Racial policy of Nazi Germany originated as the Dolchstoßlegende ("betrayal legend") of

disgruntled WW I German nationalists who blamed non-Germans for the loss of the war.
The Nazis exploited these sentiments and later molded them into the Nuremberg Laws.

1933 to 1939
Nazi racial policy changed extensively in the years between 1933 and 1939. The Nazi
Party became increasingly extreme in its treatment of the minorities of Germany,
particularly Jews.

The Nuremberg Laws

However, between 1935 and 1936, persecution of the Jews increased apace. In May 1935, Jews
were forbidden to join the Wehrmacht (the army), and in the summer of the same year, anti-
Jewish propaganda appeared in Nazi-German 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, preventing marriage between
any Jew and non-Jew. At the same time, the "Reich Citizenship Law" was passed and was
reinforced in November by a decree, stating that all Jews, even quarter- and half-Jews, were no
longer citizens of their own country (their official title became "subjects of the state"). This
meant that they had no basic citizens' rights, e.g., the right to vote. This removal of basic citizens'
rights allowed harsher laws to be passed in the future against Jews. The drafting of the
Nuremberg Laws is often attributed to Hans
Globke. Globke had studied British attempts to
'order' its 'empire' by creating hierarchial social
orders.

Nazi racial- and Jewish policy

Why did Nazi Germany end up killing 6 million

Jews?

This question is extremely difficult to answer. Some

historians believe that the Nazis had planned the
extermination of the Jews since their takeover of
power in 1933. Other historians believe that the
extermination of the Jews was a result of the
specific historical context, and thus not originally The Nazis used public places to spread their racist ideas.
planned for. According to the latter group of The depicted diagram carries the heading “The biological
historians, the “race war” against the Soviet Union, development”. Underneath: “The Nordic race’s stages of
which began in 1941, took place in a specific development”. USHMM # 45105.
historical context, where it became possible to kill
people – Jews, Poles and Russians – in a new and
terrible manner.

The following is a brief examination of the Nazi racial policy from 1933-1945.
 More about:
Nazi racial- and Jewish policy - an overview
Table: excerpts from laws and decrees, 1933-1938
Want to know more?

Nazi racial- and Jewish policy - an overview

The Nazi racial policy between 1933 and 1945 consisted of two elements: eugenics and racial
segregation (later racial extermination). The Nazis thus tried to keep their own “race” free from
abnormalities and illnesses (eugenics) and keep the Aryan race closed to other ”inferior” races (racial
segregation and extermination).

In the name of eugenics the Nazis initiated forced sterilisations of the hereditary ill and carried out
euthanasia (emergency killings) on around 200,000 mentally and physically disabled Germans.

The other part of the racial policy, the racial segregation, was initiated in order to suppress and
persecute all non-Aryans, first of all Jews. But gypsies were also included in this morbid form of
“apartheid”. The though was that non-Aryans constituted a threat against the German blood and the
German Volksgemeinschaft (‘people’s community’). Later on the racial segregation was radicalised and
became a policy of racial expulsion: Jews were forced to emigrate. This policy succeeded very well in
Austria in 1938, and was then introduced in Germany itself under the slogan: Germany for Germans!

There were about 500,000 believing Jews in Germany by 1930.

More than 160,000 of them lived in Berlin. The Jews only
constituted about 0,8% of the total German population of around
70 million people.

When occupying Poland in 1939, this policy of emigration became untenable for the Nazi regime. It
was simply unrealistic to make more than 3 million Polish Jews emigrate.

This led to ambitious Nazi plans for a solution to the ’Jewish Question’ – for living together with Jews
was unacceptable! The Nazi leadership at this point (1939-1940) worked with serious plans for
carrying out a forced deportation of the Polish Jews to Madagascar. This plan was never realised, in
particular because of the war with Great Britain.

The racial policy reached its preliminary culmination in the period of 1939-1941. The Nazis began to
deport Jews from the German-controlled areas to ghettos in Poland and Russia, beginning with the
Polish Jews but soon including German Jews as well. The ghettoisation of the Jews took place while
Germans living in the occupied areas (the so-called Volksdeutsche) were brought in to the Third Reich.
This demographic policy fitted in well with the overall goals of the Nazi racial policy: areas were made
“free of Jews” while Volksdeutsche were rehoused in areas given up by the Jews.

