80
years ago on this date, September 15, 1935, the Nuremberg Laws deprive German
Jews of citizenship. I will post information about the Nuremberg Race Laws from
Wikipedia and other links.
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Instructional Chart
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/nurem-laws.htm]
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The
Nuremberg Laws (German: Nürnberger Gesetze) were antisemitic laws in Nazi
Germany. They were introduced on 15 September 1935 by the Reichstag at the annual Nuremberg
Rally of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). The two laws were the Law for the
Protection of German Blood and German Honour, which forbade marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans and
the employment of German females under 45 in Jewish households, and the Reich
Citizenship Law, which declared that only those of German or related blood were
eligible to be Reich citizens; the remainder were classed as state subjects,
without citizenship rights. A supplementary decree outlining the definition of
who was Jewish was passed on 14 November, and the Reich Citizenship Law
officially came into force on that date. The laws were expanded on 26 November
to include Romani people and Black
people. Out of foreign policy concerns, prosecutions under the two laws did
not commence until after the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin.
After
they seized power in 1933, the Nazis began to implement
their policies, which included the formation of a national community based on
race. Chancellor and Führer
(leader) Adolf Hitler declared a national boycott of Jewish businesses
on 1 April 1933, and the Law for the
Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, passed on 7 April, excluded
most Jews from the legal profession and civil service. Books considered
un-German, including those by Jewish authors, were destroyed in a nationwide book burning on 10 May. Jewish citizens were
harassed and subjected to violent attacks. They were actively suppressed,
stripped of their citizenship and civil rights, and eventually completely
removed from German society.
The
Nuremberg laws had a serious economic and social impact on the Jewish
community. Persons convicted of violating the marriage law were imprisoned, and
(subsequent to 8 March 1938) upon completing their sentences were re-arrested
by the Gestapo and sent to Nazi concentration camps. Non-Jews
gradually stopped socialising with Jews or shopping in Jewish-owned stores,
many of which closed due to lack of customers. As Jews were no longer permitted
to work in the civil service or government-regulated professions such as
medicine and education, many formerly middle-class or wealthy business owners
and professionals were forced to take menial employment. Emigration was
problematic, as Jews were required to remit up to 90 per cent of their wealth
as a tax upon leaving the country. By 1938 it was almost impossible for
potential Jewish emigrants to find a country willing to take them. Mass
deportation schemes such as the Madagascar
Plan proved to be impossible for the Nazis to carry out, and sometime
around December 1941, Hitler resolved that the Jews of Europe were to be
exterminated. The total number of Jews murdered during the resulting Holocaust is
estimated at 5.5 to 6 million people, and estimates of the number of Romani
killed in the Porajmos
range from 220,000 to 1.5 million.
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Title page of RGB I
No. 100 proclaiming the laws, issued 16 September 1935
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Background
Prior
to the formation of the German Empire in 1871, the legal status of Jews
varied from place to place within the German Confederation and the Kingdom of Prussia. Jews became equal citizens
with the creation of the new constitution that soon
followed. However, they still faced discrimination and antisemitism.
Nationalist sentiments and the idea of Germans as a separate race took hold at
the beginning of the 20th century. Jews, with their different culture and
ancestry, were viewed (particularly by proponents of the Völkisch movement) as being members of a
separate and inferior race. Several nationalistic and antisemitic groups (some
with memberships of hundreds of thousands of people) formed after the First
World War. These groups committed acts of violence against Jews and lobbied
for their disenfranchisement and removal from German society.
The
National Socialist German
Workers' Party (NSDAP; Nazi Party) was one of several far-right political parties active in Germany at
the time. The party platform included removal of the Weimar
Republic, rejection of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, radical antisemitism,
and anti-Bolshevism.
They promised a strong central government, increased Lebensraum
(living space) for Germanic peoples, formation of a national community based on
race, and racial cleansing via the active suppression of Jews, who would be
stripped of their citizenship and civil rights. The Nazis proposed national and
cultural renewal based upon the Völkisch movement.
