Nürnberg Laws

The Nürnberg Laws were introduced on 15 September 1935 by the Reichstag at a special meeting convened at the annual Nürnberg Rally of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). They consisted of two laws—the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, which forbade extramarital intercourse and marriages between Jews and Germans and the employment of German girls or women under forty-five in Jewish households; and the Reich Citizenship Law, which declared that only those of German or related blood were eligible to be Reich citizens. All other people were classified as state subjects, without citizenship rights.

The Nürnberg Laws did not define a "Jew" as someone with particular religious beliefs. In fact, regardless of whether a person identified himself or herself as a Jew or belonged to the Jewish religious community. anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents was considered a Jew. There were many Germans who had not practiced Judaism for years who ended up defined as Jewish by the Nazis and were persecuted similarly.

History

There is some evidence that Jewish settlers founded the German Ashkenazi Jewish community in the early fifth to tenth centuries CE. Over the centuries, the population waxed and waned, leaving 522,000 Jews living in Germany by January 1933. Over half of the community (approximately 304,000) left Germany during the first six years of the Nazi dictatorship.

The Nazis rose to power in Germany on the backs of the economic and social hardships experienced during and after World War I. Having lost the war, Germany was required to pay compensation to the Allies and to adhere to the Treaty of Versailles, which stated that they could no longer have a large army. Severe inflation and economic instability plagued the country, and unemployment was rampant. It was easy for Hitler to use the Jews as a scapegoat for the nation’s misfortunes, and the citizens had every reason to believe Nazi party promises that they would resolve the ongoing issues. They used anti-Semitic propaganda campaigns to promote the party’s hatred of Jews, portraying them as subhuman and gradually enacting laws restricting their daily activities.

Of the approximate 500,000 Jews remaining in Germany in 1933, 20 percent were immigrants from Eastern Europe, and 80 percent were German citizens, descendants of Jews who had lived in Germany for nearly 2,000 years. Socially integrated, they participated in German intellectual, cultural, economic, and political life. In fact, although less than 1 percent of the German population was Jewish, the Jewish contribution to German culture was significant. Many Jews served in World War I and considered Germany their home.

Despite convincing themselves that they were Germans first and Jews second, they were never fully accepted as social equals in German society, however, and that made it easy for Hitler to alienate and demean them. It was their blind loyalty to Germany that blinded them to the drastic reality of the anti-Semitic measures that were being imposed on them; they were certain that they would not be considered part of the victimized citizenry.

It did not take long after Hitler rose to power for him to begin a systematically organized platform of Jewish persecution. He started with small decrees that left the Jews humiliated and degraded, and as time progressed and his party grew stronger and more popular, he added additional laws that eventually eliminated all the rights of Jewish citizens. They could no longer hold government jobs, own property, or run their own businesses. In 1935, the government passed the Nürnberg Laws that declared that only Aryans could be German citizens.

Impact

The 1935 Nürnberg Laws laid the groundwork for Germany’s racial policy for the next ten years. The term non-Aryan was replaced with Jewish Mischling first or second degree and Jew. The Nürnberg Laws were followed by a dozen supplemental Nazi decrees that eventually totally outlawed the Jews and deprived them of their rights as human beings.

Many members of the German public stood by during the Nazi atrocities and did nothing to condemn the Nazi racial policies. For years after the war, they would claim they knew nothing of Nazi intentions to eradicate the Jewish race and maintained their innocence of the evils that were being perpetrated. Most German citizens were content with the ongoing Nazi policies that were seen as improving the catastrophic financial and economic conditions in Germany at the time.

There was very little help for the Jewish plight during the war and after. Most countries established strict quotas and would not allow Jews in without permits, which were issued sparingly. Great Britain insisted that those Jews wanting to immigrate needed to prove they had a job waiting for them and that they had sufficient funds to live on. Jews that had managed to escape before the war began were sent back to Nazi Europe.

There were, however, some righteous individuals who did help the Jews. In recent years, there has come to light many instances of German citizens putting their lives in danger by hiding and assisting Jews who managed to evade the Nazi onslaught.

In 1938, a special plan was put into place called the Kindertransport (children's transport), wherein England allowed 10,000 Jewish children and children of other Nazi victims to be brought into the country and housed with British families. (Most of these Kindertransport children never saw their parents again.)

By the end of World War II, over six million Jews had been sent to their deaths in various concentration camps in Europe. Those that remained alive had been reduced to skeletons with few family members left and no place to go.

The anti-Semitism that reached its height in Europe during and after World War II was quieted with the demise of Hitler and the Weimar party and remained undercover for many years. But it was never really eliminated and is now being resurrected throughout the world in new capacities.

Bibliography

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"The Nuremberg Race Laws." The Holocaust: A Learning Site for Students. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 8 May 2016.

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