nazi policies against jews

8/6/2019 Nazi Policies Against Jews

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Racialpolicy ofNazi Germanyoriginated as the Dolchstolegende ("betrayal legend") ofdisgruntled 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 NurembergLaws.

1933 to 1939

Nazi racial policy changed extensively in the years between 1933 and 1939. The NaziParty 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 May1935, Jewswere 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 werepassed around the time of the great Nazi rallies at Nuremberg; on September151935 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 wasreinforced 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"). Thismeant 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 theNuremberg 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 hadplanned the extermination of the Jews since theirtakeover of power in 1933. Other historiansbelieve that the extermination of the Jews was aresult of the specific historical context, and thusnot originally planned for. According to the lattergroup of historians, the race war against theSoviet Union, which began in 1941, took place in aspecific historical context, where it becamepossible to kill people Jews, Poles and Russians in a new and terrible manner.

The following is a brief examination of the Naziracial policy from 1933-1945.

The Nazis used public places to spread their racist ideas.

The depicted diagram carries the heading The biological

development. Underneath: The Nordic races stages of

development. USHMM # 45105.


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More about:

Nazi racial- and Jewish policy - an overview

Table: excerpts from laws and decrees, 1933-1938

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Nazi racial- and Jewish policy - an overview

The Nazi racial policy between 1933 and 1945 consisted of two elements: eugenics and racialsegregation (later racial extermination). The Nazis thus tried to keep their own race free fromabnormalities and illnesses (eugenics) and keep the Aryan race closed to other inferior races (racialsegregation 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 andpersecute 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 theGerman Volksgemeinschaft (peoples community). Later on the racial segregation was radicalised andbecame a policy of racial expulsion: Jews were forced to emigrate. This policy succeeded very well inAustria 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 onlyconstituted 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. Itwas 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 Jewswas unacceptable! The Nazi leadership at this point (1939-1940) worked with serious plans forcarrying out a forced deportation of the Polish Jews to Madagascar. This plan was never realised, inparticular because of the war with Great Britain.

The racial policy reached its preliminary culmination in the period of 1939-1941. The Nazis began todeport Jews from the German-controlled areas to ghettos in Poland and Russia, beginning with thePolish Jews but soon including German Jews as well. The ghettoisation of the Jews took place whileGermans 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


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executed and murdered on a scale utterly unknown up until then. The mass murders began inconnection 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 fourso-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 insix killing centres, extermination camps, situated in Poland. At least 3 million Jews perished in thesecamps. 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 in1941, whether there existed a clear order to commit mass murder, or not. It is demonstrably true thatthe 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 onlyAryans (members of the Aryan race) can be employed as civilservants. The law defines what constitutes non-Aryan based onbiological principles, in the 1. Ordinance for the re-establishingof 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 onlyone parent or grandparent is non-Aryan.

2 (2) Civil servants, who were not employed before 1 August1914, shall provide documentation of their Aryan descend or oftheir active participation in the World War.

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

7 April: It becomes possible to revoke the license of Jewishlawyers.

10 May: Public book burnings of non-Aryan literature in thelarger cities.

July 1933: Forced sterilisation becomes possible based on racialcriteria according to a new law. Around 200,000 are forciblysterilised.

1935: Jews are prohibited from bathing in public together withGermans (Aryans).


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November 1938: Jews are prohibited from going to the movies,theatres and art exhibitions. Jewish children are excluded fromGerman schools.

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

The Nuremberg Laws

The Nuremberg Laws is the common name for twofundamental anti-Semitic laws that were issued inSeptember 1935, during the Nazi Partys annual rally inNuremberg. The laws and a number of subsequentregulations came to constitute the legal basis of thesegregation of the Jews from the surrounding society aswell as the racial definition of Jewish-ness.

More about:

What are the Nuremberg

Laws?Conditions and purpose

Consequences

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Honorary guards at the Nazi Party Rally in

Nuremberg, 10 September 1935.


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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 Partys annual party rally in Nuremberg in September1935.

The two laws, > The Reich Citizen Lawand > The Law for the Protection of the German Blood andHonour, 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 fullcivic rights. When the law came into force in September 1935, only true Reich Citizens wouldbe a part of the German peoples community. The Jews were excluded because of their race.

2. The Law for the Protection of the German Blood & Honour prohibited marriage or sexualrelations between Aryans and non-Aryans, among other things. This race-hygienic law wasissued 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 theconcept of Jew. At the same time the Nazi regime took away the civic rights of the Jews, includingthe right to vote.

Conditions and purpose

Apparently both laws were underway for quite some time before the party rally, but there is hardlyany doubt that the laws were issued following pressure from inside the Nazi Party. In particular, thePartys radical wing, headed by the extremely anti-Semitic Julius Streicher, demanded serious andharsh initiatives against the Jews. Everything seems to suggest that Hitler in the autumn of 1935 gavein 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 thestatus of the Jews. Besides, many hoped that the laws would put an end to the spontaneous violenceagainst Jewish businessmen, frequently committed by the Partys storm troopers. For many it was alsoimportant that the state now took responsibility for the discrimination of the Jews and thus left theordinary citizen with a clean conscience.

