Primary Source Analysis
Where does genocide begin? The persecution of the Jews under the Nazi regime continues to prompt questioning as to what processes took place to allow a systematic and bureaucratic elimination of a minority group of people linked by religious faith and/or common ancestry. The process of vilifying and de-humanising the Jews, under Hitler and the Third Reich, was a lengthy one that relied upon existing anti-Semitism, psychology, the use of propaganda within a closed political environment in which media was state-owned and controlled, and the use of legislation which provided an appearance of authoritative legitimacy to discriminatory actions. One such piece of legislation was the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour” passed by the Reichstag on 15 September 1935.[1] This was merely one anti-Semitic law among many that were passed by the Nazis, however, it highlights key ideological beliefs of the regime and, in conjunction with other legislation, it would prove to be highly influential as persecution of the Jews became increasingly radicalised.
The names chosen for Nazi legislation were frequently linked directly to their function but also revealed the ideological basis underlying them. In examining the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour” one must question who is being protected, from what and why? The concept of race was one raised and developed in the nineteenth century through Europe as colonial expansionism brought greater contact between different races and civilisations.[2] Scientific advances in the fields of biology, evolution and anthropology were given racial focuses by writers such as Joseph de Gobineau and Dr Joseph Reimer who formulated theories on eugenics and social Darwinism.[3] Echoes of their views, and those of similarly minded authors, on the superiority of the Aryan/Teutonic peoples and the necessity of racial purity can be seen in Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, which was first published in 1925. Hitler’s chapter titled Nation and Race describes how inter-breeding between those who are physically and culturally superior, the Aryans [by which he means racially pure Germans], and those who are inferior results in a weakening of the race.[4] Hitler specifically singles out the Jew as a racial counterpart to the Aryans;[5] as J. Noakes describes: “the Jew figured largely as…a collection of negative attitudes representing the antithesis of the qualities of the true German.”[6] Such a diametrically opposed ‘other’ was a potential pollutant to a racially pure people that Hitler believed must be conscious of its blood.[7] It was therefore of vital importance to the future welfare of the German people that their genetic pool be protected from contamination, especially by the Jew.
The ideas that Hitler propounds in Mein Kampf were brought into legislative form when the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour” was announced. The justification for the law was that it was to protect the purity of German blood in order to preserve their future as a nation-race. Other laws had already been passed that indicated the importance of racial purity and eugenics to Hitler and the Nazi leadership cadre, such as the “Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring” (1933) and the “Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health” (1935).[8] However, this law was significant in that it was legislation that specifically identified the Jews, who made up less than one percent of the population, as a key threat to German society, a threat that required legislation in order to contain it. [9] The law indicated that within a National Socialist state, where the greater community was more important than the individual, matters previously considered as private, as personal choice or as religious affairs, such as marriage and sexual relations, could be subjugated to the governmental authority when it was considered a matter of national preservation. The implication of the law was not that ‘misguided’ Germans were at fault but rather that lascivious Jews posed a threat to German honour, hence German women could not be employed in the household of a Jew but the law did not prevent the reverse situation. This threat that lustful, greedy Jews posed to good, moral Germans, thus necessitating such legislation, was supported through propaganda issued by the state-controlled media such as in the newspaper Der Stürmer.[10]
The “Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour” was also important for establishing a legal context in which the Jews were presented not as a religious group but as a separate race by the inclusion of Section 4 – traditionally nations have flags/colours but religious faiths do not. This was strengthened by the 14 November 1935 amendments to the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour” and the “Reich Citizenship Law”; their detailed definitions of what constituted a Jew meant that ancestry and blood were as important as religious conviction.[11] By establishing the Jews as a separate minority race permitted to have their own communities within the German state, Nazi propaganda could argue that it was a logical advancement for the Reich Citizenship Law to be altered on 14 November 1935 to stipulate that Jews were not German citizens.
By using Reichstag passed legislation to discriminate against the Jews it meant that Hitler could represent the Nazi regime to foreign powers as using legal means to channel existing racial tensions in a way that would allow “tolerable relations” to be established with the Jewish people while protecting their racial rights, for example to present Jewish colours.[12] To the general populace he could be presented as a responsible leader taking authoritative yet legal measures to protect public interests by preserving German purity and thus their racial advantages. In addition, Hitler and the Nazi regime could be portrayed as searching for judicial ways to end the wave of violent anti-Semitic actions that had taken place in Germany earlier in 1935 and thus bring peace to society.[13] Many Germans and Jews believed that the legal discrimination was a result of nationalistic and patriotic convictions, influenced by beliefs in the importance of racial purity, and that it would result in an end to racially-motivated violence.[14] Instead, each anti-Semitic law that passed without fervent domestic protest heightened the confidence of the Nazi regime that increasingly radical measures could be taken against the Jews and ultimately contributed towards the systematic and bureaucratically organised dehumanisation and destruction of millions of Jews.
Bibliography
Burleigh, Michael, The Third Reich: A new history, New York, 2000.
Domarus, Max, Hitler. Speeches and Proclamations 1932-1945. The Chronicle of a dictatorship. Volume II, 1935-1938, London, 1992.
