HUMHIS22 | NAZI GERMANY

SPRING 1943
The Fabrik-Aktion and events at
Rosenstrasse
Devi Pillay
5/16/2014

Devi Pillay

Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................... 2
Context: intermarriages in Nazi Germany .................................................................. 2
Fabrik-Aktion ............................................................................................................ 4
Rosenstrasse protest................................................................................................... 6
Memorialisation......................................................................................................... 8
Analysis .................................................................................................................... 9
Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 12
Notes on citation...................................................................................................... 13
Bibliography............................................................................................................ 13

Devi Pillay

Introduction
The arrest of some 2000 privileged Jews, Jewish men married to Aryan women,
sparked a street protest in Berlin in 1943 an event unique in Nazi history, in which there
was very little explicit protest (specifically by ordinary citizens) against the regime. In this
paper I will analyse the origins of the protest (how it came to be), the story of the protest
(historical inconsistencies) and the consequences of the protest (if it had any lasting results). I
will attempt to answer the question: Why did the protest at Rosenstrasse take place, when
no other public opposition occurred in Nazi Germany?
These events are situated in a broader debate about the existence of resistance within
Nazi Germany, the compliance of the German people and the extent of the control of the
NSDAP on the population. Understanding the events at Rosenstrasse give us a more nuanced
perspective on compliance in Nazi Germany, as I will analyse below.
The Fabrik-Aktion and the Rosenstrasse protests have been sadly under-studied in
Nazi Germany scholarship. I will make use of Nathan Stoltzfuss work Resistance of the
Heart: intermarriages and the Rosenstrasse protest in Nazi Germany as well as Wolf
Gruners The Factory Action and the Events at the Rosenstrasse in Berlin: Facts and Fictions
about 27 February 1943 Sixty Years Later. It is important to note that prominent historians
disagree on the historical record not on interpretation, but often on the sources and research
themselves. I will make these disputes clear as I come across them in chronology.

Context: intermarriages in Nazi Germany

The conception and implementation of the final solution the cleansing of Germany
of all Jews was rife with questions and problems about how a Jew should be defined. The
Nuremberg Laws of 1935 set out detailed categories and requirements, regulating who was a
Jews and who was not. A Jew was defined as a person with three or four Jewish
grandparents; two or one rendered a person a Mischling. This categorisation had nothing to
do with the religion leaning of individuals, but rather was based on the racial eugenicist
ideology of the Nazi regime. All Jews were stripped of citizenship and rights by these laws.
Even so, the question whether to include Jews in mixed marriages proved problematic and
remained an important part of discussion among Nazi leadership 1.

Stackelberg, p. 265

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Given the long history of persecution against Jews in Germany, mixed households

were used to discrimination and social alienation. Nevertheless, marriages between Germans
categorised as Aryans and Jews did take place and increased over time; by 1933, 44% of all
Jews (self-defined according to religion at the time) who married, married Gentiles2. This
trend rapidly decreased after the Nazi consolidation of power, as Germany became
increasingly hostile towards Jews and the tide of anti-Semitic propaganda rose.
Intermarriages were heavily discouraged by the regime, and a bevy of regulations was aimed
against intermarried Germans, including sanctions against employment and/or promotions
(which were picked up by most private industries, as well), and reduced rations and welfare.
Intermarriage was seen as pollution of the Aryan race and an abominable act
according to the Nazi ideology of blood purity. The Nuremburg Laws enacted in 1935
prohibited all further mixed marriages as well as sexual intercourse between people of
different racial heritages (known as Rassenschande, racial defilement or pollution), but did
not dissolve existent ones a concession to the Church and in deference to religious sanctity
of marriage3.
Jewish women married to German men were considered "Aryan" households and
were designated by Hitler in 1938 as privileged intermarriages. Jews in privileged
intermarriages did not wear the Star of David, and very few were arrested during the Final
Roundup. Jewish men married to Germans, on the other hand, were called Jewish
households. These men from nonprivileged intermarriages wore the Star of David and were
arrested in the Fabrik-Aktion. 4
The regime encouraged citizens to divorce their Jewish partners and to denounce
Jewish family members through mass propaganda and social pressures, as well as
regulations: they faced employment sanctions, reduced rations and welfare, police threats and
even arbitrary arrest5. Some did divorce their partners, but many remained in intermarried
households; approximately 98% of officially registered German Jews who outlived the
Holocaust in Germany, did so in mixed marriages 6.

