Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1986-044-08, Stein-Pfalz, Eva Justin bei Schädelmessung

The racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented in Nazi Germany under the

dictatorship A dictatorship is a form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, which holds governmental powers with few to no limitations on them. The leader of a dictatorship is called a dictator. Politics in a dictatorship are ...

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...

, based on a specific racist doctrine asserting the superiority of the

Aryan race The Aryan race is an obsolete historical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people of Proto-Indo-European heritage as a racial grouping. The terminology derives from the historical usage of Aryan, used by modern ...

, which claimed scientific legitimacy. This was combined with a eugenics programme that aimed for racial hygiene by

compulsory sterilization Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done throug ...

and extermination of those who they saw as ''

Untermenschen ''Untermensch'' (, ; plural: ''Untermenschen'') is a Nazi term for non- Aryan "inferior people" who were often referred to as "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Serbs, and later also Russians). Th ...

'' ("sub-humans"), which culminated in the Holocaust. Nazi policies labeled centuries-long residents in German territory who were not ethnic Germans such as Jews (understood in Nazi racial theory as a "Semitic" people of Levantine origins), Roma (also known as Gypsies, an "Indo-Aryan" people of Indian subcontinent origins), along with the vast majority of Slavs (mainly ethnic

Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Cen ...

, Serbs, Russians etc.), and most non-Europeans as inferior non-Aryan subhumans (i.e. non-Nordics, under the Nazi appropriation of the term "

Aryan Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ' ...

") in a racial hierarchy that placed the ''Herrenvolk'' ("

master race The master race (german: Herrenrasse) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology in which the putative "Aryan race" is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as "''Herrenmenschen''" ("master humans"). T ...

") of the ''

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") at the top.''Operation Barbarossa: Ideology and Ethics against Human Dignity'', by André Mineau, (Rodopi, 2004) page 180''The Czechs under Nazi Rule: The Failure of National Resistance, 1939–1942'', Vojtěch Mastný, Columbia University Press The Politics of Fertility in Twentieth-Century Berlin - Page 118 Annette F. Timm - 2010 The Nazis' singleminded desire to "purify" the German race through the elimination of non-Aryans (particularly Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs) The racial policy of the Nazi Party and the German state was organized through the Office for Racial policy, which published circulars and directives to relevant administrative organs, newspapers, and educational institutes.

Historical origins of Nazi racial theories and policies

himself along with other members of the Nazi Party in 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 ...

(1918–1933) were greatly influenced by several 19th- and early 20th-century thinkers and proponents of philosophical, onto-epistemic, and theoretical perspectives on

ecological anthropology Ecological anthropology is a sub-field of anthropology and is defined as the "study of cultural adaptations to environments". The sub-field is also defined as, "the study of relationships between a population of humans and their biophysical envir ...

scientific racism Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies ...

, holistic science, and

organicism Organicism is the philosophical position that states that the universe and its various parts (including human societies) ought to be considered alive and naturally ordered, much like a living organism.Gilbert, S. F., and S. Sarkar. 2000. "Embraci ...

regarding the constitution of

complex systems A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication sy ...

and the theorization of organic-racial societies. In particular, one of the most significant ideological influences on the Nazis was the 19th-century

German nationalist German nationalism () is an ideological notion that promotes the unity of Germans and German-speakers into one unified nation state. German nationalism also emphasizes and takes pride in the patriotism and national identity of Germans as one n ...

philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, whose works had served as an inspiration to Hitler and other Nazi Party members, and whose ideas were implemented among the philosophical and ideological foundations of Nazi-oriented Völkisch nationalism.

Basis of Nazi policies and the constitution of the Aryan Master Race

Bundesarchiv Bild 135-KB-15-083, Tibetexpediton, Anthropometrische Untersuchungen

The Aryan

Master Race The master race (german: Herrenrasse) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology in which the putative "Aryan race" is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as "''Herrenmenschen''" ("master humans"). T ...

conceived by

and the other Nazis graded humans on a scale of pure Aryans to non-Aryans (who were viewed as subhumans). At the top of the scale of pure Aryans were Germans and other Germanic and Northern European peoples, including the Dutch, Scandinavians, and the English. Latins were held to be somewhat inferior, but were tolerated; and the French were thought to have a suitable admixture of Germanic blood. The feeling that Germans were the Aryan ''

Herrenvolk The master race (german: Herrenrasse) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology in which the putative "Aryan race" is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as "''Herrenmenschen''" ("master humans"). The ...

'' (Aryan master race) was widely spread among the German public through Nazi propaganda and among Nazi officials throughout the ranks, in particular when the Reichskommissar of Ukraine Erich Koch said: The Nazis considered the Slavs as Non-Aryan ''

'' ("sub-humans") who were to be enslaved and exterminated by Germans. Slavic nations such as the Ukrainians, Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians and Croats who collaborated with Nazi Germany were still being perceived as not racially "pure" enough to reach the status of Germanic peoples, yet they were eventually considered ethnically better than the rest of the Slavs, mostly due to pseudoscientific theories about these nations having a considerable admixture of Germanic blood. In countries where these people lived, there were according to Nazis small groups of non-Slavic German descendants. These people underwent a "racial selection" process to determine whether or not they were "racially valuable", if the individual passed they would be re-

Germanised Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In li ...

and forcefully taken from their families in order to be raised as Germans. This secret plan Generalplan Ost ("Master Plan East") aimed at expulsion, enslavement and extermination of most Slavic people. Nazi policy towards them changed during World War II as a pragmatic means to resolve military manpower shortages: they were allowed, with certain restrictions, to serve in the Waffen-SS, in spite of being considered subhumans. Nazi propaganda portrayed people in Eastern Europe with an Asiatic appearance to be the result of intermingling between the native Slavic populations and Asiatic or Mongolian races as sub-humans dominated by the Jews with the help of Bolshevism. At the bottom of the racial scale of non-Aryans were Jews, ethnic

, ethnic Serbs and other Slavic people,

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 ...