Fink, Fritz, ‘Das Ende. Vom Juden noch im Tode betrogen,’ Der Stürmer, 37, 1935, in: German Propaganda Archive, (accessed 5 August 2006).
Hannaford, Ivan, Race: the history of an idea in the West, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, 1996.
Hitler, Adolf, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Manheim and intro. D.C. Watt, London, 1992, reprint, 2001.
Noakes, J. and G. Pridham, ed., Nazism, 1919-1945. Volume 2: State, Economy and Society, 1933-1939, Exeter, 1984.
Samuel, Richard, ‘The origin and development of the ideology of National Socialism’, The Australian Journal of Politics and History, 9, 1963, pp.59-77.
Sax, Benjamin C. and Dieter Kuntz, A Documentary History of Life in the Third Reich, Lexington and Toronto, 1992.
Stackelberg, Roderick, Hitler’s Germany: Origins, Interpretations, Legacies, London, 1999.
Welch, David, The Third Reich. Politics and Propaganda, 2nd edn, London, 1993.
[1] Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour, 15 September 1935, in: Benjamin C. Sax and Dieter Kuntz, A Documentary History of Life in the Third Reich, Lexington and Toronto, 1992, pp. 406-8.
[2] Ivan Hannaford, Race: the history of an idea in the West, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, 1996, pp.183-7.
[3] Richard Samuel, ‘The origin and development of the ideology of National Socialism’, The Australian Journal of Politics and History, 9, 1963, pp.70-71.
[4] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Manheim and intro. D.C. Watt, London, 1992, reprint, 2001, pp. 258-299.
[5] Ibid. pp. 272, 277-8.
[6] J. Noakes and G. Pridham, ed., Nazism, 1919-1945. Volume 2: State, Economy and Society, 1933-1939, Exeter, 1984, p. 521.
[7] Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 295.
[8] Roderick Stackelberg, Hitler’s Germany: Origins, Interpretations, Legacies, London, 1999,
pp. 130-1.
[9] Ibid. p. 145
The law would be expanded to include Gypsies and Negroes on 14 November 1935 but was chiefly considered as regarding Aryan/Jewish relations. Ibid. p. 146.
[10] For example: Fritz Fink, ‘Das Ende. Vom Juden noch im Tode betrogen,’ Der Stürmer, 37, 1935, in: German Propaganda Archive, <> (accessed 5 August 2006).
David Welch, The Third Reich. Politics and Propaganda, 2nd edn, London, 1993, p. 95.
[11] Stackelberg, pp. 146-7.
[12] Adolf Hitler, Speech to the Reichstag, Nuremberg, 15 September 1935, in: Max Domarus, Hitler. Speeches and Proclamations 1932-1945. The Chronicle of a dictatorship. Volume II, 1935-1938, London, 1992, pp.706.
[13] Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A new history, New York, 2000, pp. 288-296.
[14] Stackelberg, pp. 147-8. Burleigh, pp. 296-7.
The names chosen for Nazi legislation were frequently linked directly to their function but also revealed the ideological basis underlying them. In examining the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour” one must question who is being protected, from what and why? The concept of race was one raised and developed in the nineteenth century through Europe as colonial expansionism brought greater contact between different races and civilisations.[2] Scientific advances in the fields of biology, evolution and anthropology were given racial focuses by writers such as Joseph de Gobineau and Dr Joseph Reimer who formulated theories on eugenics and social Darwinism.[3] Echoes of their views, and those of similarly minded authors, on the superiority of the Aryan/Teutonic peoples and the necessity of racial purity can be seen in Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, which was first published in 1925. Hitler’s chapter titled Nation and Race describes how inter-breeding between those who are physically and culturally superior, the Aryans [by which he means racially pure Germans], and those who are inferior results in a weakening of the race.[4] Hitler specifically singles out the Jew as a racial counterpart to the Aryans;[5] as J. Noakes describes: “the Jew figured largely as…a collection of negative attitudes representing the antithesis of the qualities of the true German.”[6] Such a diametrically opposed ‘other’ was a potential pollutant to a racially pure people that Hitler believed must be conscious of its blood.[7] It was therefore of vital importance to the future welfare of the German people that their genetic pool be protected from contamination, especially by the Jew.
