Free Fromms: How Julis Fromm's Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis by Michael Sontheimer, Götz Aly, Shelley Frisch

chapter in the Berlin suburb of Hirschgarten. Lewis joined the Nazi Party in 1933.
    It appears that Fromm approved of, and even welcomed, the political activity of his two managers, hoping against hope that it might protect his company from outside pressures. In any case, a red swastika flag and a picture of the Führer were soon displayedin one of the two cafeterias. In early January 1933 (during the final weeks of the Weimar Republic), Fromm suddenly started emphasizing the German nature of his merchandise, calling his products “pure German quality products.” He soon began labeling his condoms “the bestselling German select brand.” In an evident attempt to ward off boycotts of his Jewish company, he announced that “the sale of our Fromms Act select brand is, as always, absolutely permitted!” This announcement was printed on March 25, 1933, on the title page of the drugstore journal
Der Drogenhändler
in an old-fashioned German penmanship style known as Sütterlin script. In the next advertisement, Fromm left off the foreign word “Act” in the company name. For a brief period, he was so plagued by uncertainty that he refrained from advertising his condoms altogether, and focused on another of his products—Fromms Rubber Pacifiers—to show consumers that his products were in line with the Nazi campaign to step up the birth rate. 31
    “When my father was faced with the question of whether to leave Germany after the Nazi takeover,” Edgar Fromm recalled, “his initial reaction was: ‘Hitlers come and go…’” Julius Fromm simply failed to grasp how deadly serious the National Socialists were about expelling and later annihilating the Jews. He insisted: “I cannot imagine this happening. After all, we are Germans!” Both of his directors, who had become Nazis, assured him repeatedly: “But Herr Fromm, we don’t mean
you
. You’re an exception.”
    Although the Reich Economics Ministry generally gave Fromm’s company favorable treatment, since it made such a positive contribution to the German balance of trade, the company nonetheless became an ongoing target of harassment. As early as March and April 1933, an “in-depth” special audit of foreign currency regulations was conducted by the tax office. However, “no violations of any kind” could be detected. In addition, a“pure Aryan” competitor called Blausiegel, based in Erfurt, attempted to use the new anti-Semitic state doctrine to its own advantage. Fromm had made plans—later abandoned—to establish a branch in England, and these plans had been approved by the Reich Economics Ministry some time earlier. In 1934 Blausiegel protested this initiative, using a combination of vicious racism and a heavy emphasis on “German know-how”: “Up to now, the German production of condoms and pacifiers has had little real competition in most European nations; it would be dealt a serious blow if alien elements succeeded in establishing businesses of the same kind abroad by taking advantage of German know-how.” 32
    Julius Fromm was hoping not to have to emigrate, but he laid the groundwork just in case. The first step was to convert Fromms Act to a corporation in which he held 98 percent of the shares and his plant manager Alfred Hausding the remaining 2 percent. Fromm’s role in the company he had founded was henceforthrestricted to the status of consultant. He drew an annual payment of 200,000 Reichsmarks plus 300,000 Reichsmarks from the firm’s net profits, and retained possession of the buildings and machines.

    Directors Berthold Viert

(left) and Karl Lewis
,
ca. 1935
    The next order of business was to bring his two younger sons to safety. (Max had already fled to Paris in April 1933.) He sent Herbert, the designated successor to his company, to London in 1934, where he marketed condoms imported from Berlin, and in the same year he enrolled Edgar in a Swiss boarding school.

    On December 20, 1933, the chief administrative officer in