Anti-Jewish legislation in pre-war Nazi Germany

The Enabling Act of 1933 established the power of the Nazi-led government to pass law by decree, bypassing the approval of parliament. It was passed on March 23, 1933, and effectively nullified the Weimar Constitution.{{Cite book |title=The Twisted Road to Auschwitz |last=Schleunes |first=Karl |year=1970 |isbn=978-0252000928 |page=[https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/96 96] |url=https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/96 }}

In April 1933, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, or 'Civil Service Law', as it was more commonly known when passed, established the ability of the Nazi-led government to legally remove undesirables from the civil service profession, including doctors, teachers and lawyers.{{Cite book|title=The Twisted Road to Auschwitz|last=Schluenes|first=Karl|year=1970|isbn=978-0252000928|pages=[https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/102 102–103]|url=https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/102}}

This Law created the basis for the years to come, the Nazi party saw "racial purity [as a] condition of superior cultural creation and of the construction of a powerful state".{{Cite book|title=Nazi Germany and The Jews|last=Friedlander|first=Saul|publisher=HarperCollins|year=1997|isbn=0-06-019042-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/nazigermanyjews00frie/page/33 33]|quote=Racial Purity was a condition of superior cultural creation and of the construction of a powerful state|url=https://archive.org/details/nazigermanyjews00frie/page/33}} The Civil Service Law was used to exclude Jews from key areas of German society.

The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service "defined the three groups of undesirable civil servants and provided for their dismissal". The first group included those appointed after November 9, 1918, and could be removed if they did not have the proper training, which meant anyone could fit into these standards. The second group were those who were deemed by their past that they would not always support the national state, e.g. members of the Communist Party, or any related or associated organisation.

The third group were any "non-Aryans", a way of excluding the Jews without explicitly mentioning "Jews" in the legislation.{{Cite book|title=The Twisted Road to Auschwitz|last=Schluenes|first=Karl|year=1970|isbn=978-0252000928|page=[https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/103 103]|quote=It defined three groups of undesirable civil servants and provided for their dismissal|url=https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/103}}

This act of legislation was also passed in April as a supplement to the Civil Service Law. This law specifically attacked judges and public prosecutors, and forbade any Jews from taking the Bar examination which was necessary to become a lawyer.{{Cite book|title=The Twisted Road to Auschwitz|last=Schluenes|first=Karl|year=1970|isbn=978-0252000928|page=[https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/105 105]|url=https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/105}}

This law affected Jewish doctors, and subsequently Jewish health care. Passed also in April, under this legislation, patients who saw a "non-Aryan" doctor would not be covered under the national health insurance, thus excluding Jewish doctors from German society.

Looking to further enact their racial agenda, the Nazi party then looked toward curbing educational policy. On April 25, 1933, the Law Against the Over-Crowding of German schools was passed, and required an end to any Weimar teachings that discussed democracy and equality; it enforced the teaching of racial pride. Under the guise of a concern for educational over-crowding, the Nazis limited the number of Jewish students enrolled in German schools to 1.5% of the total enrollment.{{Cite book|title=The Twisted Road to Auschwitz|last=Schluenes|first=Karl|year=1970|publisher=1970|isbn=978-0252000928|pages=[https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/106 106–107]|url=https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/106}}

With the goal of excluding Jews from having full citizenship rights, an Advisory Committee for Population and Race Policy met at the ministry of the Interior to discuss a new citizenship law.{{Cite book|title=Nazi Germany and The Jews|last=Friedlander|first=Saul|publisher=HarperCollins|year=1997|isbn=0-06-019042-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/nazigermanyjews00frie/page/146 146]|url=https://archive.org/details/nazigermanyjews00frie/page/146}}

What followed was the Denaturalization Law passed on July 14. As a result of this law, the Reich government could take away the citizenship of those who were deemed "undesirable", applying to anyone who had been given citizenship by the Weimar government. Those who saw the results of this law first were the "150,000 Eastern Jews in Germany".{{Cite book|title=The Twisted Road to Auschwitz|last=Schluenes|first=Karl|year=1970|isbn=978-0252000928|page=[https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/110 110]|quote="... revoke the citizenship of people it considered to be undesirable." "...against the estimated 150,000 Eastern Jews in Germany."|url=https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/110}}

