First published in German as Instanzen der Ohnmacht. Wien 1938–1945. Der Weg zum Judenrat © Jüdischer Verlag Frankfurt am Main 2000

This English edition © Polity Press, 2011

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The subject of this book has haunted me for years. Discussion of the Jewish councils touches the post-1945 Jewish identity and more than anything else shows how the Nazi extermination policy even managed to rob the victims of their dignity. I have never been able to make light of this and have therefore attempted to make an academic study of the material, although realizing at the same time that words alone are inadequate to do justice to the subject.

In the Jewish youth organization I belonged to in Vienna, called Hashomer Hatzair, we sometimes carried out mock trials. The issue in dispute was fixed and there were guidelines for each of the protagonists but we usually improvised as we went along. One of us was the judge, another the defendant; there was a defence lawyer and a plaintiff, speeches and pleas and witnesses to be cross-examined. I recall one case – I must have been eleven years old – that particularly marked me. One of us, barely older than seventeen, was on trial as head of the Jewish community. ‘Partisans’ testified against him and other ‘survivors’ spoke in his favour: in other words, a reconstruction by a group of young people in Austria in the mid-1970s of the unofficial Jewish courts that were set up after 1945 in various countries, particularly in the displaced person camps. Some of our parents might well have taken part in proceedings of this type. We spectators were the jury and had to reach a decision. Without knowing much about it, we quickly found the defendant guilty. After the Holocaust, young Jews sought a new identity, and could only see themselves as members of the resistance. It was impossible to imagine what it had been like as a member of the Jewish councils.

This book, by contrast, attempts to understand the situation of Jewish functionaries under the Nazis. By looking at the point of view of the victims, we can see how unfathomable and absurd everything that was done to them must have appeared. Their despair and their powerlessness reflect the extent and nature of the crime. A critical study can possibly shed light on aspects that the victims were unable to see or to comprehend at the time and might also draw attention to some of our own weaknesses and blind spots.

Considerable research has been carried out on Jewish councils in other parts of Europe, but the Jewish administrative bodies in the German Reich have long been extensively ignored. In Germany and Austria, a study of the Jewish community leaders and the involvement of Jews with the Nazi regime that organized their expulsion and extermination has been just too sensitive an issue.

Consideration of the situation in Vienna is, however, of vital importance. To understand how the Jewish councils came about, it is essential to consider the developments in Austria. It was here that department II-112 of the Security Service under Adolf Eichmann developed the model for the Nazi Jewish policy. The Vienna model was then copied in other cities like Berlin, Prague or Paris. Eichmann set up the first Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna as the Nazi authority responsible for organizing the mass expulsion and later the deportation to extermination camps. The Jewish organizations were completely at the mercy of the regime. The Jewish administration was restructured in its entirety. The Vienna Jewish Community authorities (Kultusgemeinde) under Nazi rule can be regarded as a prototype for the future Jewish councils.

I am grateful to a large number of people and institutions for their indispensable aid in researching this subject. This book could not have been written without the support of the staff of the following archives, listed here alphabetically: Archive of the Republic of Austria, Vienna; Archive of the Landgericht, Vienna; Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem; Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem; Documentation Archive of Austrian Resistance, Vienna; Documentation Centre of the Association of Jewish Victims of the Nazi Regime, Vienna; Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. I should like to thank them for helping me with my research. Hadassah Assouline, director of the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, not only gave me access to the Kultusgemeinde archive in her institute but also referred me to the private archive there of Benjamin Murmelstein. Elisabeth Klamper from the Documentation Archive of Austrian Resistance helped me to locate documents.

Dolfi Brunner, Walter Fantl, Marcel Faust, Gerda Feldsberg, Paul Gross, Franz Hahn, Mares Prochnik, Herbert Schrott and Martin Vogel, along with Willy Stern and Franzi Löw-Danneberg, who have both died in the meantime, allowed me to interview them for hours and gave me the benefit of their recollections.

I should also like to thank Evelyn Adunka, Leonhard Ehrlich, Pierre Genée, Herbert Rosenkranz and Hans Schafranek for discussing problems with me, referring me to source material, recommending literature or providing me with copies of unpublished documents and interviews. I am grateful to Jacques Adler, Brigitte Bailer-Galanda, John Bunzl, Abraham Hodik, Yaacow Lozowick, Dan Michman, Jonny Moser, Wolfgang Neugebauer, Bertrand Perz, Dinah Porat, Herbert Rosenkranz and Simon Wiesenthal for their ideas and suggestions.

Gabriele Anderl, Florian Freund and Hans Safrian offered technical help and friendly support. Günther Kaindlsdorfer and Tessa Szyszkowitz took the time to proofread parts of my work. I am also grateful to many friends for their patience, questions and suggestions. I would like to express my profound gratitude to the translator of this abridged version of the text, Nick Somers, for his enthusiasm and commitment. I am particularly grateful for all the help and advice I have received from Peter Goodrich.

I thank Nadine Meyer, my editor at the Jüdischer Verlag, for her collaboration and her attentive and critical editing of my manuscript.

I owe a particular debt of thanks to Karl Stuhlpfarrer, my academic mentor at the University of Vienna. He encouraged me for years and spurred me on with advice, criticism and praise.

I am extremely grateful to my parents, Shoshana and David Rabinovici, for their sincere support.