Fromms: How Julis Fromm's Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis (19 page)

On April 17, 1940, the Dresdner Bank had reported to the central tax office in Berlin that its client, Julius Fromm, had a credit balance of 294,267 Reichsmarks. There were also accounts at the Commerzbank and Privat-Bank with a balance of 21,134 Reichsmarks, as well as a balance of 12,814.97 Reichsmarks at the Deutsche Bank (as of December 31, 1940). An additional account at the Reichs-Kredit-Gesellschaft contained 14,917 Reichsmarks.

The Berlin tax office in Moabit-West issued a warrant of distress in the amount of 110,614.82 Reichsmarks “as a precautionary measure” for a portion of the account at the Dresdner Bank on June 8, 1940, as a first step in gaining control over the full sum of the assets. With the accrued interest, Fromm’s bank balance had risen to 305,266 Reichsmarks by December 31, 1940, but a year later it was down to 112,639.65 Reichsmarks.

The Reich Finance Ministry on Wilhelmplatz

So what happened to the non-impounded shortfall of about 200,000 Reichsmarks? In 1941 the Finance Ministry used this money for the German war chest and turned it into Reich treasury notes bearing 3.5 percent interest.

By 1941 a substantial portion of Julius Fromm’s savings had been transformed into a war loan, and his assets were being handled by the Reich commissioner for the administration of enemy assets. Historians still tend to accept uncritically the view that this office generally “took prudent care” of the foreign property belonging to Jews, but this notion is patently false.
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Even a cursory glance at the files reveals that these civil servants, who were allegedly so eager to stick to the letter of the law, made a point of stamping “Jew” on selected asset reports.

After the Court of Appeal had released Fromm’s assets for transfer to the state in early 1943, the Chief Finance Authority submitted a printed form to the safe deposit section of the Dresdner Bank on June 7, 1943, ordering it to send “German Reich treasury notes V. 41 III 16J/D yielding 3½% interest in the amount of 195,500 Reichsmarks belonging to the Jew Julius Israel Fromm” to “the Deutsche Reichsbank, securities division.” The Reichsbank was given a copy. But the key document was a printed form prepared especially for this sort of transfer: “To Patzer’s Division of the Reich Finance Ministry.”

Max Patzer was responsible for securities collected from Jews for the benefit of the Reich. He eagerly sought out ways to delete debt certificates from the German Reich debt register by using the mass expropriations from Jews to alter the national budget, creating new borrowings in their place without increasing the overall debt. The officials entrusted with this task were to leave no traces of these maneuvers. They were expected to obliterate each item “without recording the name of the individual Jew who had given the securities in payment.”
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The smoke screen did not
work perfectly, however. In 1963 a document from the Reichsbank surfaced in the Berlin restitution office with details showing that Reich treasury notes issued to the name of Julius Fromm (including accrued interest) had been “realized on September 11, 1944, in the amount of 202,268.20 Reichsmarks” and were therefore no longer listed as war debts of the German Reich.

On a questionnaire about its client Fromm, the Berlin private bank Reichs-Kredit-Gesellschaft A.G. reported to the local central finance office on May 15, 1940, under the heading “Interest-bearing and non-interest-bearing receivables of every description”: “It[em] 1 package (sealed) with the address: Israel Julius Fromm, Hotel Esplanade, 2 Warrington Crescent, London W 9, sealed and appraised by the sworn assessor.” About a year later, the bank noted somewhat cryptically: “Safe deposit box settled. Holdings as of December 31, 1940, no longer available.”

