![RGBL I 1935 S 1145](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/RGBL_I_1935_S_1145.jpg)
The Nuremberg Laws (german: link=no, Nürnberger Gesetze, ) were
antisemitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
and
racist
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
laws that were enacted in
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the
Reichstag convened during the annual
Nuremberg Rally
The Nuremberg Rallies (officially ', meaning ''Reich Party Congress'') refer to a series of celebratory events coordinated by the Nazi Party in Germany. The first rally held took place in 1923. This rally was not particularly large or impactful; ...
of the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
. The two laws were the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour, which
forbade marriages and extramarital intercourse between
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
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 any 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 1935 to include
Romani
Romani may refer to:
Ethnicities
* Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia
** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule
* Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...
and
Black people
Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in s ...
. This supplementary decree defined Romanis as "enemies of the race-based state", the same category as Jews.
Out of foreign policy concerns, prosecutions under the two laws did not commence until after the
1936 Summer Olympics
The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-sp ...
, held in Berlin. After
Hitler rose to power in 1933, the Nazis began to implement antisemitic policies, which included the formation of a ''
Volksgemeinschaft
''Volksgemeinschaft'' () is a German expression meaning "people's community", "folk community",Richard Grunberger, ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 44. "national community", or "racial community", ...
'' (people's community) based on race.
Chancellor
Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
and
Führer
( ; , spelled or ''Fuhrer'' when the Umlaut (diacritic), umlaut is not available) is a German word meaning "leader" or "guide". As a political title, it is strongly associated with the Nazi Germany, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
Nazi Germany ...
(leader)
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
declared a
national boycott of Jewish businesses on 1 April 1933, and the
Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service
The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Hitler Service (german: Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums, shortened to ''Berufsbeamtengesetz''), also known as Civil Service Law, Civil Service Restoration Act, and Law to Re-es ...
, passed on 7 April, excluded the so-called
non-Aryans from the legal profession, the civil service, and from teaching in secondary schools and universities. Books considered un-German, including those by Jewish authors, were destroyed in a nationwide
book burning
Book burning is the deliberate destruction by fire of books or other written materials, usually carried out in a public context. The burning of books represents an element of censorship and usually proceeds from a cultural, religious, or politi ...
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 crippling economic and social impact on the Jewish community. Persons convicted of violating the marriage laws were imprisoned, and (subsequent to 8 March 1938) upon completing their sentences were re-arrested by the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
and sent to
Nazi concentration camps
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...
. Non-Jews gradually stopped socialising with Jews or shopping in Jewish-owned stores, many of which closed due to a 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 middle-class business owners and professionals were forced to take menial employment. Emigration was problematic, as Jews were required to remit
up to 90% 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
The Madagascar Plan was a plan to forcibly relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar which was proposed by the Nazi German government. Franz Rademacher, head of the Jewish Department of the German Foreign Office, pro ...
proved to be impossible for the Nazis to carry out, and starting in mid-1941, the German government started
mass exterminations of the Jews of Europe.
Background
The
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
was one of several
far-right
Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...
political parties active in Germany after the end of the First World War. The party platform included removal of the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
, rejection of the terms of the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
, radical antisemitism, and anti-
Bolshevism
Bolshevism (from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, fo ...
. They promised a strong central government, increased ''
Lebensraum
(, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imperi ...
'' (living space) for Germanic peoples, formation of a ''
Volksgemeinschaft
''Volksgemeinschaft'' () is a German expression meaning "people's community", "folk community",Richard Grunberger, ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 44. "national community", or "racial community", ...
'' (people's community) based on race, and racial cleansing via the active suppression of Jews, who would be stripped of their citizenship and civil rights.
While imprisoned in 1924 after the failed
Beer Hall Putsch
The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch,Dan Moorhouse, ed schoolshistory.org.uk, accessed 2008-05-31.Known in German as the or was a failed coup d'état by Nazi Party ( or NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler, Erich Ludendorff and othe ...
, Hitler dictated ''
Mein Kampf
(; ''My Struggle'' or ''My Battle'') is a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germ ...
'' to his deputy,
Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (Heß in German; 26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a German politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, Hess held that position unt ...