Nazi
eugenics and racial belief
Main
articles: Nazi eugenics and Nazism
and race
Nazi
racial beliefs arose from earlier proponents of a supremacist conception of
race such as Arthur de Gobineau, who published a four-volume
work titled An Essay on the
Inequality of the Human Races (translated into German in 1897). In it,
de Gobineau proposed that the Aryan race was superior, and urged the preservation of
its cultural and racial purity. Houston Stewart Chamberlain's work The Foundations of the
Nineteenth Century (1900), one of the first to combine Social
Darwinism with antisemitism, describes history as a struggle for survival
between the Germanic peoples and the Jews, whom he characterized as an inferior
and dangerous group. The two-volume book Foundations of Human Hereditary
Teaching and Racial Hygiene (1920–21) by Eugen
Fischer, Erwin Baur, and Fritz Lenz,
used pseudoscientific studies to conclude that the
Germans were superior to the Jews intellectually and physically, and
recommended eugenics
as a solution. Madison Grant's work The Passing of the Great Race
(1916) advocated Nordicism and proposed using a eugenic program to preserve
the Nordic race. After reading the book, Hitler called it "my Bible".
The Nazis embraced the concept of Nordicism and wished for the Nordic race to
dominate Germany, but they did not discriminate against Aryans who did not have
Nordic physical characteristics.
While
imprisoned in 1924 after the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler dictated Mein Kampf
to his deputy, Rudolf Hess. The book is an
autobiography and exposition of Hitler's ideology in which he laid out his
plans for transforming German society into one based on race. In it he outlined
his belief in Jewish Bolshevism, a conspiracy theory that posited
the existence of an international Jewish conspiracy for world domination in
which the Jews were the mortal enemy of the German people. Throughout his life
Hitler never wavered in his world view as expounded in Mein Kampf. The NSDAP
advocated the concept of a Volksgemeinschaft
("people's community") with the aim of uniting all Germans as
national comrades, whilst excluding those deemed either to be community aliens
or of a foreign race (Fremdvölkische).
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Israel's Department
Store in Berlin on April 1, 1933 at the start of the Nazi boycott of
Jewish-owned businesses. These are members of the SA (Sturmabteilung) holding
placards that say: "Germans defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews."
("Deutsche! Wehrt Euch! Kauft nicht bei Juden!")
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Nazi
Germany
Discrimination
against Jews intensified after the NSDAP seized power; following a month-long
series of attacks by members of the Sturmabteilung
(SA; paramilitary wing of the NSDAP) on Jewish businesses, synagogues, and
members of the legal profession, on 1 April 1933 Hitler declared a national boycott of Jewish businesses.
By 1933, many people who were not NSDAP members advocated segregating Jews from
the rest of German society. The Law for the
Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, passed on 7 April 1933,
forced all non-Aryans to retire from the legal profession and civil service.
Similar legislation soon deprived Jewish members of other professions of their
right to practise. In 1934, the NSDAP published a pamphlet titled "Warum
Arierparagraph?" ("Why the Aryan Law?"), which summarized
the perceived need for the law. As part of the drive to remove Jewish influence
from cultural life, members of the National Socialist Student League removed from
libraries any books considered un-German, and a nationwide book burning was held on 10 May. Violence and
economic pressure were used by the regime to encourage Jews to voluntarily
leave the country. Legislation passed in July 1933 stripped naturalised German
Jews of their citizenship, creating a legal basis for recent immigrants
(particularly Eastern European Jews) to be deported. Many towns posted signs
forbidding entry to Jews. Throughout 1933 and 1934, Jewish businesses were
denied access to markets, forbidden to advertise in newspapers, and deprived of
access to government contracts. Citizens were harassed and subjected to violent
attacks.
