The Decree for the Reporting of Jewish-owned Property (1938)

On April 26th 1938, the Nazis issued the Decree for the Reporting of Jewish-owned Property, requiring all Jews to submit an inventory of property with a value in excess of 5000 Reichsmarks:

“On the basis of the Decree for the Execution of the Four-Year Plan of October 18th 1936, the following is hereby decreed:

Article One

1. Every Jew… shall report and evaluate in accordance with the following instructions his entire domestic and foreign property and estate on the day when this decree goes into force. Jews of foreign citizenship shall report and evaluate only their domestic property

2. The duty to report holds likewise for the non-Jewish marital partner of a Jew.

3. Every reporting person’s property must be given separately.

Article Two

1. Property in the sense of this law includes the total property of the person required to report, irrespective of whether it is exempt from any form of taxation or not.

2. It does not include movable objects used by the individual or house furnishings as far as the latter are not luxury objects.

Article Three

1. Every part of the property shall be valued according to the usual valuation it has on the effective date of this regulation.

2. No report is necessary when the total worth of the property to be reported does not exceed 5000 marks.

Article Four

The report is to be presented on an official form by June 20th 1938, to the administrative official responsible at the place of residence of the reporting individual. When such a report is not possible by this date the responsible official can extend the period. In such case, however, an estimate is to be presented by June 30th 1938, together with a statement of the grounds of delay.

Article Five

1. The reporting individual must report, after this decree goes into force, to the responsible office, every change of said individual’s total property as far as it exceeds a proper standard of living or normal business transactions.

2. The reporting requirement applies also to those Jews who were not required to report on the effective date of this regulation but who have acquired property exceeding 5000 Reichsmarks in value, after this date…

Article Seven

The Deputy for the Four Year Plan is empowered to take such necessary measures as may be necessary to guarantee the use of the reported property in accord with the necessities of the German economy.

Article Eight

1. Whoever willfully or negligently fails to comply with this reporting requirement, either by omitting it, or making it incorrectly, or not within the time specified, or whoever acts contrary to any instruction… shall be punishable by imprisonment and by a fine or by both of these penalties, in particularly flagrant cases of willful violation the offender may be condemned to hard labour up to ten years. The offender is punishable notwithstanding that the action was in a foreign country…”

Berlin, 26 April 1938
The Deputy for the Four Year Plan
Goering, General Field Marshal
The Reich Minister of the Interior
Wilhelm Frick