. 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
Jewish Bolshevism, also Judeo–Bolshevism, is an anti-communist and antisemitic canard, which alleges that the Jews were the originators of the Russian Revolution in 1917, and that they held primary power among the Bolsheviks who led the revo ...
, 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
A worldview or world-view or ''Weltanschauung'' is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge, culture, and point of view. A worldview can include natural p ...
as expounded in ''Mein Kampf''. The Nazi Party advocated the concept of a ''
Volksgemeinschaft
''Volksgemeinschaft'' () is a German expression meaning "people's community", "folk community",Richard Grunberger, ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 44. "national community", or "racial community", ...
'' ("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'').
Nazi Germany
![Bundesarchiv Bild 102-14469, Berlin, Boykott-Posten vor jüdischem Warenhaus](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-14469%2C_Berlin%2C_Boykott-Posten_vor_j%C3%BCdischem_Warenhaus.jpg)
Discrimination against Jews intensified after the Nazis came into power; a month-long series of attacks by members of the ''
Sturmabteilung
The (; SA; literally "Storm Detachment") was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi ral ...
'' (SA; paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party) on Jewish businesses, synagogues, and members of the legal profession followed. On 21 March 1933, former US congressman
William W. Cohen
William Wolfe Cohen (September 6, 1874 – October 12, 1940) was an American businessman and politician who served one term as a U.S. Representative from New York from 1927 to 1929.
Biography
Born in Brooklyn, New York to Russian-born Bernard ...
, at a meeting of the executive advisory committee of the Jewish War Veterans of the United States, urged a strict boycott against all German goods. On 24 March, a
worldwide Jewish boycott of German goods was declared, with the support of several international Jewish organizations. In response, Hitler declared a
national boycott of Jewish businesses on 1 April 1933. By that time, many people who were not Nazi Party members were advocating for segregating Jews from the rest of German society. The
Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service
The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Hitler Service (german: Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums, shortened to ''Berufsbeamtengesetz''), also known as Civil Service Law, Civil Service Restoration Act, and Law to Re-es ...
, 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 practice. It also barred Jews from teaching at universities. In 1934, the Nazi Party published a pamphlet titled ''"Warum Arierparagraph?"'' ("Why the Aryan Law?"), which summarised 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
Book burning is the deliberate destruction by fire of books or other written materials, usually carried out in a public context. The burning of books represents an element of censorship and usually proceeds from a cultural, religious, or politi ...
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.
Other laws promulgated in this period 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 1933), habitual criminals were forced to undergo sterilisation as well. This law was also used to force the incarceration in prison or
Nazi concentration camps
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...
of "social misfits" such as the chronically unemployed, prostitutes, beggars, alcoholics, homeless vagrants, black people and
Romani
Romani may refer to:
Ethnicities
* Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia
** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule
* Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...
(referred to as "Gypsies").
Reich Gypsy Law
The Central Office for Combatting Gypsies was established in 1929, under the Weimar Republic. In December 1938 ''
Reichsführer-SS
(, ) was a special title and rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945 for the commander of the (SS). ''Reichsführer-SS'' was a title from 1925 to 1933, and from 1934 to 1945 it was the highest rank of the SS. The longest-servi ...
''
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
issued an order for "combatting the Gypsy plague". Romanis were to be categorised in terms of their Roma ancestry as a racial characteristic, rather than their previous association as 'anti-social' elements of society. This work was advanced by Dr Robert Ritter of the Racial Hygiene and Population unit of the Ministry of Health, who by 1942, had produced a scale of ZM+, ZM of the first and second degree, and ZM- to reflect an individual's decreasing level of Romani ancestry. This classification meant that one could be classified as Roma and subject to anti-Roma legislation based on having two Roma great-great-grandparents. Dr. Zindel of the Ministry of the Interior prepared a draft of a Reich "Gypsy Law" intended to supplement and accompany the Nuremberg Laws. According to Zindel, the "Gypsy problem" could not be dealt with by forced resettlement or imprisonment within Germany. He recommended identification and registration of all Roma, followed by sterilisation and deportation. In 1938, public health authorities were ordered to register all Roma and Roma ''Mischlinge''. Despite Himmler's interest in enacting such legislation, which he said would prevent "further intermingling of blood, and which regulates all the most pressing questions which go together with the existences of Gypsies in the living space of the German nation", the regime never promulgated the "Gypsy Law". In December 1942, Himmler ordered that all Roma were to be sent to Nazi concentration camps.