Passed on September 29, 1933, this law "excluded Jews from owning farmland or engaging in agriculture". It stated that only Germans could now be farmers. Though the law had minimal effect due to the lack of Jews involved in farming, it still displayed a central idea of the Nazi party that, "The Reich government passes this law to secure the peasant foundations of our blood line through instituting the ancient customs of land inheritance."{{Cite book|title=The Twisted Road to Auschwitz|last=Schluenes|first=Karl|year=1970|isbn=978-0252000928|page=[https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/112 112]|quote="excluded Jews from owning farmland or engaging in agriculture". "The Reich government passes this law to secure the peasant foundations of our blood line through instituting the ancient customs of land inheritance."|url=https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/112}}

On September 29, 1933, the power of Jewish Cultural life in Germany was transferred to Joseph Goebbels, who established chambers of culture that would regulate activity in their chamber of either film, theater, music, fine arts, literature, broadcasting, and the press.{{Cite book|title=The Twisted Road to Auschwitz|last=Schluenes|first=Karl|year=1970|isbn=978-0252000928|page=[https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/113 113]|quote="producer of and actors in a movie to the ticket collectors in the theater". "Licensed permission from the chamber president."|url=https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/113}} The chambers of the different genres of culture were combined in their umbrella body, the Reich Chamber of Culture.

Each Chamber had the power to exclude anyone involved in any of the facets of culture, even without an "Aryan clause" written into the legislation.

For example, the film chamber could dismiss any Jews involved in any stages of the film-making process including the "producer, actors and ticket collectors in the theater". To continue involvement in the film industry one would need "licensed permission from the chamber president".

As a supplement to the Chambers of Culture, a journalism law went into effect on October 4, 1933, stating that to produce work for the press, journalists and editors would also need specific legal permission.

{{main|Nuremberg Laws}}

At their annual party rally held in Nuremberg, 10 to 16 September 1935, the Nazi leaders announced a set of three new laws to further regulate and exclude Jews from German society.{{Cite book|title=The Twisted Road to Auschwitz|last=Schluenes|first=Karl|year=1970|isbn=978-0252000928|page=[https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/120 120]|url=https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/120}} These laws now known as the Nuremberg laws served also as the legality for the arrests and violence against Jews that would follow.{{Cite book|title=The Germans and the Final Solution|last=Bankier|first=David|year=1992|isbn=0-631-17968-2|pages=41–42}}

The Nuremberg Laws were created in response to Hitler's demands for broadened citizenship laws that could "underpin the more specifically racial-biological anti-Jewish legislation".{{Cite book|title=Nazi Germany and The Jews|last=Friedlander|first=Saul|publisher=HarperCollins|year=1997|isbn=0-06-019042-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/nazigermanyjews00frie/page/148 148]|quote=underpin the more specifically racial-biological anti-Jewish legislation.|url=https://archive.org/details/nazigermanyjews00frie/page/148}} They were made to reflect the party principles that had been outlined in the points Hitler had written in the National Socialist Program in 1920.{{Cite book|title=The Germans and the Final Solution|last=Bankier|first=David|year=1992|isbn=0-631-17968-2|page=43}}

The first law stated that black, red, and white were the national colors, and the swastika flag was the new national flag. Per Hitler, this law was stated to "re-pay a debt of gratitude to the movement, under whose symbol Germany regained its freedom, in that they fulfill a significant item on the program of the National Socialist Party".{{Cite book|title=Nazi Germany and The Jews|last=Friedlander|first=Saul|publisher=HarperCollins|year=1997|isbn=0-06-019042-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/nazigermanyjews00frie/page/142 142]|quote=Repay a debt of gratitude to the Movement, under whose symbol Germany regained its freedom, in that they fulfill a significant item on the program of the National Socialist Party.|url=https://archive.org/details/nazigermanyjews00frie/page/142}}

The second law established who would be granted full political and civic rights and those who would now be deprived of them. Citizenship rights were to be granted to those who were citizens of the Reich, which were only individuals classified as being of "German or related blood"; therefore, Jews were excluded from any and all citizenship rights, becoming Staatsangehörige or state subjects, essentially making them foreigners in their own country.

The third law forbade marriage and any intimate extramarital relations between Jews and non-Jewish German citizens (the latter denigrated as race disgrace).Diemut Majer (2003). "Non-Germans" under the Third Reich: the Nazi judicial and administrative system in Germany and occupied Eastern Europe with special regard to occupied Poland, 1939–1945 (Uniform title: "Fremdvölkische" im Dritten Reich, Boppard upon Rhine: Boldt, 1981, {{ISBN|3-7646-1744-6}}), Peter Thomas Hill, Edward Vance Humphrey, and Brian Levin (translators), Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech University Press in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2003, p. 102. {{ISBN|978-0-89672-837-0}}. While the law left existing marriages between non-Jewish and Jewish spouses unaffected, it banned future such marriages and declared marriages by a non-Jewish German and a Jewish spouse of any nationality contracted after that ban outside of Germany invalid within the Reich. Furthermore, Jews were forbidden from employing non-Jewish German women or women of equivalent racist ranking who were under 45 years old. Under this law, Jews were also forbidden to raise the German flag.

