Preisausschreiben »Erfahrungen mit dem Nazi-Antisemitismus« 1943

Under the heading »Experiences with Nazi anti-Semitism«, the German-Jewish exile newspaper »Aufbau« in New York published an appeal for a »prize competition« on October 8, 1943: Jews and anti-fascists who had fled Germany were asked to send reports to the Institute for Social Research about their experiences with the persecution of Jews, pogroms and concentration camps before they fled. »Particularly valuable,« it said, »are reports that describe the social or regional group to which the information relates in more detail. (...) We also want to know what year the observations refer to and possibly whether the behavior has changed over time. We want to know what effect certain measures and events had on the population’s attitude towards the Jews.« Six cash prizes of between $10 and $30 were offered for the »most important messages«; the jury consisted of Max Horkheimer, Thomas Mann, Paul Tillich and the editor-in-chief of »Aufbau«, Manfred George.

The IfS received 110 letters in which the writers deal in various ways with events that for them were characteristic of the political climate, their own catastrophic situation and the horrors of National Socialism. Some letters were brief and to the point, while others were over 50 pages long and described how the authors experienced the increasing de-democratization, the gradual adaptation to the Nazi regime along with its dehumanization and the normalization of Antisemitism. The senders themselves also came from different backgrounds: In addition to lawyers, doctors and representatives of other »upper classes« who almost wrote treatises, people took the opportunity to testify who obviously wrote little in other respects and reported on their outrageous experiences in sometimes illiterate language.

The only contemporary result of the competition was a 35-page »Preliminary Report on The Contest on the German People and Antisemitism« within the report of the »Studies in Antisemitism« - both of which remain unpublished to this day. The reason for the marginal processing of the material may have been the fact that the Institute's research, funded by the American Jewish Committee, was meanwhile pursuing the »Studies in Prejudice« project with extensive systematic empirical research into the »authoritarian character«, for which the testimonies had little relevance.

The letters received by the IfS in 1943 have all been preserved in its archives. They are to be indexed and published in accordance with academic standards. In addition to the faithful transcription of the originals, it is essential to provide contextualizing annotations that reveal what can no longer be readily available to today's readers 80 years after it was written. A detailed epilogue not only provides information on the principles of the edition, but also places the competition at the time in the context of comparable projects by other institutions and other authoritarianism studies by the IfS before and since.