.Simone Gigliotti, Berel Lang. ''The Holocaust: A Reader''. Malden, Massachusetts, USA; Oxford, England, UK; Carlton, Victoria, Australia: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Pp. 14. The Nazis originally sought to rid the German state of Jews and Romani by means of deportation (and later extermination), while blacks were to be segregated and eventually eliminated through

. Volkisch theorists believed that Germany's Teutonic ancestors had spread out from Germany throughout Europe.George Victor. ''Hitler: The Pathology of Evil''. Washington, DC, USA: Potomac Books, Inc, 2007. Pp. 117. Of the Germanic tribes that spread through Europe, the theorists identified that the

Burgundians The Burgundians ( la, Burgundes, Burgundiōnes, Burgundī; on, Burgundar; ang, Burgendas; grc-gre, Βούργουνδοι) were an early Germanic tribe or group of tribes. They appeared in the middle Rhine region, near the Roman Empire, and ...

, Franks, and Western Goths joined with the Gauls to make France; the Lombards moved south and joined with the Italians; the Jutes made Denmark; the

Angles The Angles ( ang, Ængle, ; la, Angli) were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Great Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several kingdoms of the Heptarchy in Anglo-Saxon England. Their name is the root of the name ' ...

and Saxons made England; the Flemings made Belgium; and other tribes made the Netherlands. Nazi racial beliefs of the superiority of an Aryan master race arose from earlier proponents of a supremacist conception of race such as the French novelist and diplomat Arthur de Gobineau, who published a four-volume work titled ''

An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'' (Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, 1853–1855) is a racist and pseudoscientific work of French writer Joseph Arthur, Comte de Gobineau, which argues that there are intellectual differen ...

'' (translated into German in 1897). Gobineau proposed that the

was superior, and urged the preservation of its cultural and racial purity. Gobineau later came to use and reserve the term Aryan only for the "German race" and described the Aryans as 'la race germanique'. By doing so he presented a racist theory in which Aryans–that is Germans–were all that was positive.

Houston Stewart Chamberlain Houston Stewart Chamberlain (; 9 September 1855 – 9 January 1927) was a British-German philosopher who wrote works about political philosophy and natural science. His writing promoted German ethnonationalism, antisemitism, and scientific ...

's work ''

The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century ''The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century'' (''Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts,'' 1899) is a book by British-born German philosopher Houston Stewart Chamberlain. In the book, Chamberlain advances various racialist and especially '' ...

'' (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 Fritz Gottlieb Karl Lenz (9 March 1887 in Pflugrade, Pomerania – 6 July 1976 in Göttingen, Lower Saxony) was a German geneticist, member of the Nazi Party,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 ''The Passing of the Great Race: Or, The Racial Basis of European History'' is a 1916 racist and pseudoscientific book by American lawyer, self-styled anthropologist, and proponent of eugenics, Madison Grant (1865–1937). Grant expounds a theor ...

'' (1916) advocated

Nordicism Nordicism is an ideology of racism which views the historical race concept of the " Nordic race" as an endangered and superior racial group. Some notable and seminal Nordicist works include Madison Grant's book ''The Passing of the Great Race' ...

and proposed using a eugenic program to preserve the Nordic race. After reading the book, Hitler called it "my Bible". Racist author and Nordic supremacist

Hans F. K. Günther Hans Friedrich Karl Günther (16 February 1891 – 25 September 1968) was a German writer, an advocate of scientific racism and a eugenicist in the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. He was also known as "''Rassengünther''" ("Race Günther") ...

, who influenced Nazi ideology, wrote in his "Race Lore of German People" (''

Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes ''Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes'' (English: ''Racial Science of the German People''), is a book written by German race researcher and Nazi Party member Hans Günther and published in 1922.Anne Maxwell. Picture Imperfect: Photography and Eugenic ...

'') about the danger of "Slavic blood of Eastern race" mixing with the German and combined virulent nationalism with

Antisemitism 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 ...

. Günther became an epitome of corrupt and politicized pseudo-science in post-war Germany. Among the topics of his research were attempts to prove that Jews had an unpleasant "hereditary smell". While one of the most prominent Nazi writers, Günther still was not considered the most "cutting edge" by Nazis. EuthanasiePropaganda

The July 1933

Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring (german: Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses) or "Sterilisation Law" was a statute in Nazi Germany enacted on July 14, 1933, (and made active in January 1934) which allowed the com ...

– written by

Ernst Rüdin Ernst Rüdin (19 April 1874 – 22 October 1952) was a Swiss-born German psychiatrist, geneticist, eugenicist and Nazi, rising to prominence under Emil Kraepelin and assuming the directorship at the German Institute for Psychiatric Resea ...

and other theorists of "racial hygiene" – established "Genetic Health Courts" which decided on

of "any person suffering from a hereditary disease." These included, for the Nazis, those suffering from " Congenital Mental Deficiency", schizophrenia, " Manic-Depressive Insanity", " Hereditary Epilepsy", " Hereditary Chorea" (Huntington's), Hereditary Blindness, Hereditary Deafness, "any severe hereditary deformity", as well as "any person suffering from severe

alcoholism Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol that results in significant mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognized diagnostic entity. Predomin ...

". Further modifications of the law enforced sterilization of the " Rhineland bastards" (children of mixed German and African parentage). The Nazi Party wanted to increase birthrates of those who were classified as racially elite. When the Party gained power in 1933, one of their first actions was to pass the Law for the Encouragement of Marriage. This law stated that all newly married couples of the Aryan race could receive a government loan. This loan was not simply paid back, rather a portion of it would be forgiven after the birth of each child. The purpose of this law was very clear and simple: to encourage newlyweds to have as many children as they could, so that the Aryan population would grow.