But: What was to happen to the Jews in the ghettos? Apparently, the Nazis were not sure themselves.

In 1941 it looked as if the Nazis had decided the future of the Jews. For starting in 1941, Jews were
executed and murdered on a scale utterly unknown up until then. The mass murders began in
connection with the war of extermination against the Soviet Union, which began on 22 June 1941.
Large-scale executions of Jews, Poles and Russians took place, most frequently carried out by the four
so-called Einsatzgruppen. A total of 1,5 million Jews were murdered in the occupied Soviet territories
– with eager help from local anti-Semites. Almost simultaneously, mass executions were initiated in
six “killing centres”, extermination camps, situated in Poland. At least 3 million Jews perished in these
camps. To this should be added another 1,5 million Jewish victims, who died in the concentration
camps, the ghettos and elsewhere as a result of hunger, slave labour and random executions.

Consequently, the Nazi racial policy can be characterised as a policy of extermination beginning in
1941, whether there existed a clear order to commit mass murder, or not. It is demonstrably true that
the Nazi regime was behind the murder of more than 6 million Jews between 1941 and 1945.

Table: excerpts from laws and decrees, 1933-1938

7 and 11 April 1933: The Civil Servants Act means that only
Aryans (members of the Aryan ”race”) can be employed as civil
servants. The law defines what constitutes non-Aryan based on
biological principles, in the ‘1. Ordinance for the re-establishing of
the Civil Service’ (the “Aryan Law”):

§2 (1) Non-Aryan is he who descends from non-Aryan, especially

Jewish, parents or grandparents. It suffices that only one parent or
grandparent is non-Aryan.

§2 (2) Civil servants, who were not employed before 1 August

1914, shall provide documentation of their Aryan descend or of
their active participation in the World War.

Following the issuing of the Act, around 30,000 civil servants are
dismissed from public service.

7 April: It becomes possible to revoke the license of Jewish

lawyers.

10 May: Public book burnings of ”non-Aryan” literature in the

larger cities.

July 1933: Forced sterilisation becomes possible based on racial

criteria according to a new law. Around 200,000 are forcibly
sterilised.

1935: Jews are prohibited from bathing in public together with

Germans (Aryans).

November 1938: Jews are prohibited from going to the movies,

 theatres and art exhibitions. Jewish children are excluded from
German schools.

December 1938: All Jews lose their drivers license. Jews are
prohibited from driving.

The Nuremberg Laws

The ‘Nuremberg Laws’ is the common name for two

fundamental anti-Semitic laws that were issued in
September 1935, during the Nazi Party’s annual rally in
Nuremberg. The laws and a number of subsequent
regulations came to constitute the legal basis of the
segregation of the Jews from the surrounding society as
well as the racial definition of Jewish-ness.

Honorary guards at the Nazi Party Rally in

Nuremberg, 10 September 1935.

More about:
What are the Nuremberg Laws?
Conditions and purpose
Consequences
Want to know more?

What are the Nuremberg Laws?

The ‘Nuremberg Laws’ is the common name for two very fundamental pieces of anti-Semitic
legislation, which were issued in connection with the Nazi Party’s annual party rally in Nuremberg in
September 1935.

The two laws, > ‘The Reich Citizen Law’ and > ‘The Law for the Protection of the German Blood and
Honour’, were to regulate two very important aspects of Jewish life within the German Reich:
 1. ‘The Reich Citizen Law’ made non-Aryans (first of all Jews) second-rate citizens without full
civic rights. When the law came into force’ in September 1935, only true ‘Reich Citizens’ would
be a part of the German ‘people’s community’. The Jews were excluded because of their race.
2. ‘The Law for the Protection of the German Blood & Honour’ prohibited marriage or sexual
relations between Aryans and non-Aryans, among other things. This ‘race-hygienic’ law was
issued in order to protect the German blood from being mixed with that of lesser races.