Laws
promulgated in this period that were not aimed directly at Jews included the Law for the
Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring (passed on 14 July 1933),
which called for the compulsory sterilisation of people with a range of
hereditary, physical, and mental illnesses. Under the Law against Dangerous
Habitual Criminals (passed 24 November 1935), habitual criminals were forced to
undergo sterilisation as well. This law was also used to force the
incarceration in prison or Nazi concentration camps of "social
misfits" such as the chronically unemployed, prostitutes, beggars,
alcoholics, homeless vagrants, and Romani
people.
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The SA had nearly
three million members at the start of 1934.
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"The
Jewish problem"
Disenchanted
with the unfulfilled promise of the NSDAP to eliminate Jews from German
society, SA members were eager to lash out against the Jewish minority as a way
of expressing their frustrations. A Gestapo
report from early 1935 stated that the rank and file of the NSDAP would set in
motion a solution to the "Jewish
problem ... from below that the government would then have to
follow". Assaults, vandalism, and boycotts
against Jews, which the Nazi government had temporarily curbed in 1934,
increased again in 1935 amidst a propaganda campaign authorised at the highest
levels of government. Most non-party members ignored the boycotts and objected
to the violence out of concern for their own safety. The Israeli historian Otto
Dov Kulka argues that there was a disparity between the views of the Alte
Kämpfer (longtime party members) and the general public, but that even
those Germans who were not politically active favoured bringing in tougher new
antisemitic laws in 1935. The matter was raised to the forefront of the state
agenda as a result of this antisemitic agitation.
The
Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick announced on 25 July that a law
forbidding marriages between Jews and non-Jews would shortly be promulgated,
and recommended that registrars should avoid issuing licenses for such
marriages for the time being. The draft law also called for a ban on marriage
for persons with hereditary illnesses.
Dr.
Hjalmar Schacht, the Economics Minister and Reichsbank
president, criticised the violent behaviour of the Alte Kämpfer and SA
because of its negative impact on the economy. The violence also had a negative
impact on Germany's reputation in the international community. For these
reasons, Hitler ordered a stop to "individual actions" against German
Jews on 8 August 1935, and the Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick threatened to
take legal action against Party members who ignored the order. From Hitler's
perspective, it was imperative to quickly bring in new antisemitic laws to
appease the radical elements in the NSDAP who persisted in attempting to remove
the Jews from German society by violent means. A conference of ministers was
held on 20 August 1935 to discuss the question. Hitler argued against violent
methods because of the damage being done to the economy, and insisted the
matter must be settled through legislation. The focus of the new laws would be
marriage laws to prevent "racial defilement", stripping Jews of their
German citizenship, and laws to prevent Jews from participating freely in the
economy.
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| NSDAP dignitaries at the 1935 Nuremberg Rally |
Events
at Nuremberg
The
seventh annual Nazi Party Rally, held in Nuremberg from 10–16
September 1935, featured the only Reichstag session held outside Berlin
during the Nazi regime. Hitler decided that the rally would be a good
opportunity to introduce the long-awaited anti-Jewish laws. In a speech on 12
September, leading Nazi physician Gerhard Wagner announced that the
government would soon introduce a "law for the protection of German
blood". The next day, Hitler summoned the Reichstag to meet in session at
Nuremberg on 15 September, the last day of the rally. Franz Albrecht Medicus
and Bernhard Lösener of the Interior Ministry were
summoned to Nuremberg and directed to start preparing a draft of a law
forbidding sexual relations or marriages between Jews and non-Jews. The two men
arrived on 14 September. That evening, Hitler ordered them to also have ready
by morning a draft of the Reich citizenship law. Hitler found the initial
drafts of the Blood Law to be too lenient, so at around midnight Frick brought
him four new drafts that differed mainly in the severity of the penalties they
imposed. Hitler chose the most lenient version, but left vague the definition
of who was a Jew. Hitler stated at the rally that the laws were "an
attempt at the legal settlement of a problem, which, if this proved a failure,
would have to be entrusted by law to the National Socialist Party for a
definitive solution." Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels had the radio broadcast of the passing of the laws cut short,
and ordered the German media to not mention them until a decision was made as
to how they would be implemented.
