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Corruption in the Third Reich describes series of events and situations from 1932 to 1945 in which the authorities of National Socialism abused their power to loot, steal and plunder. Most common targets were the sub-races that the Nazi looked down to, but it wasn't unusual for them to target their own citizens as well. Examples of actions done against the Jewish included robbing stores of valuables, homes of furniture, attacks on Jewish Synagogues and destruction of Jewish stores.

Adolf Hitler discouraged such actions until 1933, but no actions or punishments were done, as the National Socialism dictatorship had control over the judicial system.

The actions increased overall wealth and living quality of the Nazi Germany.

Background
In 1923, Hitler sent his stormtroopers to loot a Jewish bank. Until 1933 these actions were discouraged, but then Hitler gave them free rein. In the same year, through the Aryan paragraph, the Jews were getting excluded from public life and removed from jobs in the public sectors, such as civil service and teachings. Massive looting of the trade union premises on 2nd May, 1933, when furniture, utensils and even beds get taken away. Other incidents start happening - attacks on Jewish Synagogues, overall destruction of 7,000 Jewish shops and trashing of thousands of Jewish flats and homes - on 9th to 10th November, 1938, during the Kristalnacht, during which German authories didn't intervene. In the days following Anschluss in March 1938, the Austrian Nazis broke into Jewish homes to throw out the inhabitants and loot contents. Jews were stopped on the streets and robbed of the fur coats, jewellery and wallets. By the first day of the war there were no businesses ran or owned by the Jewish. The Polish property was targetted as well on 1st November, 1939, as Main Trustee Office of the East was estabilished to liquidate Polish and Jewish business in the occupied Poland. The main reason of targetting Jews and Poles was that they were considered inferior, and mainly Hitler blamed the Jews for stealing from the Germans first. Hitler also ordered the destruction of Polish culture and intellegentsia.

Control of Property
In case of suspicion of assistance of the flight of capital from Germany Heydrich's Devisenfahndungsamt would take action on companies to put them into administration for investigation. They would forge confessions and invent interrogation records to prove guilt of the companies. The Regional Econimic Consulants' offices of the Nazi party appointed trustees to Jewish companie and used the law of 7th April, 1933 to get rid of Jewish managers and owners. About fifth of the buy-outs were carried by friends or sympathizers at a fair price on good terms. Goodwill was not included, as there was none. About 40% of the buy-outs were done with force through blackmailing, Gestapo or other means of violence. Many companies profited, for example Regional Economic Offices took 10% commission on the purchase of Jewish Business. In Thuringia the National Socliasm Regional Economic Officermade more than a million marks this way, and used it to buy up companies himself.

On 27th September, 1939, the German military government in Poland decreed a blanket confiscation of Polish property, confirming the order again on 5th October, 1939. On 19th October, 1939, Göring announced that the Office of the Four-Year plan was seizing all Polish and Jewish property in the incorporated territories. This was formalized by a decree on 17th September, 1940, that set up a central agency, the Haupttreuhandstelle Ost, to administer the confiscated enterprises. In February 1941 this included over 205,000 companies ranging from small workshops to major industrial enterprises. By June 1941, 50% of the companies and a third of the larger landed estates in the annexed territories had been taken over by the Reich Trustees without compensation. These orders in effect constituted a license to any Germans to loot what they wanted. In addition, the army took ovre a substantial number of farms to secure food supplies for the troops.

The German invaders also carried off large quantities of cultural booty. Out of countless incidents one included a "all gold and jewel votives confiscation" during a raid on the Bernadin monastery in Radeczina. Country houses along the invasion routes were ransacked, and pressure applied to their aristocratic owners to reveal the whereabouts of hidden treasures. On 16th December, 1939, the German authorities ordered the compulsory registration of all artworks and cultural objects dating from before 1850, together with jewellery, musical instruments, coins, books and furniture from the same period. Official commissioner Kajetan Mülhmann was put in charge of the process, as he had previously carried out similiar duties in Vienna. By the end of November 1940 the registration was complete, and Hitler's personal art agent Hans Posse arrived to select prime specimens for Hitler. He was followed in due course by the art museum directors from Germany for the fear of losing their share in the spoils.

The ordinary polish life conditions were becoming increasingly difficult, as food supplies grew more scarce. The situation was made worse by continued looting and expropriation. Confistications would include for example the removal of scientific equipment from university laboratories for use in Germany, or even the Warsaw Zoo's collection of stuffed animals. As in the Reich, iron and steel objects such as park railings, garden gates, candelabras and saucepans were collected to be melted down and used in armament and vehicle production in Germany. The occupation forces would begin raiding villages to confiscate all the banknotes found there.

