To what extent were legal measures responsible for the exclusion of Jews from German society from 1933-1938?

Hitler's 1933 coming to power began the worst Jewish persecution in history. This study asks, "To what extent were legal measures responsible for the exclusion of Jews from German society from 1933-1938?" Historians believe that early Nazi legislation was signed in the lead-up to the annihilation.

 

Since pre-war Nazi Germany persecuted Jews, the mass murder of over 6 million Jews began with this research inquiry. Investigating the Holocaust's prelude requires asking how a modern, civilized Nazi Germany could cause mass discrimination, exclusion, and murder. This literature analysis examines primary and secondary sources to determine what caused German society to exclude Jews. To achieve a conclusion, brainwashing of youth, propaganda, and violence are examined with a focus on legal measures. Legislation, speeches, posters, and historical perspectives were used to comprehend how Jews were excluded in their daily life, overcoming the lack of first-hand Jewish perspectives.

 

Hitler stated in Mein Kampf, his autobiographical book, that “all evil assumes the live shape of the Jew” and began persecuting Jews in 1933. (Broek; Hitler). Anti-semitism predated the Nazis and was present in German-Jewish relations since the Middle Ages (Kater). As the Nazis "waged a battle against [the] phantom enemy," anti-semitism reached new heights (Confino)

 

Hitler wanted to "limit [their] power within Germany and the separation of the Jews from the body of the nation," according to historian Saul Friedländer. Friedländer. Segregation took numerous forms, including exclusion from school, businesses, work, entertainment, and politics. Anti-semitic legal measures aimed to "delegitimize the very presence of the Jewish people in Germany" (Heideman). Eva Reichmann, a historian, claims that pre-existing anti-semitism and judo-phobia "complicate[d]" the Jews' isolation (Kater). The Third Reich "searched for ways to bring about a Germany without Jews," which numerous causes made possible (Confino). How much of the exclusion was due to powerful legislation?

 

This essay claims that while legal laws established much of the exclusion formally, the Nazis' strong anti-Jewish attitude and brutality had risen during their time in power due to indoctrination, propaganda, and legal measures. Legal measures only partially separated Jews from German society from 1933-1938. This underscores the overpowering power of legislation and its ability to be compromised for political purposes.

“No Jew can be a member of the race” (Drexler)

 

From the start, Nazis wanted to separate Jews from Aryans. Hitler's anti-Jewish laws helped him fulfill the 25-point party program's goal of abolishing all Jewish rights. With hindsight, historian Alon Confino says in his book "A World Without Jews" that anti-Jewish policies "soon rendered it practically impossible for them to take part in regular social life" (Confino).

 

The Reich passed anti-Jewish laws two months after Hitler became Chancellor. "The Law for the Professional Restoration of Civil Service" was passed on April 7, 1933, and the third provision, the "Aryan clause," ordered "civil servants of non-Aryan descent" to retire or be fired (Hitler et al. Professional Civil Service). This time, "non-Aryan" meant Jews (Hertz). These decrees forbade Jewish lawyers, judges, instructors, and doctors from working. By 1933, 32,000 Jewish heads of home and 15% of white-collar professionals were fired for being Jewish (Hertz; Akbulut-Yuksel and Yuksel 58). Nazi legislation expelled Jews from professional workplaces immediately, proving that legal procedures could evict Jews from German society and segregate Jews.

 

The Law for the Restoration of Professional Civil Service shows how Jews were legally prohibited from workplaces, but other methods were also used. On April 1, 1933, Jewish companies were violently boycotted nationwide. The Nazi paramilitary Sturmabteilung organized the boycott to force Jews out of Germany (Stackelberg). “The Reich leadership of the German movement for freedom have decided...to enforce a boycott of all Jewish shops...beginning on Saturday, 1 April 1933, at 10 a.m.,” said Nazi Party member Julius Streicher. Avoid Jewish lawyers, doctors, and stores (Streicher 144). During the boycott, Jewish entrepreneurs were hounded and their storefronts were marked with the Jewish Star of David. Germans were forbidden from shopping at Jewish-owned stores (Confino 150). “Jews are our Misfortune” signs "Germans! Defend! "Don't buy Jewish!" "held at storefronts (Hasday). The boycott was "unsuccessful" and only lasted one day, but it encouraged economic isolation and animosity towards Jews in several areas (Hasday). Although harsh, violent methods were used, marking the "beginning of a persistent onslaught against Jews by the German government," it was the legislation passed days later that "segregat[ed] Jewish people from the rest of German society," notably economically (Hasday).

