Introduction
Adolf Hitler’s “Machtergreifung”[1] on the 30th of January 1933 created the foundation for open anti-Semitic violence, which would eventually pave the way into what became known as the holocaust: the “systematic, state-organized persecution and murder of at least six million Jews … by Nazi-Germany”.[2]
Antisemitism was nothing new when the NSDAP[3] gained power in 1933, nor was it a uniquely German phenomenon. However, the German state had legally regarded Jews as equal to all other citizens since 1871[4]. After this 30th of January 1933, that would change dramatically. Countless laws were awaiting, leading to the increased isolation of Jews within Germany, ever decreasing liberties and rights, miserable living conditions, and most crucially, the expulsion, persecution and execution of the Jews. [5]
The NSDAP was always strictly anti-Semitic, evidenced by their 25-point party program. Point four stated that:
“a citizen[6] can only be [an individual who is] a national comrade[7]. A national comrade can only be [an individual] of German blood … Therefore, no Jew can be a national comrade.”[8]
The party program then went on to say that all public offices were to be held exclusively by “citizens” – ruling out all Jews and members of other “undesirable” groups. First proclaimed by Hitler in the infamous Munich beer cellar as early as February 1920, the Nazis would immediately spring into action to turn their words into actions after seizing power 13 years later.
Despite people declaring themselves of Jewish faith making up just 0.9%[9] of the population in the last census before the NSDAP’s rise to power, the number of people who would be affected by the legislation was considerably higher; among other factors, due to the Nazi’s identification of who was “a Jew”. [10]
The Nazis used an effective method to not just normalize but legalize violence. Through the gradual implementation of laws, societal norms in Germany were changed, resulting in the eventual blind acceptance – or at least conscient inertia – of the German public.
The concept of antisemitism did not spring out of nowhere but was deeply rooted and had long been present in Germany. What was different under the nationalist-socialists was that the fears and divisions already present were actively catered to as part of the regime’s power politics.
Hence, we will investigate the research question: “in what ways & to what effect did the laws used in the German Reich between 1933-1941 contribute to the normalization of antisemitism and violence leading up the Holocaust?”
This dissertation will look specifically at laws passed by the German government 1933-1941 and evaluate their impact: providing the legal framework for the holocaust.
We will use primary sources: the original text of laws passed will be scrutinized and evaluated against the statements and later interpretations of historians (secondary sources).
Of particular importance to the evaluation of the path into the holocaust are the “ten stages of Genocide”[11]. Some of the laws which will be evaluated in this essay will be linked to specific stages of genocide.
A note must be made regarding the nature of the anti-Jewish legislation. The targets of the individual laws and orders differed: some aimed at creating a divide between “Germans” and Jews, some were passed to rob the Jewish population on behalf of the state through measures such as expropriation, again others were passed for reasons of simply making life difficult for Jewish residents or taking away their sustenance.
To outline the means taken by the Nazis to progress towards the elimination of Jews, we will look at a few specific categories of legislation.
Examples of Laws & Impacts
Professions
50,000 Jews living in Germany had lost their work during the crisis of 1930, and the Nazi functionaries, both on a local and on a national level, did most everything to ensure that it would stay that way even as the rest of Germany recovered. One area of specific focus was commodity trading, as this was what sustained roughly 60% of the Jewish population. The authorities, especially on a local and regional level, used a plethora of inventive methods to push Jews towards closing and selling their stores. By 1935, a quarter of them had succumbed to the pressure; by 1938, that number had risen to 70%.
Those fortunate enough to have a job in 1933 were, however, not immune from persecution. Jews serving the public was a concept which did not fit into the Nazis’ view of the world. It was the basis of the NSDAP’s ideology that all problems were to be solved if one simply removed Jews from the “Volksgemeinschaft”[12] altogether.[13]
The first steps were taken on a regional rather than a national level. The municipal government of Berlin, on the 18th of March 1933, issued the order:
“Jewish attorneys and notaries may in future not be active regarding the legal affairs of the city of Berlin.”[14]
Along with Jews working in the legal system, Jewish doctors were targeted especially harshly and early on. On the 31st of March of the same year, the public health insurance company announced it would no longer reimburse the costs of treatment by a Jewish doctor, starting the following day.
Though technically not an employment ban, it was a decision aiming to severely limit the number of patients that Jewish doctors would receive, simply by making it uneconomical for the public to seek treatment from them.[15] Jewish doctors were fully banned from practicing on the 25.07.1938.
