Nuremberg Laws

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After Hitler came to power in 1933, there was a rapid growth in German legislation directed at Jews, however the existence of many secular and atheistic Germans of Jewish origin and the adherence of the Nazis to racial definitions created a need for a clear legal method of defining who was Jewish. The Nuremberg Laws (German: Nürnberger Gesetze) of 1935 were antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany which were introduced at the annual Nuremberg rally. The laws classified people with four German grandparents as "German or kindred blood", while people were classified as Jews if they descended from three or four Jewish grandparents. A person with one or two Jewish grandparents was a Mischling, a crossbreed, of "mixed blood".[1] The Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of German citizenship and prohibited marriage between Jews and other Germans.[2]

The existence of laws identifying who was Jewish made it easier for the Nazis to introduce legislation restricting Jewish rights, the laws themselves included a ban on sexual intercourse between (people defined as) "Jews" and (non-Jewish) Germans, and preventing "Jews" from participating in German civic life. As to the Jews the Nuremburg laws were, to some extent, an attempt to revert to a state of affairs previous their emancipation in the 19th c.

Contents

[edit] Background history

1935 chart from Nazi Germany used to explain the Nuremberg Laws

Before 1806, when general citizenship was practically absent in the Holy Roman Empire, its inhabitants underlay varying estate regulations. Varying in the different territories of the Empire the inhabitants were classified into different groups, such as dynasts, members of court entourage, (other) aristocrats, city dweller (burghers), Jews, Huguenots (in Prussian a special estate until 1810), free peasants, serfs, pedlers and Gypsies, subject to very different privileges and dicriminations. Legal inequality was the principle.

The concept of citizenship was mostly restricted to cities, especially free imperial cities, however, also there being no general franchise, but a privilege of the few, who inherited the status or reached a certain level of taxed income and/or could afford the expensive citizen's fee (Bürgergeld). Citizenship was often further restricted to city dwellers affiliated with the dominant or locally only legal Christian denomination (Calvinist, Catholic or Lutheran). City dwellers of other denomination or religion and lacking wealth were considered as mere inhabitants lacking political rights and sometimes subject to revocable staying permits.

Most Jews then living in German places at all allowing their settlement, were automatically defined as mere indigenous inhabitants, however, as a group depending on other - rather less than more generous - permits than Gentile indigenous inhabitants. In the 18th c. single Jews and their families (like Daniel Itzig in Berlin) gained equal status with Christian common city dwellers, who, however, had other status than noblemen, Huguenots, or serfs. Freedom of movement crossing territorial or even municipal boundaries was no general franchise, let alone enjoying the same status in the new place than in the old.

With the abolition of legal status differences in the Napoleonic era and in its aftermath (for the dates in the German states see the list under Jewish emancipation) and the liberation of the serfs (in Prussia gradually since 1807), the establishment of free choice of vocation and domicile, freedom of contract, citizenship was established as a new franchise generally applying to all former subjects of the monarchs, doing away with special statuses of aristocrats, non-nobles, serfs, other peasants, Jews, burghers and other city dwellers without political franchise, etc. However, political participation was restricted to only men, who reached a certain taxable income and certain aristocratic privileges and discriminations against Jews (blocked from officialdom), poor (no freedom of domicile, no suffrage) and peasants (still some soccage-like charges) - varying from state to state - violated the principal legal equality established by and after Napoleon. Unlike in the pre-enlightenment era discriminations and privileges were now not the principle but its violation and thus remained a permanent issue of politics and debate, and were thus mostly abolished until the 1840-s, in few smaller states as late as 1869.

In the mid-19th century the fiercely and ferociously anti-Semitic Völkisch movement had appeared in Germany. One of the major demands of the various völkisch groups had been for the disemancipation of German Jews and for banning sexual relations between those considered to be of the “Semitic race” and those considered to be of the “Aryan race”. In 1881, a petition presented to the German government by the völkisch groups demanding Jewish disemancipation and the banning of marriage/sex between “Aryans” and “Jews” had collected over a million signatures. The National Socialist German Workers’ Party, which been founded in 1919 as an outshoot of the völkisch movement took over these demands.[citation needed]

The German Jews were the most assimilated in Western Europe, spoke German as their first language, as opposed to Yiddish, and many fought for Germany in the First World War.

