Eduard Bloch - The Only Jew in Nazi Germany Protected by Adolf Hitler - Klara Hitler - Anschluss
...Hitler was a powerful and spellbinding speaker who attracted a wide following of Germans desperate for change. In the July 1932 Hitler and the Nazis became the largest political party in Germany and on the 30th of January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany.
One of the main objectives of the Nazi regime was to redraw the map of post-World War I Europe.
On the 12th of March German troops crossed the border. They were not met with armed resistance, but with cheers and flowers.
Terrified Jews, leftists and Schuschnigg supporters tried to flee Austria.
They raced towards the country’s borders, hoping to reach them before they were closed. Some managed to escape, but most were trapped in a rapidly Nazifiying Austria.
Among Austrian Jews who did not flee the country was Eduard Bloch with his family. However, he was in a different position than the rest of Austrian Jews as he would be protected by Adolf Hitler himself. Even in 1937, Hitler had inquired about Bloch's well-being and called him an Edeljude ("noble Jew"). Hitler also said “ if all Jews were like him, there would be no Jewish question”.
On the 13th of March, Austrian Nazi Chancellor Seyss-Inquart signed the law called the “Reunification of Austria with Germany”. This law, sometimes called the Anschluss law, formally incorporated Austria into Nazi Germany and gave the Anschluss the air of legality. On the 13th of March, Adolf Hitler visited his parents' grave in Leonding.
Austrians welcomed Hitler warmly as he traveled first to Linz and then on to Vienna. Thousands turned out to greet the Führer and on the 15th of March he spoke to a huge crowd in Vienna’s Heldenplatz, a large square in the center of Vienna.
For Austria’s approximately 200,000 Jews, the Anschluss marked a terrible turning point. Many decided to try to leave Austria and lines appeared at consulates across the city of Vienna.
However, Eduard Bloch was not among them. After the 66-year-old Bloch wrote a letter to Hitler asking for help, Hitler personally intervened to ensure his safety. Consequently, Eduard Bloch was put under special protection by the Gestapo. He was the only Jew in Linz with this status.
The Blochs remained in their home in Linz without disturbance for nearly three years. Eduard then asked Hitler if he could join his daughter in New York City. =
In October 1940, Eduard Bloch and his wife were able to leave for Lisbon. Portugal was officially neutral during World War II. There they embarked for the United States on board the Spanish ocean liner settling in the New York borough of the Bronx. However, Bloch was no longer able to practice medicine because his medical degree from Austria-Hungary was not recognized.
Eduard Bloch was 73 years old when he died on the 1st of June 1945, barely a month after Hitler's death.
One of the main objectives of the Nazi regime was to redraw the map of post-World War I Europe.
On the 12th of March German troops crossed the border. They were not met with armed resistance, but with cheers and flowers.
Terrified Jews, leftists and Schuschnigg supporters tried to flee Austria.
They raced towards the country’s borders, hoping to reach them before they were closed. Some managed to escape, but most were trapped in a rapidly Nazifiying Austria.
Among Austrian Jews who did not flee the country was Eduard Bloch with his family. However, he was in a different position than the rest of Austrian Jews as he would be protected by Adolf Hitler himself. Even in 1937, Hitler had inquired about Bloch's well-being and called him an Edeljude ("noble Jew"). Hitler also said “ if all Jews were like him, there would be no Jewish question”.
On the 13th of March, Austrian Nazi Chancellor Seyss-Inquart signed the law called the “Reunification of Austria with Germany”. This law, sometimes called the Anschluss law, formally incorporated Austria into Nazi Germany and gave the Anschluss the air of legality. On the 13th of March, Adolf Hitler visited his parents' grave in Leonding.
Austrians welcomed Hitler warmly as he traveled first to Linz and then on to Vienna. Thousands turned out to greet the Führer and on the 15th of March he spoke to a huge crowd in Vienna’s Heldenplatz, a large square in the center of Vienna.
For Austria’s approximately 200,000 Jews, the Anschluss marked a terrible turning point. Many decided to try to leave Austria and lines appeared at consulates across the city of Vienna.
However, Eduard Bloch was not among them. After the 66-year-old Bloch wrote a letter to Hitler asking for help, Hitler personally intervened to ensure his safety. Consequently, Eduard Bloch was put under special protection by the Gestapo. He was the only Jew in Linz with this status.