What Hitler said and did was law. This state would extend all the way down the hierarchy to people that would be referred to as "little Hitlers" - local party bosses and even grass-roots party members. As their behaviour would not contravene the basic tenets of Nazi ideology, this extra-legal behaviour would be tolerated and justified in the name of National Socialism. The Reichstag and legislative assembles had been effectively muzzled. The press and media taken under control of the Ministry of Propaganda. The prosecution service and police forces nazified. This would result in silencing all means in which a democratic society could investigate corruption. However from 1st January, 1934 to 31st December, 1941, there were nearly 11,000 court prosecutions for misappropriation of party funds.

Employment situation
As in the case of Jews and Poles, the corruption and plunder done by the Nazi to humilate their opponents would be destroying them through engendering in them a sense of impotence, as they lost their jobs and possessions. When the Nazi came to power in a country with an unemployment rate of well over 30%, the first thing that was expected of them from lower ranking stormtroopers and party members was a job. In July 1933, Rudolf Hess promised a job to everyone who had been a party member since before 30th January, 1933, and in October the government officially organized the provision for members with a membership number below 300,000 (as of late 1930), and members of the SS, SA and Stahlhelm, who had joined before 30th January, 1933.

By 1937 the Reich Post Office had given more than 30,000 jobs to 'deserving National Socialists'. By October 1933 the Berlin party had already found employment for 30,000 members. 90% of all newly available white-collar jobs in the public sector went to 'old fighters'. Many made available by dismissals under law of 7th April, 1933. Many Nazis already had jobs, but used this policy to get even better ones. Length of party membership counted in calculating seniority, so better promotion chances. Often, the jobs were not really needed. An audit of Hamburg Sickness Fund in 1934 found that it had employed 228 more administrators than it really needed. Local railway system took on more than 1,000 new employees in 1933-1934. Often new incumbents completely unsuited for jobs to which they were appointed. Many simply took the salary without bothering to turn up to work. Embezzlement was frequent, as in case of Friedrich Stäbel, the head of national students' union, bought cars, clothes and even employed a marching band for his own amusement, for himself in September 1933 with union funds.

Corruption of the Labour Front
Yet the Nazi power apparatus corruption continued unchecked. Particulary in the Labour Front. Vast organization, encompassing virtually all employed people, replacing Trade Unions with a huge number of employees, all former trade union properties, numerous business operations. Its construction department was led by Anton Karl, who had convictions for theft and embezzlement dating from the 1920s. He paid out over 580,000 marks in bribes in 1936-1937 alone to secure contracts. Karl sent gifts to anyone he considered important: the leader of Hitler's bodyguard received silk shirts, hunting weapons and a holiday in Italy for his wife, and duly rewarded Karl with the contract to reconstruct his unit's barracks in Berlin. In 1935 the Labour Front gave Hitler's adjutants as well as his photographer 20,000 marks as a Christmas present. As a secret agent reporting for the banned SPD noted 'the corruption in the Labour Front is vast, and the general standard of morals correspondingly low '. This applied particularly to the Labour Front's leader Robert Ley, whose salary for this post, at 4,000 marks a year, was augmented by another 2,000 marks as Reich Organization Leader of the Party, 700 marks as a Reichstag deputy, and 400 marks as a Prussian State Councillor. The Labour Front put in bulk orders for his books and pamphlets, and he earned personally 50,000 marks a year from the newspaper he edited. His entertainment expenses were paid by the Labour Front, which also maintained his villa in Berlin's posh Grunewald district until 1938. When he went on a cruise organized by the Labour Front tourism and culture division, known as Strength Through Joy, on a new ship named Robert Ley, he was accompanied by a bevy of blonde, blue-eyed young women for companionship, and had to be flanked by two sailors every time he appeared on the deck to make sure he did not fall overboard.

Other Nazi leaders were not far behind Ley in feathering their own nests. Hermann Göring famously spent 15,000,000 marks on extending and refurbishing his hunting lodge, which cost a rufther 500,000 marks of taxpayers' money in upkeep every year. He had six further hunting lodge, a castle, an Alpine chalet, a villa in Berlin and a private train; with space for ten automobiles and a working bakery to satisfy his appetite for cream cakes.

Gifts and Bribery
Since 1933 until the Second World War, high-ranking officers of Nazi Germany were given bribes and gifts in exchange for their loyalty. German officers in the two highest ranks received monthly tax-exempt supplements to their salaries, which more than doubled their salary in total, from 1940 until the end of the war. In 1941 and 1942, certain top-ranking officers also received tax-exempt checks of 250,000 marks for milestone birthdays, and in 1944 a small group of officers was given tremendous landed estates, some valued at over 1,000,000 marks, also wth no tax liability.

Soldiers would often send home gifts, which they purchased in a legal way in foreign or conquered nations for an extremely low price. Soldiers and officials sent regular packets of food, shoes and clothes to their familias at home, and while in France, they sent cheese, butter and other foodstuff that was difficult to come by in Germany, but was cheaply purchased in France. The 18th army troops on the Leningrad front sent back around 3,000,000 parcels of goods.