On January 30, 1933, there occurred the Nazi assumption of power with Adolf Hitler assuming the Chancellorship. Attacks on Jews started almost as soon as Hitler assumed the Chancellorship in January 1933. However, the first Nuremburg law makes no attempt to attack Jew's explicity, and maintaining a "prevention of the propagation of hereditary illness". Additional laws claimed to preserve German blood and honour, but again were “not specifically anti-Semitic.[3]

In early 1933 plans for the attainment of the long-standing völkisch demand for the banning of sex/marriage between "non-Aryans" and "Aryans" started to be drafted, but nothing had occurred owing to disputes between the Interior Ministry and the NSDAP over the precise "racial" definition of a Jew, namely how many Jewish grandparents did one have to be considered Jewish, which led to the entire process being hopelessly bogged down by 1935[4]. The first nationwide example of the anti-Semitic campaign was the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses on 1 April 1933.

[edit] Towards the Nuremberg Laws

During the spring and summer of 1935, many Alte Kämpfer (Old Fighters; i.e. those who joined the Nazi Party before 1930, and who tended to be the most ardent anti-Semites in the Party) and SA members, disenchanted with unfulfilled promises by the Nazi party, were eager to lash out against Germany's Jewish minority as a way of expressing their frustrations against a group that the authorities would not generally protect.[5] The German historian Hans Mommsen wrote about the Alte Kämpfer that:

"After the Nazi seizure of power, those groups in the NSDAP that originated in the extreme völkisch movement-including the vast majority of the Alte Kämpfer-did not become socially integrated. Many of them remained unemployed, while others failed to obtain posts commensurate with the services they believed they had rendered the movement. The social advancement that they had hoped for usually failed to materialize. This potential for protest was increasingly diverted into the sphere of Jewish policy. Many extremists in the NSDAP, influenced by envy and greed as well as by a feeling that they had been excluded from attractive positions within the higher civil service, grew even more determined to act decisively and independently in the "Jewish Question". The pressures exerted by the militant wing of the party on the state apparatus were most effective when they were in harmony with the official ideology".[6]

A Gestapo report from the spring of 1935 stated that the rank and file of the Nazi Party would set in motion a solution to the "Jewish problem" "by us from below that the government would then have to follow".[5] The ensuing wave of assaults, vandalism and boycotts by the Alte Kämpfer and SA members against German Jews in the spring and summer of 1935 was far more violent then the anti-Semitic campaigns in the two previous years.[7]

Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, the Economics Minister and Reichsbank president, criticized arbitrary behavior by Party members as this inhibited his policy of developing the German economy.[8] From Dr. Schacht's viewpoint, the violent anti-Semitic campaign waged by the Alte Kämpfer and SA, made no economic sense since Jews were believed to have certain entrepreneurial skills that could be usefully employed to further his policies. Schacht made no moral condemnation of anti-Jewish policy and advocated the passing of legislation to clarify the situation. Following complaints from Dr. Schacht plus reports on the public disagreement with the wave of anti-Semitic violence, Hitler ordered a stop to "individual actions" against German Jews on August 8, 1935.[8] A conference of ministers was held on August 20, 1935 to discuss the negative economic effects of Party actions against Jews. Hitler argued that such effects would cease, once the government decided on a firm policy against the Jews. At the same time, the Interior Minister Dr. Wilhelm Frick threatened to impose harsh penalties on those Party members who ignored the order of August 8 and continued to assault Jews.[8] From Hitler's perspective, it was imperative to bring in harsh new anti-Semitic laws as a consolation prize for those Party members who were disappointed with Hitler's halt order of August 8, especially because Hitler had only reluctantly given the halt order for pragmatic reasons, and his sympathies were with the Party radicals.[8]