"The Jewish problem"
![Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-P049500, Berlin, Aufmarsch der SA in Spandau](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Bundesarchiv_B_145_Bild-P049500%2C_Berlin%2C_Aufmarsch_der_SA_in_Spandau.jpg)
Disenchanted with the unfulfilled promise of Nazi Party leaders 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
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
report from early 1935 stated that the rank and file of the Nazi Party would set in motion a solution to the "
Jewish problem
The Jewish question, also referred to as the Jewish problem, was a wide-ranging debate in 19th- and 20th-century European society that pertained to the appropriate status and treatment of Jews. The debate, which was similar to other "national ...
... 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
Otto Dov Kulka (''Ôttô Dov Qûlqā''; 16 January 1933 in Nový Hrozenkov, Czechoslovakia – 29 January 2021 in Jerusalem) was an Israeli historian, professor emeritus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His primary areas of specialization w ...
argues that there was a disparity between the views of the ''
Alte Kämpfer
Alte is a village and civil parish in the municipality of Loulé, in the Algarve region in the south of Portugal. The population in 2011 was 1,997, in an area of 94.33 km².
Situated away from the coast, Alte is known as one of the most typi ...
'' (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
Wilhelm Frick (12 March 1877 – 16 October 1946) was a prominent German politician of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), who served as Reich Minister of the Interior in Adolf Hitler's cabinet from 1933 to 1943 and as the last governor of the Protectorate ...
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 licences 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
Hjalmar Schacht (born Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht; 22 January 1877 – 3 June 1970, ) was a German economist, banker, centre-right politician, and co-founder in 1918 of the German Democratic Party. He served as the Currency Commissioner a ...
, the Economics Minister and
Reichsbank
The ''Reichsbank'' (; 'Bank of the Reich, Bank of the Realm') was the central bank of the German Reich from 1876 until 1945.
History until 1933
The Reichsbank was founded on 1 January 1876, shortly after the establishment of the German Empi ...
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 Nazi 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 party 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.
Events at Nuremberg
![Bundesarchiv Bild 183-2004-0312-505, Nürnberg, Reichsparteitag, Grundstein Kongreßhalle](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-2004-0312-505%2C_N%C3%BCrnberg%2C_Reichsparteitag%2C_Grundstein_Kongre%C3%9Fhalle.jpg)
The seventh annual
Nazi Party Rally, held in Nuremberg from 10 to 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 Interior Minister 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
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
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.
Text of the laws
The two Nuremberg Laws were unanimously passed by the Reichstag on 15 September 1935. The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour prohibited marriages and
extramarital intercourse
Extramarital sex occurs when a married person engages in sexual activity with someone other than their spouse.
The term may be applied to the situation of a single person having sex with a married person.
Where extramarital sexual relations do n ...
between Jews and Germans, and forbade the employment of German females under 45 in Jewish households. The Reich Citizenship Law 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. The wording in the Citizenship Law that a person must prove "by his conduct that he is willing and fit to faithfully serve the German people and Reich" meant that political opponents could also be stripped of their German citizenship. This law was effectively a means of stripping Jews, Roma, and other "undesirables" of their legal rights, and their citizenship.
Over the coming years, an additional 13 supplementary laws were promulgated that further marginalised the Jewish community in Germany. For example, Jewish families were not permitted to submit claims for subsidies for large families and were forbidden to transact business with Aryans.
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 citizens 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 citizens of German or related blood are forbidden.
;Article 3
Jews may not employ in their households female citizens 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
prison with hard labour /nowiki>">uchthaus/nowiki>.
# A male who violates the prohibition under Article 2 will be punished with prison
/nowiki>">efängnis/nowiki> or prison with hard labour.
# Any person violating the provisions under Articles 3 or 4 will be punished with prison with hard labour for 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
Impact
![Nuremberg laws Racial Chart](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Nuremberg_laws_Racial_Chart.jpg)
While both the Interior Ministry and the Nazi Party agreed that persons with three or more Jewish grandparents would be classed as being Jewish and those with only one (''
Mischling
(; " mix-ling"; plural: ) was a pejorative legal term used in Nazi Germany to denote persons of mixed "Aryan" and non-Aryan, such as Jewish, ancestry as codified in the Nuremberg racial laws of 1935. In German, the word has the general denota ...
e'' 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 Nazi Party, 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. Jews and Gypsies were not allowed to vote in Reichstag elections or the
1938 Austrian Anschluss referendum
A referendum on the Anschluss with Germany was held in German-occupied Austria on 10 April 1938,Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p176 alongside one in Germany. German troops had already occupied Aus ...