Various other employment bans followed: in 1933 for judges, teachers, civil servants, tutors; in 1934 actors, authors; in 1935 art dealers, musicians; in 1936 veterinarians, journalists (having to prove both their and their spouse’s Aryan heritage starting 1800), and others.[16]
Jews in the “Volksgemeinschaft”, were, according to the Nazis’ propaganda, responsible for evils like Germany’s WWI defeat and the hardship its people had to endure. Barring them from working, especially in the public sector, de-facto removed them from German society. Aside from public offices, intellectuals were the most targeted – Jewish doctors curing Germans’ diseases and saving their lives or Jewish professors teaching Germany’s future elite at the country’s top universities didn’t mix well with the light the Nazis were portraying the Jews in.
The German arts were “cleansed” of the “Jewish threat”, as it was called[17]. Previously, Jewish representation in the arts had been disproportionately high, in the eyes of the new leaders posing a risk to be eliminated. Visual arts and literature had the ability to subvert NSDAP in a more subtle but unmistakable way, and therefore were a target for the Nazis. They replaced them with their own art styles, commonly showing strong, Aryan men in uniforms and BDM[18] girls. “Degenerate art” was cracked down on.
Overall, the occupational bans on Jews aimed at increasing the division in society between “Germans” and Jews, taking away financial and personal stability for Jewish families and individuals, and limiting their influence in Germany’s civil society.
Reactions to the initial Nazi advances were indifferent at best; acts of resistance, such as entering the Jewish stores blockaded by the 1933 boycott, were few and far between. Antisemitism was welcomed by sizable chunks of the population, not least importantly by the Catholic and Protestant churches.[19] Marginalization of Jews was now perceived as the norm in German conscience.
Representation
“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”[20]
Germany’s Jews were persecuted through laws and decrees, agitation of the public and reinterpretation of legislation. Few of the steps that Hitler took to eliminate the Jews were illegal under German law at the time.
In fact, Julius Streicher, publisher of the virulently anti-Semitic newspaper “der Stürmer”, announced in his speech in the Berlin Sportpalast:
“By smashing shop windows, you only harm the insurances and not the Jews. And if you beat up Jews, you are not solving the Jewish question. We won’t strike again, but the Jewish question will, through legal ways, be brought to a solution … whomever partakes in individual actions is an enemy of the state.”[21]
It is interesting to note that this quote was highlighted by a German newspaper having a pro-NSDAP viewpoint. This source gives us an insight into what the party’s supporters considered important in 1935. The harsh dismissal of anyone partaking in “individual actions” as an enemy of the state is noteworthy; it highlights the NSDAP’s perception that the prosecution should be a systematic and centralized endeavor meant to be supported by the people, but not executed through individual initiative. Perhaps even more relevant is that “the Jewish question will, through legal ways, be brought to a solution”, supporting the notion that the NSDAP was trying to adhere to legal principles.
However, this being a speech by one individual member of the party means that it may be more of a personal than a collective opinion and we don’t know the impact of factionalism within the party. Nonetheless, the idea seems to have resonated well enough with propagandists to be printed in a political column.
It was of high importance to the Nazis to make what Hitler did appear legal.[22] The “Ermächtigungsgesetz” following the Reichstag fire was a legal way to provide him with sweeping powers (though abolishing the position of President wasn’t one of them).
Hitler had signaled that he would keep the judiciary a separate entity from the government, as many senior jurists who had held their positions since the days of the Kaiserreich had a strong liking for the German “Rechsstaat”[23]. Their typically nationalist views aligned well with the NSDAP’s own, though, therefore not posing a threat.[24] Many of the judges were keen to strictly reflect the NSDAP’s party line in their verdicts.
“The courts prepared, through their assiduous application of anti-Jewish legislation, the physical death of the Jews.”[25]
It is logical that representation of Jews within the judiciary branch was one of the first targets for the nationalist-socialists. A relatively independent judiciary would have been one of the few entities with the potential to pose a serious threat to the legitimacy and therefore the rule of the Nazis.[26]
Allowing Jews to be represented and therefore tried fairly would have been a potentially fatal mistake for the new German leadership as they were still in the process of consolidating their power in these early stages of their rule.
Just a week after the “Ermächtigungsgesetz”, all Jewish judges were dismissed from their posts[27]. Again, just a week later, Jewish civil servants faced the same fate[28]. The “Aryan paragraph” responsible for this, part of the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service”[29], was applied independently by companies and organizations, forbidding non-Aryans to work for them.