The seventh Nazi Party Rally was held in Nuremberg from 10 to 16 September 1935. It was meant to celebrate the Nazi regime's denunciation of Part V of the Treaty of Versailles in March 1935, which had disarmed Germany, hence its motto Party Rally of Freedom. The Party Rally of September 1935 had featured the first session of the Reichstag held at that city since 1543.[9]. Hitler had planned to have the Reichstag pass a law making the Nazi Swastika flag the flag of the German Reich, and a major speech in support of the impending Italian aggression against Ethiopia.[9] However, at the last minute, the German Foreign Minister Baron Konstantin von Neurath persuaded Hitler to cancel his speech as being too provocative to public opinion abroad, thus leaving Hitler with the sudden need to have something else to address the historic first meeting of the Reichstag in Nuremberg since 1543, other than the Reich Flag Law.[9] Hitler's need for something else to address the Reichstag other then the Reich Flag Law was especially acute as he had invited all of the senior foreign diplomats in Berlin to the Party Rally of 1935[6]

On September 12, 1935, two days after the beginning of the party rally, leading Nazi physician Gerhard Wagner surprisingly announced in a speech that the Nazi government would soon introduce a “law for the protection of German blood” to prevent mixed marriages between Jews and “Aryans” in the future. Hitler immediately decided to extend the legal scope. On September 13, 1935, Dr. Bernhard Lösener, the Interior Ministry official in charge of drafting anti-Semitic laws together with another Interior Ministry official, Ministerialrat (Ministerial Counsellor) Franz Albrecht Medicus was hastily summoned to the Nuremberg Party Rally by plane by Wilhelm Stuckart, the State Secretary of the Interior Ministry to start drafting at once a law for Hitler to present to the Reichstag for September 15.[10] Lösener and Medicus arrived in Nuremberg on the morning of September 14 and because of the short time available for the drafting of the laws, both measures were hastily improvised – there was even a shortage of drafting paper so that menu cards had to be used instead.[11] Such was the degree of improvisation that Franz Gürtner, the Justice Minister first learned of the adoption of the laws from listening to the radio[6]. Most of the debates about the drafting of the laws concerned a precise definition of what constituted a Jew in Nazi "racial" terms, i.e. how many Jewish grandparents one had to have in order to qualify as Jewish under Nazi racial theories.[11] Hitler himself spent the night of September 14-15th hesitant and indecisive over just which of the various definitions of a Jew to adopt, and finally excused himself from the debate[6]. On September 15, Hitler presented the laws drafted by Stuckart, Lösener and Medicus to the Reichstag.

[edit] Introduction of the Laws

On the evening of September 15, 1935, two measures were announced to the Reichstag at the annual Party Rally in Nuremberg, becoming known as the Nuremberg Laws.[9]

The first law, The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour,[12] prohibited marriages and extramarital intercourse between "Jews" (the name was now officially used in place of "non-Aryans") and "Germans" and also the employment of "German" females under forty-five in Jewish households. The second law, The Reich Citizenship Law [13], stripped persons not considered of German blood of their German citizenship and introduced a new distinction between "Reich citizens" and "nationals".

Hitler made a speech before the Reichstag in Nuremberg, introducing the laws and their alleged motivation, before the laws were formally read and proposed for adoption by Göring, the President of the Reichstag:

...Bitter complaints have come in from countless places citing the provocative behavior of Jews....a certain amount of [conspiratorial] planning was involved....[To prevent] vigorous defensive action by the [Aryan] people[14], we have no choice but to contain the problem through legislative measures....it may be possible, through a definitive secular solution, to create a basis on which the German people can have a tolerable relationship with the Jews.[15] ... This law is an attempt to find a legislative solution....if this attempts fails, it will be necessary to transfer [the Jewish problem] ... to the National Socialist Party for a final solution (German: endgültige Lösung).[16]

The measures were unanimously adopted by the Reichstag. In twelve years of Nazi rule, the Reichstag only passed four laws: the Nuremberg laws were two of them.[17]

The Nuremberg Laws by their general nature formalized the unofficial and particular measures taken against Jews up to 1935. The Nazi leaders made a point of stressing the consistency of this legislation with the Party programme, which demanded that Jews should be deprived of their citizenship rights.

