Nazi Germany 1933-39 » Nazi Racial Policy and the Persecution of Jews, 1933-39

Nazi racial ideas

Race was at the centre of Nazi thinking. The Nazis claimed that humans were divided into races and that these races were not equal. At the top they placed the 'Aryans', the tall, fair, blue-eyed people of northern Europe, whom they called the master race. Below them came peoples they labelled Untermenschen, or 'sub-humans', such as the Slavs of eastern Europe, black people, and the Roma and Sinti (then called 'Gypsies'). At the very bottom the Nazis placed the Jews. None of this had any basis in real science.

The Nazis wanted to keep the German race 'pure', so they acted against several groups:

• A law of July 1933 allowed the forced sterilisation of people with conditions the Nazis said were inherited, such as epilepsy, deafness from birth and some mental illnesses.
• In 1937 several hundred mixed-race children in the Rhineland, whose fathers had been black soldiers in the French army, were secretly sterilised.
• Roma and Sinti were banned from marrying 'Aryans'. In 1936 those living in Berlin were forced into a camp on the edge of the city, and in December 1938 Himmler ordered all Roma and Sinti to be registered.

The Jews, however, were the main target. Remember, antisemitism is hatred of Jews. There were only about 500,000 Jews in Germany in 1933, fewer than one person in every hundred. Many had fought for Germany in the First World War. Even so, Nazi propaganda, such as Julius Streicher's newspaper Der Stürmer, blamed them for defeat in 1918 and for communism.

Key terms:

• Master race: the Nazi name for the 'Aryans', who they claimed were better than all other peoples.
• Untermenschen: 'sub-humans', the Nazi label for peoples they claimed were inferior.
• Sterilisation: an operation that stops a person from having children.
• Persecution: cruel and unfair treatment of a group of people over a long time.
• Boycott: refusing to buy from or deal with someone.
• Nuremberg Laws: two laws of 1935 that took away the citizenship of German Jews and banned marriages between Jews and other Germans.
• Kristallnacht: the 'Night of Broken Glass', the attack on Jews and their property across Germany on 9-10 November 1938.
• Emigration: leaving your own country to live in another.

1933: the boycott and the first laws

Persecution began within weeks of Hitler taking power. On 1 April 1933 the Nazis organised a one-day boycott of Jewish shops, doctors and lawyers. SA men stood outside Jewish businesses to turn customers away.

The boycott was not a great success. Many Germans ignored it, and it was criticised abroad. But it mattered: it showed that Jews could now be attacked openly, with the government's backing.

Laws followed quickly. On 7 April 1933 Jews were dismissed from the civil service, which included jobs such as judge and teacher. At first, at President Hindenburg's request, Jews who had fought in the First World War were allowed to stay. Many towns put up signs saying 'Jews not wanted here' and banned Jews from parks and swimming pools.

The Nuremberg Laws, 1935

On 15 September 1935, at the Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, Hitler announced two new laws.

In November 1935 a further rule set out who counted as a Jew: anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents, whatever religion they followed themselves.

The Nuremberg Laws were a turning point. Persecution was no longer just bullying by the SA. It was now written into the law of the land, and Jews were legally cut off from other Germans.

1938: persecution gets worse

By 1938 Hitler felt strong enough to go further. That year Jews had to register everything they owned. Jewish doctors were banned from treating non-Jewish patients. Jews with names that did not sound Jewish were ordered to add 'Israel' or 'Sara' to their names, and Jewish passports were stamped with a red letter J.

Kristallnacht, 9-10 November 1938

On 7 November 1938 a 17-year-old Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, shot a German official, Ernst vom Rath, at the German embassy in Paris. His parents had just been forced out of Germany. Vom Rath died on 9 November.

Goebbels used the death as an excuse. That night, SA and SS men, many in ordinary clothes, attacked Jewish communities all over Germany. The police were told not to step in, and fire brigades were told only to stop fires spreading to non-Jewish buildings. Goebbels claimed it was the German people showing their anger, but it was organised by the Nazi leaders.

More laws followed within days. Jews were banned from owning or running shops and businesses from 1 January 1939. Jewish children were banned from state schools, and Jews were shut out of cinemas and theatres.

Kristallnacht convinced many Jews that they had to leave. In January 1939 the Nazis set up an office to speed up Jewish emigration. Leaving was hard, because Jews had to give up most of what they owned and many countries would take only small numbers. Britain did take in about 10,000 Jewish children, who travelled without their parents on the Kindertransport trains. By the time war began in September 1939, more than half of Germany's Jews, around 280,000 people, had left the country.

Why did persecution keep increasing?

In 1933 Hitler moved carefully, because his power was new and he worried about foreign opinion. Each step then went further than the last: a boycott, job losses, loss of citizenship, then open violence and the loss of property. Most Germans stayed silent, some out of agreement and many out of fear. What happened to Germany's Jews during the war is covered in The Holocaust: Ghettos, Death Squads and the Final Solution.

Exam-style question

(b) Explain two effects of Kristallnacht on Jews in Germany. [8 marks]