Racial policy of Nazi Germany

The Racial Policy of Nazi Germany refers to the policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the "Aryan race", and including measures aimed primarily against Jews.

The origins of the policy lay with the Dolchstoßlegende ("betrayal legend"), whereby disgruntled German nationalists blamed non-Germans for the loss of World War I. The Nazis exploited these sentiments and later developed them into the "Nuremberg laws".

1933 to 1939

Nazi racial policy changed extensively in the years between 1933 and 1939. The Nazi Party became increasingly extreme in its treatment of the minorities of Germany, particularly Jews. The basis of all Nazi racial thinking was the idealized Volksgemeinschaft (People's Community) that was to exist in Germany. The entire population of Germany was divided in Nazi racial theory into categories: the Volksgenossen (National Comrades), those who in Nazi theory belonged to the Volksgemeinschaft and Gemeinschaftsfremde (Community Aliens), those who in Nazi theory did not belong to the Volksgemeinschaft. Belonging in the latter category included the entire Jewish population, the Roma population, the "work-shy", the "hereditary asocial" and those with mental and/or physical handicaps.

Between 1933 and 1934, Nazi policy was fairly moderate, not wishing to scare off voters or moderately-minded politicians. Jews had been disliked for years before, and the Nazi Party used this anger to gain votes. They blamed poverty, unemployment, and the loss of World War I all on the Jews. German woes were largely due to the effects of the Treaty of Versailles designed to secure the position of Britain and France as Europe's only imperial powers. In 1933, persecution of the Jews became active Nazi policy, but laws were not as rigorously obeyed and were not as devastating as in later years.

On April 1, 1933, Jewish doctors, lawyers, and stores were boycotted. Only six days later, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was passed, banning Jews from government jobs. These laws meant that Jews were now indirectly and directly dissuaded or banned from privileged and superior positions reserved for "Aryan" Germans. From then on, Jews were forced to work at more menial positions, beneath other non-Jews.

On August 2, 1934, President Paul von Hindenburg died. No new President was selected; instead the powers of the Chancellor and President were combined. This change, and a tame government with no opposition parties, allowed Hitler totalitarian control of law-making. The army also swore an oath of loyalty personally to the Führer, giving Hitler complete power over the army.

The Nuremberg Laws

However, between 1935 and 1936, persecution of the Jews increased apace. In May 1935, Jews were forbidden to join the Wehrmacht (the army), and in the summer of the same year, anti-Jewish propaganda appeared in Nazi-German shops and restaurants. The Nuremberg Laws were passed around the time of the great Nazi rallies at Nuremberg; on September 15 1935 the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor" was passed, preventing marriage between any Jew and non-Jew. At the same time, the "Reich Citizenship Law" was passed and was reinforced in November by a decree, stating that all Jews, even quarter- and half-Jews, were no longer citizens of their own country (their official title became "subjects of the state"). This meant that they had no basic citizens' rights, e.g., the right to vote. This removal of basic citizens' rights allowed harsher laws to be passed in the future against Jews. The drafting of the Nuremberg Laws is often attributed to Hans Globke. Globke had studied British attempts to 'order' its empire by creating hierarchical social orders.

In 1936, Jews were banned from all professional jobs, effectively preventing them having any influence in education, politics, higher education, and industry. There was now nothing to stop the anti-Jewish actions that spread across the Nazi-German economy.

After the "Night of the Long Knives," the SS became the dominant policing power in Germany. Heinrich Himmler was eager to please Hitler, and so willingly obeyed his orders. Since the SS had been Hitler's personal bodyguard, they were even more brutal and obedient to Hitler than the SA had been. They were also supported by the army, which was now more willing to comply with Hitler's decisions than when the SA had still existed.

Hitler now had more direct control over the government and political attitude to Jews in Nazi Germany. In the period 1937 to 1938, harsh new laws were implemented, and the segregation of Jews from the German "Aryan" population began. In particular, Jews were punished financially for their "race."

On March 1, 1938, government contracts could not be awarded to Jewish businesses. On September 30 of the same year, "Aryan" doctors could only treat "Aryan" patients. Provision of medical care to Jews was already hampered by the fact that Jews were banned from being doctors or having any professional jobs.

On August 17, Jews had to add "Israel" (males) or "Sarah" (females) to their names, and a large letter "J" was to be imprinted on their passports on October 5. On November 15, Jewish children were banned from going to public schools. By April 1939, nearly all Jewish companies had either collapsed under financial pressure and declining profits, or had been persuaded to sell out to the Nazi-German government, further reducing their rights as human beings; they were, in many ways, effectively separated from the German populace.