[edit] The Laws

The Laws for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour

(September 15, 1935) Entirely convinced that the purity of German blood is essential to the further existence of the German people, and inspired by the uncompromising determination to safeguard the future of the German nation, the Reichstag has unanimously resolved upon the following law, which is promulgated herewith:

Section 1
  1. Marriages between Jews and citizens (German: Staatsangehörige) of German or kindred blood are forbidden. Marriages concluded in defiance of this law are void, even if, for the purpose of evading this law, they were concluded abroad.
  2. Proceedings for annulment may be initiated only by the Public Prosecutor.
Section 2
Extramarital sexual intercourse between Jews and subjects of the state of Germany or related blood is forbidden.
  • (Supplementary decrees set Nazi definitions of racial Germans, Jews, and half-breeds or Mischlinge --- see the latter entry for details and citations and Mischling Test for how such decrees were applied. Jews could not vote or hold public office under the parallel "citizenship" law.)
Section 3
Jews will not be permitted to employ female citizens under the age of 45, of German or kindred blood, as domestic workers.
Section 4
  1. Jews are forbidden to display the Reich and national flag or the national colours.
  2. On the other hand they are permitted to display the Jewish colours. The exercise of this right is protected by the State.
Section 5
  1. A person who acts contrary to the prohibition of Section 1 will be punished with hard labour.
  2. A person who acts contrary to the prohibition of Section 2 will be punished with imprisonment or with hard labour.
  3. A person who acts contrary to the provisions of Sections 3 or 4 will be punished with imprisonment up to a year and with a fine, or with one of these penalties.
Section 6
The Reich Minister of the Interior in agreement with the Deputy Führer and the Reich Minister of Justice will issue the legal and administrative regulations required for the enforcement and supplementing of this law.
Section 7
The law will become effective on the day after its promulgation; Section 3, however, not until January 1, 1936.

[edit] Effect of the Laws

German Jewish passports could be used to leave but not to return.
See also: Anti-Jewish legislation in prewar Nazi Germany

Legal discrimination against Jews had come into being before the Nuremberg Laws and steadily grew as time went on; however, for discrimination to be effective, it was essential to have a clear definition of who was or was not a Jew. This was one important function of the Nuremberg laws and the numerous supplementary decrees that were proclaimed to further them.

The Reich Citizenship Law had little practical effect as it deprived German Jews only of the right to vote and hold office[18]. Much to the fury of the Alte Kämpfer and the other radicals in the NSDAP, the recommendation from the Interior Ministry that the Reich Citizenship Law applied only to those classified as "full Jews" and those "half-Jews" who practiced Judaism or were not in a mixed marriage was taken up; those Mischling who were Christians or were in a mixed marriage retained their German citizenship[19]. The NSDAP had wanted the Reich Citizenship Law to apply to "Grade 1 and Grade 2 persons of mixed descent"[20]. The suggestion of Dr. Frick that the Reich Citizenship Law be followed up with the creation of a tribunal to which every German would have to prove that they were Aryans in order to keep their German citizenship was not followed up[21]. Because of this, the Nuremberg Laws were highly unpopular with the Party radicals[22]. Joseph Goebbels had the radio broadcast recording the passing of the laws by the Reichstag cut short, and ordered the German media not to mention the laws until a way of implementing them had been found[23]. At a secret conference held in Munich on September 24 to finally resolve the dispute over who was a "racial" Jew or who was a "half-Jew", Hitler accepted Lösener's less sweeping definitions of three or four Jewish grandparents, and ruled that the laws were not to apply to those Mischling who were Christians and to "Grade 2 persons of mixed descent"[24]. However immediately afterwards in a meeting with Martin Bormann, Hitler declared that paragraph 6 of the First Ordinance of the Reich Citizenship was not to be applied in practice, and instead accepted Bormann's suggestion of excluding Mischling from a whole host of German institutions such as the DAF[25].

