Aryanization

Aryanization (German: Arisierung) was the Nazi term for the seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews, and the forced expulsion of Jews from economic life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. It entailed the transfer of Jewish property into "Aryan" or non-Jewish hands. "Aryanization" is, according to Kreutzmüller and Zaltin in Dispossession: Plundering German Jewry, 1933–1953, "a Nazi slogan that was used to camouflage theft and its political consequences." The process started in 1933 in Nazi Germany with transfers of Jewish property and ended with the Holocaust. Two phases have generally been identified: a first phase in which the theft from Jewish victims was concealed under a veneer of legality, and a second phase, in which property was more openly confiscated. In both cases, Aryanization corresponded to Nazi policy and was defined, supported, and enforced by Germany's legal and financial bureaucracy. Michael Bazyler wrote that the Holocaust was "both the greatest murder and the greatest theft in history". Between $230 and $320 billion (in 2005 US dollars) was stolen from Jews across Europe, with hundreds of thousands of businesses Aryanized.