The increasingly totalitarian, militaristic regime that Hitler imposed on Germany allowed him to control the actions of the SS and the army. On November 7, 1938, a young Polish Jew named Herschel Grynzspan attacked and shot two German officials in the Nazi-German embassy in Paris over the treatment of his parents by the Nazi-Germans. Goebbels took the opportunity to impress Hitler, and ordered retaliation. On the night of November 9 the SS conducted the Night of Broken Glass ("Kristallnacht"), in which the storefronts of Jewish shops and offices were smashed and vandalized. Approximately 100 Jews were killed, and another 20,000 sent to the newly formed concentration camps. Many Germans were disgusted by this action when the full extent of the damage was discovered, so Hitler ordered it to be blamed on the Jews. Collectively, the Jews were made to pay back one billion RM in damages; the fine was collected by confiscating 20% of every Jew's property. Hitler in effect had made his policy of "The Third Reich" more effective for every nation he ruled.

Jewish responses to the Nuremberg Laws

The Reichsvertretung* der Juden in Deutschland (Representation of the German Jews) announced the following:

The Laws decided upon by the Reichstag in Nuremberg have come as the heaviest of blows for the Jews in Germany. But they must create a basis on which a tolerable relationship becomes possible between the German and the Jewish people. The Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland is willing to contribute to this end with all its powers. A precondition for such a tolerable relationship is the hope that the Jews and Jewish communities of Germany will be enabled to keep a moral and economic means of existence by the halting of defamation and boycott.

The organization of the life of the Jews in Germany requires governmental recognition of an autonomous Jewish leadership. The Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland is the agency competent to undertake this.

The most urgent tasks for the Reichsvertretung, which it will press energetically and with full commitment, following the avenues it has previously taken, are:

Our own Jewish educational system must serve to prepare the youth to be upright Jews, secure in their faith, who will draw the strength to face the onerous demands which life will make on them from conscious solidarity with the Jewish community, from work for the Jewish present and faith in the Jewish future. In addition to transmitting knowledge, the Jewish schools must also serve in the systematic preparation for future occupations. With regard to preparation for emigration, particularly to Palestine, emphasis will be placed on guidance toward manual work and the study of the Hebrew language. The education and vocational training of girls must be directed to preparing them to carry out their responsibilities as upholders of the family and mothers of the next generation.

Georg Kareski, the head of both the Zionist State Organization and the Jewish Cultural League, and former head of the Berlin Jewish Community, declared in an interview with the Berlin daily Der Angriff:

For many years I have regarded a complete separation of the cultural affairs of the two peoples and Germans as a pre-condition for living together without conflict... I have long supported such a separation, provided it is founded on respect for the alien nationality. The Nuremberg Laws ... seem to me, apart from their legal provisions, to conform entirely with this desire for a separate life based on mutual respect... This interruption of the process of dissolution in many Jewish communities, which had been promoted through mixed marriages, is therefore, from a Jewish point of view, entirely welcome.

Other "non-Aryans"

Though the laws were primarily directed against Jews, other "non-Aryan" people were subject to the laws, and to other legislation concerned with racial hygiene. Of particular concern to the Nazi scientist Eugen Fischer were the "Rhineland Bastards": mixed-race offspring of black soldiers who had been stationed in the Rhineland as part of the French army of occupation. He believed that these people should be sterilised in order to protect the racial purity of the German population. At least 400 mixed-race children were forcibly sterilised in the Rhineland by 1938, while 400 others were sent to concentration camps. Despite this there was never any systematic attempt to eliminate the black population of Germany, though mixed marriage remained illegal.

1939 to 1945

In the General Government in 1940 the population was divided on different groups. Each group had different rights, food rations, allowed strips in the cities, public transportation and restricted restaurants. Listed from the most privileged to the least:

Germans from Germany (Reichdeutsche)
Germans from outside, active ethnic Germans, Volksliste category 1 and 2 (see Volksdeutsche)
Germans from outside, passive Germans and members of families, handicapped (this group included some ethnic Poles), Volksliste category 3 and 4,
Ukrainians,
Highlanders (Goralenvolk): an attempt to split Polish nation by using local collaborators
Poles,
Jews (eventually sentenced to extermination as a category).

References

Bauer, Yehuda A History Of The Holocaust, New York : F. Watts, 1982 ISBN 0531098621.
Burleigh, Michael & Wippermann, Wolfgang The Racial State : Germany 1933-1945, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1991 ISBN 0521391148.
Friedländer, Saul Nazi Germany and the Jews Volume 1 The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939, New York : HarperCollins, 1997 ISBN 0060190426
Peukert, Detlev Inside Nazi Germany : conformity, opposition and racism in everyday life London : Batsford, 1987 ISBN 071345217X.

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