In addition to a passport, a notice of deregistration as a resident and a tax clearance certificate, which confirmed, among other things, that the Reich exit tax and all other tax liabilities had been paid, one of the most important documents required by prospective emigrants in the Nazi period was a police clearance certificate. This certified that the holder had no criminal record—an important requirement for admission to another country.

The certificate shown here was issued to Robert Goldschmidt (1904–1980) on 7 October 1933 by the Registration and Passport Division of the Hamburg Police Authorities. It does not seem likely that Goldschmidt applied for the certificate in order to emigrate, since he did not leave Germany that year. It is quite possible that he required it for professional reasons. In 1933 he was awarded sole power of attorney by his employer, the Hamburg import firm Eichholz & Loeser, where he had begun working in 1921.

On the other hand, emigration plans cannot be entirely ruled out. After all, it was precisely this step that Robert Goldschmidt took one and a half years later, when he left for Shanghai on 13 March 1935. There he landed a job with the British grain company Bunge & Co. Limited. However, by that time his police certificate could not have been much help to him—it had expired just a few months after being issued.

Anna Mirtschin