Nuremberg Law – World History – Free PDF Download

BACKGROUND

• The National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP; Nazi Party) promised a strong central government, increased Lebensraum(living space) for Germanic peoples, formation of a Volksgemeinschaft (people’s community) based on race, and racial cleansing via the active suppression of Jews, who would be stripped of their citizenship and civil rights.
• While imprisoned in 1924 after the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler dictated Mein Kampf to his deputy, Rudolf Hess.
• The book is an autobiography and exposition of Hitler’s ideology in which he laid out his plans for transforming German society into one based on race.

 THE BEGINNING

• In it he outlined his belief in Jewish Bolshevism, a conspiracy theory that posited the existence of an international Jewish conspiracy for world domination in which the Jews were the mortal enemy of the German people.
• Discrimination against Jews intensified after the Nazis seized power; following a month-long series of attacks on Jewish businesses, synagogues, and members of the legal profession, on 1 April 1933 Hitler declared a national boycott of Jewish businesses.
• By 1933, many people who were not Nazi Party members advocated segregating Jews from the rest of German society.

THE BEGINNING

• The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, passed on 7 April 1933, forced all non-Aryans to retire from the legal profession and civil service.
• As part of the drive to remove Jewish influence from cultural life, members of the National Socialist Student League removed from libraries any books considered un-German, and a nationwide book burning was held on 10 May.
• Legislation passed in July 1933 stripped naturalised German Jews of their citizenship. Assaults, vandalism, and boycotts against Jews, which the Nazi government had temporarily curbed in 1934, increased again in 1935 amidst a propaganda campaign.

 JEWISH PROBLEM

• The Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick announced on 25 July that a law forbidding marriages between Jews and non-Jews would shortly be promulgated.
• A conference of ministers was held on 20 August 1935 to discuss the question. Hitler argued against violent methods because of the damage being done to the economy, and insisted the matter must be settled through legislation.
• The seventh annual Nazi Party Rally, held in Nuremberg from 10–16 September 1935, featured the only Reichstag session held outside Berlin during the Nazi regime.

NUREMBERG LAWS

• Hitler decided that the rally would be a good opportunity to introduce the long-awaited anti-Jewish laws. The next day, Hitler summoned the Reichstag to meet in session at Nuremberg on 15 September.
• Hitler ordered to also have ready by morning a draft of the Reich citizenship law.Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels had the radio broadcast of the passing of the laws cut short, and ordered the German media to not mention them until a decision was made.
• The two Nuremberg Laws were unanimously passed by the Reichstag on 15 September 1935

NUREMBERG LAWS

• The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour prohibited marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans.
• This law was effectively a means of stripping Jews, Roma, and other “undesirables” of their legal rights, and their citizenship.
• Over the coming years, an additional 13 supplementary laws were promulgated that further marginalised the Jewish community in Germany.

NUREMBERG LAWS

• Article 1 Marriages between Jews and citizens of German or related blood are forbidden.
• Article 2 Extramarital relations between Jews and citizens of German or related blood are forbidden.
• Article 3 Jews may not employ in their households female citizens of German or related blood who are under 45 years old.
• Article 4 Jews are forbidden to fly the Reich or national flag or display Reich colours.
• Article 5 Any person who violates the prohibition under Article 1 will be punished.
• Article 6 The Reich Minister, will issue the legal and administrative regulations required to implement and complete this law.
• Article 7 The law takes effect on the day following promulgation, except for Article 3, which goes into force on 1 January 1936.

 NUREMBERG LAWS – IMPACT

• Beginning in 1941, Jews were required by law to self-identify by wearing a yellow badge on their clothing.Persons suspected of having sexual relations with non-Aryans were charged with Rassenschande(racial defilement) and tried in the regular courts.
• Persons accused of race defilement were publicly humiliated by being paraded through the streets with a placard around their necks detailing their crime.
• Those convicted were typically sentenced to prison terms, and (subsequent to 8 March 1938) upon completing their sentences were re-arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Nazi concentration camps. • From the end of 1935 through 1940, 1,911 people were convicted of Rassenschande. Citizens were relieved that the antisemitic violence ceased after the laws were passed.

NUREMBERG LAWS – IMPACT

• Although a stated goal of the Nazis was that all Jews should leave the country, emigration was problematic, as Jews were required to remit up to 90 per cent of their wealth as a tax upon leaving the country.
• Anyone caught transferring their money overseas was sentenced to lengthy terms in prison as “economic saboteurs”.Around 52,000 Jews emigrated to Palestine under the terms of this agreement between 1933 and 1939.
• By the start of the Second World War in 1939, around 250,000 of Germany’s 437,000 Jews had emigrated to the United States, Palestine, Great Britain, and other countries.
• By 1938 it was becoming almost impossible for potential Jewish emigrants to find a country that would take them.Starting in mid1941, the German government started mass exterminations of the Jews of Europe.

NUREMBERG TRIAL

• The Nuremberg trials were a series of military tribunals held after World War II by the Allied forces under international law and the laws of war.
• The trials were most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, judicial, and economic leadership of Nazi Germany who planned, carried out, or otherwise participated in the Holocaust nd other war crimes
• Held between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946,the Tribunal was given the task of trying 24 of the most important political and military leaders of the Third Reich.

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