1935 Nuremberg Race Laws, Decrees - Nazis Move Germany From a Democracy To a Dictatorship

[appalachiablue]

Last edited Thu Feb 17, 2022, 12:13 AM - Edit history (2)

- (2 mins). When Fritz Gluckstein was a child, his father—a decorated World War I veteran—used to proudly display his German flag & taught him how to salute it. This all changed after Hitler came to power. Listen to Fritz describe the Nuremberg Race Laws, which essentially legalized antisemitism. US Holocaust Memorial Museum. 2015. (See Below).
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- USHMM. NUREMBERG RACE LAWS. Ed. The Nuremberg Race Laws were two in a series of key decrees, legislative acts, and case law in the gradual process by which the Nazi leadership moved Germany from a democracy to a dictatorship.

Background: 2 distinct laws passed in Nazi Germany in Sept. 1935 are known collectively as the Nuremberg Laws: the Reich Citizenship Law & the Law for the Protection of German Blood & German Honor. These laws embodied many of the racial theories underpinning Nazi ideology. They would provide the legal framework for the systematic persecution of Jews in Germany. Hitler announced the Nuremberg Laws on Sept. 15, 1935. Germany’s parliament (Reichstag), then made up entirely of Nazi representatives, passed the laws.

Antisemitism was of central importance to the Nazi Party, so Hitler had called parliament into a special session at the annual Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, Germany.

The Nazis had long sought a legal definition that identified Jews not by religious affiliation but according to racial antisemitism. Jews in Germany were not easy to identify by sight. Many had given up traditional practices and appearances and had integrated into the mainstream of society. Some no longer practiced Judaism and had even begun celebrating Christian holidays, especially Christmas, with their non-Jewish neighbors. Many more had married Christians or converted to Christianity. According to the Reich Citizenship Law & many ancillary decrees on its implementation, only people of “German or kindred blood” could be citizens of Germany.

A supplementary decree published on Nov. 14, the day the law went into force, defined who was and was not a Jew. The Nazis rejected the traditional view of Jews as members of a religious or cultural community. They claimed instead that Jews were a race defined by birth and by blood. Despite the persistent claims of Nazi ideology, there was no scientifically valid basis to define Jews as a race. Nazi legislators looked therefore to family genealogy to define race. People with 3 or more grandparents born into the Jewish religious community were Jews by law. Grandparents born into a Jewish religious community were considered “racially” Jewish. Their “racial” status passed to their children & grandchildren.

By law, Jews in Germany were not citizens but “subjects" of the state. This legal definition of a Jew in Germany covered tens of thousands of people who did not think of themselves as Jews or who had neither religious nor cultural Jewish ties. The Law for the Protection of German Blood & German Honor: 2nd Nurembg. Law banned marriage between Jews & non-Jewish Germans & criminalized sexual relations between them. The laws eventually extended to Black people & Roma & Sinti (Gypsies) living in Germany. In WWII, countries allied to or dependent on Germany enacted versions of the Nuremberg Laws. By 1941, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Vichy France, & Croatia had all enacted anti-Jewish legislation similar to Germany's Nurembg. Laws...

- Read More, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nuremberg-laws
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/aryanization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryanization



- Fritz Glueckstein (L), picnic with his family in Berlin, Germany, 1932. Fritz's father was Jewish- he attended services in a liberal synagogue- & his mother was Christian. Under the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, Fritz would be classified as mixed-raced (Mischling), but since his father was a member of the Jewish religious community, Fritz was classified as a Jew.

[BigmanPigman]

1. Is this why Whoopi Goldberg was critiszed for her statement

about Nazis and race?

"The Nazis rejected the traditional view of Jews as members of a religious or cultural community. They claimed instead that Jews were a race defined by birth and by blood."

"The Nazis rejected the traditional view of Jews as members of a religious or cultural community. They claimed instead that Jews were a race defined by birth and by blood. Despite the persistent claims of Nazi ideology, there was no scientifically valid basis to define Jews as a race. Nazi legislators looked therefore to family genealogy to define race. People with 3 or more grandparents born into the Jewish religious community were Jews by law. Grandparents born into a Jewish religious community were considered “racially” Jewish. Their “racial” status passed to their children & grandchildren."

[appalachiablue]

2. Nazi focus- bloodlines, heredity. In the late 19th c. Eugenics

Last edited Thu Feb 17, 2022, 01:09 AM - Edit history (1)

'race theory' expanded in the US, Britian, Germany, etc. The pseudoscience extolled the purity and superiority of the white race. People with hereditary diseases and other illnesses were identified and persecuted by Nazis as well. This included both physical and mental disabilities, the young and old. The Nazi AktionT4 Program euthanized the 'unfit and 'undesirables' who were viewed by Nazis as 'useless eaters.'

Whoopi's comments and apology. Insights. WGBH PBS.

Whoopi Goldberg is confused about the Holocaust. So are many other Americans.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/commentary/2022/02/08/whoopi-goldberg-is-confused-about-the-holocaust-so-are-many-other-americans

[Behind the Aegis]

3. Yes. And, rightly so.