Figure 1.--After the passage of the Nuremberg Laws it was important to classify people. Germans got Bescheinigung with information about their ancestry. To get important jobs you needed proof of Aryan parentage going back centuries. Jews were identified and classified. There were different levels, full Jews and Mixed Mischlinge First and Second class. I do not at this time know the detsails of the classification and regustration process. This Jewish child is being photographed as part of that process. The photograph was taken in Cologne during 1938, perhaps after Kristallnacht.

Geman Führer Adolf Hitler at the Nuremberg Party Congress on September 15, 1935 announced three new laws that were to be cornerstones of German racist policies and the supression of Jews and other non-Aryans. These decrees became known as the Nuremberg Laws. They were decrees which in NAZI gErmany had the force of law forbidding contacts between Aryan Germans and Jews, espcecially marriage and srtipping Jewsof German citizenship. The first 1935 decree established the swastika as the official emblem of the German state. The second established special conditions for German citizenship that excluded all Jews. The third titled "The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor" prohibited marrige between German citizens and Jews. Marriages violating this law were voided and extra-marital relations prohibited. Jews were prohibuted from hiring female Germans under 45 years of age. Jews were also prohibuted from flying the national flag. The first three Nuremberg Laws were subsequently supplemented with 13 further decrees, the last issued as late as 1943, as the NAZIs constantly refined the supression of non-Aryans. These laws affected millions of Germans, the exact number depending n precisely how a Jew was defined. That definition was published November 14, 1935. The NAZIs defined a Jew as anyone who either 1) had three or four racially full Jewish grandparents, 2) belonged to a Jewish religious community or joined one after September 15 when the Nuremberg Laws came into force. Also regarded as Jews was anyone married to a Jew or the children of Jewish parents. This included illegtimate children of even the non-Jewish partner. There appears to have been no serious public objection to these laws. [Davidson, p. 161.]

Nuremberg Party Congress

Geman Führer Adolf Hitler commonly used the annual Nuremberg NAZI Party Congress to make important announcements. The 1935 Party Congress was particularly important. Hitler after making Germany's secret armament program public and reinstituting conscription (major violations of the Versailles Treaty) earlier in the year, used the Party Congress in 1935 to put the new Wehrmacht on display. He announced the Flag Law which replaced the Weimar red, black, and yellow banner with the red flag with a white circle and black swastica. Hitler also announced three new laws that were to be cornerstones of German racist policies and the supression of Jews and other non-Aryans (SEptember 15). These decrees became known as the Nuremberg Race Laws. They were decrees which in NAZI Germany had the force of law.

The Laws

T he Nuremberg Laws redefined German citizenship and established legal program for "the Protection of German Blood and German Honor". The Laws prohibities many basic contacts between Aryan Germans and Jews, espcecially marriage. They stripped Jews of German citizenship and enable the NAZI to use the laws and judicial system to supress the countries Jews. There were three different laws.

First Decree

The first 1935 decree established the swastika as the official emblem of the German state. Jews were forbidden to display it. Such displys of citizenship were for "a national of Germany or kindred blood".

Second Decree

The second established special conditions for German citizenship that emphazized race. Jews were specifically excluded as being "not of German blood".

Third Decree

The third decree titled "The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor" prohibited marrige between German citizens and Jews. Marriages violating this law were voided and extra-marital relations prohibited. Jews were prohibuted from hiring female Germans under 45 years of age. Jews were also prohibuted from flying the national flag. [Gilbert, pp. 79-80.]

Further decrees

The first three Nuremberg Laws were subsequently supplemented with 13 further decrees, the last issued as late as 1943, as the NAZIs constantly refined the supression of non-Aryans.

Defining Jews

These laws affected millions of Germans, the exact number depending precisely how a Jew was defined. That definition was published November 14, 1935. The NAZIs defined a Jew as anyone who either 1) had three or four racially full Jewish grandparents, 2) belonged to a Jewish religious community or joined one after September 15 when the Nuremberg Laws came into force. Also regarded as Jews was anyone married to a Jew or the children of Jewish parents. This included illegtimate children of even the non-Jewish partner.

Impact

The Nuremberg Laws are perhaps most remembered for their racial provisions. For many Jews it was the legal change in their status that had the greatest impact. Jews employed by the Governmebnt and prominent institutions had been dismissed by 1935. The Nuremberg Laws provided the legal basis for the NAZIs to take the next step against the Jews, confiscating their property. After the Nuremberg Laes were promulgated, a steady series of regulations were enacted to make it impossible for Jews to make a living in Germany and to confiscate their business and assetts through a process of Aryanization.

Public Reaction

Germany

There appears to have been no serious public objection to these laws within Germany. [Davidson, p. 161.] Of course NAZI domination of the new media meant that there was no public debate and discussion.

Other countries

There was extensive criticism of the NAZI laws in America, England, France, and several other countries. In America the reaction was somewhat regional in nature. The reaction was tempered by the fact that Southern states maintainted a segrefation system which was ominously similar to the Nuremberg Race Laws.

Sources

Davidson, Eugene. The Unmaking of Adolf Hitler (Univesity of Missouri: Columbia, 1996), 519p.

Gilbert, Martin. A History of the Twentieth Century Vol. 2 1933-54 (William Morrow and Company, Inc.: New York, 1998), 1050p.

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Created: December 28, 2002
Last updated: 8:07 PM 8/23/2007