The Blochs remained in their home in Linz without disturbance for nearly three years. Eduard then asked Hitler if he could join his daughter in New York City. =
In October 1940, Eduard Bloch and his wife were able to leave for Lisbon. Portugal was officially neutral during World War II. There they embarked for the United States on board the Spanish ocean liner settling in the New York borough of the Bronx. However, Bloch was no longer able to practice medicine because his medical degree from Austria-Hungary was not recognized.
Eduard Bloch was 73 years old when he died on the 1st of June 1945, barely a month after Hitler's death.
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LearningTranscript
00:00The 12th of March, 1938.
00:09German troops cross the border with Austria and invade the country without firing a single
00:13shot.
00:14They are not met with armed resistance, but with cheers and flowers.
00:18While thousands of Austrians turn out to greet the Führer as he travels first to Linz and
00:23then on to Vienna, terrified Jews, leftists and other opponents of the Nazi regime race
00:28towards the country's borders, hoping to reach them before they are closed, but most
00:33are trapped in a rapidly Nazifying Austria.
00:36However, there is one Jew awarded special protection by Adolf Hitler himself, who personally
00:41intervened to ensure his safety.
00:44His name is Eduard Bloch.
00:47Eduard Bloch was born on the 30th of January, 1872 in Frauenberg, then part of Austria-Hungary.
00:55Bloch studied medicine in Prague and then served as a medical officer in the Austrian
00:59army.
01:00In 1899, he was ordered to Linz in Upper Austria, where he opened a private practice in 1901.
01:07One year later, he married Lily Kafka.
01:09The marriage produced one daughter, Trude.
01:12Like most Jews in Linz at the time, the Bloch family were assimilated.
01:17Willing to call on patients at any time at night, Eduard Bloch was held in high regard,
01:21particularly among the families of lower and indigenous social classes.
01:26Among such families was the family of Clara Hitler.
01:29Her husband Alois, who was awfully rough with her and hardly ever spoke a word to her at
01:33home, had died in 1903.
01:36Their marriage produced six children.
01:38Alois Hitler was a stern, masterful, and often irritable father who demanded unquestioning
01:43respect and obedience from his children, and used the switch whenever his expectations
01:47were not met.
01:48One of his children was Adolf, who, born in 1889, would later become dictator of Germany.
01:55After Alois died, Clara sold the house they owned in Leonding and moved to an apartment
01:59in Linz.
02:01In 1906, Clara Hitler discovered a lump in her breast, but initially ignored it.
02:06She would finally consult the family doctor, Eduard Bloch, only in January 1907, after
02:11experiencing chest pains that were keeping her awake at night.
02:15As she explained to him, she had been busy with her household and neglected to seek medical
02:19aid.
02:21Bloch chose not to inform Clara that she had breast cancer and left it to her son Adolf
02:25to inform her.
02:27Bloch told Adolf, who was almost 18 at the time, that his mother had a small chance of
02:31surviving and recommended that she undergo a radical mastectomy.
02:34The Hitlers were devastated by the news.
02:37Eduard Bloch later said,
02:39Clara Hitler accepted the verdict as I was sure she would, with fortitude.
02:44Relatively religious, she assumed that her fate was God's will.
02:47It would never occur to her to complain.
02:51She underwent the mastectomy in Linz, whereupon the surgeon discovered that the cancer had
02:55already metastasized to pleural tissue in her chest.
02:58Bloch informed Clara's children that her condition was terminal.
03:01Adolf, who had been in Vienna to study art, moved back home to tend to his mother, as
03:06did his siblings.
03:08By October, Clara Hitler's condition had rapidly declined, and Adolf begged Bloch to
03:12try a new treatment.
03:14For the next 46 days, from November to early December, Bloch performed daily treatments
03:19of iodoform, a then-experimental form of chemotherapy.
03:23Clara Hitler's mastectomy incisions were reopened and massive doses of iodoform-soaked
03:27gauze were applied directly to the tissue to burn the cancer cells.
03:32The treatments were incredibly painful and caused Clara's throat to paralyse, leaving
03:36her unable to swallow.
03:38Because of the poor economic situation of the Hitler family, Bloch charged reduced prices,
03:43sometimes taking no fee at all.
03:45Adolf would never forget this gesture.
03:47However, the treatments proved to be futile.
03:51Clara Hitler was 47 years old when she died at her home in Linz from the toxic medical
03:55side effects of iodoform on the 21st of December, 1907.
04:00She was buried in Lunding.
04:02In February 1908, Adolf Hitler moved to Vienna with a goal of attending the art academy and
04:07becoming a great artist.
