Cecily Zamora
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party passed several laws during their rule in Germany from 1933 to 1945, which were rooted in an ideology of biological racism and enabled the regime's subsequent atrocities to be committed within a legal framework. One of the most significant pieces of legislation was the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped German Jews of their citizenship, barred marriages and sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jews, and prohibited Jews from flying the German flag, among other discriminatory provisions. These laws were announced by Hitler at the 1935 Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg and provided the legal basis for the systematic persecution of Jews in Germany, ultimately paving the way for the Holocaust.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Date | 15 September 1935 |
| Name | Nuremberg Laws |
| Enacted by | Hitler and other Nazi officials |
| Number of laws | 2 |
| Purpose | Legalised persecution of Jews in Germany |
| Effect | Stripped German Jews of their citizenship |
| Barred marriage and sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews | |
| Allowed the persecution of Jews to be carried out legally | |
| Transformed the definition of Jewish identity from religious to racial | |
| Allowed the state to rob Jews | |
| Banned Jewish children from public schools | |
| Banned Jews from owning gardens | |
| Banned Jews from cinemas, the opera, and concerts | |
| Banned Jews from flying the German flag |
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What You'll Learn
The Nuremberg Laws
The laws were announced by Adolf Hitler at the seventh annual Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, Germany. Germany's parliament (the Reichstag), then made up entirely of Nazi representatives, passed the laws. Antisemitism was of central importance to the Nazi Party.
The two laws were:
- The Reich Citizenship Law: This law defined a citizen as a person who is "of German or related blood". Jews were defined as a separate race and could not be full citizens of Germany. They were instead classified as "subjects" of the state, without political rights. This law also allowed for people to be stripped of their citizenship if they could not prove that they were willing and fit to serve the German people and Reich. This meant that political opponents could be stripped of their citizenship.
- The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour: This law prohibited marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans, and forbade the employment of German females under 45 in Jewish households. It was a law against what the Nazis viewed as race-mixing or "race defilement".
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Marriage and sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jews forbidden
The Nuremberg Laws, signed by Hitler and other Nazi officials, were a crucial step in the legalized persecution of Jews in Germany. They were announced by Hitler on September 15, 1935, and passed by Germany's parliament, which was then made up entirely of Nazi representatives.
The laws included the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor," which forbade marriage and sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jews. The Nazis believed that such relationships led to ""mixed-race" children, which they viewed as dangerous and a threat to the purity of the German race. This law was aimed at preventing "Rassenschande," or "race defilement," the Nazi fear of miscegenation between "Aryans" and "non-Aryans."
The Nuremberg Laws defined who was considered a Jew, and this definition was racial rather than religious. According to the laws, a person with three or four Jewish grandparents was a Jew, and a grandparent was considered Jewish if they belonged to the Jewish religious community. This definition also included people who had converted to Christianity from Judaism, as well as their descendants.
The laws had a significant impact on the everyday lives of Jews in Germany, making them legally distinct from their non-Jewish neighbors. They stripped Jews of their German citizenship and basic rights, and paved the way for successive legal measures aimed at other target groups, such as Roma and Black people.
The Nuremberg Laws were a key piece of evidence in the trials of Third Reich leaders after World War II, resulting in 12 death sentences and long prison sentences for others.
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Jews stripped of German citizenship
Adolf Hitler's regime, the Nazi Party, was responsible for the introduction of an ideology of "biological racism" into Germany's legal and judicial systems. This shift in the country's traditional legal system enabled the subsequent acts of the Hitler regime, including the atrocities, to be performed legally.
One of the most significant ways in which Hitler's laws stripped Jews of their German citizenship was through the Nuremberg Laws, announced by Hitler on September 15, 1935. The Nuremberg Laws, passed by Germany's parliament, which was then made up entirely of Nazi representatives, consisted of the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor.
The Reich Citizenship Law defined German citizenship by blood, stating that only people of "German or kindred blood" could be citizens of Germany. This effectively meant that Jews in Germany were not citizens but "subjects" of the state. The law also forbade marriages between Germans and Jews, further segregating the Jewish community.
The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor criminalized sexual relations between Jews and non-Jewish Germans, labeling these relationships as ""race defilement" (Rassenschande). This law also forbade Jews from employing female German maids under the age of 45, under the assumption that Jewish men would force such maids into committing race defilement.
The Nuremberg Laws provided the legal framework for the systematic persecution of Jews in Germany, reversing the process of emancipation and laying the foundation for future anti-Semitic measures. The laws spelled out exactly who was considered Jewish, with an admixture of so-called "Jewish blood" and "Aryan blood" making people with three-quarters Jewish ancestry (three grandparents) Jewish. People with half or one-quarter Jewish ancestry were often defined as Mischlinge (half-breed), but their rights were continuously curtailed through subsequent legislation.