Racial policies regarding the Jews, 1933–1939

Bundesarchiv Bild 133-075, Worms, Antisemitische Presse,

Approximately 525,000 Jews were living in Germany in 1933 (0.75% of the entire German population). Discrimination against Jews began immediately after the national seizure of power in 1933. The Nazi Party used populist antisemitic views to gain votes. Using the "

stab-in-the-back legend The stab-in-the-back myth (, , ) was an antisemitic conspiracy theory that was widely believed and promulgated in Germany after 1918. It maintained that the Imperial German Army did not lose World War I on the battlefield, but was instead ...

", they blamed poverty, the Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic, unemployment, and the loss of World War I and surrender by the "

November Criminals The stab-in-the-back myth (, , ) was an antisemitic conspiracy theory that was widely believed and promulgated in Germany after 1918. It maintained that the Imperial German Army did not lose World War I on the battlefield, but was instead ...

" all on the Jews and "cultural Bolsheviks", the latter considered to be in a conspiracy with the Jews. German woes were attributed to the effects of the Treaty of Versailles. In 1933, persecution of the Jews became active Nazi policy. This was at first hindered by the lack of agreement on who qualified as a

Jew 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 ...

as opposed to an

; this caused legislators to balk at an antisemitic law for its ill-defined terms. Bernhard Lösener described it as "total chaos", with local authorities regarding anything from full Jewish background to Jewish blood as defining a Jew;

Achim Gercke Achim Gercke (3 August 1902 – 27 October 1997) was a German politician. Born in Greifswald, Gercke became a department head of the NSDAP in Munich on 1 January 1932. In April 1933 he was appointed to the Ministry of the Interior, where he ...

urged Jewish blood. Those of mixed descent ('' Mischlinge'') were especially problematic in their eyes. The first antisemitic law was promulgated with no clear definition of a Jew. Finally, the criterion was set at three or four Jewish grandparents; two or one rendered a person a ''Mischling''. On April 1, 1933, the

Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses The Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses () in Germany began on April 1, 1933, and was claimed to be a defensive reaction to the anti-Nazi boycott, which had been initiated in March 1933. It was largely unsuccessful, as the German population cont ...

was observed throughout Germany. Only six days later, 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 ...

was passed, banning Jews from government jobs. It is notable that the proponents of this law, and the several thousand more that were to follow, most frequently explained them as necessary to prevent the infiltration of damaging, "alien-type" (''Artfremd'') hereditary traits into the German national or racial community (''Volksgemeinschaft''). These laws meant that Jews were now indirectly and directly dissuaded or banned from privileged and superior positions reserved for "Aryan Germans". From then on, Jews were forced to work in more menial positions, becoming

second-class citizen A second-class citizen is a person who is systematically and actively discriminated against within a state or other political jurisdiction, despite their nominal status as a citizen or a legal resident there. While not necessarily slaves, ...

s or to the point that they were "illegally residing" in Nazi Germany. In the early years of Nazi rule, there were efforts to secure the elimination of Jews by expulsion; later, a more explicit commitment was made to extermination. On August 25, 1933, the Nazis signed 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 d ...

with

Zionists Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Jew ...

to allow German Jews to emigrate to

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East J ...

in exchange for a portion of their economic assets. The agreement offered a way to leave an increasingly hostile environment in Nazi Germany; by 1939, 60,000 German Jews (about 10% of the Jewish population) had emigrated there. Thereafter, Nazi policy eventually changed to one of total extermination. Nazi doctrine culminated in the Holocaust, or so-called " Final Solution", which was made official at the January 1942 Wannsee Conference.

Nuremberg Laws

Between 1935 and 1936, persecution of the Jews increased apace while the process of "''

Gleichschaltung The Nazi term () or "coordination" was the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party successively established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society and societies occupied b ...

''" (lit.: "standardisation", the process by which the Nazis achieved complete control over German society) was implemented. In May 1935, Jews were forbidden to join the '' Wehrmacht'' (the armed forces), and in the summer of the same year, anti-semitic propaganda appeared in shops and restaurants. The Nuremberg Laws were passed around the time of the great Nazi rallies at Nuremberg; on September 15, 1935, the " Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor" was passed. At first this criminalised sexual relations and marriage only between Germans and Jews, but later the law was extended to "Gypsies, Negroes and their bastard offspring"; it became punishable by law as ''

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 ...

'' or racial pollution. After this, the "Reich Citizenship Law" was passed, and was reinforced in November by a decree; it included only people of "German or related blood", which meant that all Jews were stripped of their

citizenship Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

and their official title became "subjects of the state". This meant that they were deprived of basic citizens' rights, e.g. the right to vote. This removal of citizens' rights was instrumental in the process of anti-semitic persecution: the process of

denaturalization Denaturalization is the loss of citizenship against the will of the person concerned. Denaturalization is often applied to ethnic minorities and political dissidents. Denaturalization can be a penalty for actions considered criminal by the state ...

allowed the Nazis to exclude—'' de jure''—Jews from the "''Volksgemeinschaft''" ("national community"), thus granting judicial legitimacy to their persecution and opening the way to harsher laws and, eventually, extermination of the Jews. Philosopher

Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. Arendt was born ...

pointed out this important judicial aspect of the Holocaust in '' The Origins of Totalitarianism'' (1951), where she demonstrated that to violate human rights, Nazi Germany first deprived human beings of their citizenship. Arendt underlined that in the

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (french: Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789, links=no), set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human civil rights document from the French Revol ...

, citizens' rights actually preceded human rights, as the latter needed the protection of a determinate state to be actually respected. The drafting of the Nuremberg Laws has often been attributed to

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 ...