As an appendix to these laws an ordinance was issued in November 1935 that definitively defined the
concept of ‘Jew’. At the same time the Nazi regime took away the civic rights of the Jews, including
the right to vote.

Conditions and purpose

Apparently both laws were underway for quite some time before the party rally, but there is hardly
any doubt that the laws were issued following pressure from inside the Nazi Party. In particular, the
Party’s radical wing, headed by the extremely anti-Semitic Julius Streicher, demanded serious and
harsh initiatives against the Jews. Everything seems to suggest that Hitler in the autumn of 1935 gave
in to this pressure, despite that leading civil servants were opposed to the idea.

The German population was generally pleased with the laws, because they explained and defined the
status of the Jews. Besides, many hoped that the laws would put an end to the spontaneous violence
against Jewish businessmen, frequently committed by the Party’s storm troopers. For many it was also
important that the state now took responsibility for the discrimination of the Jews – and thus left the
ordinary citizen with a clean conscience.

Paradoxically, many of the German Jews gave the legislation a positive reception. Many were of the
conviction that the Nuremberg Laws meant a final regulation of Jewish life and thus and end to further
anti-Semitic measures.

> Reaction to the Nuremberg Laws from the German Jewish Council

Consequences

The most important consequence of the Nuremberg Laws was the realisation of the distinction
between Jew and Aryan. Obviously, this distinction became pivotal later on, when the Nazis began the
deportation and extermination of the Jews.

The most interesting aspect of the definition was that it was based on the ‘blood’. An individual was
considered Jewish, if at least three of his grandparents were of Jewish origin. This meant that the
German Jews were later unable to escape deportation by converting to Christianity.

The second important consequence of the Nuremberg Laws was the new role of the state. The state
now had a legally sanctioned right to discriminate the Jews (and the gypsies), who were now second-
rate citizens. This became an important “prerequisite” for the later extermination of the Jews, who
were no longer a part of the German Volksgemeinschaft (‘people’s community’).

[edit] Nazi Germany

Discrimination against miscegenation mostly followed the mainstream Nazi anti-Semitism,

which considered the Jewry as being a group of people bound by close, so-called genetic (blood)
ties, to form a unit, which one could not join or secede from. The influence of Jews had been
declared to have detrimental impact on Germany, in order to rectify the discriminations and
persecutions of Jews. To be spared from that, one had to prove one's affiliation with the group of
the so-called Aryan race.

Although Nazi doctrine stressed the importance of physiognomy and genes in determining race,
in practice race was determined only through the religions followed by each individual's
ancestors. Individuals were considered "non-Aryan" (i.e. Jewish) if at least three of four of their
grandparents had been enrolled as members of a Jewish congregation; it did not matter if those
grandparents had been born to a Jewish family or had converted to Judaism in adulthood. The
actual religious beliefs of the individual himself or herself were also immaterial, as was the
individual's status under Halachic law.

An anti-miscegenation law was enacted by the National Socialist government in September 1935
as part of the Nuremberg Laws. The Gesetz zum Schutze des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen
Ehre (Protection of German Blood and German Honor Act), enacted on 15 September 1935,
forbade marriage and extramarital sexual relations between persons racially – or rather
racistically – regarded as so-called non-Aryans and Aryans (persons of “German or related
blood”), this included all marriages, where at least one partner was a German citizen.[53] Non-
Aryans comprised mostly Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent. However,
Germans of extra-European and especially of African descent and Germans regarded as
belonging to the minority group of Sinti and Roma (Gypsies) were also considered as non-
Aryans. On November 14, the law was extended to Gypsies and Blacks[54]. Such extramarital
intercourse was marked as Rassenschande (lit. race-disgrace) and could be punished by
imprisonment - later usually followed by the deportation to a concentration camp, often entailing
the inmate's death. Germans of African and other extra-European descent were classified
following their own origin or the origin of their parents. Sinti and Roma were mostly categorised
following police records, e.g. mentioning them or their forefathers as Gypsies, when having been
met by the police as travelling peddlers.

