Nazi Racial Legislation: The Nuremberg Laws

One of the earliest statements of the Nazi party--the policy document of 1920 known as the Twenty-Five Points--explicitly foreshadowed the exclusion of Jews from German citizenship (Point 4).Thus, as soon as Hitler came to power in 1933, no time was lost in proceeding against Germany's Jewish citizens. In the early months of the regime, they were prey to unbridled violence by Party activists during the so-called Brown Terror. Officially, steps were immediately taken to dismiss Jews from the civil service, reduce their number in the professions, and curtail the students in schools and colleges. Partly as a ploy to bring order to the shameless Party activism against inoffensive citizens and to clarify the regime's attitude to German Jewry, the two measures outlined below were passed at a meeting of the Party Congress at Nuremberg on Sept. 15, 1935.
Two of the laws are outlined below. The third, the Reich Flag Act, decreed the new German national flag to be the Nazi swastika flag.

Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor

Firm in the knowledge that the purity of German blood is the basis for the survival of the German people and inspired by the unshakeable determination to safeguard the future of the German nation, the Reichstag has unanimously resolved upon the following law, which is promulgated herewith:

Section 1
Marriages between Jews and citizens of German or some related blood are forbidden.
Such marriages contracted despite the law are invalid, even if they take place abroad in order to avoid the law.

Section 2
Sexual relations outside marriage between Jews and citizens of German or related blood are forbidden.

Section 3
Jews will not be permitted to employ female citizens of German or related blood who are under 45 years as housekeepers.

Section 4
1. Jews are forbidden to raise the national flag or display the national colors.
2. However, they are allowed to display the Jewish colors. The exercise of this right is protected by the State.

Section 5
1. Anyone who disregards Section 1 is liable to penal servitude.
2. Anyone who disregards the prohibition of Section 2 will be punished with imprisonment or penal servitude.
3. Anyone who disregards the provisions of Sections 3 or 4 will be punished with imprisonment up to one year or with a fine, or with one of these penalties.
. . . .

The Reich Citizenship Law, 1935

Article 1
Section 1
A German subject is one who is a member of the protective union of the German Reich and is bound to it by special obligations. . . .

Section 2
1. A Reich citizen is that subject who is of German or related blood only and who through his behavior demonstrates that he is ready and able to serve faithfully the German people and Reich.
2. The right to citizenship of the Reich is acquired by the grant of citizenship papers.
3. A citizen of the Reich is the sole bearer of full political rights as provided by the law.

In the subsequent clarifying regulation of Nov. 14, 1935, a Jew was defined as anyone who was descended from: (a) at least three racially full Jewish grandparents or (b) two full Jewish parents if he or she belonged to the Jewish religious c ommunity (i.e., an observing Jew); was married to a Jewish person; was the offspring of a full Jew (as defined in a.) or the offspring of an extramarital relationship with a full Jew. Neither could a Jew be a citizen of the Reich, vote or hold public offi ce.
Incidentally, persons of mixed Jewish blood (i.e., half-Jews--with one or two Jewish grandparents) were absolved from these restrictions, though, again, Jewish observance tightened the restrictions.

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