. 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 Interior Minister 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
An Aryan paragraph (german: Arierparagraph) was a clause in the statutes of an organization, corporation, or real estate deed that reserved membership and/or right of residence solely for members of the "Aryan race" and excluded from such rights a ...
excluding both ''Mischlinge'' and Jews from employment. Proof of Aryan descent was achieved by obtaining an
Aryan certificate
In Nazi Germany, the Aryan certificate/passport (german: Ariernachweis) was a document which certified that a person was a member of the presumed Aryan race. Beginning in April 1933, it was required from all employees and officials in the publ ...
. One form was to acquire an ''
Ahnenpass
The ''Ahnenpaß'' (literally, "ancestor pass") documented the Aryan lineage of people "of German blood" in Nazi Germany. It was one of the forms of the Aryan certificate (''Ariernachweis'') and issued by the "Reich Association of Marriage Regist ...
'', 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".
![Die Katze lasst das Mausen nicht!](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Die_Katze_lasst_das_Mausen_nicht%21.jpg)
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".
Persons suspected of having sexual relations with non-Aryans were charged with ''
Rassenschande
''Rassenschande'' (, "racial shame") or ''Blutschande'' ( "blood disgrace") was an anti-miscegenation concept in Nazi German racial policy, pertaining to sexual relations between Aryans and non-Aryans. It was put into practice by policies like ...
'' (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
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...
. 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.
![Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R99993, Jude mit Stern in Berlin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-R99993%2C_Jude_mit_Stern_in_Berlin.jpg)
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
The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-sp ...
, 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
Aryanization (german: Arisierung) was the Nazi term for the seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews, and the forced expulsion of Jews from economic life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. I ...
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 was sentenced to lengthy terms in prison as "economic saboteurs". An exception was money sent to Palestine under the terms of the
Haavara Agreement
The Haavara Agreement () was an agreement between Nazi Germany and Zionist German Jews signed on 25 August 1933. The agreement was finalized after three months of talks by the Zionist Federation of Germany, the Anglo-Palestine Bank (under the dir ...
, whereby Jews could transfer some of their assets 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 destabilise the region. Nationalistic and
xenophobic
Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
people in other countries pressured their governments not to accept waves of Jewish immigrants, especially poverty-stricken ones. The
Madagascar Plan
The Madagascar Plan was a plan to forcibly relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar which was proposed by the Nazi German government. Franz Rademacher, head of the Jewish Department of the German Foreign Office, pro ...
, a proposed mass deportation of European Jews to Madagascar, proved to be impossible to carry out. Starting in mid-1941, the German government started mass exterminations of the Jews of Europe. The total number of Jews murdered during the resulting
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
is estimated at 5.5 to 6 million people. Estimates of the death toll of Romanis in the
Porajmos
The Romani Holocaust or the Romani genocide—also known as the ''Porajmos'' (Romani pronunciation: , meaning "the Devouring"), the ''Pharrajimos'' meaning the hard times ("Cutting up", "Fragmentation", "Destruction"), and the ''Samudaripen'' (" ...
range from 150,000 to 1,500,000.
Legislation in other countries
![The law for protection of the nation (Bulgaria)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/The_law_for_protection_of_the_nation_%28Bulgaria%29.jpg)
Some of the other
Axis powers
The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...
passed their own versions of the Nuremberg Laws.
*In 1938,
Fascist Italy passed the
Italian racial laws and
Manifesto of Race
The "Manifesto of Race" ( it, "Manifesto della razza", italics=no), otherwise referred to as the Charter of Race or the Racial Manifesto, was a manifesto which was promulgated by the Council of Ministers on the 14th of July 1938, its promulgation ...
which stripped Jews of their citizenship and forbade sexual relations and 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
The Iron Guard ( ro, Garda de Fier) was a Romanian militant revolutionary fascist movement and political party founded in 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu as the Legion of the Archangel Michael () or the Legionnaire Movement (). It was strongly ...