The bank had indeed delivered the mysterious package, in accordance with a decree by the Reich Economics Ministry dated July 8, 1940, to the Municipal Pawnshop, Dept. III, Central Office, Berlin, Danziger Strasse 64. There the unknown contents were treated like an unredeemed pawn item—they were sold. The Reichs-Kredit-Gesellschaft had requested that the equivalent value of the package be remitted to the emigrant account it held in Fromm’s name. Although the law required this transaction, it did not take place, and the trail of the sealed package was lost. A tax office inspection stamp dated January 1944, bearing the text “2nd registration not applicable” on the 1940 registration form documents the fact that the money was pocketed by the German Reich.
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As the restitution proceedings later established, the package contained gold coins of various origins worth at least twenty thousand gold marks. It was also filled with Selma Fromm’s jewelry,
which included a pair of platinum earrings with two white diamonds; a pearl necklace with diamond clasp; a platinum necklace “made up of alternating diamonds and emeralds,” a total of thirty gemstones, also with a diamond clasp; “a gold bracelet that was set with about ten rubies and ten diamonds;” and matching brooches, rings, and pendant earrings. The safe deposit box also contained gold wristwatches, cigarette cases in platinum or gold, a large gold men’s signet ring, and other high-quality accessories.

After the war, the restitution office offered to pay 350 German marks for the lot. However, the District Court of Berlin set the value of the package at 202,320 German marks.
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“Client also has a steel box,” the Deutsche Bank reported to the Berlin central tax office at Jüdenstrasse 59 on January 30, 1941, nearly a year after the safe deposit box had been turned over. No response. Displaying its own peculiar brand of dogged allegiance to the regime, the bank tried for a second time to notify the Chief Finance Authority of Berlin-Brandenburg on March 30, 1942: “The client also has a steel box.” Just under a year later, the authorities instructed Eulert, the valuation officer, to remove the contents.

Because the keys for the box could not be located, the Deutsche Bank made arrangements for the Bode-Panzer Safe Factory, Inc., a locksmith company in Berlin, to “force open the box on Thursday, February 4, 1943, at 10 a.m.” The costs of breaking and entering Fromm’s steel box, and for the “repair of the box, making new keys, etc.,” came to forty Reichsmarks. The Deutsche Bank simply withdrew this sum of money from the account of its longstanding customer.

Eulert made the necessary arrangements for opening the box. Recognizing that this procedure might invite corruption, he brought his colleague Otto Gottschalk along as a witness. The
branch manager Wilhelm Beutjer and the bank official Wilhelm Neumann appeared on behalf of the Deutsche Bank. Beutjer and Neumann prepared a report detailing the opening of the box, which included the following text:

Interior view
of the Fromms Act
administration building
in Köpenick, ca. 1935

This is how legally regulated plundering was carried out in the vaults of a German bank. The betrayal of a client and the breach of
trust it entailed meant nothing to the bankers who were active parties to it. Eulert and the three witnesses affixed their signatures in perfect penmanship under the minutes of the meeting. The final paragraph closed with this sober comment: “After steel box no. 57 was opened by an employee of Bode-Panzer, Inc., in the presence of the three witnesses, the strongbox was taken out and jointly opened by the three witnesses.” Beutjer, Neumann, and Gottschalk bent expectantly and patriotically over the strongbox. A handwritten note by witness Gottschalk included at the end of the official record stated what they discovered in this box: “nothing.”

A few days later, Karl Kühne, the notary who was still the official enemy asset administrator at the time, was explaining the legal situation. As always, he skipped right past the “Heil Hitler” greeting and got straight to the point: “In any case, the steel box was opened without anyone consulting me.” Herr Assessor Kühn of the Chief Finance Authority office informed him that “all this happened inadvertently” and he should contact the person responsible, an attorney named Gärtner in the Asset Valuation Office who was performing wartime public service duty. A written complaint was addressed to Gärtner, who scribbled a nasty “Why?” on the letter and left it unanswered.

Like every successful businessman, Julius Fromm had debtors. His outstanding accounts were also to be deposited to an account containing “assets forfeited to the Reich,” administered by the Deutsche Reichsbank and listed as account number 1/1111. As a rule, the debtors were former business partners of Fromms Act whom the boss had helped out of financial jams with his own money, especially during the world economic crisis that began in 1929. He accepted real estate property as collateral for these debts, and the debts were duly registered in a land registry.