People defined as Jews could then be barred from employment as lawyers, doctors or journalists. Jews were prohibited from using state hospitals and could not be educated by the state past the age of 14. Public parks, libraries and beaches were closed to Jews. War memorials were to have Jewish names expunged. Even the lottery could not award winnings to Jews.[26] With the so-called Namensänderungsverordnung ("Regulation of Name Changes") of August 17, 1938, Jews were required to adopt a middle name: "Sara" for women and "Israel" for men. At the instigation of Swiss immigration official Heinrich Rothmund, passports of German Jews were required to have a large "J" stamped on them and could be used to leave Germany - but not to return.[27]

The obligation to wear the yellow badge, introduced in German-occupied Poland in September 1939, was extended to all Jewish people living within the Nazi empire in September 1941.

[edit] Influence and inspiration

In the early thirties, the Nuremberg Laws and Racial Science were regarded by many as the height of scientific thought and the laws were emulated in other countries such as The Law for Protection of the Nation passed in Bulgaria during World War II, which also had a strong antisemitic character. Romania, Slovakia and Croatia also emulated the Nazi laws.

The principal inspiration for Nazi racial thinking was the British-German author, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, several of whose books were found in Hitler's private library.[28] Houston Chamberlain was inspired in turn by the eugenics theories of Sir Francis Galton[29], Galton was the cousin of Charles Darwin and his ideas owed a lot to Social Darwinism. Alfred Ploetz, who coined the term "Racial Hygiene" is also believed to have played an important role in bringing Galton's theories to Hitler's attention. Henry Ford's work The International Jew was another influence and, in 1922, the New York Times reported that Hitler's office contained a large picture of Ford.[30]