Stoltzfus
Stoltzfus and Stackelberg p. 265
4
Stoltzfus
5
Stoltzfus
6
Stoltzfus
3

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As the machinery of the Holocaust began to pick up speed and mass deportations

were enacted in 1942, the question of what to do about Jews in mixed marriages came once
again to the forefront. At least since 1933, the Nazis considered intermarried Jews and
Mischlinge as their certain victims7, but they were described by Goebbels as exceedingly
delicate questions by 1942.8 Discussion of which categories to include in the final solution
took up about half the time of the Wannsee conference. Wilhem Stuckart, the Secretary of
State in the Interior Ministry, suggested dissolving all such marriages, but no decision was
reached. 9 Eventually, the question was deferred until after German victory.
Why were the Nazis reluctant to target intermarried Jews? The problem was a
complex one as it raised issues of public morale the possible reactions of Aryan spouses
and relatives would have to be taken into account10. In line with Hitlers famous theory that
"one cannot rule by force alone" and that ruling was a psychological problem, the Nazi
theory of power relied on the willing cooperation and consent of the German people. The
leadership preferred to convert citizens to their cause rather than coerce them, and were
unwilling to risk causing social unrest among intermarried Aryans and their relatives11.
Jews in mixed marriage were exempt from deportation. However, the regime used
other methods of persecution. Intermarried Jews and Mischlinge (people of mixed descent)
were often arrested on charges of infringement of regulations. Proof was obtained
beforehand by searching their homes, and they were often sent to labour camps for
punishment. From there, they would be sent to concentration camps such as Auschwitz or
Theresienstadt.12 Intermarried Jews did not live sheltered lives, but many were able to escape
the final solution due to their protected status.

Fabrik-Aktion
In February 1943, there were 35 246 Jews still living in Berlin, approximately 17 000
of which were working as forced labourers. 13 A total of 16,760 people lived in mixed
marriages in Germany proper, half of them in Berlin, which is around 6,000 Jews in

Stoltzfus
Stoltzfus
9
Stackleberg, p. 266
10
Sctaleberg
11
Stoltzfus
12
Schulle, p. 161
13
Schulle, p. 160
8

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"privileged mixed marriages" and around 2,800 in "nonprivileged mixed marriages 14 .The
deportation of Berlins Jews was problematic for the Nazi regime, as their labour in the
armaments industry was vital to the war effort. As noted before, Jews in intermarried
households were exempt from deportation. Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Ministry of
Propaganda had complained about this since 1941. However, as of February 1943 things
began to change. Goebbels wrote in his diary:
Now the Jews of Berlin will finally be deported. On February 28 they are to be assembled, first, in
camps and then deported in groups of up to 2,000 per day. My goal is to make Berlin completely free
of Jews [judenfrei] by mid-March, or by the end of March at the latest.15

The Fabrik-Aktion (Factory Action, also called the Schluaktion der Berliner Juden
Final Roundup of the Jews by the Gestapo) was a large scale raid carried out by the
Gestapo and the SS division Leibstandarte Hitler on 27 February. This marked the beginning
of the final phase of mass deportations (the biggest to take place since September 16 ), a
process initiated in October 1941. Thousands of Jews were arrested around the city, notably
in the factories where the forced labourers worked (hence Fabrik-Aktion), and rounded up at
various collection points. The armaments inspectorate noted a loss of 11 000 Jewish workers,
of which 8 658 were deported by the Gestapo that March17.
After the rounding-up of workers, some 2000 Jews in mixed marriages were separated
and transferred to a building at Rosenstrasse 2-4 the Jewish community's public and youth
welfare administrative centre18. Most of the workers held there were men married to Aryan
women19.
Historians disagree on why the intermarried Jews were arrested. Nathan Stoltzfus in
his book Resistance of the Heart and multiple other articles20 argues that they were rounded
up to be deported as part of the final solution and sent to death or labour camps. This
narrative is echoed in multiple newspaper articles and retellings of the Rosenstrasse story.
However, more recent scholarship argues otherwise: notably, Wolf Gruner (citing recently
unearthed documents from the Gestapo, Berlins local police, Jewish institutions, and the
14

Gruner p. 195
Quoted in Schulle p. 159
16
idem
17
Schulle 162
15

18
19

Schulle, Stoltzfus
See specifically Historical Evidence and Plausible History: Interpreting the Berlin Gestapo's
Attempted Final Roundup of Jews (also known as the Factory Action)
20

