Final Sale in Berlin offers a wealth of information about the vibrant commercial life of Berlin's Jewish community at the end of the Weimar Republic and charts the destruction of that world in the years following the rise to power of the National Socialists. While other books have had a similar focus, none offers the same level of detail about the Jewish commercial presence in Berlin, making this translated version of the 2011 German text a welcome addition to university libraries in North America. Those who can, however, should stick with the original German. A few improbable errors turn up in the English edition, most distracting of which is the repeated misspelling of Völkischer Beobachter, the chief Nazi daily newspaper.

Kreutzmüller insists from the start that his main goal is to shift our perspective from one that posits Jewish business people as passive victims to one that asks how each individual or family staved off liquidation of their assets for as long as they did, which was several years in many cases. He focuses solely on small- and medium-sized businesses, as they made up the largest percentage of Jewish-owned firms in the city and best help us understand “the everyday patterns of coexistence as well as … persecution and self-assertion” (3). He bases his conclusions on a massive database that was compiled for this project and that includes information on 44,000 businesses, over 8,000 of which were regarded as Jewish. Because Kreutzmüller also wanted to leave a legacy for the relatives of these families, the database is now open to researchers at Yad Vashem and the Leo Baeck Institute; a compressed version is available through the Humboldt University at http://www2.hu-berlin.de/djgb.

The first section lays the groundwork for the study by examining briefly the economic and political situation in Berlin after 1933. Readers are provided with an introduction to the extensive network of offices (party, state, and commercial) that worked in concert to destroy Jewish business life in the capital, including the understudied Chamber of Commerce (Industrie und Handelskammer, or IHK). However, the author also wants his audience to understand just how significant Jewish commercial life was in the city. Comparing official business registers and estimates of how many firms not listed were likely to have been considered Jewish, the author concludes that as many as 50,000 businesses defined as Jewish were likely to have been operating in June 1933—meaning that Berlin's enterprises made up about half of all Jewish businesses in Germany. Sixty percent of these firms were in the traditional areas of textiles and clothing, foodstuffs, and banking. An added detail worth noting is that almost a quarter of all self-employed Jews were women, which far surpassed the percentage of non-Jewish self-employed women in the city (6.4 percent).

Kreutzmüller begins the second section on persecution in the 1920s in order to demonstrate that the violence that followed Adolf Hitler's appointment as chancellor marked an escalation of brutality, rather than a new phenomenon in the city. Those business owners who were particularly successful, who worked in politically sensitive areas, or who had been politically vocal, were the first to be targeted. The vandalism of stores, looting, and arrests in these early months were not confined to major events like the boycott of April 1, 1933 (which was, the author reminds us, more accurately a blockade of Jewish businesses), or the large-scale pogrom of November 9, 1938, which, in fact, lasted several days. In addition to discussing the violence waged by the members of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the Hitler Youth, as well as by other citizens who supported the racist regime, the book also looks at the myriad ways Jews were attacked via bureaucratic means. Already in May 1933, Berlin's mayor, Heinrich Sahm, decided that government-owned buildings would no longer be leased to Jewish entrepreneurs and that all existing agreements would be terminated. From the humblest of outdoor market stalls to the trading floor of the Berlin stock exchange, Jews found it increasingly impossible to do business. The level of harassment still strikes one as remarkable: severe limitations were even placed on operating vending machines and creating window displays; season-end sales were prohibited; locating businesses within private residences was banned; and, of course, inspections of all sorts were ramped up, as regulators looked for the smallest of infractions. Key players in the targeting of Jewish businesses, such as the Gauwirtschaftsberater (Gau cconomic advisor) Heinrich Hunke and Berlin police president Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff, make appearances, but the author also draws attention to the looters, profiteers, racist advertisers, and others who not only abandoned Jewish colleagues and neighbors to the state-sanctioned discrimination, but also profited from their misery.

The final section highlights the institutional and individual strategies undertaken to withstand the policies and practices that eventually led to the destruction and theft of Jewish businesses and property. Kreutzmüller also includes a chapter on emigration, five short case studies, and a final chapter on the deportation of Jewish business people. The most esteemed organization, the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith (Centralverein, or CV), took a legalist approach through 1935, calling on the police and various local and state ministries to act according to the law. By 1936, however, the CV realized that such strategies were futile and the organization consequently began to promote emigration. Although the extant documentation is limited, the book also features other Jewish associations, including the Wirtschaftshilfe (Economic Assistance), trade associations, media outlets, and cooperative banks. Individuals followed similar strategies, such as making legal arguments in court, and the roughly 25 percent of Berlin's Jews who held foreign passports turned to the consulates and embassies. When all else failed, many turned to the so-called Zauberer (magicians): brokers with expert financial knowledge and a willingness to profit from those seeking to flee.

In conclusion, Kreuztmüller offers four reasons why so many of Berlin's Jews may have been able to withstand the onslaught for as long as they did. The existence of economic assistance institutions in the city well before 1933 meant that structures were in place to respond to the crisis. The very size of Berlin not only meant that Jews were involved in a broader range of industries and had greater access to foreign markets, but also made it easier for some non-Jewish consumers and business contacts to remain loyal until at least 1938. Finally, Kreutzmüller points out that Berlin's Jews may have been aided to a degree by the fact that the international press was based in Berlin—and the regime cared about international opinion (at least for a time). This is a fine book that now offers an English-language audience significant detail about Berlin's Jews, the city's economy, and the defensive measures taken by this minority group and its allies to withstand persistent, and often violent, persecution.