Many of the antisemitic measures executed by the Nazis were specifically aimed at Jewish-owned property and included the business boycott of April 1933, the destruction of residential buildings and stores during the pogrom of November 1938, and the ‘Aryanization‘ of real estate, business premises, and companies. The attacks on personal and family privacy resulting from forced entry into homes and the barely disguised looting and expropriation of property were invariably intended to hurt and humiliate the victims besides causing material damage.
By promoting the armaments industry at the expense of the housing industry and making structural changes to the cities, the Nazis themselves caused a enormous housing shortage that continually generated new demand. From 1935 on, building cooperatives and the Reich League of German House and Land Owners denied membership to Jews and also tried to rescind existing tenancy agreements.
Municipal authorities turned their attention to Jewish homes as early as February 1938 and considered making space for non-Jewish residents by crowding Jews together in confined spaces. The ‘Ordinance on the Registration of Jewish Assets’, enacted on April 26, 1938, facilitated the registration of Jewish property prior to its expropriation; it was then expropriated using the ‘Ordinance Regarding the Utilization of Jewish Assets’ of December 3, 1938, as the legal instrument. In his capacity as General Plenipotentiary of the Four-Year Plan, Hermann Göring referred to Adolf Hitler’s decision on the ‘accommodation of Jews’ as early as December 28, 1938: although their tenancy protection had not yet been withdrawn, it was considered “desirable [...] for Jews to be brought together in one building”. To do this, it was not necessary to ‘Aryanize’ the house as such; the ‘Aryanization of housing’ was expected to take place at the end of the “overall Aryanization process” (Göring, cited in Benz, p. 632). In many cases, Jews were evicted from their homes immediately after the pogrom.
The ‘Law on Renting to Jewish Tenants’ promulgated on April 30, 1939 and the implementing ordinance of May 4, 1939 provided a means of evicting Jews from their homes. Landlords no longer had to observe the statutory notice periods if ‘alternative accommodation’ was available for their Jewish tenants. The municipal administration forced Jewish house and apartment owners and Jewish tenants to sublet to other Jews. ‘Jewish living conditions’ and ‘Jewish living space’ were meticulously registered and regulated by the authorities.
Municipal housing offices, house owners and even estate agents collaborated in the ‘de-Jewification’ of ‘Aryan’ houses and apartments. By the end of 1939, this coercive measure had caused 900 apartments to be taken from their Jewish residents in Munich alone; the ‘Aryanization Office‘ then offered this living space to non-Jewish tenants. When allocating prestigious apartments, preference was given to Nazi Party functionaries, Wehrmacht officers and artists courted by the Nazis. 337 ‘Jew apartments’ were taken over by new occupants between May 1, 1941 and April 30, 1942 alone. By June 1943, the ‘Aryanization Office’ in Munich had reassigned 1430 apartments previously occupied by Jews, 330 of which were Jewish-owned.
The Jews evicted from these apartments were crammed into so-called ‘Jew houses’. These included not only Jewish-owned houses and apartments but also Jewish community buildings such as educational institutions, prayer rooms, retirement homes, hospitals, and even cemetery halls. In view of the relatively small number of German Jews and the fact that they had already been excluded from the Nazi ‘people’s community’, e.g. by enforcing ‘race laws’ and the obligation to use Jewish forenames, the Nazi rulers did not consider it necessary to segregate the Jews in their own city quarters. In the Third Reich, the ’Jew houses’ performed the function of miniature ghettos, which despite being scattered throughout the city, made it easier to maintain control of the Jews by segregating them from the Nazi ‘people’s community’ and concentrating them in extremely confined spaces. By the fall of 1941, some 1430 apartments had been removed from Jewish possession. In some cases, the inhabitants were forced to give up their homes within a few hours and then burdened with the cost of renovations. The city address books of that time still give sobering insights into the overcrowding of the ‘Jew houses’.
According to a report by the municipal housing department, there were only 45 apartments in non-Jewish houses that were still occupied by Jews at the end of April 1941; many Jews had been compelled to move into 264 apartments in mostly Jewish-owned houses, some of whose owners had already emigrated. There are presumed to have been around two dozen ‘Jew houses’ in Munich at the end of 1941, encompassing more than 300 apartments. One apartment was often shared by four or five families. The living conditions were degrading: hopelessly overcrowded with insufficient heating, a lack of sanitary facilities, and no privacy whatsoever. The loss of their own homes, which in previous years had often served as their last refuge from Nazi persecution, was a massive attack on the Jewish people. According to the Israelite Religious Community, there were almost 1500 Jews living in ‘Jew houses’ in August 1941. Most of them were women, who were often elderly and left completely destitute after being despoiled by the Nazis – since it was considerably easier for men to find host countries willing to accept them as emigrants on the strength of their professions and better financial standing.
Munich’s ‘Jew houses’ were located at addresses such as Franz-Joseph-Straße 15, Galeriestraße 30, Goethestraße 66, Jakob-Klar-Straße 7, Kaiser-Ludwig-Platz 1, Leopoldstraße 42 and 52, Maria-Theresia-Straße 23, Thierschstraße 7, Triftstraße 9, and Widenmayerstraße 39 and 41. There is still no complete list of all the ‘Jew houses’ in Munich and no scholarly monograph on the subject even today.
The inhabitants of the ‘Jew houses’ were often only there for a short time, since they were taken to transit camps before their final deportation. They were deported from either the ‘Home for Jews‘ at the Convent of the Sisters of Mercy in Berg am Laim, which had space for approx. 275 people, or the Jew Camp in Milbertshofen‘, which could accommodate up to 1100 people. The ’Aryanization’ of living space from 1938/39 on and the deportations beginning in 1941 caused around 3000 apartments to fall vacant in Munich.