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Catholic Church, as well as early statements of survivors of 1945/4) argues that deportation
of these privileged Jews had never been part of the plan. Rather, Mischlinge and
intermarried Jews were arrested in order to be registered and reassigned to forced labour for
the Reich:
The RSHA guidelines of 20 February, operational for the last great deportation wave, provided
explicitly that the following groups of Jews were to be excluded from the transports: Jews in mixed
marriages, those Jewish spouses who were freed from having to wear the yellow star even though their
marriages had been terminated, as well as Geltungsjuden, that is Mischlinge (of mixed blood) Thus,
they were to be removed from industry and their "use," that is forced labor, was to be reorganized.
They were, however, not to be deported. 21

In addition to the RSHA guidelines unearthed by Gruner, further historical records

show that the popular narrative of a successful protest against deportation is inconsistent. It is
unlikely that these intermarried Jews were to be deported when such Jews were still protected
in France, Belgium and the Netherlands 22 . The popular legend, reinforced by Stoltzfus,
narrates that Goebbels intervened on March 6, releasing the prisoners, which is also
inconsistent with the historical record, which shows that releases began already from March
123.
Regardless of the true intentions of the arrest of intermarried Jews, the reasons for the
roundup were not transparent and most at that time assumed they were to be deported along
with the other Jews arrested in the Fabrik-Aktion 24 . Certainly, their wives believed their
husbands were to be deported to Auschwitz. These men were interned in the community
centre in Rosenstrasse under brutal conditions as they were registered and questioned about
their legal status as privileged Jews. They were not told why they had been arrested.

Rosenstrasse protest
When their husbands did not return home from work, women in intermarried
households began to worry and call around for information, contacting the police, community
centres and each other. Many received word via a telephone chain formed to warn one

21

Gruner 2003 195

Gruner 2005, p. 464
23
Idem
24
Gruner
22

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another of danger 25. These women hurried to Rosenstrasse to seek news of their husbands and
to bring them food and toiletries. Hundreds of women began to gather at the centre and call
out their demands to the guards there, protesting the arrests of their husbands and repeatedly
attempting to make contact with them. This spontaneous protest lasted for a week, day and
night, and grew as the week wore on.
Reports about the number of women at the protests vary widely, from as small a
number as 150 to estimates of about 2000 26 . Stoltzfus has his number at around 600.
Jocheim27 estimates that about 1000 women joined, but is also careful to note that, although
there was certainly a gathering, no demonstration or explicit protest action took place a
conclusion that Gruner and Evans 28 corroborate with their own evidence. Gruner quotes
Ursula Braun, a woman who participated in the protest 29:
"We didn't do anything at all in the Rosenstrasse. I walked up and down. One talked [...]. To be sure,
one also kept an eye on the gate in order to see whether anything was happening. But otherwise we
were unable to do anything but mill around or walk up and down. And at all times there were people
there. At times only a few, at times more, but at all times there was a noticeable gathering of people.
Thats what was amazing."

Other accounts, notably those in Stoltzfus, say that women actively demonstrated and
called for their husbands to be released. There is little consensus most accounts are
reconstructed from oral statements and vary widely. All accounts, however, do agree that SS
guards repeatedly attempted to disperse the protests and even threatened the women with
machine guns 30 . The women would scatter but would always return to the building at
Rosenstrasse.
Intermarried internees began to be released from March 1, and on March 6, when
three hundred prisoners from privileged groups were released, the protest dissipated. The
releases continued over the next few days until March 12 31. Twenty five men, however, were
accidentally deported from Rosenstrasse, even as others were being released to their
families. One of those men remembers that they drew the commissioners attention to the

25

Stoltzfus
Gruner 2003, p. 202
27
Quoted in Gruner 2003, p. 202
28
Evans, p. 160
29
Gruner 2003, p. 202
30
Gruner 2003, p. 203
31
Schulle, p. 165
26

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fact that [they] were in mixed marriagesa group of people to be released. He said, What do
you want? Youll be neither shot nor hanged. 32
These men were sent to Auschwitz-Monowitz to work for the Buna factory. After two
weeks of forced labour there they were returned to Berlin. Leadership worried that these men
would report on the conditions at Auschwitz, so they were interrogated and made to commit
to keeping silent.33 Kurt Blaustein, one of the men accidentally sent to Auschwitz, recalls:
an SS leader informed us that we had been involved in spying and treason but that they were
to be lenient and bring us back to Berlin. We all had to sign a corresponding declaration [of
silence].34 They were, however, not released back to their families but deployed at various
other sites of forced labour.
Many of the internees released in the first week of March were picked up again and
sent to forced labour camps after the protests were over (what Gruner argues was the plan all
along). Others were reassigned to fill the position of full Jews who had been deported as
part of the final roundup in order to keep Jewish institutions running smoothly. 35 No full
Jews were released.

