Legislative Interventions into the Creation of Local Political Elites as an Instrument of Anti-Jewish Policy during the Holocaust (A Comparative View)

Abstract

80 Introduction In the short period from the German invasion of Poland and the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 until mid-1941, Nazi Germany was able to gain control over most of continental Europe. While some countries were fully incorporated into the Third Reich or were put under direct Nazi military occupation, other countries and newlyformed states became German war allies which, whilst being de jure independent of the Third Reich, were, however, fully serving its ideas. Nazi power or the newly-constituted non-democratic regimes in allied countries were accompanied by changes within the highest legislative and executive state authorities, which naturally resulted in political interferences at the lower levels of local administrations and the authorities of self-government. This process also resulted in the exchange of local political elites. A thorough knowledge of the composition and tasks of local elites, as political authorities with various levels of political infl uence, is a key element in understanding the character and the diversity of the non-democratic regimes. The total scope of the application of non-democratic principles (the “success” or “eff ectiveness” of regimes) was signifi cantly dependent not only on the central organs, but also on the performance, abilities, loyalty and behaviour of the elites at regional or local level, elites whose representatives were responsible for the process of local policy making and who played a signifi cant role in implementing anti-Jewish policy during the Holocaust era. The research on elites is currently multifaceted, and it can be analysed across several dimensions. One of these dimensions relates to the social background of an elite’s members and the positions held preceding their entering the elite, the course of their careers or their personal characteristics. Another dimension refers to whether the members of an elite share common ideological models and styles of Legislative Interventions into the Creation of Local Political Elites as an Instrument of Anti-Jewish Policy during the Holocaust (A Comparative View)*