The Law for the Restoration of Professional Civil Service harmed Jews socioeconomically due to wage loss, but it also led to cultural marginalization by affecting Jews working at cultural institutions including conservatories, theatres, and opera houses. This law banned Jews from performing with Germans. In June 1933, the "Judischer Kulturbund," or Jewish Cultural Organization, let Jewish musicians, performers, and painters work in a "constant condition of forced isolation" from Aryan culture (Zortman). The Kulturbund "ghettoized Jewish culture" by restricting Jewish artists to Jewish audiences (Nemtsov). Through the Kulturbund, the rule that expelled Jews from professional civil service also isolated Jews from German culture.

 

The Law for Restoration of Professional Civil Service showed the importance of legislative measures in cultural isolation, but other elements contributed to it. Nazi book burnings stripped German culture of Jewish influence. On May 10, 1933, German student organizations burned around 25,000 "undesirable books"—including Jewish literature—in bonfires (Ritchie). The books were burned after remarks by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels denouncing Jewish writings by Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, and others (Palek). "The epoch of radical Jewish intellectualism has finally finished," Goebbels said in his speech to rally support for National Socialism. The books were burned to “extend anti-Jewish action beyond the economic sphere (the April 1 boycott) to the entire field of German culture” (Lochner; Friedländer). The Nazis used propaganda and politically motivated actions like the Burning of the Books to rid German culture of Jewish influence. Although legal restrictions prevented Jews from working in the arts and music, propagandistic protests actively targeted Jews to drive them out of German cultural life.

1933 Nazi laws targeted Jewish youth and workers. The 1933 "Law against the overpopulation of German schools" limited Jewish enrolment to 1.5% of schools and colleges. In places with over 5% Jewish population, 5% of students could be Jewish (Kaplan). Although this regulation attempted to minimize Jewish participation in schools, the Nazi regime permitted exemptions for dads who had served in the First World War, mixed marriages, and foreign citizenship, exempting an unexpectedly high 75% of children. Laws did not primarily exclude Jewish youngsters from school (Kaplan). In a journal article about Jewish children in "Aryanized" schools, historian Marion Kaplan writes that "even before Jewish children were ejected from German public schools, the majority no longer enjoyed the same rights as non-Jews" (Kaplan). Before court intervention, Jewish children were barred from accessing swimming pools on class vacations and had to sit apart from Aryan peers (Kaplan). Jewish kids were so hated by classmates and teachers that they rarely needed legal protection from attending school. Even legal pupils left school to avoid mistreatment. Evidently, the exclusion of Jewish students from German schools was less dependent on legal procedures and more likely attributable to factors like youth indoctrination with the racial ideology that generated aggressive attitudes towards Jewish pupils.

 

Hans Schemm, the Nazi Teacher's League leader, stated that "those who have youth on their side control the future" (Goutam 1018). Hitler instilled strong anti-semitic attitudes in the youth to indoctrinate them with Nazi ideology. The widely used "German National Catechism" shows how German pupils were indoctrinated to hate Jews. The propaganda tool asks "Which race must the National Socialist race struggle against?" and answers "The Jewish Race" with a Hitler statement calling Jews the "deadliest enemy" (May). Teachers gave Jewish children worse grades regardless of their performance, teaching them to hate Jews (Kaplan). However, the government obliged instructors to be "actively anti-semitic" to keep their jobs (Todd). "Well before the legislation forced them out," Jewish adolescents who had turned and were no longer required to attend school left in "droves" (Kaplan). Jewish youth left school because they were "unprotected by family" and faced "physical abuse" from indoctrination and discrimination (Kaplan)

