File:Judenboykott 1933-04 Anti-Semitic Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses shops Berlin SA Sturmabteilung propaganda terror action Street activists in automobile with swastika flag agitate against jews Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe 3 1 0 17 1.jpg

English: In April 1933, the National Socialists in NSDAP initiated an anti-Jewish/anti-Semitic boycott against Jewish shops and businesses in Germany. This early labeling and harassment of Jewish-owned businesses were stark examples of Nazi Germany's discrimination and persecution of the country's Jewish population and an important step on the way to the later enactment of anti-Semitic laws and ultimately the Holocaust.

• Nazi propaganda photo of street activists in a car adorned with a Nazi swastika flag, demonstrating and protesting against Jews in Berlin on April 1, 1933. The speaker, standing in the car, is agitating the surrounding crowd of city residents and passersby. He is dressed in civilian clothing, distinguished only by his Nazi armband. Accompanying him are uniformed members of the SA (Sturmabteilung), the paramilitary storm troopers of the Nazi Party.

• The Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses (German: Judenboykott) in Germany began on April 1, 1933, and was claimed to be a defensive reaction to the international anti-Nazi boycott, which had been initiated in March 1933.

It was largely unsuccessful, as the German population continued to use Jewish businesses, but revealed the intent of the Nazis to undermine the viability of Jews in Germany. It was an early governmental action against the Jews of Germany by the new National Socialist government, which culminated in the "Final Solution". It was a state-managed campaign of ever-increasing harassment, arrests, systematic pillaging, forced transfer of ownership to Nazi Party activists (managed by the Chamber of Commerce, Industrie- und Handelskammer), and ultimately murder of Jewish business owners. In Berlin alone, there were 50,000 Jewish-owned businesses.

Already on March 28, the National Socialist Kampfbund for the Commercial Middle Class (Nationalsozialistischer Kampfbund für den gewerblichen Mittelstand), under Adrian von Renteln, had advanced and occupied or sealed off Jewish shops in Kiel, the Ruhr area, and in some cities in Brandenburg. On April 1, 1933, a Saturday, at 10 o'clock - in some places already the evening before - the actual boycott began. Uniformed, sometimes armed SA (Sturmabteilung), HJ (Hitler Youth), and Stahlhelm guards stood outside Jewish shops, medical practices, and law offices all over German cities, preventing potential customers from entering all day long. Signs and posters demanded: 'Germans! Defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews! - The Jews are our misfortune! - Avoid Jewish doctors! - Don't go to Jewish lawyers!' (Deutsche! Wehrt euch! Kauft nicht bei(m) Juden! – Die Juden sind unser Unglück! – Meidet jüdische Ärzte! – Geht nicht zu jüdischen Rechtsanwälten!) Other uniformed members of the same groups spread these slogans with chants and loudspeaker vans in the streets.

• See Footage of SA activists shouting anti-Jewish slogans, etc. (vimeo.com), Nazi Germany Stages Jewish Boycott - 1933 (British Movietone report/newsreel on Youtube), Joseph Goebbels' propaganda speech on the Anti-Jewish boycott (archive.org), etc.

• Copy of photo from the National Digital Archives in Poland (Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe), published under a Public domain license, allowing copying, modification, distribution, and performance of the work, even for commercial purposes, without requiring permission. Photo agency: Keystone View Company Berlin SW 68 Zimmerstrasse 29.