After the Nuremberg Laws were passed, the Nazi Party also introduced supplemental decrees to the Citizenship Law and the Law for the Defense of German Blood and Honor to specifically outline who would be considered a Jew, and who would therefore be subject to the Nuremberg Laws' exclusionary principles.

On November 14, the first supplemental decree was published, and it defined a Jew as anyone who had at least three full Jewish grandparents, had two Jewish parents and were married to a Jewish spouse, belonged to the Jewish religion at the time of the law's publication, or who entered the Jewish religion later.{{Cite book|title=Nazi Germany and the Jews|last=Friedlander|first=Saul|publisher=HarperCollins|year=1997|isbn=0-06-019042-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/nazigermanyjews00frie/page/149 149]|quote=between a Jew and a Mischling with one Jewish Grandparent, between a Mischling and another each with one Jewish Grandparent, and between a Mischling with two Jewish Grandparents and a German.|url=https://archive.org/details/nazigermanyjews00frie/page/149}} Mischlinge or the German legal term for those who had "Aryan" and Jewish blood, were also clarified to determine who would be considered a Jew. Those that were three-quarters Jewish were Jewish as well as those who were half Jewish due to their choice of becoming Jewish via a Jewish spouse or through joining a Jewish community.

A second decree was published on December 21, which stated that Jewish professors, teachers, physicians, lawyers, and notaries who were state employees, and had previously been exempt, would now be dismissed from their positions.

In the first decree to the Law for the Defense of German Blood and Honour, it stated which specific marriages were forbidden. These included those "between a Jew and a Mischling with one Jewish Grandparent, between a Mischling and another each with one Jewish Grandparent, and between a Mischling with two Jewish Grandparents and a German".

In order to prevent foreign criticism of Germany, and keep the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and to prevent economic loss and a blow to German prestige, Hitler eased the anti-Jewish stance momentarily.{{Cite book|title=The Twisted Road to Auschwitz|last=Schluenes|first=Karl|year=1970|isbn=978-0252000928|pages=[https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/126 126–127]|url=https://archive.org/details/twistedroadtoaus00schl/page/126}}

On December 3 1935, all anti-Jewish signs near the site of the Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen were ordered to be removed by Hitler. It was only an action taken to ensure the Olympics would be held in Germany by preventing international disapproval.

After the Nuremberg Legislations and during 1938, "worse than total expropriation was to follow: Economic harassment and even violence would henceforward be used to force the Jews to flee the Reich or the newly annexed Austria. Within the second phase, 1938 was the fateful turning point."{{Cite book|title=Nazi Germany and The Jews|last=Friedlander|first=Saul|publisher=HarperCollins|year=1997|isbn=0-06-019042-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/nazigermanyjews00frie/page/180 180]|quote=worse than total expropriation was to follow: Economic harassment and even violence would henceforward be used to force the Jews to flee the Reich or the newly annexed Austria. Within the second phase 1938 was the fateful turning point.|url=https://archive.org/details/nazigermanyjews00frie/page/180}}

De-certification of all Jewish physicians, who were no longer allowed to treat German patients and forced to refer to themselves as "sick-treaters", a degrading term.{{Cite book|title=The Jews: A History|last=Efron, Weitzman, Lehmann|first=John, Steven, Matthias|publisher=Pearson Education inc|year=2004|isbn=0-205-89626-X|pages=410–411|quote=sick-treaters}}

March 22, 1938 Jews were forbidden from owning private gardens.

July 27, 1938 A decree was enforced stating all streets in Germany needed to be renamed.

November 12, 1938 Jews were forbidden from attending movie theaters, the opera, and concerts.

November 15, 1938 Jewish children barred from attending public school.

The essential robbery of Jews became legal when Jews were forced on February 21, 1939, to turn in all jewelry of any value.