Hitler used a unified public attitude against Jews to exclude them from German society. German propaganda strengthened anti-semitism and justified Jewish persecution. Anti-semitic propaganda like Julius Streicher's Der Stürmer portrayed "the Jew" as a demon (Bytwerk). Propaganda also justified the persecution by depicting Jews as the enemy and "total evil" to deter Germans. The 1934 pamphlet "Why the Aryan Law?" In "A Contribution to the Jewish Question," SS and Gestapo members Dr. Erwin Schulz and Dr. R. Frercks portrayed Jews as selfish individuals wanting to rule Germany, justifying 1933's anti-Jewish legislation (Schulz). Schulz and Frercks show how propaganda was used to justify the exclusion of Jews without popular opposition by asserting that the government did not treat Jews with hatred and that anti-Jewish policies "could hardly proceed in a more legitimate and benign manner." Nazi propaganda used Germany's pre-existing anti-semitism, which aided Jewish persecution (Kater). According to American historian Jeffrey Herf, propaganda and law created an "anti-Semitic consensus" in German society that supported removing Jewish rights, and liberties, and "subjecting [Jews] to arbitrary arrest and expulsion from Germany" (Herf). Propaganda and anti-semitic laws expelled Jews, “creat[ing] an indispensable reservoir of public hatred” for Jews. public law and justified their existence (Herf).

Since 1933, regulations had discriminated against Jews and segregated them from Aryan society, but the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 caused widespread segregation. The Nuremberg Laws were the ultimate tool to “identify and isolate Jews” (Stoltzfus). The Nuremberg Laws deemed Jews "not complete Reich citizens," defined who was Jewish, and forbade Jewish-non-Jewish marriages (Stoltzfus). The Reich Flag Law, Reich Citizenship Law, and Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor comprised the Nuremberg Laws (Stackelberg). The Reich Citizenship Law provided the groundwork for later discriminatory laws to exclude and isolate Jews in Germany (Stackelberg). Article 2 of the September 1935 Reich Citizenship Law indicates that “only the citizen of the Reich enjoys complete political rights in line with the provision of the laws,” whereas article 4 of the November 1935 First Regulation states that “a Jew cannot be a citizen of the Reich” (Hitler et al. First Regulation). The Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their citizenship and legal protection, denying them equality under the law. Jews were legally barred from German society after losing their citizenship. Despite Aryan brutality and anti-semitism, these discriminatory policies were necessary to officially identify Jews as "foreign aliens" (Heideman). The Nuremberg Laws made German Jews "aliens in their nation," according to history professor Roderick Stackelberg (Stackelberg).

 

The Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their citizenship and forbade them from mingling with Aryans. The first paragraph of the law forbade Jewish-Aryan marriages and rendered existing marriages void (Hitler et al. Safeguard of German Blood). The second paragraph prohibited Jews from having sexual connections with German or German-related persons, and the third paragraph prohibited Jews from employing Aryan females in their houses (Hitler et al. Safeguard of German Blood). These laws sought to exclude Jews by prohibiting personal connections between Aryans and eliminating the possibility of them. Despite these regulations that “rejected, denied and derogated” Jews' ability to live freely, over 90% of intermarried couples remained married despite fear and intimidation, proving the Nazis' legal attempts to separate them were ineffective (Heideman; Stoltzfus).

 

The Nuremberg laws "socially, economically, and politically isolated" Jews, but only because Hitler had "molded German norms" to suit his anti-semitic purpose (Heideman; Stoltzfus). Friedländer stated that “much in advance of the Nuremberg Laws mixed marriages and sexual relations between Germans and Jews were targets of incessant, often violent party attacks” (118). The harassment and violence towards Aryan-Jewish relationships were not a unique result of the anti-semitic legislation, proving that the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor had statistically limited success and that the Nuremberg Laws did not cause Jews to be excluded from Aryan society. However, many officials refused to execute marriage ceremonies between Jews and Aryans before interracial marriages were forbidden, citing the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service as justification (Friedländer). This shows that legal procedures indirectly kept Jews from dating Aryans.