“This Aryan paragraph, meanwhile, did not stay limited to the civil servants, but rather in the following time was expanded to all public duties, the permit as a lawyer, notaries, panel doctors, editors, etc.”[30]
By eliminating Jews’ representation in the justice system, the government avoided their measures being challenged legally. The methods taken – the Aryan paragraphs and others – appear to have been successful to an extent that satisfied the authorities, as it was only in 1943 that the prosecution of Jews and Poles was transferred exclusively to the SS and the police.[31]
A judicial system was created that would persecute political opponents and especially Jews without them having any real chance of a legal victory, but in which civil law was – by measures of dictatorship – relatively independent.[32]
Having a seemingly independent judiciary prosecute Jews for supposed “crimes” as they would prosecute any German citizen was picked up in a much more positive light by the Germans than unclearly defined measures would have been. It not only strengthened the NSDAP’s legitimacy, but also contributed to the normalization of antisemitism in a very subtle way – a lot subtler than the party’s racial theories.
Ethnogenic Legislation / Racial Theory & Racial Hygiene
It was no secret that racial purification was the ultimate goal of the Nazi regime; it was a core part of its ideology, omnipresent in its propaganda and taught at schools.[33] The elimination of the Jews was always the stated goal, as evidenced by this quote from a 1936 newspaper concerning the decree on the “German blood” law:
“…with the goal of keeping the German blood clean and making the existing half-breeds vanish as soon as possible.”[34]
To persecute non-Aryans through legal means it was a necessity to define under what circumstances an individual would fall under which category.
Hence, less than three months after taking power, the Nazis defined “non-Aryans”:
“non-Aryan is an individual who descended from non-Aryan, especially Jewish parents or grandparents. It suffices, if one parent or one grandparent is not Aryan. This is to be presumed especially when one parent or one grandparent is a member of the Jewish faith.”[35]
Due to Jews lacking any general “racial characteristics”, it was the Jewish faith that would determine whether someone was Aryan or not, creating absurd situations: had an individual’s great-grandparents all been Jewish, but baptized their children as Christians, he would be considered Aryan[36]. However, a German whose parents were both Christian, would remain a non-Aryan if just one of his grandparents was Jewish.
Though anti-Semitism was already present in Germany, it was the National-socialists’ goal to extend their racist mindset to the entirety of Germany. Of special significance was the German youth. In the Nazis’ plans, it would be these children to one day become cadres within the NSDAP and tend to the racial purity of the “1,000-year Reich”. The fact that the Reich would end up lasting just twelve years[37] was not anticipated by the Nazis.
It was therefore a priority to convey their doctrine to the youth. In September 1939, German schools started teaching “Genetic Heredity” and “Racial Theory”, including final exams, which students couldn’t be exempt from.[38] The decree proclaimed that “biological thinking” was to be made the foundation for all school subjects.
In the same month, Saturday was declared “state youth day”: all students were taken out of school to receive “education on national policy”.[39]
Indoctrination took place outside of school as well, especially through the youth organizations Hitlerjugend[40] and BDM[41]. Following the “HJ Law” of 1936 (and two implementation provisions in 1939), it was a legal obligation to enter if you were between ten and 18 years of age.[42] This led to the Hitler youth reaching 8.7 million active members – 98% of Germany’s youth.[43]
The Nuremberg laws of1935 are commonly seen as the fundamental piece of legislation for the legal prosecution of Jews under nationalism-socialism. Consisting of three separate laws, it was the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor” that regulated marriages and relationships between Aryans and “people of non-Aryan blood”. It introduced prison sentences not just for Jewish individuals, but also to Germans who entered marriage or extra-marital affairs with a Jew and declared all “mixed marriages” between an Aryan and a non-Aryan obsolete.[44]
In their racial hygiene fanaticism, the state sought to identify and classify all non-Aryans according to unscientific “racial hygiene”, enshrining classifications in the laws they passed. As the years progressed, these legal documents’ wording was further refined, broadening their reach in terms of numbers impacted and authorities’ competences.
The first law releasing civil servants, for instance, had clauses exempting WWI veterans. the Nazis soon corrected their oversight after significantly fewer Jews left public service than they had expected. By 1936, even baptism and conversion from Judaism to Christianity would not suffice to save an individual from persecution; no matter whether they had converted to outrun the Nazis or whether they were devout Christians.[45]
The gradual increase in the harshness of discriminatory laws, combined with the persistent bombardment of the population by anti-Jewish propaganda were of key importance in smoothing the way into a genocide – which is fundamentally based on division and dehumanization.
Division, Dehumanization
“With these regulations, it shall be reached that in future, there will only be “Germans” and “Jews” in Germany.”[46]
The Nationalist-socialists emphasized their idea of the “unity of the German people”, however their policies were based upon division. Nazi propaganda and worldview built almost entirely on an “us versus them” mentality. On the one hand, this enabled the Nazis to place the blame for anything that went wrong on outside forces – the Jews, and, especially initially, also the Communists and Social Democrats – but on the other hand, it paved the way into what would become the mass extermination of Europe’s Jews by dehumanizing them and making discrimination and violence commonplace within and normal to the German public.
