Processes of Exclusion and Strategies of Survival. Middle and small Jewish Trade Ventures in Frankfurt/Main and Breslau 1929/30 - 1945

The fight for survival against isolation and prohibition: medium-sized and small Jewish businesses in Berlin 1930-1940.
This research project is working towards the twin goals of documentation and analysis. On the documentary level, we are compiling a data bank of medium-sized and small Jewish business enterprises in Berlin directly before and after the National Socialists seizure of power. This will contain key information on the businesses in question, recording how many Jewish companies there were in Berlin, where they were based and what kind of business they practised.
After the National Socialists came to power, business conditions deteriorated rapidly for Jews, and following the November pogrom Jews were banned from practising any kind of business. We ask: How many companies were taken over by non-Jews ( Aryanised )? How many were liquidated? When did this happen; before or after 1938?
On the basis of the data thus collected, we will then analyse the significance of Jewish businesses for the economic structure of the city of Berlin. We will also examine the reactions of Jewish businesspeople to the processes by which they were increasingly isolated from economic life in the city. Which strategies did they develop in their struggle to survive? Did businesses move about within the city? Did they advertise in the Jewish community press? Did they change the legal form of their businesses or their product range? Which strategies were ultimately the most successful and for how long?