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.
*In 1941, the
Ustaše
The Ustaše (), also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croats, Croatian Fascism, fascist and ultranationalism, ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaš ...
in Croatia passed legislation defining who was a Jew and restricting contact with them.
*While the
Empire of Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...
did not draft or pass any legislation, they were pressured by the German government to place
Singaporean Jews
:Jews have a long history in :Singapore, dating back to the 19th century, and are currently a significant minority population in the country.
History Colonial era
The first wave of Jewish immigration to Singapore were Jews of Baghdadi o ...
and
Indonesian Jews in internment camps during the
Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies
The Empire of Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) during World War II from March 1942 until after the end of the war in September 1945. It was one of the most crucial and important periods in modern Indonesian history.
In May ...
and
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
.
Existing copies
An original typescript of the laws signed by Hitler was found by the US Army's
Counterintelligence Corps
The Counter Intelligence Corps (Army CIC) was a World War II and early Cold War intelligence agency within the United States Army consisting of highly trained special agents. Its role was taken over by the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps in 1961 and ...
in 1945. It ended up in the possession of General
George S. Patton
George Smith Patton Jr. (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh United States Army in the Mediterranean Theater of World War II, and the Third United States Army in France ...
, who kept it, in violation of orders that such finds should be turned over to the government. During a visit to Los Angeles in 1945, he handed it over to the
Huntington Library
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) and Arabella Huntington (c.1851–1924) in San Mar ...
, 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
The Skirball Cultural Center, founded in 1996, is a Jewish educational institution in Los Angeles, California. The center, named after philanthropist-couple Jack H. Skirball and Audrey Skirball-Kenis, features a museum with regularly changing e ...
, which placed it on public display. The document was transferred to the
National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...
in Washington in August 2010.
See also
*
Anti-miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws or miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalization, criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different R ...
*
Apartheid laws
The system of racial segregation and oppression in South Africa known as ''apartheid'' was implemented and enforced by many acts and other laws. This legislation served to institutionalize racial discrimination and the dominance by white people o ...
*
Blood quantum laws
Blood quantum laws or Indian blood laws are laws in the United States that define Native American status by fractions of Native American ancestry. These laws were enacted by the federal government and state governments as a way to establi ...
*
Hans Globke
Hans Josef Maria Globke (10 September 1898 – 13 February 1973) was a German administrative lawyer, who worked in the Prussian and Reich Ministry of the Interior in the Reich, during the Weimar Republic and the time of National Socialism and wa ...
*
Intermarried Jews in the Holocaust
Jews who were Interfaith marriage in Judaism, married to non-Jews had a greater chance of surviving the Holocaust. In Germany, Jews in "privileged mixed marriages" were exempt from some anti-Jewish laws. All intermarried Jews in Greater Germany wer ...
*
Jewish Archive (Francoist Spain)
The Jewish Archive (''Archivo Judaico'') was the name given to a collection of documents compiled by the regime of Francisco Franco in Spain during the Second World War. In accordance with instructions of the Directorate of General Security (''Di ...
*
Nazism and race
The Nazi Party adopted and developed several pseudoscientific racial classifications as part of its ideology (Nazism) in order to justify the genocide of groups of people which it deemed racially inferior. The Nazis considered the putative " ...
*
Wilhelm Stuckart
Wilhelm Stuckart (16 November 1902 – 15 November 1953) was a German Nazi Party lawyer, official, and a State Secretary in the Reich Interior Ministry during the Nazi era. He was a co-author of the notorious Nuremberg Laws and was a participa ...
*
Nur für Deutsche
The slogan ''Nur für Deutsche'' (English: "Only for Germans") was a German ethnocentric slogan indicating that certain establishments, transportation and other facilities such as park benches, bars and restaurants were reserved exclusively fo ...
*
Wannsee Conference
References
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Further reading
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External links
Rise of the Nazis and Beginning of Persecutionon the
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...
website
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1930s in Bavaria
1935 in Germany
1935 in law
20th century in Nuremberg
Holocaust racial laws
Jewish German history
Disabilities (Jewish) in Europe
Law in Nazi Germany
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Race and law
Religion and race
Repealed German legislation