The German Council of Municipalities (Deutscher-Gemeindetag) and the coordination of anti-Jewish local politics in the Nazi state

This article examines the role played by municipalities and local governments in the widening persecution of Jews in 1930s Nazi Germany, focusing on municipal initiatives to exclude Jews from public markets, and to expropriate Jewish property and possessions. Municipal discriminatory measures were often coordinated by the German Council of Municipalities, which linked communal administrations to various state ministries. By exploring the interaction between national and local anti-Jewish policies, the article argues that the Council of Municipalities regularly sanctioned measures that went beyond what Berlin itself had authorized, thus pressing forward the steady destruction of German-Jewish life.