
How the documents ended up in the German Exile Archive
From 1938 on, the Nazis collected the data of expatriated German citizens in a card file which the authorities were to use as a reference book. The “Deutsche Bücherei” (German Library – now known as the German National Library) received a deposit copy and updated it continuously until 1944. The Library used the card file as a tool to create the so-called Judenkartothek (a card index on Jews). The index was supposed to include the names of all German-Jewish authors so their works could be excluded from the canon of German literature. Today, the card file on expatriation is kept in the collection of the German Exile Archive 1933-1945.
Legal tool and huge source of revenue
The law on the withdrawal of citizenship constituted not only a practical legal tool that could be used against undesirable persons, but also a steady source of income for the Nazi government: by law, the possessions of all expatriated persons became the property of the “Reichskasse” (Reich treasury). By steadily tightening the criteria for expatriation, the Nazis managed to confiscate vast fortunes. From the end of 1941, anyone who was living outside the borders of the German state automatically lost their citizenship – this included all the people who had been deported to the extermination camps in the east.
The tortuous paths of the stateless in exile
Most of those who were expatriated had left Germany at an early stage – such as Jewish banker and art patron Hugo Simon and his wife, who left for Paris in 1933. They were in danger not only because of their Jewish ancestry, but also because of their politics. In France, Hugo Simon started a new career as a financial broker and supported German resistance in exile. In 1937, he and his wife were deprived of their German citizenship. When Paris came under German occupation in June 1940, the couple fled to Marseille. The Nazis confiscated their flat and took most of their valuables and part of their art collection back to Germany.
The situation became very dangerous for the Simons as it was no longer possible to leave without the correct papers. They finally managed to escape to Brazil via Spain in February 1941, using false passports. They continued to live under a false identity in exile, which entailed many a problem. The Exile Archive keeps the Simons’ estate today.
They preferred to expatriate Albert Einstein themselves
The expatriated Germans included many famous personalities. After all, there were a lot of successful creative artists and scientists who criticized the regime and, thanks to their prominence, reached a wide audience. Nobel prize winner Albert Einstein, for instance, had taken a stand against the Nazis early on. Shortly after the transfer of power, Einstein – who was staying in the USA at the time owing to a teaching assignment – applied to be expatriated himself. The German authorities rejected his request – only to expatriate him themselves officially and with great public effect one year later.
The record for Albert Einstein in the “expatriation card file”: He lost his citizenship on 24.3.1934. Photo: The German National Library’s German Exile Archive 1933-1945
» If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare me a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will declare that I am a Jew. «
Albert Einstein, from the collection of “Jewish Jokes" by Salcia Landmann
Erika Mann
… was a well-known German actress, cabaret artist and writer. She used her literary-political cabaret “Die Pfeffermühle” (The Pepper Mill) and numerous talks and essays to express her opposition to National Socialism. That is why her German citizenship was taken from her in June 1935. In 1936, the Nazi regime expatriated her father Thomas Mann, a Nobel Prize for Literature Laureate, and other members of their family.
