Democracy Destroyed The First 100 Days of Nazi Rule

Day 47, Friday 17 March 1933: Berlin's state commissioner orders the dismissal of Jewish doctors from city hospitals

Day 47 of 100

Berlin’s state commissioner orders the dismissal of Jewish doctors from city hospitals

Julius Lippert, the Nazi state commissioner for Berlin, ordered that the contracts of doctors denounced as ‘Jewish Communists and Social Democrats’ be terminated at the city’s hospitals. Hugenberg suspended Ernst Wagemann, head of the Statistical Reich Office, and the decrees creating the Propaganda Ministry and the double flag were published. That evening Kurt Gerron’s comedy Heut’ kommt’s drauf an, starring Hans Albers, had its premiere at the Gloria-Palast.

Portrait of a heavy-set man with tousled dark hair, wearing a dinner jacket and bow tie.
Kurt Gerron in a publicity portrait of 1928. The director of Heut’ kommt’s drauf an was murdered at Auschwitz in 1944. For context Unknown author Unknown author. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Lippert’s order reached into the medical staffs of the capital’s municipal hospitals. It was presented as a response to complaints from the new commissarial district mayors, who told him that at most municipal hospitals 80 to 90 per cent, in some cases all, of the doctors were ‘Jewish Communists and Social Democrats’. The figures were their own assertion, and the report gives no basis for them; the phrase joined antisemitism to the campaign against the left. The contracts of ‘all these doctors’ were to be terminated at the earliest possible date.

Laws and decrees

Politics and power

Government, terror and persecution

  1. Persecution Berlin

    Lippert orders dismissal of Jewish doctors at municipal hospitals

    Lippert, who intended to reshape the medical staffs of Berlin’s municipal hospitals, received a group of commissarial district mayors who complained that most hospital doctors were ‘Jewish Communists and Social Democrats’. He instructed that the contracts of all these doctors be terminated at the next possible date. The day before, on his orders and with the authority of the Prussian Interior Ministry, the Communist city councillors Salzsieder and Herz had been arrested as they entered the city hall.2,9

  2. Economy Berlin

    Head of the Statistical Reich Office suspended

    Hugenberg, as Reich Economics Minister, suspended Ernst Wagemann, president of the Statistical Reich Office, and his deputy Wohlmannstetter. Wagemann also lost the direction of the Institute for Business Cycle Research. The official explanation cited disagreement on essential questions of economic policy and political friction inside the office.3

  3. The states Berlin; Breslau

    Göring brings the Prussian police officers into line

    After Göring addressed the delegates’ conference of the Association of Prussian Police Officers, the meeting was suspended; within an hour the association’s committee voted unanimously to turn it into a ‘comradely association’ of Prussian police officers. In Breslau the SA troop leader Rolle, sentenced by the Gleiwitz special court to seven years’ penal servitude for attempted manslaughter, was released from prison. Hitler flew from Tempelhof to Munich at 15:47.4,5

  4. Churches

    A ‘Greater German League of Conservative Catholics’

    A ‘Greater German League of Conservative Catholics’ was founded under the motto ‘Cross and Eagle’, with the stated aim of strengthening the national consciousness of German Catholics and supporting the building of the ‘coming Reich’.6

Everyday life

What else was happening in Germany

  1. Film evening, Berlin, Gloria-Palast, Kurfürstendamm

    Heut’ kommt’s drauf an opens at the Gloria-Palast

    Kurt Gerron’s musical comedy Heut’ kommt’s drauf an, about rival dance bands competing for a ‘golden saxophone’ in Berlin, had its premiere at the Gloria-Palast. Hans Albers and Luise Rainer played the leads, with music performed by the Weintraub Syncopators. Gerron, who was Jewish, emigrated in 1933; he was deported from the Netherlands to Westerbork and Theresienstadt and murdered at Auschwitz on 28 October 1944.7,8

  2. Transport Khartoum

    Young pilot Carl Schwabe reaches Khartoum

    The young German pilot Carl Schwabe arrived in Khartoum on his flight through Africa, having flown from Cairo along the Nile over the Nubian Desert to Wadi Halfa without an intermediate landing.4

Elsewhere in the world

  • Czechoslovakia

    Germany retaliates against a Czechoslovak payments block

    Berlin announced that Czechoslovakia had, without consultation, blocked the transfer of all payments to Germany except through collective accounts at Czechoslovak banks, and that Germany was responding with counter-measures of its own.9

More pictures

Portrait of a man with round spectacles and a small moustache, wearing a pinstriped suit and striped tie.
The economist and statistician Ernst Wagemann, suspended as president of the Statistical Reich Office on 17 March 1933. For context Robert Sennecke Internationaler Illustrations-Verlag / Agence Mondial. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
A cinema entrance lit up at night, with the name Gloria-Palast in lights above glass doors and two motor cars at the kerb.
The entrance of the Gloria-Palast on the Kurfürstendamm at night in 1927, advertising the film Küss mich noch einmal. Heut’ kommt’s drauf an had its premiere here on 17 March 1933. For context illustratie Het Leven 1927. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sources

  1. Deutscher Reichsanzeiger und Preußischer Staatsanzeiger, 18 March 1933 Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, Deutsches Zeitungsportal, p. 6, Reichsverlagsamt notice: RGBl. I Nr. 21, issued 17 March 1933
  2. Dorstener Volkszeitung, 19 March 1933 Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, Deutsches Zeitungsportal, p. 5, CNB reports 'Berlin, 17. März': dismissal of hospital doctors; arrest of KPD councillors
  3. Erzgebirgischer Volksfreund, 18 March 1933 Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, Deutsches Zeitungsportal, p. 1, suspension of Professor Wagemann and Dr Wohlmannstetter
  4. Bergedorfer Zeitung, 17 March 1933 Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, Deutsches Zeitungsportal, p. 3, Göring at the police officers' conference; 'Karl Schwabe überquert die Nubische Wüste' (Berlin, 17 March)
  5. Biberacher Zeitung, 18 March 1933 Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, Deutsches Zeitungsportal, p. 11, Hitler's flight to Munich; release of SA troop leader Rolle (Breslau, 17 March)
  6. Süddeutsche Zeitung (Stuttgart), 17 March 1933 Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, Deutsches Zeitungsportal, p. 1, founding of the 'Großdeutscher Bund konservativer Katholiken'
  7. Heut kommt’s drauf an (1932/1933) filmportal.de (Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum), Uraufführung (DE) 17.03.1933, Berlin, Gloria-Palast; credits and synopsis
  8. Kurt Gerron filmportal.de (Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum), Biography: emigration in 1933, Westerbork, Theresienstadt, murdered at Auschwitz 28.10.1944
  9. Ohligser Anzeiger, 18 March 1933 Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, Deutsches Zeitungsportal, p. 2: Lippert and the hospital doctors; arrests at the city hall; 'Zahlungssperre gegenüber der Tschechoslowakei' (Berlin, 17 March)

Spotted a mistake? Send a correction.

Tip: use the left and right arrow keys to move between days.