04:09The same year, he wrote Bloch a postcard assuring him of his gratitude and reverence, which
04:14he expressed with handmade gifts, including a large wall painting.
04:18However, when in October 1908, Hitler tried for the second time to gain admission to the
04:23Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, his test drawings were judged to so poor that he was not even
04:28allowed to take the formal exam.
04:30In May 1913, he left for Munich.
04:33There he drifted and supported himself by painting watercolors and sketches until World
04:37War I, which began on the 28th of July, 1914, and gave new direction to his life.
04:44Hitler joined the army, was wounded twice in 1916 and then in 1918, and was awarded
04:49several medals.
04:51In October 1918, after he was partially blinded in a mustard gas attack near Ypres in Belgium,
04:57Hitler was sent to a military hospital in Baselwijk.
05:00News of the November 11th, 1918 armistice reached him there as he was recuperating.
05:06Released from hospital in November 1918, Hitler returned to Munich.
05:10In 1919, he joined the Information Office of the Bavarian Military Administration.
05:15This office gathered intelligence on civilian political parties and provided anti-communist
05:20political education for the troops.
05:22In August 1919, as a course instructor, Hitler made his first virulent anti-Semitic speeches
05:28And a month later, he first expressed an anti-Semitic racist ideology on paper, advocating removal
05:34of Jews from Germany.
05:36Hitler joined what would become the Nazi Party in October 1919, and helped devise the party
05:42political program in 1920.
05:45The program was based on racist anti-Semitism, expansionist nationalism, and anti-immigrant
05:50hostility.
05:52By 1921, he was the absolute leader of the Nazi Party.
05:57Adolf Hitler was a powerful and spellbinding speaker who attracted a wide following of
06:01Germans desperate for change.
06:04In July 1932, Hitler and the Nazis became the largest political party in Germany, and
06:10on the 30th of January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the
06:15German President, Paul von Hindenburg.
06:18One of the main objectives of the Nazi regime was to redraw the map of post-World War I
06:23Europe.
06:24Hitler and the Nazis considered the post-war international borders unfair and illegitimate.
06:29They claimed that the Germans had been denied the right of self-determination.
06:34Redrawing Europe's borders would allow the Nazis to achieve two main goals, unite all
06:38Germans in a Nazi German Empire and acquire Lebensraum, meaning living space, in Eastern
06:44Europe.
06:45The annexation of Austria would help the Nazis achieve their first goal.
06:49In March 1938, after Hitler threatened an invasion and ordered Wilhelm Keitel to conduct
06:55military manoeuvres near the Austrian border to make it appear an invasion was imminent,
06:59Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg resigned his office on the 11th of March, and Otto Seysenquart,
07:05Austrian Minister of the Interior and Hitler's Nazi yes-man, was appointed his successor.
07:10Austrian Nazis took over the country without firing a single shot.
07:14On the 12th of March, German troops crossed the border.
07:17They were not met with armed resistance, but with cheers and flowers.
07:21Terrified Jews, leftists and Schuschnigg supporters tried to flee Austria.
07:26They raced towards the country's borders, hoping to reach them before they were closed.
07:31Some managed to escape, but most were trapped in a rapidly Nazifying Austria.
07:36Among Austrian Jews who did not flee the country was Eduard Bloch with his family.
07:41However, he was in a different position than the rest of the Austrian Jews, as he would
07:46be protected by Adolf Hitler himself.
07:49Even in 1937, Hitler had enquired about Bloch's well-being and called him an Erdelyuder, meaning
07:55noble Jew.
07:56Hitler also said, if all Jews were like him, there would be no Jewish question.
08:02On the 13th of March, Austrian Nazi Chancellor Seysenquart signed the law called the Reunification
08:08of Austria with Germany.
08:10This law, sometimes called the Anschluss Law, formally incorporated Austria into Nazi Germany
08:15and gave the Anschluss an air of legality.
08:17On the 13th of March, Adolf Hitler visited his parents' graves in Leonding.
08:22Austrians welcomed Hitler warmly as he travelled first to Linz and then on to Vienna.
08:27Thousands turned out to greet the Führer and on the 15th of March, he spoke at a huge
08:31crowd in Vienna's Heldenplatz, a large square in the centre of Vienna.
08:44Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler,
08:51Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler,
08:57Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler,
09:01Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler,
09:05Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler,
09:09Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler,
09:14...
09:37Film footage and photographs of the crowds appeared in German newsreels and newspapers.