Memorialisation
The building on Rosenstrasse was destroyed in an Allied bombing of Berlin near the
end of the war. In its place is a memorial: a rose coloured Litfa column (a free standing
column deriving its name from creator Ernst Litfa) 23 meters high, featuring information
about the protest. A mid 1980s sculpture by Ingeborg Hunziner (named Block der Frauen)
was erected in a park close to the site in 1995. It shows protesting women and the inscription:
"The strength of civil disobedience, the vigor of love overcomes the violence of dictatorship; Give us
our men back; Women were standing here, defeating death; Jewish men were free."

In 2003 a film named Rosenstrae by Margarethe von Trotta was released. The film
claimed to give a historically accurate account of the events at Rosenstrasse. Historian Beata
Meyer36 wrote a detailed analysis of the film and its inaccuracies, concluding that the film
32

Quoted in Schulle 165

Schulle 166
34
idem
35
Gruner 201
36
Geschichte im Film: Judenverfolgung, Mischehen und der Protest in der Rosenstrae
33

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was a projection of contemporary myth, largely sticking to the popular narrative that the
protests were large, explicit demonstrations and successful in having a major impact on the
plans of the regime. This narrative seems to have permeated most non-academic sources,
including newspaper articles, history blogs and references in popular culture. Most recent
scholarly work adapts the later findings that the intermarried Jews had always been intended
to be released.

Analysis
The release of most of the intermarried Jews and Mischlinge is often attributed to the
success of the Rosenstrasse protest. However, this interpretation depends on if we believe
that the men would otherwise have been deported, or if releasing them had always been part
of the plan. Indeed, Stoltzfus, who believes they would have been deported, concludes from
this that the Rosenstrasse protest was a wildly successful instance of public pressure on the
Nazi regime, and that more such protest and demonstration could have significantly slowed
down, or even stopped, the Holocaust. Gruner, Evans and Schulle are less optimistic,
believing that the release of the prisoners had always been intended and was not an example
of the success of public outcry. They point to recently uncovered documents and evidence as
discussed above.
Nevertheless, the Rosenstrasse protest was a singular event: the only incidence of
mass public protest against the Nazi regime. The women at Rosenstrasse believed their
husbands were to be sent to Auschwitz and publically protested this action, a courageous act
that should not be downplayed. They certainly made an impression on the regime. Goebbels
wrote in his diary that the protest was a disagreeable event and that "The people gathered
together in large throngs and even sided with the Jews to some extent. It is also interesting to
note that discussion about legislating divorce of these intermarriages was revived in March of
1943 37 . Clearly the marriages were still significant to the public and to the regime, and
divorce was still a pseudo legal condition for deportation.
Public demonstrations without prior police permission had been banned by law in
Germany since 1933 (For the Maintenance of Public Quiet and Security). By 1934 all mass
gatherings were banned except for "ancient, traditional processions and pilgrimages 38 ."

37
38

Gruner 2005, p 463

Stoltzfus

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Both Hitler and Goebbels were keenly aware of the power of mass protests. Such rallies were
important tools used by the Nazi regime, and Goebbels thought that we cannot have too
many demonstrations, for as a means of exhibiting and gathering mass support,
demonstrations were "far and away the most emphatic way of demonstrating one's will to
govern."39
Why did the protest at Rosenstrasse take place? No other explicit protests did. It is
hard to give a conclusive answer as the protest was neither organised nor even consciously a
demonstration. But the socio-political context of spring 1943 may shed some light on the
situation:
The protests took place in 1943 when public morale was waning. The Germans had
been defeated at Stalingrad and the war was taking its toll on the country; Germans began to
doubt that victory was inevitable. It is within this climate of doubt and fear that compliance
begins to fracture. Furthermore, those Germans who were members of mixed households
were used to noncompliance: they lived in constant resistance of Nazi ideology, even if they
were legally and pragmatically obedient. Intermarried Germans had shown resilience when
confronted with all other measures taken against them by the regime and by their neighbours.
It is also significant that this is one of the only groups with connections to Jewish Germans.
The social isolation and alienation of Jews in Germany was an important factor in distancing
the German population from the crimes committed against the Jewish people; the arrest of the
intermarried Jews at Berlin was an important moment when Aryan Germans were personally
impacted by the Holocaust.
The lack of opposition to the NSDAP has been a notable thread in the historiography
of Nazi Germany, most prominently in an ongoing debate about compliance and resistance
among the German people. To what extent did the Nazis have totalitarian control over their
citizens? Some historians hold that Hitler was the master of the Third Reich, enjoying total
support from the German people, and that total indoctrination existed in Germany under Nazi
German rule. Other hold that compliance with Nazi ideology was tenuous at best and
resistance and refusal to cooperate can be traced through the history of Nazi Germany.
Another historiographical debate is closely linked here the issue of anti-Semitism in Nazi
Germany. Historians such as Goldhagen (in his (in)famous work, Hitlers Willing
Executioners) claim that German citizens felt an eliminationism anti-Semitism. Others,
39