The ideas that Hitler propounds in Mein Kampf were brought into legislative form when the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour” was announced. The justification for the law was that it was to protect the purity of German blood in order to preserve their future as a nation-race. Other laws had already been passed that indicated the importance of racial purity and eugenics to Hitler and the Nazi leadership cadre, such as the “Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring” (1933) and the “Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health” (1935).[8] However, this law was significant in that it was legislation that specifically identified the Jews, who made up less than one percent of the population, as a key threat to German society, a threat that required legislation in order to contain it. [9] The law indicated that within a National Socialist state, where the greater community was more important than the individual, matters previously considered as private, as personal choice or as religious affairs, such as marriage and sexual relations, could be subjugated to the governmental authority when it was considered a matter of national preservation. The implication of the law was not that ‘misguided’ Germans were at fault but rather that lascivious Jews posed a threat to German honour, hence German women could not be employed in the household of a Jew but the law did not prevent the reverse situation. This threat that lustful, greedy Jews posed to good, moral Germans, thus necessitating such legislation, was supported through propaganda issued by the state-controlled media such as in the newspaper Der Stürmer.[10]
The “Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour” was also important for establishing a legal context in which the Jews were presented not as a religious group but as a separate race by the inclusion of Section 4 – traditionally nations have flags/colours but religious faiths do not. This was strengthened by the 14 November 1935 amendments to the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour” and the “Reich Citizenship Law”; their detailed definitions of what constituted a Jew meant that ancestry and blood were as important as religious conviction.[11] By establishing the Jews as a separate minority race permitted to have their own communities within the German state, Nazi propaganda could argue that it was a logical advancement for the Reich Citizenship Law to be altered on 14 November 1935 to stipulate that Jews were not German citizens.
By using Reichstag passed legislation to discriminate against the Jews it meant that Hitler could represent the Nazi regime to foreign powers as using legal means to channel existing racial tensions in a way that would allow “tolerable relations” to be established with the Jewish people while protecting their racial rights, for example to present Jewish colours.[12] To the general populace he could be presented as a responsible leader taking authoritative yet legal measures to protect public interests by preserving German purity and thus their racial advantages. In addition, Hitler and the Nazi regime could be portrayed as searching for judicial ways to end the wave of violent anti-Semitic actions that had taken place in Germany earlier in 1935 and thus bring peace to society.[13] Many Germans and Jews believed that the legal discrimination was a result of nationalistic and patriotic convictions, influenced by beliefs in the importance of racial purity, and that it would result in an end to racially-motivated violence.[14] Instead, each anti-Semitic law that passed without fervent domestic protest heightened the confidence of the Nazi regime that increasingly radical measures could be taken against the Jews and ultimately contributed towards the systematic and bureaucratically organised dehumanisation and destruction of millions of Jews.
Bibliography
Burleigh, Michael, The Third Reich: A new history, New York, 2000.
Domarus, Max, Hitler. Speeches and Proclamations 1932-1945. The Chronicle of a dictatorship. Volume II, 1935-1938, London, 1992.
Fink, Fritz, ‘Das Ende. Vom Juden noch im Tode betrogen,’ Der Stürmer, 37, 1935, in: German Propaganda Archive,
Hannaford, Ivan, Race: the history of an idea in the West, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, 1996.
Hitler, Adolf, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Manheim and intro. D.C. Watt, London, 1992, reprint, 2001.
Noakes, J. and G. Pridham, ed., Nazism, 1919-1945. Volume 2: State, Economy and Society, 1933-1939, Exeter, 1984.
Samuel, Richard, ‘The origin and development of the ideology of National Socialism’, The Australian Journal of Politics and History, 9, 1963, pp.59-77.
Sax, Benjamin C. and Dieter Kuntz, A Documentary History of Life in the Third Reich, Lexington and Toronto, 1992.
Stackelberg, Roderick, Hitler’s Germany: Origins, Interpretations, Legacies, London, 1999.
Welch, David, The Third Reich. Politics and Propaganda, 2nd edn, London, 1993.
[1] Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour, 15 September 1935, in: Benjamin C. Sax and Dieter Kuntz, A Documentary History of Life in the Third Reich, Lexington and Toronto, 1992, pp. 406-8.
[2] Ivan Hannaford, Race: the history of an idea in the West, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, 1996, pp.183-7.
[3] Richard Samuel, ‘The origin and development of the ideology of National Socialism’, The Australian Journal of Politics and History, 9, 1963, pp.70-71.
[4] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Manheim and intro. D.C. Watt, London, 1992, reprint, 2001, pp. 258-299.
[5] Ibid. pp. 272, 277-8.
[6] J. Noakes and G. Pridham, ed., Nazism, 1919-1945. Volume 2: State, Economy and Society, 1933-1939, Exeter, 1984, p. 521.
[7] Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 295.
[8] Roderick Stackelberg, Hitler’s Germany: Origins, Interpretations, Legacies, London, 1999,
pp. 130-1.
[9] Ibid. p. 145
The law would be expanded to include Gypsies and Negroes on 14 November 1935 but was chiefly considered as regarding Aryan/Jewish relations. Ibid. p. 146.
[10] For example: Fritz Fink, ‘Das Ende. Vom Juden noch im Tode betrogen,’ Der Stürmer, 37, 1935, in: German Propaganda Archive, <> (accessed 5 August 2006).
David Welch, The Third Reich. Politics and Propaganda, 2nd edn, London, 1993, p. 95.
[11] Stackelberg, pp. 146-7.
[12] Adolf Hitler, Speech to the Reichstag, Nuremberg, 15 September 1935, in: Max Domarus, Hitler. Speeches and Proclamations 1932-1945. The Chronicle of a dictatorship. Volume II, 1935-1938, London, 1992, pp.706.
[13] Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A new history, New York, 2000, pp. 288-296.
[14] Stackelberg, pp. 147-8. Burleigh, pp. 296-7.
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