. Globke co-authored several aspects of the laws, such as the ordinance which legally required Jews with non-Jewish names to take on the additional first names Israel or Sara, along with the official legal commentary on the Reich Citizenship Law. Bundesarchiv Bild 101III-Duerr-053-29, Lettland, KZ Salaspils, Essensausgabe

Bundesarchiv Bild 101III-Duerr-053-29, Lettland, KZ Salaspils, Essensausgabe

In 1936, Jews were banned from all professional jobs, effectively preventing them from having any influence in education, politics, higher education, and industry. There was now nothing to stop the anti-Jewish actions that spread across the German economy. Between 1937 and 1938, new laws were implemented, and the

segregation Segregation may refer to: Separation of people * Geographical segregation, rates of two or more populations which are not homogenous throughout a defined space * School segregation * Housing segregation * Racial segregation, separation of humans ...

of Jews from the "German Aryan" population was completed. In particular, Jews were punished financially for being Jewish. From March 1, 1938, government contracts could not be awarded to Jewish businesses. On September 30, "Aryan" doctors could only treat "Aryan" patients. Provision of medical care to Jews was already hampered because Jews were banned from being doctors. On August 17, Jews with first names of non-Jewish origin were legally required to add "Israel" (males) or "Sara" (females) to their names, and a large letter "J" was to be printed on their passports on October 5. On November 15, Jewish children were banned from going to state-run schools. By April 1939, nearly all Jewish companies had either collapsed under financial pressure and declining profits, or been persuaded to sell out to the government, further reducing their rights as human beings; they were, in many ways, effectively separated from the German populace. The increasingly totalitarian regime that Hitler imposed on Germany allowed him to control the actions of the military. On November 7, 1938, a young Polish Jew named

Herschel Grynszpan Herschel Feibel Grynszpan (Yiddish: הערשל פײַבל גרינשפּאן; German: ''Hermann Grünspan''; 28 March 1921 – last rumoured to be alive 1945, declared dead 1960) was a Polish-Jewish expatriate born and raised in Weimar Germany ...

attacked and shot German diplomat

Ernst vom Rath Ernst Eduard vom Rath (3 June 1909 – 9 November 1938) was a member of the German nobility, a Nazi Party member, and German Foreign Office diplomat. He is mainly remembered for his assassination in Paris in 1938 by a Polish Jewish teenager, H ...

in the German embassy in Paris. Grynszpan's family, together with more than 12,000 Polish-born Jews, had been expelled by the Nazi government from Germany to Poland in the so-called "''

Polenaktion In October 1938, about 17,000 Polish Jews living in Nazi Germany were arrested and expelled. These deportations, termed by the Nazis ''Polenaktion'' ("Polish Action"), were ordered by SS officer and head of the Gestapo Reinhard Heydrich. The de ...

''" on October 28, 1938.

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 194 ...

ordered retaliation. On the night of November 9, the SS and SA conducted "the Night of Broken Glass" ("'' Kristallnacht''"), in which at least 91 Jews were killed and a further 30,000 arrested and incarcerated in

Nazi concentration camp 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 conce ...

s. After the start of the war, and the conquest of numerous European countries, the Jewish population was put into ghettos, from which they were shipped to death camps where they were murdered.

Jewish responses to the Nuremberg Laws

After the promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws, the ''

Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden The Reich Representation of German Jews (german: Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden) was a Jewish umbrella organization founded in Germany on 17 September 1933. It was established to coordinate and represent the activities of Jewish political an ...

'' (Representation of the German Jews) announced the following:

Sinti and Roma

Bundesarchiv R 165 Bild-244-52, Asperg, Deportation von Sinti und Roma

Nazi Germany began persecution of the

as early as 1936 when they began to transfer the people to municipal internment camps on the outskirts of cities, a prelude to the deportation of 23,000 Gypsies to concentration camps. "Pure-blooded" Gypsies were considered by the Nazis to be Aryan. Roughly ten percent of Gypsies were considered to be racially pure.

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 ...

suggested creating a "Gypsy Law" to separate Gypsies from the German people: However, although many laws during Nazi Germany persecuted the Gypsies, a specific "Gypsy Law", although talked about often, was never enacted by the Nazis.

Afro-Germans

Bundesarchiv Bild 102-15664, Farbiger Junge

In '' Mein Kampf'', Hitler described children resulting from marriages to African occupation soldiers as a contamination of the Aryan race "by Negro blood on the Rhine in the heart of Europe." He thought that "Jews were responsible for bringing Negroes into the Rhineland, with the ultimate idea of bastardizing the white race which they hate and thus lowering its cultural and political level so that the Jew might dominate." He also implied that this was a plot on the part of the French, saying the population of France was being increasingly "negrified". Eugen Fischer box crop

The number of black people in Germany when the Nazis came to power is variously estimated at 5,000 to 25,000. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C., "The fate of black people from 1933 to 1945 in Nazi Germany and in German-occupied territories ranged from isolation to persecution, sterilization, medical experimentation, incarceration, brutality, and murder. However, there was no systematic program for their elimination as there was for Jews and other groups." Prior to Hitler coming to power, black entertainers were popular in Germany, but the Nazis banned jazz as "corrupt negro music". Of particular concern to the Nazi scientist Eugen Fischer were the " Rhineland Bastards": mixed-race offspring of

Senegalese Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ''Réewum Senegaal''; Pulaar : 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣� ...

soldiers who had been stationed in the Rhineland as part of the French army of occupation. He believed that these people should be sterilized in order to protect the racial purity of the German population. At least 400 mixed-race children were forcibly sterilized in the Rhineland by 1938. This order only applied in the Rhineland. Other African Germans were unaffected. Despite this policy, there was never any systematic attempt to eliminate the black population in Germany, though some blacks were used in medical experiments, and others mysteriously disappeared. According to Susan Samples, the Nazis went to great lengths to conceal their sterilization and abortion program in the Rhineland.

