Expropriation

Since early 1937 the Nazi regime had considerably increased the political and economic pressure on the Jewish population. The political framework of this process was the four-year plan, the purpose of which was to prepare Germany's economy for war. It was in this connection that the expropriation of Jewish assets took place. In spring 1938 Hermann Göring issued a decree obliging all Jewish citizens of the German Reich to draw up a detailed overview of their assets.

Jewish citizens had to enter details of all land and buildings, cash, securities, life insurance policies, works of art, jewelry and precious metals in their possession on official forms. From then on this information served the authorities as a basis for the "Aryanization" of Jewish businesses and the systematic despoliation of Jewish property after the Night of Broken Glass.

_{Form for registering assets of Jewish citizens, 1938 (Berlin, Landesarchiv)}

As of 1933 the basis of livelihood of Germany's Jewish population was systematically eroded. Many customers of Allianz also had to draw on their financial reserves. In most cases they first stopped paying premiums and finally cancelled their policies in order to convert them into cash. They needed the money to cover their daily needs, but also to pay special levies or finance their emigration.

In this way a large number of Jewish customers had already surrendered their life insurance policies themselves by 1939. However, if a life insurance policy is cancelled before its maturity date the income of both the insured and the insurance company is reduced. In such cases the surrender value is payable and this was considerably lower than the face amount that would have been payable at the end of the term that had actually been agreed upon. This applied in particular if the policy had only run for a few years so that only few premiums would have been paid.

Statistics show that there was a rapid increase in policies surrendered in 1938 and 1939. After the Pogrom Night of November 1938 both the state and the Nazi party finally went over to the radical plundering of the Jews. Many Jewish customers now instructed their insurers to pay the surrender value of their cancelled policies directly to the tax authorities. In this way they attempted to pay the compulsory state levies and astronomical taxes that were imposed on emigrants.

_{Cover page of an Allianz Leben life insurance policy belonging to a Jewish customer.}

The National Socialist government created the legal basis for the direct sequestration of assets as early as 1933. It promulgated the “law on the confiscation of assets of enemies of the people and the state” (Gesetz über die Einziehung volks- und staatsfeindlichen Vermögens). It defined the conditions under which the state could deprive persons who had been declared enemies of the state of German citizenship. The property of these denaturalized persons was then confiscated by the state. In this way life insurance policies were also expropriated.

The authorities also applied these regulations in order to sequester the assets of Jewish citizens after they had emigrated. After emigration these people were denaturalized and any of their assets that remained in Germany confiscated.

Finally, in 1941, the regime decided to confiscate all Jewish assets once and for all. The 11th Verordnung zum Reichsbürgergesetz (ordinance on the Reich citizenship law) determined that the property of Jewish citizens who left Germany permanently fell to the state.

At this point in time almost all Jews who had not already emigrated were deported to concentration camps in Eastern Europe. According to Nazi logic they had therefore left Germany and forfeited their German citizenship. All their assets were then seized by the state.

Furthermore, the ordinance obliged all individuals, banks and insurance companies to notify the state of any assets of denaturalized persons they had in their custody. These assets then had to be paid over to the tax authorities.

_{Allianz life insurance policy}