JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
I have opened dozens of thousands of pamphlets over the years, and usually the only thing that happens is that the pamphlet opens. On very rare occasions, something will fall out. Today, that happened twice, within minutes: two pamphlets with two falling business cards. The first business card was the bigger surprise--it came with the card owner's short work, Economic relations and Economic Equilibrium, Address by Dr. Otto Christian Fischer, (presented at the 9th Congress of the International Chamber of Commerce, Berlin, June 30, 1937).
The engraved card identifies Fischer as "Verstandsmitglied der Reichs-Kredit-Gesellschaft"
Fischer (1882-1953 (?)) approached the National Socialists and Hitler as early as 1931, at which point he seems to begin his rapid and lofty ascent to the heights of Nazi banking. Seven years later:
- “...when the National Socialists began to collect Jewish assets in the course of the "Aryanization"1, it was also about blocking the assets of bank deposits against the access of the owners."
- “Fischer made no resistance to these measures in his area of the Reichsgruppe, nor did he delay such actions."
- “He also took no initiatives. He simply put them through and thus made in the view of historian Christopher Kopper a contribution to the destruction of the economic existences of Jewish citizens and societies. In November 1938 he took part in a meeting in the Reich Chancellery, where the questions of the so-called atonement of the Jewish citizens in the amount of one billion RM was negotiated.”--Wikipedia
The “?” next to his death date is suggested—he was picked up at the end of the war by authorities of the Soviet Union, and was disappeared for his contributions towards the destruction of the Jews. It is was assumed that by 1953 with no word whatsoever regarding him Fischer was presumed to be dead.
Notes.
1. (Aryanization/Arisierung), "...the transfer of Jewish-owned businesses to German ownership throughout Germany and German-occupied countries. The Aryanization process included two stages: from 1933–1938 the Jews were gradually removed from German economic life, termed by the Nazis as "voluntary" exclusion; after 1938, Jewish businesses and property were forcibly confiscated by the Nazis."
"Aryanization was organized by government economic counselors within each district in order to ensure that the best businesses were given to longstanding Nazi Party members. In some cases, Jewish business owners were jailed until they agreed to give up their ownership; in others, the government just confiscated the businesses. After the 1936 Olympics Aryanization was intensify. During the summer of 1938 Jewish professionals were banned from their jobs. After the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938, the Nazis legalized forced Aryanization—allowing the forcible confiscation of Jewish property. The German Jewish community had to pay a fine of one billion reichsmarks for the damage inflicted upon them during the pogrom.”--Yad Vashem website http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205775.pdf
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