The existing 20,454 (as of 1939) marriages between persons racially regarded as so-called
Aryans and so-called non-Aryans - called mixed marriages (German: Mischehe) - would
continue.[55] However, the government eased the conditions for the divorce of mixed marriages.
[56]
In the beginning the Nazi authorities hoped to make the so-called Aryan partner get a divorce
from their non-Aryan-classified spouses, by granting easy legal divorce procedures and
opportunities for the so-called Aryan spouse to withhold most of the common property after a
divorce.[57] Those who stuck to their spouse, would suffer discriminations like dismissal from
public employment, exclusion from civic society organisations, etc.[58]

Eventual children - whenever born - within a mixed marriage, as well as children from
extramarital mixed relationships born until July 31, 1936, were discriminated as Mischlinge.
However, children later born to mixed parents, not yet married at passing the Nuremberg Laws,
were to be discriminated as Geltungsjuden, regardless if the parents had meanwhile married
abroad or remained unmarried. Eventual children, who were enrolled in a Jewish congregation,
were also subject to the discrimination as Geltungsjuden.
According to the Nazi family value attitude the husband was regarded the head of a family. Thus
people living in a so-called mixed marriage were treated differently according to the sex of the
so-called Aryan spouse and according to the religious affiliation of the children, their being or
not being enrolled with a Jewish congregation. Nazi-termed mixed marriages were often not
interfaith marriages, because in many cases the classification of one spouse as non-Aryan was
only due to her or his grandparents, being enrolled with a Jewish congregation or else classified
as non-Aryan. In many cases both spouses had a common faith, either because the parents had
already converted or because at marrying one spouse converted to the religion of the second
(Marital conversion). Traditionally the wife used to be the convert.[59] However, in urban areas
and after 1900 actual interfaith marriages occurred more often, with interfaith marriages legally
allowed in some states of the German Confederation since 1847, and generally since 1875, when
civil marriage became an obligatory prerequisite for any religious marriage ceremony all around
united Germany.

Most mixed marriages occurred with one spouse being considered as non-Aryan, due to his or
her Jewish descent. So many special regulations were developed for such couples. A
differentiation of privileged and other mixed marriages emerged on 28 December 1938, when
Hermann Göring discretionarily ordered this in a letter to the Reich's Ministry of the Interior.[60]
The "Gesetz über die Mietverhältnisse mit Juden" (English: Law on Tenancies with Jews) of 30
April 1939, allowing proprietors to unconditionally cancel tenancy contracts with Germans,
classified as Jews, and forcing them to move into houses reserved for them, for the first time
enacted Göring's spontaneous creation, by defining so-called privileged mixed marriages and
excepting them from the act.[61]

The legal definitions decreed: The marriage of a Gentile husband and his wife, being a Jewess or
being classified as a Jewess due to her descent, was generally considered to be a so-called
privileged mixed marriage, unless they had children, who were enrolled in a Jewish
congregation. Then the husband was obviously not the dominant part in the family and the wife
had to wear the Yellow badge and the children as well, who were thus discriminated as
Geltungsjuden. Without children, or with children not enrolled with a Jewish congregation, the
Jewish-classified wife was spared from wearing the yellow badge (else compulsory for Germans
classified as Jews as of 1 September 1941).

In the opposite case, when the wife was classified as an Aryan and the husband as a Jew, the
husband had to wear the yellow badge, if they had no children or children enrolled with a Jewish
congregation. In case they had common children not enrolled in a Jewish congregation
(irreligionist, Christian etc.) they were discriminated as Mischlinge and their father was spared
from wearing the yellow badge.

Since there was no elaborate regulation, the practice of excepting privileged mixed marriages
from anti-Semitic invidiousnesses varied amongst Greater Germany's different Reichsgaue,
however all discriminations enacted until December 28, 1938 remained valid without exceptions
for privileged mixed marriages. In the Reichsgau Hamburg, e.g., Jewish-classified spouses living
in privileged mixed marriages received equal food rations like Aryan-classified Germans, in
many other Reichsgaue they received shortened rations.[62] In some Reichsgaue also privileged
mixed couples and their eventually minor children, whose father was classified as a Jew, were
forced to move into houses reserved for Jews only, in 1942 and 1943, thus making a privileged
mixed marriage one, where the husband was the one classified Aryan.