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Reich Citizenship Law
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Law for the Protection
of German Blood and German Honour
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Text
of the laws
Law
for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour
Moved
by the understanding that purity of German blood is the essential condition for
the continued existence of the German people, and inspired by the inflexible
determination to ensure the existence of the German nation for all time, the
Reichstag has unanimously adopted the following law, which is promulgated
herewith:
Article 1
- Marriages between Jews and subjects of the state of German or related blood are forbidden. Marriages nevertheless concluded are invalid, even if concluded abroad to circumvent this law.
- Annulment proceedings can be initiated only by the state prosecutor.
Article
2
Extramarital relations between Jews and subjects of the state of German or related blood are forbidden.
Article 3
Jews may not employ in their households female subjects of the state of German or related blood who are under 45 years old.
Article 4
- Jews are forbidden to fly the Reich or national flag or display Reich colours.
- They are, on the other hand, permitted to display the Jewish colours. The exercise of this right is protected by the state.
Article
5
- Any person who violates the prohibition under Article 1 will be punished with a prison sentence.
- A male who violates the prohibition under Article 2 will be punished with a jail term or a prison sentence.
- Any person violating the provisions under Articles 3 or 4 will be punished with a jail term of up to one year and a fine, or with one or the other of these penalties.
Article
6
The Reich Minister of the Interior, in co-ordination with the Deputy of the Führer and the Reich Minister of Justice, will issue the legal and administrative regulations required to implement and complete this law.
Article 7
The law takes effect on the day following promulgation, except for Article 3, which goes into force on 1 January 1936.
Reich Citizenship Law
The Reichstag has unanimously enacted the following law, which is promulgated herewith:
Article 1
- A subject of the state is a person who enjoys the protection of the German Reich and who in consequence has specific obligations toward it.
- The status of subject of the state is acquired in accordance with the provisions of the Reich and the Reich Citizenship Law.
Article
2
- A Reich citizen is a subject of the state who is of German or related blood, and proves by his conduct that he is willing and fit to faithfully serve the German people and Reich.
- Reich citizenship is acquired through the granting of a Reich citizenship certificate.
- The Reich citizen is the sole bearer of full political rights in accordance with the law.
Article
3
The Reich
Minister of the Interior, in co-ordination with the Deputy of the Führer, will
issue the legal and administrative orders required to implement and complete
this law.
Classifications
under the laws
1935
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Classification
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Translation
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Heritage
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Definition
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Deutschblütiger
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German-blooded
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German
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Belongs to
the German Race and nation; approved to have Reich citizenship
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Deutschblütiger
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German-Blooded
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1/8 Jewish
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Considered
as belonging to the German race and nation; approved to have Reich
citizenship
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Mischling zweiten Grades
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Mixed race
(second degree)
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1/4 Jewish
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Only partly
belongs to the German race and nation; approved to have Reich citizenship
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Mischling ersten Grades
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Mixed race
(first degree)
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3/8 or 1/2
Jewish
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Only partly
belongs to the German race and nation; approved to have Reich citizenship
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Jude
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Jew
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5/8, 3/4,
or 7/8 Jewish
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Belongs to
the Jewish race and community; not approved to have Reich citizenship
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Jude
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Jew
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Jewish
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Belongs to
the Jewish race and community; not approved to have Reich citizenship
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Special Cases with First Degree
Mischlings
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Date
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Decree
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15 September 1935
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A Mischling
will be considered a Jew if they are a member of the Jewish religious
community.
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15 September 1935
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A Mischling
will be considered a Jew if they are married to a Jew. Their children will be
considered Jews.
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17 September 1935
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A
mixed-race child that is the issue of a marriage with a Jew that is born
after 17 September 1935 will be classified as a Jew. Those already born
before 17 September 1935 will still be classified as Mischlings.
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31 July 1936
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A
mixed-race child originating from forbidden extramarital sexual intercourse
with a Jew that is born out of wedlock after July 31, 1936 will be classified
as a Jew.
