Editing Karl Fiehler (section)

===The Anti-Semite: persecution of the Jews in Munich===

Munich under Karl Fiehler became the vanguard wherever it concerned actions against Jews. In the spring of 1933 the first systematic boycott against Jewish shops was very zealously carried out by Fiehler. On 30 March he decreed this racist sanction with anticipatory obedience, as the "official" date was actually 1 April. SA- and SS-gangs had been terrorising Jewish businessmen since the very beginning of March and had been taking them into ''"Schutzhaft"'' ({{lang-en|protective custody}}). Fiehler proscribed - without any legal basis - municipal contracts with so called ''"non-German"'' companies. SA sentries bedaubed the fronts of Jewish shops with inscriptions like ''"Jew"'', the ''[[Star of David]]'' or ''"On vacation in Dachau!"''. Shop windows were smashed in and their clients were intimidated, being mobbed by SA men who molested, registered and even photographed them. Later on the City of Munich hurried, in a quite exceptional manner, with the demolition of Jewish places of worship. The Minister of propaganda, [[Joseph Goebbels]], had already commenced the destruction of Munich's main synagogue in June 1938, just to find out, whether the ''"[[Aryan]]"'' public's reaction would be shock or indifference. The apathetic behaviour of the population would encourage the Nazis to further new outrages.

On 9 November 1938 almost the whole Nazi Party elite convened for a social evening at the invitation of the Lord Mayor Karl Fiehler in the Great Hall of Munich's ''"[http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/service/gallery/38274/altrath.html Old Guildhall]"''. A vicious anti-Semitic diatribe by Joseph Goebbels was, for the attendant SA- and party-leaders, the signal for a general hunt on Jews. Numerous men and women were killed, tortured and injured in this night of pogrom, which was euphemistically referred to as ''"[[Reichskristallnacht]]"'' ({{lang-en|Night of Broken Glass}}) in Germany afterwards. Many Jewish institutions, synagogues and shops fell prey to this devastation.

Munich's Municipal Cemeteries Department under Karl Fiehler behaved in an absurd, strictly anti-Semitic, manner . It adamantly refused even deceased Christians of Jewish descent cremation or burials. Moreover so called ''"[[Jewish Christians]]"'' were no longer allowed to be buried in their own family graves, which had been in existence for generations. The Department referred bureaucratically to surviving dependants as the "Israelite Community". Amongst other things it was no longer allowed to wear [[Protestantism|Protestant]] [[vestment]]s at a funeral in a [[Orthodox Judaism|Jewish-orthodox]] graveyard. Johannes Zwanzger, who was appointed head of the ''"Munich aid office for non-Aryan Christians"'', formulated a letter of complaint to Lord Mayor Fiehler on behalf of the [[Lutheran]] Regional Consistory in December 1938, without any success.

During [[World War II]] [[genocide]] followed the [[disfranchisement]] of Jews. On November 20, 1941 the first transport of 1,000 Jewish men and women departed from Munich for [[Riga]]. The fictitious reason given to the scared people was that it was a matter of ''"[[emergency evacuation|evacuation]]"''. The transport was re-routed to [[Kaunas]] in [[Lithuania]], because the [[Riga ghetto]] was overcrowded at this time. Just after their arrival there, the deportees were murdered in a mass shooting by members of the ''"[[Einsatzgruppe A]]"'' ({{lang-en|Mission Squad A}}) under the command of SS Major General ([[German language|German:]] ''"SS-Brigadeführer"'') [[Franz Walter Stahlecker|Dr. Walter Stahlecker]] in Fort IX of Kaunas. Up to February 1945 a total of 42 transports left Munich at irregular intervals: to exterminations in Kaunas, [[Piaski]], (near [[Lublin]]), [[Auschwitz]] and also at the so-called ''"Ghetto for old and prominent people"'' [[Concentration camp Theresienstadt|Theresienstadt]].