Paradoxically, many of the German Jews gave the legislation a positive reception. Many were of theconviction that the Nuremberg Laws meant a final regulation of Jewish life and thus and end to furtheranti-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 thedeportation and extermination of the Jews.

The most interesting aspect of the definition was that it was based on the blood. An individual wasconsidered Jewish, if at least three of his grandparents were of Jewish origin. This meant that theGerman 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 statenow had a legally sanctioned right to discriminate the Jews (and the gypsies), who were now second-


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rate citizens. This became an important prerequisite for the later extermination of the Jews, whowere no longer a part of the German Volksgemeinschaft (peoples 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 ofJews had beendeclared 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 ofthe so-calledAryan race.

AlthoughNazi 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 theirgrandparents 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 theindividual's status underHalachic law.

An anti-miscegenation law was enacted by theNational Socialist government in September 1935as part of theNuremberg 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 andAryans (persons of German or relatedblood), 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 ofSinti 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 asRassenschande (lit. race-disgrace) and could be punished byimprisonment - 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 classifiedfollowing 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 beenmet by the police as travelling peddlers.

The existing 20,454 (as of 1939) marriages between persons racially regarded as so-calledAryans and so-called non-Aryans - called mixed marriages (German:Mischehe) - would

continue.[55] However, the government eased the conditions for the divorce of mixedmarriages.

[56]In the beginning the Nazi authorities hoped to make the so-calledAryan partner get

a divorce from their non-Aryan-classified spouses, by granting easy legal divorce procedures andopportunities for the so-calledAryan spouse to withhold most of the common property after a

divorce.[57]

Those who stuck to their spouse, would suffer discriminations like dismissal frompublic employment, exclusion from civic society organisations, etc.

[58]


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Eventual children - whenever born - within a mixed marriage, as well as children fromextramarital 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 theso-calledAryan 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 notinterfaith 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 classifiedas 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 legallyallowed 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 aroundunited 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. Adifferentiation of privileged and other mixed marriages emerged on 28 December 1938, when

Hermann Gring discretionarily ordered this in a letter to theReich's Ministry of the Interior.[60]

The "Gesetz ber die Mietverhltnisse 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 Gring's spontaneous creation, by defining so-calledprivileged mixed marriages andexcepting them from the act.

[61]

The legal definitions decreed: The marriage of a Gentile husband and his wife, being a Jewess orbeing 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 Jewishcongregation. 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 asGeltungsjuden. 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 Germansclassified 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 Jewishcongregation. In case they had common children not enrolled in a Jewish congregation

(irreligionist, Christian etc.) they were discriminated as Mischlinge and their father was sparedfrom wearing the yellow badge.


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Since there was no elaborate regulation, the practice of exceptingprivileged mixed marriagesfrom anti-Semitic invidiousnesses varied amongst Greater Germany's different Reichsgaue,

however all discriminations enacted until December 28, 1938 remained valid without exceptionsforprivileged mixed marriages. In the Reichsgau Hamburg, e.g., Jewish-classified spouses living

inprivileged mixed marriages received equal food rations like Aryan-classified Germans, in

many other Reichsgaue they received shortened rations.

[62]

In some Reichsgaue also privilegedmixed couples and their eventually minor children, whose father was classified as a Jew, wereforced 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 forprivileged mixed marriages led to different compulsions to forcedlabour 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 documentindicated 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 theexceptional 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 onOctober 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 marriageended 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 notcounting as Geltungsjuden.

[62]

In March 1943 an attempt to deport the Berlin-based Jews and Gentiles of Jewish descent, livingin non-privileged mixed marriages, failed due to public protest by their relatives-in-law of so-

calledAryan kinship (see Rosenstrae protest). Also the Aryan-classified husbands andMischling-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 campsalready 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 werelifted 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 legallyretroactively 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 legitimiseeventual children and enable them or the surviving spouse to inherit from their late father orpartner, respectively. In the West German Federal Republic of Germany 1,823 couples applied

for recognition, which was granted in 1,255 cases


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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


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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 Rdin 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",

Huntingtons, 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 aMischling (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.


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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 itwould 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


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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 duringone of many boycotts of Jewish businesses in Germany.

1935 Chart from Nazi Germany used to explain theNuremberg Laws. The Nuremberg Laws of1935 employed apseudo-scientific basis for racial discrimination against Jews. People with four

German grandparents (white circles) were of "German blood," while people were classified asJews if they were descended from three or more Jewish grandparents (black circles in top row


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right). Having one or more Jewish grandparents made someone aMischling(of mixed blood). Inthe 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, (DollarSigns) and Communism (Hammer and Sickles) all as part of the disease under

inspection.


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Above: On 24 March 1933, newspapers across the world carried the news that theleaders of the world's Jews had declared war on Germany: the first declaration ofwar 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, butnot 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 forthe Poles.

Above: Conditions in the Nazi camps worsened during the war, particularly whenthe 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 notkilled by gas chambers: they all show the unmistakable signs of having died oftyphus, with the characteristic thinness being caused by the dehydration whichaccompanies that sickness. Although it was initially claimed that there were gaschambers 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

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