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Chart to describe
Nuremberg Laws, 1935. The "Nuremberg Laws" established a
pseudo-scientific basis for racial identification. Only people with four German
grandparents (four white circles in top row left) were of "German
blood". A Jew is someone who descends from three or four Jewish
grandparents (black circles in top row right). In the middle stood people of
"mixed blood" of the "first or second degree." A Jewish
grandparent was defined as a person who is or was a member of a Jewish
religious community. Also includes a list of allowed marriages ("Ehe
gestattet") and forbidden marriages ("Ehe verboten").
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Impact
While
both the Interior Ministry and the NSDAP agreed that persons with three or more
Jewish grandparents would be classed as being Jewish and those with only one (Mischlinge
of the second degree) would not, a debate arose as to the status of persons
with two Jewish grandparents (Mischlinge of the first degree). The
NSDAP, especially its more radical elements, wanted the laws to apply to Mischlinge
of both the first and second degree. For this reason Hitler continued to stall,
and did not make a decision until early November 1935. His final ruling was
that persons with three Jewish grandparents were classed as Jewish; those with
two Jewish grandparents would be considered Jewish only if they practised the
faith or had a Jewish spouse. The supplementary decree outlining the definition
of who was Jewish was passed on 14 November, and the Reich Citizenship Law came
into force on that date. Jews were no longer German citizens and did not have
the right to vote. Civil servants who had been granted an exemption to the Law
for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service because of their status
as war veterans were forced out of their jobs on this date. A supplementary
decree issued on 21 December ordered the dismissal of Jewish veterans from
other state-regulated professions such as medicine and education.
While
Frick's suggestion that a citizenship tribunal before which every German would
have to prove that they were Aryan was not acted upon, proving one's racial
heritage became a necessary part of daily life. Non-government employers were
authorised to include in their statutes an Aryan
paragraph excluding both Mischlinge and Jews from employment. Proof
of Aryan descent was achieved by obtaining an Aryan
certificate. One form was to acquire an Ahnenpass,
which could be obtained by providing birth or baptismal certificates that all four
grandparents were of Aryan descent. The Ahnenpass could also be acquired
by citizens of other countries, as long as they were of "German or related
blood".
Under
the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour (15
September 1935), marriages were forbidden between Jews and Germans; between Mischlinge
of the first degree and Germans; between Jews and Mischlinge of the
second degree; and between two Mischlinge of the second degree. Mischlinge
of the first degree were permitted to marry Jews, but they would henceforth be
classed as Jewish themselves. All marriages undertaken between half-Jews and
Germans required the approval of a Committee for the Protection of German
Blood. Few such permissions were granted. A supplementary decree issued on 26
November 1935 extended the law to "Gypsies, Negroes, and their
bastards." Estimates of the death toll of Romani
people in the Porajmos range from 220,000 to 1,500,000.
Persons
suspected of having sexual relations with non-Aryans were charged with Rassenschande
(racial defilement) and tried in the regular courts. Evidence provided to the
Gestapo for such cases was largely provided by ordinary citizens such as
neighbours, co-workers, or other informants. Persons accused of race defilement
were publicly humiliated by being paraded through the streets with a placard
around their necks detailing their crime. Those convicted were typically
sentenced to prison terms, and (subsequent to 8 March 1938) upon completing
their sentences were re-arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Nazi concentration camps. As the law did
not permit capital punishment for racial defilement, special courts were
convened to allow the death penalty for some cases. From the end of 1935
through 1940, 1,911 people were convicted of Rassenschande. Over time,
the law was extended to include non-sexual forms of physical contact such as
greeting someone with a kiss or an embrace.
For
the most part, Germans accepted the Nuremberg Laws, partly because Nazi
propaganda had successfully swayed public opinion towards the general belief
that Jews were a separate race, but also because to oppose the regime meant
leaving oneself open to harassment or arrest by the Gestapo. Citizens were
relieved that the antisemitic violence ceased after the laws were passed.