In addition to the Nuremberg Laws, other measures taken by the Hitler regime also contributed to the stripping of rights and protections of German citizenship from Jews. From 1933 to 1945, Jews in Germany faced a wave of de-certification, violence, and economic harassment, with Jewish physicians no longer allowed to treat German patients, Jewish children banned from public schools, and Jews prohibited from owning gardens, attending cinemas, or accessing other cultural activities. They were also forced to surrender valuable possessions, and robbing Jews became legal.
The laws implemented by Hitler and his regime resulted in the systematic persecution and marginalization of Jews in Germany, with the ultimate goal of driving them out of the country. These measures stripped Jews of their German citizenship and basic rights, setting the stage for the horrors of the Holocaust.
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Jews banned from public services and employment
During the first six years of Hitler's dictatorship, from 1933 to 1939, Jews were affected by more than 400 decrees and regulations that restricted all aspects of their public and private lives. Many of these laws were national ones issued by the German administration, affecting all Jews. State, regional, and municipal officials also issued many decrees in their own communities.
The first wave of legislation, from 1933 to 1934, focused on limiting the participation of Jews in German public life. The first major law to curtail the rights of Jewish citizens was the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service of 7 April 1933, which excluded Jews and the “politically unreliable” from civil service. This law was the German authorities' first formulation of the so-called Aryan Paragraph, a kind of regulation used to exclude Jews (and often by extension other "non-Aryans") from organisations, professions, and other aspects of public life.
The Nuremberg Laws, passed in September 1935, further institutionalised many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. The two laws were the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour, which forbade marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans and the employment of German females under 45 in Jewish households; and the Reich Citizenship Law, which declared that only those of German or related blood were eligible to be Reich citizens. The remainder were classed as state subjects without any citizenship rights.
The Nuremberg Laws provided the legal framework for the systematic persecution of Jews in Germany. Jews in Germany were not citizens but “subjects" of the state. This legal definition of a Jew in Germany covered tens of thousands of people who did not think of themselves as Jews or who had neither religious nor cultural ties to the Jewish community. For example, it defined people who had converted to Christianity from Judaism as Jews. It also defined as Jews people born to parents or grandparents who had converted to Christianity. The law stripped them all of their German citizenship and deprived them of basic rights.
In 1938 and 1939, additional laws were passed that used economic harassment and violence to drive Jews from Germany. Jewish physicians were de-certified and were no longer allowed to treat German patients. Jews were prohibited from cinemas, the opera, and concerts. Jewish children were banned from public schools.
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Jews forced to surrender valuables
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945 and controlled most of Europe during World War II. During this time, the Nazis introduced an ideology of ""biological racism"" into the country's legal and judicial systems. This shift enabled all of the subsequent acts of the Hitler regime, including atrocities, to be performed legally.
Hitler held Jews responsible for Germany's military humiliation in World War I and encouraged the belief that Jews grew wealthy through theft from Aryans. In April 1938, a Nazi law forced Jews to register their wealth, making it easier to steal. The "Decree for the Reporting of Jewish-Owned Property" required all Jews in Germany and Austria to register any property or assets valued at more than 5,000 Reichsmarks (around $2,000 in American currency of the period, or $34,000 today). This included furniture, paintings, life insurance, and stocks. By July 31, 1938, German officials had collected paperwork from 700,000 Jewish citizens, totalling 7 billion Reichsmarks worth of wealth. This wealth was then stolen through a process known as "Aryanization".
Hitler's anti-Semitic ideology also led to the passage of laws that used economic harassment and violence to drive Jews from Germany. Jewish physicians were de-certified and were no longer allowed to treat German patients. Jews were prohibited from owning gardens, attending cinemas or concerts, or sending their children to public schools. Additionally, robbing Jews became legal, and Jews were forced to surrender all jewellery of any value. In Jevpatoria in Crimea, the Jews were ordered to surrender all their valuables and money, except for a sum of 200 rubles per person, under threat of execution.
The Nuremberg Laws, passed in September 1935, further enshrined the persecution of Jews in Germany. These laws included the Reich Citizenship Law, which stripped Jews of their German citizenship and defined them as "subjects" of the state. The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour also prohibited marriages between Jews and German citizens. These laws provided the legal framework for the systematic persecution of Jews and embodied the racial theories underpinning Nazi ideology.
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Frequently asked questions
The Nuremberg Laws were two distinct laws passed in Nazi Germany in September 1935: the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. These laws stripped German Jews of their citizenship, barred marriages and sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jews, and prohibited Jews from flying the German flag, which was now the swastika.
The Nuremberg Laws transformed the definition of Jewish identity from religious to racial, stripping Jews of their basic rights and paving the way for the Holocaust. The laws also provided a legal framework for the systematic persecution of Jews in Germany, with Jews defined as "subjects" of the state rather than citizens.
In addition to the Nuremberg Laws, Hitler enacted other laws to drive Jews out of Germany economically and socially. These included:
- Banning Jewish physicians from treating German patients
- Preventing Jews from owning gardens
- Renaming all Jewish-named streets in Germany
- Prohibiting Jews from cinemas, the opera, and concerts
- Banning Jewish children from public schools
- Legalising the robbery of Jews, forcing them to surrender valuable jewellery
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