Goebbels quoted in Stoltzfus

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notably Kershaw, argue that most Germans were indifferent to the fate of the Jews, and that
anti-Semitism was remarkably unimportant to the everyday citizen.
Detlev Peukert and Ian Kershaw both drew distinctions between different types of
obedience and dissidence. Kershaws categories of dissent, opposition and resistance
differentiate between acts non-compliant with or counter to the regime (dissent and
opposition) and acts specifically meant to overthrow the regime (resistance). In Kershaws
view, there were many instances of dissent and opposition, but very few examples of
resistance to the regime. Kershaws work on the Bavaria Project characterises ordinary
citizens as the muddled majority, neither full-hearted Nazis nor outright opponents, whose
attitudes at one and the same time betray signs of Nazi ideological penetration and yet show
the clear limits of propaganda manipulation. 40 The major argument here is that most
Germans were not totally pro-Nazism, but more interested in the day to day affairs of their
own lives. Following from this, while most were anti-Semetic, they were mostly indifferent
(or, as Kulka would argue, passively complicit) to their fate and to the Holocaust.
The events at Rosenstrasse and, indeed, the continued existence of mixed marriages
and the protection of intermarried Jews give a more nuanced insight into this debate. The
exemption of intermarried Jews and Mischlinge from the final solution shows us that Nazi
leadership had a less than complete hold over its citizenry and was wary of causing social
unrest. It also shows us that the compliance of the German people was a necessary part of
Nazi rule, as the problematic nature of targeting their spouses makes clear. The dedication of
Aryan members of mixed households also shows that Nazi totalitarianism was far from
complete, as German women were willing to stay married to their Jewish husband and to
fight for their release when threatened. Opposition and protest were not unthinkable, as these
women were easily galvanised into action. Ultimately, we can see that the sole example of
explicit protest and opposition (not resistance, according to Kershaws typology), occurred
when the daily lives of citizens were impacted. Before, they had been largely (outwardly)
indifferent to the machinations of the Holocaust.
This also gives us another perspective on the historiographical debate over the place
of ideology in the final solution whether the Holocaust was a top-down, intentionalist plan,
or whether it came about as a functional process driven by various actors, competition and
structural factors. The exemption of intermarried Jews from deportation is a clear example of
40

Kershaw 2000, p. 89

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functional factors prevailing over ideology, as is the need to keep Jews working in the
armaments industry. Even as Goebbels and Hitler wanted to make Berlin judenfrei, practical
factors prevented them from doing so, practical factors which ultimately took precedence.

Conclusion
The events at Rosenstrasse are particularly interesting for modern historians to study.
The little scholarship there has been on the topic varies widely, and new discoveries (such as
the documents used by Gruner) have significantly changed our understanding of the FabrikAktion and the protest. The Rosenstrasse protest, even if it did not have a significant impact
on the plans of the Nazi party and the final solution, is an important example of courage and
dissent by German citizens. It paints a more nuanced picture of anti-Semetism and JewishAryan relations in Nazi Germany. Most significantly, this single instance of public protest
can give us a unique insight into the nature of German compliance with the Nazi regime, and
how opposition could be sparked and articulated.

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Notes on citation
There are some minor references without page numbers, specifically the citation of
Stoltzfuss Resistance of the Heart: intermarriages and the Rosenstrasse protest in Nazi
Germany. I have been working from an electronic copy of the book which does not have page
numbers (quotes are bookmarked for reference and available for cross checking).

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