[edit] Existing copies

An original typescript of the laws signed by Hitler was found by the 203rd Detachment of the US Army's Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC), commanded by Martin Dannenberg, in Eichstätt, Bavaria, on April 27, 1945. It was appropriated by General George S. Patton, in violation of JCS 1067. During a visit to Los Angeles, he secretly handed it over to the Huntington Library. The document was stored until June 26, 1999, when its existence was revealed. Although legal ownership of the document has not been established, it was given on permanent loan to the Skirball Cultural Center, which placed it on public display three days later, until the document's transfer to the National Archives in Washington D.C. on 25 August 2010.[31]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ In many cases a person with exactly two Jewish grandparents was deemed a "Jew" under the Nuremberg Laws. There were a number of legal tests used, to determine if such a person --with precisely two Jewish grandparents-- was to be classified as a "Jew" or a "Mischling" under the laws. See Mischling Test.
  2. ^ Hunt, L. (2009). The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures, Vol. C: Since 1740. Bedford/St. Martin's.
  3. ^ Sereny, Gitta. Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth. New York: Vintage, 1996. Print.
  4. ^ Mommsen, Hans "The Realization of the Unthinkable: The "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" in the Third Reich" pages 217-264 from The Nazi Holocaust Part 3 The "Final Solution": The Implementation of Mass Murder Volume 1 edited by Michael Marrus, Westpoint: Meckler, 1989 pages 222-223.
  5. ^ a b Kershaw pp. 560-61.
  6. ^ a b c d Mommsen, Hans "The Realization of the Unthinkable: The "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" in the Third Reich" pages 217-264 from The Nazi Holocaust Part 3 The "Final Solution": The Implementation of Mass Murder Volume 1 edited by Michael Marrus, Westpoint: Meckler, 1989 page 222
  7. ^ Kershaw pp. 561-62.
  8. ^ a b c d Kershaw p. 563.
  9. ^ a b c d Kershaw pp. 567-68.
  10. ^ Kershaw p. 567.
  11. ^ a b Kershaw pp. 568-70 & 759-60.
  12. ^ Nuremberg Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, English translation at the University of the West of England
  13. ^ Reich Citizenship Law, English translation at the University of the West of England
  14. ^ It was a standard tactic of Hitler's to transfer the blame for his aggressive actions onto his adversary so that his action was simply a "defensive" one.
  15. ^ Even a cursory review of Mein Kampf and Hitler's speeches before 1935 would make it clear to anyone that this prospect of "hope of toleration" extended by Hitler is a blatant lie. See also Kershaw p. 565.
  16. ^ The ominous term "final solution" did not yet, in ordinary discourse in 1935, necessarily entail the complete eradication of European or World Jewry. Neither did it exclude that possibility.
  17. ^ Shirer p. 234n. Most laws in the Nazi state were simply decreed by Hitler under powers vested in him by the Enabling Act of 1933; there was no legal need for the "legislature" here, and having the Reichstag adopt these laws at the party rally was done for propaganda purposes. Kershaw p. 268-75.
  18. ^ Mommsen, Hans "The Realization of the Unthinkable: The "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" in the Third Reich" pages 217-264 from The Nazi Holocaust Part 3 The "Final Solution": The Implementation of Mass Murder Volume 1 edited by Michael Marrus, Westpoint: Meckler, 1989 page 224
  19. ^ Mommsen, Hans "The Realization of the Unthinkable: The "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" in the Third Reich" pages 217-264 from The Nazi Holocaust Part 3 The "Final Solution": The Implementation of Mass Murder Volume 1 edited by Michael Marrus, Westpoint: Meckler, 1989 page 224
  20. ^ Mommsen, Hans "The Realization of the Unthinkable: The "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" in the Third Reich" pages 217-264 from The Nazi Holocaust Part 3 The "Final Solution": The Implementation of Mass Murder Volume 1 edited by Michael Marrus, Westpoint: Meckler, 1989 page 224
  21. ^ Mommsen, Hans "The Realization of the Unthinkable: The "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" in the Third Reich" pages 217-264 from The Nazi Holocaust Part 3 The "Final Solution": The Implementation of Mass Murder Volume 1 edited by Michael Marrus, Westpoint: Meckler, 1989 page 224
  22. ^ Mommsen, Hans "The Realization of the Unthinkable: The "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" in the Third Reich" pages 217-264 from The Nazi Holocaust Part 3 The "Final Solution": The Implementation of Mass Murder Volume 1 edited by Michael Marrus, Westpoint: Meckler, 1989 page 224
  23. ^ Mommsen, Hans "The Realization of the Unthinkable: The "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" in the Third Reich" pages 217-264 from The Nazi Holocaust Part 3 The "Final Solution": The Implementation of Mass Murder Volume 1 edited by Michael Marrus, Westpoint: Meckler, 1989 page 225
  24. ^ Mommsen, Hans "The Realization of the Unthinkable: The "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" in the Third Reich" pages 217-264 from The Nazi Holocaust Part 3 The "Final Solution": The Implementation of Mass Murder Volume 1 edited by Michael Marrus, Westpoint: Meckler, 1989 page 225
  25. ^ Mommsen, Hans "The Realization of the Unthinkable: The "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" in the Third Reich" pages 217-264 from The Nazi Holocaust Part 3 The "Final Solution": The Implementation of Mass Murder Volume 1 edited by Michael Marrus, Westpoint: Meckler, 1989 page 225
  26. ^ "Examples of Antisemitic Legislation, 1933-1939". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum no. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007459. Retrieved 2008-07-12. 
  27. ^ "The Nuremberg Race Laws". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/nlaw.htm. Retrieved 2008-07-12. 
  28. ^ Hitler's Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life, T.W. Ryback page 69 & 112 Knopf 2008
  29. ^ Brookes, M. 2004,Extreme Measures: The Dark Visions and Bright Ideas of Francis Galton, Bloomsbury Publ. Plc. London , p. 142.,
  30. ^ Hitler's Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life, T.W. Ryback page 69 Knopf 2008
  31. ^ "Nuremberg Laws handed over to US National Archives". Daily Telegraph, UK. August 26 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/world-war-2/7964839/Nuremberg-Laws-handed-over-to-US-National-Archives.html. Retrieved August 26 2010. 

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