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

Potsdam filed an application with the Berlin police commissioner to review Fromm’s naturalization process, which had taken place back in 1920. The legal basis for this review was a law enacted on July 14, 1933, to the effect that citizenship awarded to “Eastern European Jews” between 1918 and 1933 would be revoked if the naturalization was deemed undesirable “with regard to racial and national principles.” This routine procedure was applied to some 15,000 Jews who had been granted citizenship during the years of the Weimar Republic.
    The official questionnaire on file referred to Fromm by his birth name, Israel. The Berlin police commissioner reviewed the records on December 13, 1933, and noted in the margin:
    There is no reason to continue granting Fr. German citizenship. He has fared well in Germany, he went about his business [during the war] and earned a good livelihood while other Germans did their duty and put their lives on the line for their country. When Fr. applied for German citizenship, he did not do so for the love of all things German and the German Reich, but simply in order to facilitate his business operations and to steer clear of the discomforts he would have had to accept as a foreignerin Germany, particularly during the war. It cannot serve the interests of the German people for these kinds of people to continue enjoying German citizenship… In view of the fact that Fr.’s petition for naturalization was rejected back in 1914 and he was thereby recognized as an international Jew, the law of July 14, 1933, should apply to him as well.
    The overall assessment was less harsh: “He has not displayed behavior inimical to the welfare of the people and state in any civic, political, cultural, or economic context.”
    A senior civil servant ordered that “Fromm be given the opportunity to make a statement.” Fromm responded immediately with a letter to the chief of police dated January 4, 1934, reaffirming his loyalty to the state:
    I established my industrial company in Berlin, and I have built it up—in the beginning as its sole administrator and worker all in one—from the most modest beginnings to the importance it enjoys today. My German outlook and my German diligence have enabled me, conscientiously and honestly, to become one of the highest taxpayers in my residential district of Zehlendorf-Schlachtensee… Without a hint of arrogance, I can state that the company is well-known far beyond the borders of Berlin for its technical and architectural excellence and its steadfast pursuit of optimal facilities to promote good hygiene and working conditions; foreign customers and experts have quite often told me that it has become a sightseeing destination for Germany—and even for the world. That is my German life’s work!
    He also pointed out that he had donated ten thousand Reichsmarks to the Winter Relief Fund, and that even back in the days of the Weimar Republic, he had advocated requiring community service in place of “unsatisfactory volunteerism.”
    Fromm appended to the document an endorsement by Dr. Paul Stuermer, an avowed right-wing conservative and member of the Alldeutscher Verband (Pan-German League). Stuermer emphasized “the great popularity Fromm enjoys in the workforce and among experts” as well as his loyalty to the state, and the host of economic and personal consequences Fromm’s loss of German citizenship would entail: “In view of Fromm’s emotional rootedness in his wholly German family, denaturalization would do untold mental and physical harm not only to him personally, but to the German public interest, which would suffer significant material damage.”
    On January 19 and 20, 1934, the District Factory Cells Division of the Berlin Nazi Party also sided categorically with Fromm “because of our interest in maintaining and creating new jobs.” The Nazi officials at this location feared for the future of the factory and drafted a detailed report about