Anti-Jewish Legislation

When the Nazis came into power in 1933, they immediately passed legislation that discriminated against Germany’s Jewish population. With these laws, Nazis removed Jews from government jobs and prevented them from engaging in social activities. Jewish businesses were boycotted, and members of the professions, like doctors and lawyers, were prohibited from practicing.

The Nazis passed the Nuremberg Laws, two sets of laws which facilitated the persecution of Jews, in 1935. The first of these laws systematically detailed whether a person was a Jew based on their lineage, and revoked the citizenship of Germany’s Jewish population. The second set of laws barred Jews from marrying non-Jews. Anti-Jewish legislation continued in the following years. Jews were not allowed to work, and Nazis placed restrictions on the time-of-day Jews could use public shops and enforced a curfew. In 1938, all Jewish men were required to add the name Israel to their passports; Jewish women had to add the name Sarah. Jewish property was confiscated, and rations were reduced.

Resources

All resources are provided in MLA format.

Anti-Defamation League. “Nazi Germany and Anti-Jewish Policy.” ADL, 2005, https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/nazi-germany-and-anti-jewish-policy. (Provide Date Accessed.)

This webpage details the laws passed by Nazis from 1933 through 1939.

Confino, Alon. A World without Jews: The Nazi Imagination from Persecution to Genocide. Yale University Press, 2015.

Call number: DS134.255 .C66 2014

This book, thoroughly researched in an array of archives across three continents, describes cultural events, like Kristellnacht, and how they contributed to the Holocaust. The author explores how Germans came to conceive of the idea of a Germany without Jews.

Hitlers Courts – Betrayal of the rule of Law in Nazi Germany. Directed by Joshua M. Greene and Shiva Kumar. Stories to Remember, 2005.

Call number: EDU DVD 15

This DVD features archival footage from the Nazi era, rarely seen photographs, and interviews with leading voices in international law. Experts examine the perversion of the courts under Nazi rule.

Jewish Virtual Library. “The Nuremberg Laws: Background & Overview.” American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-of-the-nuremberg-laws. (Provide Date Accessed).

This webpage provides a detailed account of the Nuremberg Laws and their impact on Germany’s Jewish population.

Mahoney, Kevin. In Pursuit of Justice: Examining the Evidence of the Holocaust. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1996.

Call number: REF D804 .G4 I62 1996

This book examines major aspects of the Holocaust using documents gathered as evidence for the numerous war crimes trials. Most of the selected documents served as prosecution exhibits.

Michalczyk, John. Nazi Law: From Nuremberg to Nuremberg. Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.

Call number: KK4880 .N39 2017

The book looks at how the Nazi Party manipulated the legal system and the constitution in its crusade against Communists, Jews, homosexuals, and Jehovah’s Witnesses and other minorities. It also analyzes how these laws were subsequently used by opponents of Nazism to punish them in the war crime trials at Nuremberg.

National Archives. “The Nuremberg Laws.” Prologue Magazine, Winter 2010, Vol. 42, No. 4, Reviewed 2017, https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2010/winter/nuremberg.html.(Provide Date Accessed).

This webpage contains original Nazi documents that legalized the persecution of Jews.

Newman, Amy. The Nuremberg Laws: Institutionalized Anti-Semitism. Lucent Books, 1999.

Call number: KK4747 .M55 N49 1999

Chronicles the passage of the Nuremberg laws by the German government in 1935 which denied basic human rights to millions of Jews, Gypsies, and other minority groups.

Rigg, Bryan. Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military. University Press of Kansas, 2004.

Call number: DS135 .G3 R54 2002

This book, developed through wide-ranging research in archival and secondary sources and extensive interviews with more than 400 Mischlinge and their relatives, shows from yet another angle the extremely flawed, dishonest, demeaning, and tragic essence of Hitler’s rule.

Stolleis, Michael. The Law under the Swastika: Studies on Legal History in Nazi Germany. University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Call number: KK190 .S7613 1998

This book examines the evolution of legal history, theory, and practice in Nazi Germany, paying close attention to its impact on the Federal Republic and on the German legal profession. Until the late 1960s, historians of the Nazi judicial system were reluctant to investigate this legal history and maintained the ideal that law could not be affected by politics.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Antisemitic Legislation1933–1939.” USHMM, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/antisemitic-legislation-1933-1939. (Provide Date Accessed).

This webpage provides background knowledge of the laws, decrees, directives, guidelines, and regulations that increasingly restricted the civil and human rights of the Jews in Germany.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Nuremberg Laws.” USHMM, Edited 2021, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nuremberg-laws. (Provide Date Accessed).

This webpage provides detailed information about the Nuremberg Race Laws, which Nazi leadership used to move Germany from a democracy to a dictatorship.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “The Nuremberg Race Laws.” USHMM, Edited 2019, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-nuremberg-race-laws. (Provide Date Accessed).

This webpage provides background knowledge about the Nuremberg Race Laws.

Whitman, James. Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law. Princeton University Press, 2017.

Call number: KK4743 .W55 2017

This book delves into how the American regime of racial oppression inspired Nazism in Germany. It includes a detailed investigation of the American impact on the notorious Nuremberg Laws, the centerpiece anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi regime.

Yad Vashem. “Anti-Jewish Legislation.” Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies, https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205741.pdf. (Provide Date Accessed).

This document details anti-Jewish laws, in Germany and beyond.