Hans Massaquoi Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi (January 19, 1926 – January 19, 2013) was a German-American journalist and author. He was born in Hamburg, Germany, to a German mother and a Liberian father of Vai ethnicity, the grandson of Momulu Massaquoi, the ...

describes his experience as a half-African in Hamburg, unaware of the Rhineland sterilizations until long after the war. Samples also points to the paradoxical fact that African-Germans actually had a better chance of surviving the war than the average German. They were excluded from military activity because of their non-Aryan status, but were not considered a threat and so were unlikely to be incarcerated. Samples and Massaquoi also note that African-Germans were not subjected to the segregation they would have experienced in the United States, nor excluded from facilities such as expensive hotels. However, they both state that downed black American pilots were more likely to become victims of violence and murder from German citizens than white pilots. Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1974-079-57, Berlin, Ausstellung

Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1974-079-57, Berlin, Ausstellung

Policies regarding Poles, Russians and other Slavs

As early as 1925, Hitler suggested in '' Mein Kampf'' that the German people needed ''

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") to achieve German expansion eastwards (''

Drang nach Osten (; 'Drive to the East',Ulrich Best''Transgression as a Rule: German–Polish cross-border cooperation, border discourse and EU-enlargement'' 2008, p. 58, , Edmund Jan Osmańczyk, Anthony Mango, ''Encyclopedia of the United Nations and Interna ...

'') at the expense of the "inferior Slavs". Hitler believed that "the organization of a Russian state formation was not the result of the political abilities of the Slavs in Russia, but only a wonderful example of the state-forming efficacity of the German element in an inferior race."Adolf Hitler, ''Mein Kampf'', 1925 After the

invasion of the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named afte ...

, Hitler expressed his future plans for the Slavs: Nazi ideology viewed the Slavic peoples as non-Aryan ''

'' ("sub-humans"), who were targeted for enslavement, expulsion and extermination. The racial status of Slavs during the Third Reich was inconsistent over time. Hitler viewed the Slavs as "a mass of born slaves who feel the need of a master". Nazi propaganda portrayed the Germanic peoples as "heroes" in contrast to the Jewish and Slavic "sub-humans". Nazi propaganda depicted Eastern Europe as racially mixed "Asiatic" that was dominated by the Jews with the aid of Bolshevism. The Nazis considered some people in Eastern Europe to be suitable for Germanization (they were presumed to be of German descent); if they were considered racially valuable they were to be re-Germanized and forcefully taken from their families to Germany and raised as Germans. The final version of ''Generalplan Ost'', essentially a grand plan for

ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...

, was divided into two parts: the ''Kleine Planung'' ("Small Plan"), which covered actions which were to be taken during the war, and the ''Grosse Planung'' ("Big Plan"), which covered actions to be undertaken after the war was won (to be carried into effect gradually over a period of 25–30 years). The Small Plan was to be put into practice as the Germans conquered the areas to the east of their pre-war borders. The individual stages of this plan would then be worked out in greater detail. In this way, the plan for Poland was drawn up at the end of November 1939. Bundesarchiv R 49 Bild-0131, Aussiedlung von Polen im Wartheland

Bundesarchiv R 49 Bild-0131, Aussiedlung von Polen im Wartheland

The plan envisaged removal of the majority of the population of conquered counties, with very small and varied percentages of the various conquered nations undergoing

Germanisation Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In ling ...

, expulsion into the depths of Russia, and other fates, the net effect of which would be to ensure that the conquered territories would be Germanized. Himmler declared during the Germanization process that no drop of German blood would be lost or left behind to mingle with any "alien races". The ''

Wehrbauer ''Wehrbauer'' (, ''defensive peasant''), plural ''Wehrbauern'', is a German term for settlers living on the marches of a realm, who were tasked with holding back foreign invaders until the arrival of proper military reinforcements. In turn, they w ...

'' ("soldier-peasants") would settle in a fortified line to prevent civilization arising beyond and threatening Germany. The Nazis issued the

Polish decrees Polish decrees, Polish directives or decrees on Poles (german: Polen-Erlasse, Polenerlasse) were the decrees of the Nazi Germany government announced on 8 March 1940 during World War II to regulate the working and living conditions of the Polis ...

on 8 March 1940 which regulated the working and living conditions of Polish laborers (

Zivilarbeiter Zivilarbeiter ( German for ''civilian worker'') refers primarily to ethnic Polish residents from the General Government (Nazi-occupied central Poland), used during World War II as forced laborers in the Third Reich. Polish Zivilarbeiters The re ...

) used during World War II in Germany. The decrees set out that any Pole "who has sexual relations with a German man or woman, or approaches them in any other improper manner, will be punished by death." The Gestapo were extremely vigilant about sexual relations between Germans and Poles and pursued any case relentlessly where this was suspected. There were similar regulations used against the other ethnic groups brought in from Eastern Europe, including the death penalty for sexual relations with a German person. During the war, hundreds of Polish and Russian men were executed for their relations with German women. Heinrich Himmler, in his secret memorandum "Reflections on the Treatment of Peoples of Alien Races in the East" dated 25 May 1940, expressed his own thoughts and the future plans for the populations in the East. Himmler stated that it was in the German interest to discover as many ethnic groups in the East and splinter them as much as possible, find and select racially valuable children to be sent to Germany to assimilate them and restrict non-Germans in the General Government and conquered territories to four-grade elementary school which would only teach them how to write their own name, to count up to 500 and to obey Germans. Himmler believed the Germanization process in Eastern Europe would be complete when "in the East dwell only men with truly German, Germanic blood".

Other "non-Aryans"

Though the laws primarily targeted Jews, other "non-Aryan" people were subject to the laws, and to other legislation concerned with racial hygiene. The term "Aryan" was never fully defined - it was too imprecise and ambiguous; a number of judicial and executive decisions made attempts over time to clarify the concept. Jews were by definition non-Aryan, because of their Semitic origins. Outside of Europe in North Africa, according to

Alfred Rosenberg Alfred Ernst Rosenberg ( – 16 October 1946) was a Baltic German Nazi theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart and he held several important posts in the Nazi government. He was the head of ...

