Carl Goerdeler and the Jewish Question, 1933-1942.pdf

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Carl Goerdeler and the Jewish Question, 1933–1942

In the 1930s, Carl Goerdeler, the mayor of Leipzig and, as prices

commissioner, a cabinet-level official, engaged in active opposition

against the persecution of the Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe. He

did this openly until 1938 and then secretly in contact with the British

Foreign Office. Having failed to change Hitler’s policy against the Jews,

Goerdeler joined forces with military and civil conspirators against the

regime. He was hanged for ‘treason’ on 2 February 1945. This book

describes the actions of Carl Goerdeler, the German Resistance leader,

who consistently engaged in efforts to protect the Jews against perse-

cution. Using new evidence and thus-far underresearched documents,

including a memorandum written by Goerdeler at the end of 1941 with

a proposal for the status of the Jews in the world, the book fundamen-

tally changes our understanding of Goerdeler’s plan and presents a new

view of the German Resistance to Hitler.

Peter Hoffmann is William Kingsford Professor of History at McGill

University, Montreal. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Service

Medal of the state of Baden-Württemberg (Germany), the Officer’s

Cross of the Order of Merit (Germany), and the Konrad Adenauer

Research Award. He is the author of books on the German Resistance

including

The History of the German Resistance 1933–1945

(1977),

Hitler’s Personal Security

(1979),

German Resistance to Hitler

(1988),

and

Stauffenberg: A Family History, 1905–1944

(1995, 3rd ed. 2009).

Carl Goerdeler and the Jewish

Question, 1933–1942

Peter Hoffmann

McGill University