Nazi politics fostered internal strife and violence. Local anti-Jewish measures increased due to "pressure, violence, and indoctrination" (Friedländer). Local governments were also barring Jews from living in equality. Jews were banned from buying property, health resorts, theatres, libraries, and tramways in some communities. Anti-Jewish violence increased dramatically in 1935, but party leaders believed violence would make Nazi leadership appear out of control (Friedländer). Nazi authorities proposed the Nuremberg Laws in response to violence. Hitler told the German audience in Nuremberg in September 1935 that "the only option would be a legal solution to the problem" (Friedländer). While excluding Jews, the law was mostly a response to violence and local exclusion. Indoctrination-induced violence generated social exclusion, which legal efforts only sought to curb.

 

While it may be argued that the legislation would not have passed without public consent to anti-semitic measures prompted by government indoctrination, propaganda, and terror, American Zionist Movement leader, Heideman claims that the Nuremberg Laws "encouraged a new code of behavior for the German people" that "forced and permitted" them to turn against "neighbors, colleagues, erstwhile acquaintances, and even distant family members" who were Jews (Heideman). Germans were reluctant to discriminate against and mistreat Jews who were friends and relatives, despite their strong anti-semitism. When combined with Nazi discrimination, Reichstag law in 1935 allowed Jews to be completely excluded from German society.

Most regulations established after the Nuremberg Laws were additional decrees to the Reich Citizenship Law and sought to further regulate Jewish activities in Germany (Rundle). Jews had to register their possessions, assume Jewish names if they were non-Jewish, and only see Jewish doctors. While the government segregated Jews legally, daily anti-Jewish violence "caused [just as much damage to Jewish life" (Heideman). “Together, public feelings from below and government policies from above coalesced, making it easy to conceive a Germany without Jews,” argues Alon Confino. Jews were beaten and spittled to humiliate them. Although "molded by pressures arising from the dictatorship," social prejudice and violence were not forced and allowed for independent decision-making, showing how public attitude had changed (Confino). On the 1938 "Night of Broken Glass" (Kristallnacht), Nazis burnt hundreds of synagogues and Jewish houses and businesses to "further separate German people from the Jewish population" (Heideman). After being murdered and raped, Jews were forced to pay one billion Reichsmarks and sell their companies to Aryans. “Speaks volumes regarding the impact of the state incitement and endorsement,” violent actions were voluntary (Heideman). Violence intimidated, injured, and excluded Jews. Legal actions, unopposed due to strong anti-semitism, reinforced economic exclusion after Kristallnacht.

Nazi Germany's Jews were excluded, segregated, and discriminated against from 1933 until 1938 when anti-semitic laws were passed and the German psyche was changed to support a Germany without Jews. Legal restrictions, propaganda, indoctrination, and violence contributed to the economic, political, and social exclusion of Jews in pre-war Nazi Germany.

 

It's unlikely that legal changes alone changed how people viewed and treated Jews. The Nazis' public opinion manipulation and additional Jewish restrictions caused the legislation's repercussions. The anti-semitic laws formalized the separation between Aryans and Jews, but German violence and condescension had already created it. As the government realized it could expel Jews from Aryan society, it typically enacted legislation in response to public action.

 

The legislation's true power was in its ability to force Jews out of workplaces, German economic life, and citizenship. Propaganda and indoctrination had already set in motion a wave of hostility and violence against Jews, forcing Jewish students to leave schools and Jewish writers out of German culture. Legal measures stripped Jews of their rights and established the government's righteous response to the "Jewish problem."

 

Nazis perverted a court system meant to serve its people and justified immorality and Aryan superiority. It's apparent that legal measures only partially expelled Jews from German society between 1933-1938, but they were necessary. Historians agree that Jewish exclusion was a communal effect. However, legal procedures contributed to this exclusion, raising the question of how a justice system could become so corrupt as to persecute its inhabitants.

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