's racial theories ('' The Myth of the Twentieth Century''), some of the

Berbers , image = File:Berber_flag.svg , caption = The Berber ethnic flag , population = 36 million , region1 = Morocco , pop1 = 14 million to 18 million , region2 = Algeria , pop2 ...

, particularly the

Kabyles The Kabyle people ( kab, Izwawen or ''Leqbayel'' or ''Iqbayliyen'', ) are a Berber ethnic group indigenous to Kabylia in the north of Algeria, spread across the Atlas Mountains, east of Algiers. They represent the largest Berber-speaking popula ...

, were to be classified as Aryans. The Nazis portrayed Swedes, the Afrikaners – who are white European descendants of Dutch-speaking Boers in South Africa – and higher-degree Northern/Western Europeans of South America (mainly from Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina) as ideal "Aryans" along with the German-speaking peoples of Greater Germany and Switzerland (the country was neutral during the war). The Roma (Gypsies), who, while considered originally Aryan, were deemed a threat to the Aryan race because of their racial mingling.

Turks and Turkics

The

Crimean Karaites The Crimean Karaites or Krymkaraylar (Crimean Karaim: Кърымкъарайлар, ''Qrımqaraylar'', singular къарай, ''qaray''; Trakai dialect: ''karajlar'', singular ''karaj''; he, קראי מזרח אירופה; crh, Qaraylar; ), a ...

, Turkic speakers following

Karaite Judaism Karaite Judaism () or Karaism (, sometimes spelt Karaitism (; ''Yahadut Qara'it''); also spelt Qaraite Judaism, Qaraism or Qaraitism) is a Jewish religious movements, Jewish religious movement characterized by the recognition of the written T ...

, managed to get a declaration from the Reich Agency for the Investigation of Families that they were not to be considered of Jewish religion and their racial classification should be done individually. However, not every Nazi officer or soldier were aware of the official position and a small number Karaites were murdered by German troops in Russia, as if they were Jews. The majority of the Karaites fared much better than the Turkic-speaking Jews, the

Krymchaks The Krymchaks ( Krymchak: , , , ) are Jewish ethno-religious communities of Crimea derived from Turkic-speaking adherents of Rabbinic Judaism. In 1935, with the passages of the Nuremberg Laws, Turks were recognized to be 'racially related to Finns and Hungarians' and considered 'Aryan' as per NSDAP directive. This rule applied to Turkic peoples and Turkish citizens. The April 30, 1936 NSDAP Office for Racial Policy circular reads: "The Turks are Aryans" while explaining that Turkish citizens of Jewish background would still be considered Jews. However, the Turkish government's policy of not discriminating on the basis of the ethnic origins or racial background of citizens meant that Turkish Jews in German occupied Europe who could produce Turkish citizenship papers enjoyed the status of Turk and could escape Europe to Turkey unharmed. In addition, Turkish students and diplomats moved freely in Germany and enjoyed the legal status of Aryans. The racial policy of classifying Turks as Aryans was extended to all Turkish speaking peoples in Central Asia, and the Turkic and Altaic peoples as a whole. The Germans regarded all Ural-Altaic peoples to be Aryan.

Norwegians

In Norway, the Nazis favored and promoted children between Germans and Norwegians, in an attempt to raise the birth rate of Nordic Aryans. Around 10,000–12,000

war children War children are those born to a native parent and a parent belonging to a foreign military force (usually an occupying force, but also military personnel stationed at military bases on foreign soil). Having a child by a member of a belligeren ...

(''Krigsbarn'') were born from these unions during the war. Some of them were separated from their mothers and cared for in so-called "''

Lebensborn Lebensborn e.V. (literally: "Fount of Life") was an SS-initiated, state-supported, registered association in Nazi Germany with the stated goal of increasing the number of children born who met the Nazi standards of "racially pure" and "healt ...

''" clinics ("Fountain of Life" clinics).

Finno-Ugrics

The Finns had a debatable position in the Nazi racial policies, as they were considered a part of the "Eastern Mongol race" with the Sámi people in traditional racial hierarchies. Finland did not have Lebensborn centres, unlike Norway, although Finland had tens of thousands of German soldiers in the country. Archival research however has found out that 26 Finnish women were in contact with the Lebensborn program for unspecified reasons. In 1941 Nazi Germany established the

Reichskommissariat Ostland The Reichskommissariat Ostland (RKO) was established by Nazi Germany in 1941 during World War II. It became the civilian occupation regime in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the western part of Byelorussian SSR. German planning documents initia ...

to administer the conquered territory of Estonia. The colonial department in Berlin under Minister

(born in Tallinn in 1893) looked on Estonians favorably as Finno-Ugrics and thus as "Aryans", Generalkommissar Karl-Siegmund Litzmann authorized a ''Landeseigene Verwaltung'', or local national administration. As Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Finland participated in the invasion primarily to recover the territories it was forced to cede to the USSR after the Moscow Peace Treaty which ended the Winter War between the Finns and the Soviets. Owing to Finland's substantial military contribution on the northern flank of the

Eastern Front of World War II The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and So ...

, Hitler decreed in November 1942 that "from now on Finland and the Finnish people be treated and designated as a Nordic state and a Nordic people", which he considered one of the highest compliments that the Nazi government could bestow upon another country.Rich, Norman (1974). ''Hitler's War Aims: the Establishment of the New Order'', pp. 400-401. W. W. Norton & Company Inc., New York. Hitler stated in private conversation that:

After their first conflict with the Russians, the Finns applied to me, proposing that their country should become a German protectorate. I don't regret having rejected this offer. As a matter of fact, the heroic attitude of this people, which has spent a hundred of the six hundred years of its history in fighting, deserves the greatest respect. It is infinitely better to have this people of heroes as allies than to incorporate it in the Germanic Reich—which, in any case, would not fail to provoke complications in the long run. The Finns cover one of our flanks, Turkey covers the other. That's an ideal solution for me as far as our political protective system is concerned.Trevor-Roper, H.R. (2000).
Hitler's Table Talk 1941–1944
'. New York: Enigma Books