09:43Their goal was to demonstrate Austrian enthusiasm for the Anschluss, and thus justify the illegal
09:49takeover of another country.
09:51When Hitler returned home to Berlin, he was greeted as a hero.
09:55The April 10 plebiscite was another propaganda opportunity.
09:59The result of the referendum seemed to indicate that around 99% of the Austrian people wanted
10:04to unite with Nazi Germany.
10:05However, between 300 and 400,000 Austrian citizens, such as Austrian Jews, Roma, and
10:12the Nazis' political opponents, were forbidden to vote in the referendum.
10:16For Austria's approximately 200,000 Jews, the Anschluss marked a terrible turning point.
10:22Beginning on the night of the 11th of March, and in the weeks that followed, there was
10:25pogrom-like violence across the country.
10:28Austrian Nazis and others beat up, attacked, and humiliated the Jews.
10:33They forced Jews to scrub the streets, clean public toilets, and perform humiliating exercises.
10:39Germany decided to try to leave Austria, and lines appeared at consulates across the
10:43city of Vienna.
10:44However, Eduard Bloch was not among them.
10:47After the 66-year-old Bloch wrote a letter to Hitler asking for help, Hitler personally
10:52intervened to ensure his safety.
10:54Consequently, Eduard Bloch was put under special protection by the Gestapo.
10:58He was the only Jew in Linz with this status.
11:02Eduard Bloch stayed in his house with his wife, undisturbed, but two weeks after the
11:06Anschluss on the 28th of March, 1938, Gestapo officers paid them a visit.
11:12One of them said to the Blochs, I am informed that you have some souvenirs of the Führer.
11:17I should like to see them.
11:19The Gestapo demanded the items, two postcards, and the painting from Adolf Hitler be handed
11:24over.
11:25The Gestapo confiscated the postcards, but not the painting, which the Blochs did not
11:29possess anymore at the time.
11:32The Blochs remained in their home in Linz without disturbance for nearly three years.
11:36Eduard then asked Hitler if he could join his daughter in New York City.
11:41She had emigrated to the United States with her husband, Dr. Franz Krenn, before the beginning
11:45of the Second World War.
11:48Adolf Hitler ordered that the procedures for leaving the country be made easier for him,
11:52and in the meantime, the Gestapo made sure that no one bothered them.
11:56Martin Bormann, Hitler's private secretary, personally supervised everything.
12:01When the formalities for his emigration from the Third Reich and the immigration to the
12:05United States were completed, Eduard Bloch and his wife Lili, without any interference
12:09from the authorities, were able to sell their family home at market value, highly unusual
12:14were the distressed sales of immigrating Jews at the time, and Nazi expropriation of Jewish
12:18assets through the Reich Flight Tax.
12:21Moreover, the Blochs were allowed to take the equivalent of sixteen Reichsmarks out
12:25of the country.
12:26The usual amount allowed to Jews was a mere ten Reichsmarks.
12:30In October, 1940, Eduard Bloch and his wife were able to leave for Lisbon.
12:36Portugal was officially neutral during World War II.
12:39There, they embarked for the United States on board the Spanish ocean liner, settling
12:43in the New York borough of the Bronx.
12:45However, Bloch was no longer able to practice medicine, because his medical degree from
12:49Austria-Hungary was not recognized.
12:52During his stay in the United States, Bloch said about Hitler,
12:56As a youth he was quiet, well-mannered and neatly dressed.
13:00He waited patiently in the waiting room until it was his turn.
13:03Then, like every fourteen or fifteen-year-old boy, bowed as a sign of respect and always
13:08thanked the doctor politely.
13:10He was tall and pale and looked older than his age.
13:14His eyes, which he inherited from his mother, were large, melancholic and thoughtful.
13:19He also said,
13:20While Hitler was not a mother's boy in the usual sense, I never witnessed a closer attachment.
13:25Their love had been mutual.
13:27Klara Hitler adored her son.
13:29She allowed him his own way whenever possible.
13:32For example, she admired his watercolor paintings and drawings and supported his artistic ambitions
13:37in opposition to his father.
13:39At what cost to herself, one may only guess.
13:43Adolf Hitler was the saddest man I have ever seen when he was informed about his mother's
13:47imminent death.
13:50In his autobiography Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote,
13:53I honored my father, but loved my mother.
13:56Her death was a dreadful blow.
14:00Eduard Bloch was 73 years old when he died on the 1st of June, 1945, barely a month after
14:06Hitler's death.