The arbitrary practice for privileged mixed marriages led to different compulsions to forced
labour in 1940, partially ordered for all Jewish-classified spouses, or only for Jewish-classified
husbands or only excepting Jewish-classified wives, taking care of minor children. No document
indicated the exception of a mixed marriage from some persecutions and especially of its Jewish-
classified spouse.[63] Thus on an eventual arrest, non-arrested relatives or friends had to prove the
exceptional status, hopefully fast enough to rescue the arrested from eventual deportation or else
what.

Systematic deportations of Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent started on
October 18, 1941.[64] German Jews and Jewesses and German Gentiles of Jewish descent living
in mixed marriage were in fact mostly spared from deportation.[65] In case a mixed marriage
ended by death of the so-called Aryan spouse or divorce the Jewish-classified spouse, residing
within Germany, was usually deported soon after, unless the couple still had minor children not
counting as Geltungsjuden.[62]

In March 1943 an attempt to deport the Berlin-based Jews and Gentiles of Jewish descent, living
in non-privileged mixed marriages, failed due to public protest by their relatives-in-law of so-
called Aryan kinship (see Rosenstraße protest). Also the Aryan-classified husbands and
Mischling-classified children (starting at the age of 16) from mixed marriages were taken by the
Organisation Todt for forced labour, starting in autumn 1944.

A last attempt, undertaken in February/March 1945 ended, because the extermination camps
already were liberated. However, 2,600 from all over the Reich were deported to Theresienstadt,
of whom most survived the last months until their liberation.[66]

With the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 the laws banning so-called mixed marriages were
lifted again. If couples, who lived together already during the Nazi era, however unmarried due
to the legal restrictions, married after the war, their date of marriage had been legally
retroactively backdated, if they wished so, to the date they formed a couple.[67] Even if one
spouse was already dead, the marriage could be retroactively recognised, in order to legitimise
eventual children and enable them or the surviving spouse to inherit from their late father or
partner, respectively. In the West German Federal Republic of Germany 1,823 couples applied
for recognition, which was granted in 1,255 cases
1933-1934: Nazi policy was fairly moderate, not wishing to scare off voters or moderately-minded
polititians (although eugenics program was established as early as July 1933)
-Used popular anti-semitism to gain votes; blamed poverty, unemployment, loss of WW1 all on the Jews
and the left-wing

1933: “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” (made official at the January 1942 Wannsee Conference)
-persecution of the Jews became active Nazi policy

April 1933: restricted the # of Jewish students at German schools & universities

1st- Jewish doctors, lawyers, police, teachers and stores were boycotted.

7th - “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” passed
-banned Jews from government jobs

In the same month, further legislation sharply curtailed "Jewish activity" in the medical and legal
professions. Subsequent laws and decrees restricted reimbursement of Jewish doctors from public
(state) health insurance funds.

July 1933: “Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring”

-written by Ernst Rüdin and other theorists of "racial hygiene," established "Genetic Health Courts"
which decided on compulsory sterilization of "any person suffering from a hereditary disease."
-incl. "Congenital Mental Deficiency", schizophrenia, "Manic-Depressive Insanity", "Hereditary Epilepsy",
Huntington’s, Hereditary Blindness, Hereditary Deafness, "any severe hereditary deformity", as well as
"any person suffering from severe alcoholism”

Sept 1935: "Nuremberg Laws" excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from
marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or German-related blood." Ancillary
ordinances to these laws deprived them of most political rights. Jews were disenfranchised and could
not hold public office.

