44: Boycotts and Discrimination
By Ian Kershaw Apart from the all-out assault on the Left in the first weeks of Nazi rule, many outrages had been perpetrated by Nazi radicals against Jews. Since antisemitism had been the "ideological cement" of the National Socialist Movement from the beginning, offering at one and the same time a vehicle actionism and substitute for revolutionary leanings threatening the fabric of society, this was scarcely surprising. The takeover of power by the arch-antisemite Hitler had at one fell swoop removed constraints on violence toward Jews. Without any orders from above, and without any coordination, assaults on Jewish businesses and the beating-up of Jews by Nazi thugs became commonplace. Countless atrocities took place in the weeks following Hitler's assumption to power. Many were carried out by members of the so-called Fighting League of the Commercial Middle Class (Kampfbund des gewerblichen Mittelstandes), in which violent antisemitism went hand in hand with equally vi...