Han Chinese and Japanese

Wang Jingwei Regime 3rd anniversary parade

Despite having a separate evolutionary origin from the Europeans, the Han Chinese and

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

were both considered by

and the government of Nazi Germany to be " Aryans of the East" and the "Herrenvolk of the Orient" (i.e. the "

Master race The master race (german: Herrenrasse) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology in which the putative "Aryan race" is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as "''Herrenmenschen''" ("master humans"). T ...

of the Orient").''The Spear of Destiny: The occult power behind the spear which pierced the side of Christ and how Hitler inverted the force in a bid to conquer the world'', Trevor Ravenscroft, p. 229, June 1982. In 1945,

said:

"Pride in one's own race, and that does not imply contempt for other races, is also a normal and healthy sentiment. I have never regarded the Chinese or the Japanese as being inferior to ourselves. They belong to ancient civilizations, and I admit freely that their past history is superior to our own. They have the right to be proud of their past, just as we have the right to be proud of the civilization to which we belong. Indeed, I believe the more steadfast the Chinese and the Japanese remain in their pride of race, the easier I shall find it to get on with them."
--
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...
, The Political Testament of Adolf Hitler, Note #5, February 1945 - April 1945

Due to Nazi Germany's recognition of Han Chinese and

as " Aryans of the East"

had allowed Han Chinese and

soldiers to study in Nazi German military academies and serve in the Nazi German Wehrmacht as part of their combat training. Since 1926, Germany had supported the Republic of China militarily and industrially. Germany had also sent advisers such as

Alexander von Falkenhausen Alexander Ernst Alfred Hermann Freiherr von Falkenhausen (29 October 187831 July 1966) was a German general and military advisor to Chiang Kai-shek. He was an important figure during the Sino-German cooperation to reform the Chinese Army. In 19 ...

and Hans von Seeckt to assist the Chinese, most notably in the Chinese Civil War and China's anti-communist campaigns.

Max Bauer Colonel Max Hermann Bauer (31 January 1869 – 6 May 1929) was a German General Staff officer and artillery expert in the First World War. As a protege of Erich Ludendorff he was placed in charge of the German Army's munition supply by the lat ...

was sent to China and served as one of Chiang Kai-shek's advisers. Around this time, Hsiang-hsi Kung, the

Republic of China (Taiwan) Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeas ...

Minister of Finance, visited Nazi Germany and was warmly welcomed by

on June 13, 1937. During this meeting,

, Hermann Göring and

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 ...

bestowed upon Hsiang-hsi Kung an honorary doctorate degree, and attempted to open China's market to German exports. And in order to attract more Han Chinese students to study in Germany,

, Hermann Göring and

earmarked for 100,000 reichsmarks for Han Chinese students studying in the universities and military academies of Nazi Germany after they persuaded a German industrialist to set aside the money for that purpose. Additionally, Hsiang-hsi Kung, in favor of commercial credits, politely refused a generous international loan offer by Adolf Hitler. The most famous of these Han Chinese Nazi soldiers was

Chiang Wei-kuo Chiang Wei-kuo (; 6 October 1916 – 22 September 1997), also known as Wego Chiang, was the adopted son of Republic of China President Chiang Kai-shek, the adoptive brother of President Chiang Ching-kuo, a retired Army general, and an important f ...

, the son of Republic of China (Taiwan) President

Chiang Kai-shek Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 ...

, who studied military strategy and tactics at a Kriegsschule in Munich, and subsequently achieved the rank of

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often sub ...

and served as a Nazi soldier in the Wehrmacht on active combat duty in Europe until his return to the Republic of China (Taiwan) during the later years of World War II.

had supported the Empire of Japan as early as 1904, when during the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...

it had defeated the Russians, which he considered a defeat for Austrian Slavism. He made a number of other statements expressing his respect and admiration for the Japanese in his book '' Mein Kampf''. Although of a separate and different evolutionary race, the Han Chinese and Imperial Japanese were considered by Nazi ideologists such as Himmler as having sufficiently superior qualities as did German-Nordic blood to warrant an alliance. Himmler, who possessed a great interest in, and was influenced by, the anthropology, philosophies and pantheistic religions of East Asia, mentioned how his friend Hiroshi Ōshima, the Japanese Ambassador to Germany, believed that the noble castes in Japan, the Daimyō and the Samurai, were descended from gods of celestial origin, which was similar to Himmler's own belief that "the Nordic race did not evolve, but came directly down from heaven to settle on the Atlantic continent."''The Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer'', OI - Final Interrogation Report (OI-FIR) No. 32, Secret - United States Forces European Theater Military Intelligence Service Center APO 757, February 12, 1946, p. 4.

Karl Haushofer Karl Ernst Haushofer (27 August 1869 – 10 March 1946) was a German general, professor, geographer, and politician. Through his student Rudolf Hess, Haushofer's conception of Geopolitik influenced the development of Adolf Hitler's expansi ...

, a German general, geographer, and geopolitician, whose ideas may have influenced the development of Hitler's expansionist strategies, saw Japan as the brother nation to Germany. In 1908, he was sent by the German Army "to Tokyo to study the Japanese Army and to advise it as an artillery instructor. The assignment changed the course of his life and marked the beginning of his love affair with the orient. During the next four years he traveled extensively in East Asia, adding Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin to his repertoire of Russian, French, and English languages. Karl Haushofer had been a devout student of Schopenhauer, and during his stay in the Far East he was introduced to Oriental esoteric teachings."''The Swastika and the Nazi's'', Servando González, Chapter 2: The Haushofer Connection, 1997-1998. It was based on such teachings that he came to make similar bestowals of his own upon the Japanese people, calling them the "Aryans of the East", and even the "

of the Orient" (i.e. the "

of the Orient"). Initially, the Japanese were still subject to Germany's racial laws, which – with the exception of the 1935 Nuremberg Laws that specifically mentioned Jews – generally applied to all "non-Aryans". However, since Japanese and Chinese were given "Aryans of the East" status, these racial laws were applied to them in a lenient manner as compared to other "non-Aryans" who were not granted "Aryan" status by Adolf Hitler. The Nazi German government began enacting the laws after taking power in 1933, and the Japanese government initially protested several racial incidents involving Japanese or Japanese-Germans that year which were then resolved by the Nazi high command by treating their Japanese allies leniently in these disputes. Especially after the collapse of Sino-German cooperation and Chinese declaration of war on Germany, Chinese nationals faced prosecution in Germany. Influential Nazi anti-Semite Johann von Leers favored excluding Japanese from the laws due both to the alleged Japanese-Aryan racial link and to improve diplomatic relations with Japan. The

