History of Europe

Census under the Nazi regime:statistics under the swastika

The population census in the German Reich on May 17, 1939 served the National Socialists to register all of their citizens - and to separate out the Jews.

by Carina Werner

There have always been censuses, whether in the Roman Empire or in ancient Egypt. Even the birth of Jesus Christ would have been different if Mary and Joseph had not gone to Bethlehem for the count. Censuses have always served to control citizens, they were an instrument of power politics. But the census of May 17, 1939 was particularly explosive:it enabled the Nazi regime not only to register and classify all Germans, but also all "non-Aryans", whether in Hamburg, Braunschweig or Berlin.

Total control through census

"By its essence, statistics are close to the National Socialist movement," noted Friedrich Zahn, President of the German Statistical Society, in 1940. Because of this closeness, it is only logical that the Nazis used statistics from the start to record people's thoughts and actions right down to their privacy. On June 16, 1933, the first census takes place under the new rulers. Hundreds of thousands of "Jews of faith" are already registered here. But other data are also of interest to the Nazis:for example, the number of children that every woman has to declare - numbers that are used to calculate a "birth target" for "biologically valuable" women.

Collection of personal data under NS signs

In the Third Reich, collecting personal data was booming. Data is meticulously collected in authorities and offices. The registration system in Hamburg is exemplary. In 1935, the Hamburg interior authorities "urgently" asked the Reich Minister of the Interior to "design the Reich legal regulation of the registration procedure in such a way that Hamburg, as the largest trading and port city in Germany with heavy traffic from foreigners, seafarers and other fluctuating elements, could use its tried-and-tested registration facilities in their previous usefulness and effectiveness."

360 employees work in the Hamburg Statistical Office. Its leader is Dr. Helmut Sköllin, who was dismissed after 1945 in the course of denazification - and with him more than 50 percent of his employees. At the end of the 1930s, the employees in the statistical offices were no longer selected solely on the basis of their qualifications. For example, in 1938 the Braunschweig office rejected two qualified applicants in order to hire a man with almost no experience but who had been a member of the NSDAP for a long time.

Effective data processing with Hollerith counting machines

A Hollerith counting machine used in the 1939 census.

The processing of statistical material is accelerated by ever more modern counting and sorting machines. The highly efficient Hollerith counting machines from Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft (Dehomag), a subsidiary of the American IBM group, are used.

The largest census in the world is being planned

The next census is scheduled for May 17, 1938, but due to Austria's "annexation" in March 1938, it will be postponed by a year. Nothing less than the largest and most comprehensive census in the world is planned. Thorough preparations are necessary for this:in Hamburg alone, more than 16,000 volunteers are recruited, most of whom are to serve as "counters", i.e. count the registration forms and transfer the data.

In Wolfenbüttel, the head of the statistical office passionately campaigned for support from the mayors, as the minutes of a meeting from 1938 show:"The statistics must be provided for the administrative measures in order to make our people great and happy," it says, and:"People who knowingly make false statements [should] be reported because we cannot put up with being deliberately deceived and the well-being of the people being jeopardized by such people." Not only counters are advertised, but also the citizens:A large-scale propaganda with flaming pleas on the radio is set in motion. Finally, the counting papers are distributed among the population.

A matter of "race"

The general census form collects data such as marital status and occupation. Compared to 1933, however, there is something new:an enclosed "supplementary card for information about parentage and educational background". She asks not only about religion, but also about "race" in order to include "full Jews" and "first- and second-degree Jewish half-breeds" in accordance with the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. The supplementary card must be submitted in its own sealed envelope. This apparent discretion serves the purpose of reassuring people and getting truthful answers.

Hamburg a pioneer in counting and evaluation

The conduct of the census on May 17, 1939 proceeded quickly and smoothly. The counters go door to door to collect the counting sheets. The counting, on the other hand, is tedious. The part of the supplementary map that determines the "blood" descent is of the greatest interest to the National Socialists. The counting of the Jews and "Jewish half-breeds" is therefore propagated as the most urgent "immediate program".

The Hamburg Statistical Office works particularly quickly:it can deliver the first figures as early as September. Of 1,711,877 Hamburgers, 8,438 Jews are registered. As a result, the number of Hamburg Jews has already been severely depleted:in the 1933 census, there were still 16,973 people of Jewish faith. The situation is similar in Schleswig-Holstein:in 1933 more than 1,400 Jews lived there, in 1939 only 575. Many Jews migrated to the big cities or emigrated abroad.

Excavation of the data

As the historians Götz Aly and Karl Heinz Roth explain, the material from the 1939 census was used to create the "Volkstumskartei", a file of all "non-Aryans" in the German Reich with addresses, professions and degrees of mixed race. Götz Aly calls this card file the "keystone in the registration of the Jews", by means of which the deportations were organized. So did the 1939 census make the Holocaust possible in the first place? The researchers still disagree on this. Historians like Jutta Wietog argue that the police and Gestapo had much more reliable files anyway, including the forced surveys of the "Reich Association of Jews in Germany".

The data from the census was also used for other purposes in the Third Reich:the Wehrmacht used it to optimize "human deployment" in war. In Hamburg, the data is also used to create a "citizens' quarters register" in order to allocate apartments to members of the Wehrmacht. The Hamburg Statistical Office noted in 1944:"The accommodation of the members of the Wehrmacht was able to proceed smoothly and smoothly throughout. After all, the Statistical Office had an excellent basis and a complete overview of the statistical material from the last pre-war census from 1939 space available in Hamburg."

Against the "surveillance state":counts after 1945

The "glass man" who has to reveal everything about himself. Opponents of the 1987 census reject this.

Even the statisticians cannot stop the fall of the Third Reich. The next censuses take place in occupied Germany:1945 in the Soviet occupation zone, 1946 in the three western zones. Now, above all, the refugees, resettlers and those who died in the war are recorded. After several censuses in East and West, it was the West German census of May 25, 1987 that caused a stir. Over 1,000 citizens' initiatives are formed, calling for a boycott. Many people see themselves as "transparent citizens" and the Federal Republic on the way to becoming a "surveillance state". Pamphlets are distributed advising that on census day one should miswrite one's doorplate or cut up the questionnaire.

The population data are now collected under the name census. The first census after the reunification of Germany took place in 2011. The most recent census in Germany will take place in spring 2022.