In this second wave of legislation, Jews were ostracized even further from society, with strict restrictions living under "a German regime that practiced terror and arbitrariness through the judicial system".{{Cite book|title=The Jews: A History|last=Efron, Weitzman, Lehmann|first=John, Steven, Matthias|publisher=Pearson Education Inc|year=2004|isbn=0-205-89626-X|page=413|quote=a German regime that practiced terror and arbitrariness through the judicial system.}}

{{Main|Kristallnacht}}

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1970-083-42, Magdeburg, zerstörtes jüdisches Geschäft.jpg

Kristallnacht, or the "night of broken glass", refers to Jewish pogroms that took place on November 9 and 10 in 1938. The wave of violence occurred in Germany, annexed Austria, and areas of Sudetenland that were occupied by Germany.{{Cite web|url=https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005201|title=Kristallnacht|last=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|website=Holocaust Encyclopedia|access-date=December 7, 2016}} These attacks targeted synagogues, Jewish-owned businesses, other Jewish establishments, and Jewish citizens in general. More than 100 Jewish people were killed, and thousands more were arrested during these attacks.{{Cite journal|year=2008|title=Remembering Kristallnacht|journal=The Jerusalem Report|id={{ProQuest|218742963}}}} This was the start of organized Nazi attacks, and the mass incarceration of the Jews. There were no clear instructions on how to execute the violence, so it caused the destroying of Jewish property and inhumane treatment of Jewish people.{{Cite journal|last=Doescher|first=Hans|year=2011|title=Kristallnacht 1938|journal=Shofar|pages=131–132|doi=10.1353/sho.2011.0093|s2cid=170474963|id={{ProQuest|873572091}}}} The rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria, and Sudetenland. Firefighters were instructed to prevent the flames from spreading to nearby buildings, but not to put the fires out on the burning synagogues. There were also about 7,500 Jewish-owned establishments that were robbed and had their windows shattered. About 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and moved to prisons or concentration camps as well. The German government placed full blame on the Jews for the destructions and imposed a fine of one billion Reichsmark on the Jewish community. The government took away all insurance payouts that would go to the Jews whose businesses or homes got destroyed. This left the Jews responsible for the costs of all repairs.

This led to many decrees in the weeks following. These decrees were designed to deprive the Jews of their means of living. Many of these movements enforced "Aryanization" policy. This meant that Jewish-owned property would be transferred to "Aryan" ownership for a fraction of the true value. To further remove the Jews from public life, the Jews were expelled from attending German schools, and they lost the right to have a driver's license or own an automobile.

Kristallnacht was essentially the turning point in the Nazis persecution of the Jewish people. It expanded the efforts to remove Jews from German economic and social life. It also led to forced emigration of Jews in order to make Germany free of Jews. Kristallnacht and the events that followed it showed the Nazi regime that they could count on the nationwide support of anti-Semitism from the general public. This showed the Nazis that they could easily move forward with their plans without much opposition from within Germany. The events of Kristallnacht foreshadowed the Holocaust and mass murders of the Jewish people.

During the pre-war Nazi Germany period (1933-1939) there were more than 400 laws, decrees and other type of regulations whose goal was to restrict Jews. There were national laws that affected all Jews, and there were state, region and city laws that only affected the Jews in those communities. These regulations limited Jews in all aspects of life, both public and private. Almost all people were involved in the support of anti-Jewish legislation in some way, whether it was passive agreement or direct involvement.{{Cite web|url=https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005681|title=Anti-Jewish Legislation in Pre-war Germany |last=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|website=Holocaust Encyclopedia}} These movements were all part of Hitler's intention and plan to rid the planet of all Jewish population. Hitler's plan started with stripping all Jews of their basic rights, before moving into the mass murdering of the Jewish people.{{Cite journal|last=Katz|first=Steven|year=1994|title=Ideas made the Holocaust – The Holocaust in Historical Context: The Holocaust and Mass Death before the Modern Age|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/210394559/|journal=Commonweal|volume=1|via=ProQuest}}

For sake of completeness, this timeline includes selected decrees that directly follow-up on pre-war legislation, which were issued after the start of World War II on September 1, 1939.

• Reich Flight Tax
• Aryanization
• The Holocaust

:This article incorporates text from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and has been released under the GFDL.

{{reflist}}

• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum – [http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?ModuleId=10005681 Anti-Jewish Legislation in Pre-War Germany]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110402184424/http://www.passportland.com/images/lewin-simon/lewin-simon.html Images of a 1938 German "J" Jewish passport] from www.passportland.com
• List of "Jewish" first names (August 1938) – [http://www.beliebte-vornamen.de/3600-verzeichnis-juedischer-vornamen-1938.htm Name List]

{{Holocaust Germany}}

Leg

Category:Antisemitism in Germany

Category:Denaturalized citizens of Germany

Category:Disabilities (Jewish) in Europe

Category:Repealed German legislation