Foreign Ministry In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral relations affairs as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The entit ...

agreed with von Leers and sought several times between 1934 and 1937 to change the laws, but other government agencies, including the Racial Policy Office, opposed the change. Then in October 1933, German Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath issued an exemption to Han Chinese and Japanese from the racial laws. Additionally, in April 1935 another Nazi decree stated that racial discrimination cases involving Aryans of the East (aka. Han Chinese and Japanese) that might jeopardize German diplomatic relations—i.e., Japanese—would be dealt with individually. Decisions on some cases sometimes took years, with those affected unable to obtain jobs or interracially marry, primarily because the German government preferred as much as possible to avoid giving exemptions. The German government often exempted more German-Japanese than it preferred in order to avoid a repeat of the 1933 controversies, and in 1934 it prohibited the German press from discussing the race laws when Japanese and Han Chinese were involved to avoid any diplomatic problems with China or Japan.

Germanization between 1939 and 1945

Nazi policy stressed the superiority of the Nordic race, a sub-race of the white European population defined by the measurement of the size and proportions of the human body models of racial difference. From 1940 the Nazi authorities in the General Government (occupied Poland) divided the population into different groups. Each group had different rights, food rations, allowed strips in the cities, separated residential areas, special schooling systems, public transportation and restricted restaurants. Later adapted in all Nazi-occupied countries by 1942, the Germanization program used the racial caste system of reserving certain rights to one group and barred privileges to another. Ethnic Poles were believed by Hitler to be "biologically inferior race" that could never be educated or elevated through Germanization. In 1940, Hitler approved of a plan regarding the Germanization of the

Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; cs, Protektorát Čechy a Morava; its territory was called by the Nazis ("the rest of Czechia"). was a partially annexed territory of Nazi Germany established on 16 March 1939 following the German occ ...

, he estimated around half of the Czech population were suitable for Germanization but made clear that the "mongoloid" types and Czech intelligentsia were not allowed to be Germanized. During the occupation of Poland, the Nazi government

kidnapped Kidnapped may refer to: * subject to the crime of kidnapping Literature * ''Kidnapped'' (novel), an 1886 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson * ''Kidnapped'' (comics), a 2007 graphic novel adaptation of R. L. Stevenson's novel by Alan Grant and Cam ...

children with Nordic racial characteristics. Those classified as "racially valuable" were sent from to the German Reich to be adopted and raised as Germans, while those who failed the tests would be used in slave labor or murdered in medical experiments. Nordicist anthropometrics was used to "improve" the racial make-up of the Germanized section of the population, by absorbing individuals into the German population who were deemed suitably Nordic. Germanization also affected the

Sorbs Sorbs ( hsb, Serbja, dsb, Serby, german: Sorben; also known as Lusatians, Lusatian Serbs and Wends) are a indigenous West Slavic ethnic group predominantly inhabiting the parts of Lusatia located in the German states of Saxony and Brandenb ...

, the minority Slav community living in Saxony and

Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an area of 29,480 squar ...

, whose Slavic culture and language was suppressed to absorb them into German identity. Tens of thousands suffered internment and imprisonment as well, to become lesser-known victims of Nazi racial laws. Similarly, the Nazis considered the people living in the

Goralenvolk ''Goralenvolk'' was a geopolitical term invented by the German Nazis in World War II in reference to the Goral highlander population of Podhale region in the south of Poland near the Slovak border. The Germans postulated a separate nation ...

area to be descended from ethnic Germans and were therefore classified as Aryans.

References

Notes Bibliography * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Further reading * Aly, Götz, Susanne Heim. ''Architects of Annihilation: Auschwitz and the Logic of Destruction'', London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002, 514pp, * Bauer, Yehuda. ''A History Of The Holocaust'', New York: F. Watts, 1982 . * Browning, Christopher. ''The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy'', University of Nebraska Press, 2004, 616pp, * Friedländer, Saul. ''Nazi Germany and the Jews. Vol. 1: The Years of Persecution, 1933–1939'', New York : HarperCollins, 1997 *König, Malte. ''Racism within the Axis: Sexual Intercourse and Marriage Plans between Italians and Germans, 1940–3'', in: Journal of Contemporary History 54.3, 2019, pp. 508–526. * Peukert, Detlev. ''Inside Nazi Germany: conformity, opposition and racism in everyday life'' London: Batsford, 1987 . *Proctor, Robert. ''Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988. *Schafft, Gretchen E. ''From Racism to Genocide: Anthropology in the Third Reich''. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004. *Weindling, Paul. ''Health, Race and German Politics between National Unification and Nazism, 1870–1945''. Cambridge University Press, 1989.

External links

Nazi Racial Laws in English translation
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Racial Policy Of Nazi Germany 1930s in politics 1940s in politics Anti-Slavic sentiment Anti-Polish sentiment in Europe Anti-Serbian sentiment Antiziganism in Europe Historical definitions of race Jewish Austrian history Jewish Nazi German history Law in Nazi Germany Nazi eugenics Germanization es:Política racial de la Alemania Nazi fr:Politiques racistes du Troisième Reich