1935 Chart from Nazi Germany used to explain the Nuremberg Laws. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935
employed a pseudo-scientific basis for racial discrimination against Jews. People with four German
grandparents (white circles) were of "German blood," while people were classified as Jews if they were
descended from three or more Jewish grandparents (black circles in top row right). Having one or more
Jewish grandparents made someone a Mischling (of mixed blood). In the absence of discernible external
differences, the Nazis used the religious observance of a person's grandparents to determine their race.
1936: Nazies toned down much of its public anti-Jewish rhetoric and activities during Winter
and Summer Olympic Games held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Berlin, respectively
-even removed some of the signs saying "Jews Unwelcome" from public places
- Hitler did not want international criticism of his government to result in the transfer of the
Games to another country.
-Likewise, Nazi leaders did not want to discourage international tourism and the revenue that it
would bring during the Olympics year.

1937-38: “Aryanizing” of Jewish businesses

-Set out to impoverish Jews and remove them from the German economy by requiring them to
register their property
-dismissal of Jewish workers and managers of companies / takeover of Jewish-owned
businesses by non-Jewish Germans who bought them at bargain prices fixed by govt or Nazi
party officials
-Govt forbade Jewish doctors to treat non-Jews, and revoked the licenses of Jewish lawyers to
practice law

Sept 1941: All Jewish ppl living within the Nazi empire were required to wear a yellow badge

Following the Kristallnacht (commonly known as "Night of Broken Glass") pogrom of November
9-10, 1938, Nazi leaders stepped up "Aryanization" efforts and enforced measures that
succeeded increasingly in physically isolating and segregating Jews from their fellow Germans.
Jews were barred from all public schools and universities, as well as from cinemas, theaters,
and sports facilities. In many cities, Jews were forbidden to enter designated "Aryan" zones.
German decrees and ordinances expanded the ban on Jews in professional life. By September
1938, for instance, Jewish physicians were effectively banned from treating "Aryan" patients.

August 1938: authorities decree that by Jan 1, 1939, Jewish men and women bearing first
names of "non-Jewish" origin had to add "Israel" and "Sara"

-All Jews wee obliged to carry identity cards that indicated their Jewish heritage, and, in the
autumn of 1938, all Jewish passports were stamped with an identifying letter "J". As the Nazi
leaders quickened their preparations for the war of conquest that they intended to unleash on
Europe, antisemitic legislation in Germany and Austria paved the way for more radical
persecution of Jews.
 Above: "Don't Buy from Jews" reads this sign behind a Nazi Stormtrooper during
one of  many boycotts of Jewish businesses in Germany.

1935 Chart from Nazi Germany used to explain the Nuremberg Laws. The Nuremberg Laws of
1935 employed a pseudo-scientific basis for racial discrimination against Jews. People with four
German grandparents (white circles) were of "German blood," while people were classified as
Jews if they were descended from three or more Jewish grandparents (black circles in top row
right). Having one or more Jewish grandparents made someone a Mischling (of mixed blood). In
the absence of discernible external differences, the Nazis used the religious observance of a
person's grandparents to determine their race.
 Above: Nazi propaganda  depicting Jews (Stars of David); Capitalism, (Dollar
Signs) and Communism (Hammer and Sickles) all as part of the disease under
inspection.

Above: On 24 March 1933, newspapers across the world carried the news that the
leaders of the world's Jews had declared war on Germany: the first declaration of
war of the Second World War, and an event which goes a long way to explaining
why Britain and France declared war on Germany in 1939 for invading Poland, but
not on the Soviet Union for doing exactly the same thing. The Second World War
broke against Germany, not the Soviet Union, primarily because of Jewish
 pressure to destroy the anti-Jewish Germany; rather than a genuine concern for
the Poles.

Above: Conditions in the Nazi camps worsened during the war, particularly when
the large scale bombing of Germany started destroying supply lines in late 1944
and early 1945. Nightmarish scenes such as these awaited Allied troops when they
seized the camp of Bergen Belsen in northern Germany. These corpses were not
killed by gas chambers: they all show the unmistakable signs of having died of
typhus, with the characteristic thinness being caused by the dehydration which
accompanies that sickness. Although it was initially claimed that there were gas
chambers in all the camps, it is now claimed that the only gas chamber victims
were in the camps in German occupied Poland.

http://www.white-history.com/hwr64iv.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Jewish_legislation_in_prewar_Nazi_Germany