Non-Jews gradually stopped socialising with Jews or shopping in Jewish-owned
stores. Wholesalers who continued to serve Jewish merchants were marched
through the streets with placards around their necks proclaiming them as
traitors. The Communist party and some elements of the Catholic Church were
critical of the laws. Concerned that international opinion would be adversely
swayed by the new laws, the Interior Ministry did not actively enforce them
until after the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin that
August.
The
Interior Ministry estimated there were 750,000 Mischlinge as of April 1935
(studies done after the war put the number of Mischlinge at around
200,000). As Jews became more and more excluded from German society, they
organised social events, schools, and activities of their own. Economic
problems were not so easily solved, however; many Jewish firms went out of
business due to lack of customers. This was part of the ongoing Aryanization
process (the transfer of Jewish firms to non-Jewish owners, usually at prices
far below market value) that the regime had initiated in 1933, which
intensified after the Nuremberg laws were passed. Former middle-class or
wealthy business owners were forced to take employment in menial jobs to
support their families, and many were unable to find work at all.
Although
a stated goal of the Nazis was that all Jews should leave the country,
emigration was problematic, as Jews were required to remit up to 90 per cent of
their wealth as a tax upon leaving the country. Anyone caught transferring
their money overseas were sentenced to lengthy terms in prison as
"economic saboteurs". An exception was money sent to Palestine under
the terms of the Haavara Agreement, whereby Jews could transfer
their wealth and emigrate to that country. Around 52,000 Jews emigrated to
Palestine under the terms of this agreement between 1933 and 1939.
By
the start of the Second World War in 1939, around 250,000 of Germany's 437,000
Jews had emigrated to the United States, Palestine, Great Britain, and other
countries. By 1938 it was becoming almost impossible for potential Jewish
emigrants to find a country that would take them. After the 1936–39 Arab revolt, the British
were disinclined to accept any more Jews into Palestine for fear it would
further destabilize the region. Nationalistic and xenophobic
people in other countries pressured their governments not to accept waves of
Jewish immigrants, especially poverty-stricken ones. The Madagascar
Plan, a proposed mass deportation of European Jews to Madagascar, proved to
be impossible to carry out. Sometime around the German failure in the Battle
of Moscow in December 1941, Hitler resolved that the Jews of Europe were to
be exterminated immediately. The total number of Jews murdered during the
resulting Holocaust
is estimated at 5.5 to 6 million people.
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Beginning in 1941,
Jews were required by law to self-identify by wearing a yellow
badge on their clothing.
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Legislation
in other countries
Allies of
the Nazis passed their own versions of the Nuremberg laws. In 1938, Fascist
Italy passed the Italian Racial Laws, which stripped Jews of
their citizenship and forbade marriages between Jewish and non-Jewish Italians.
Hungary passed laws on 28 May 1938 and 5 May 1939 banning Jews from various
professions. A third law, added in August 1941, defined Jews as anyone with at
least two Jewish grandparents, and forbade sexual relations or marriages
between Jews and non-Jews. In 1940 the ruling Iron Guard
in Romania passed the Law Defining the Legal Status of Romanian Jews, in 1941
the Codex Judaicus was enacted in Slovakia, in 1941 Bulgaria passed the Law for Protection of the Nation,
and in 1941 the Ustasha
in Croatia passed legislation defining who was a Jew and restricting contact
with them.
Existing
copies
An
original typescript of the laws signed by Hitler was found by the US Army's
Counter-Intelligence Corps in 1945. It wound up in the possession of
General George S. Patton, who kept it, in violation of
orders that such finds should be turned over to the government. During a visit
to Los Angeles, he handed it over to the Huntington Library, where it was stored in a
bomb-proof vault. The library revealed the existence of the document in 1999,
and sent it on permanent loan to the Skirball Cultural Center, which placed it
on public display. The document was transferred to the National Archives and
Records Administration in Washington in August 2010.
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