The division between “Germans” and “Jews” took place on two levels. The ideas propagated by the government resulted in many of the Aryan Germans largely excluding Jews from their everyday lives by choice. Simultaneously, laws passed by the government added a legally binding factor to these divisions – often long after they had already become social norms. As an example, German parents would often forbid their children to play with Jewish children[47]. And though laws barring Jewish children from attending schools increasingly divided the few remaining mixed groups[48], it was only in 1938 that division was made an official directive.[49]
Jews had lost their citizenship through the Nuremburg laws of 1935, and from 1938 on their passports were stamped with the infamous “J”, immediately identifying them as Jews and placing them at the whim of any officials who got hold of them.[50]
The Nazis also implemented a plethora of regulations that chipped away at the Jews’ everyday rights. Each of the regulations on their own seemed like not much of a deal, however in sum, they were a key step to removing the Jews from German society, therefore strengthening the idea of a “Volksgemeinschaft” which must defend itself from “the Jew”.
Alone in 1933, regulations were passed that:
- Forbade spelling out letters using Jewish names in telegrams[51],
- Forbade leasing public buildings to Jews[52],
- Excluded them from sports clubs[53],
- Decreed only films entirely produced by “Germans” to be “German films”[54],
- Excluded Jews from the Chess Federation[55], Choirs[56], the Automobile Club ADAC[57], and visiting the Wannsee lido[58], amongst others. More would follow.
These regulations – combined with more far-reaching ones such as employment bans – effectively barred Jews from actively participating in civil society, making it easier to sow further division between them and “Germans” – without interaction between the two groups, accusations and rumors spread were easier to believe and harder to disprove for the people of Germany. With the Nazis’ complete control over the Media and flow of information, all surrounding opinions available agreed with the image that was being portrayed of the Jews as “Volksschädlinge” – vermin.
Division led to increasing dehumanization of the Jews – the use of the term “Volksschädlinge” being an important step, as in agricultural parasites are pests which must be eradicated and tend to stand outside all moral judgements.[59]
The authorities backed up their claims with “scientific” evidence, there was little reason to doubt their validity. The fact that the “scientific” study of the Jewish race was a paradox due to the lack of distinguishing physical features that make a person “Jewish” was a minor inconsistency that was effectively glossed over by the state’s propaganda machine and was gladly overlooked by the public in favor of putting one’s mind at ease.[60]
“Scientifically proven” and backed by laws, antisemitism fulfilled two key requirements for ideas to be considered “valid” and “normal” in German society.
Why legally?
The holocaust could not have happened without widespread support, or at the very least tolerance, of the Nationalist-socialist government’s anti-Semitic policies. German chancellor Gerhard Schröder said:
“The Nazi ideology was willed by people and carried out by people”[61]
A viewpoint that is supported by many historians, including Natalie Weinstein, who claims that:
“average Germans gladly, almost gleefully, participated in the torture and mass murder of Jews during World War II.”[62]
However, Germany and its people placed high value in the idea of a “Rechtsstaat” – a country defined by the rule of law – and the concept that there could be no “crime”, whether this was murder, robbery or being Jewish – without a prior law. The Nazis’ legitimacy and therefore their rule was heavily based on legal principles – they had come to power through means of a (relatively) legitimate election by the rules of the democracy which they would replace and saw the Weimar Republic as per definition illegal as it had come about through a revolution.[63]
There are differing views regarding the willingness of the German public to partake in antisemitism and the holocaust. In his book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners”, the American sociologist Daniel Goldhagen claims that prior studies have overlooked the presence of an “eliminatory antisemitism” of the Germans; however, his opinion is not widely accepted.
The Canadian holocaust professor Robert Gellately, on the other hand, links the public’s passivity to Hitler’s personal popularity, as he outlines in “Hingeschaut und Weggesehen”.
There will always be room for interpretation as to what is the “correct” answer.
Conclusion
We have examined, through the evaluation of primary sources such as legislative texts and reports, articles and others published during and from within the Nazi regime, and assisted by various examples of post-1945 research by historians and organizations such as the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the importance of laws passed by the nationalist-socialist regime to the preparation for the ultimate murder of over six million people.
We have seen that antisemitism was not a top-down phenomenon. Rather, the Nazis, through cunning manipulation of minds with the help of censorship, propaganda, and catering to preexisting prejudice and latent antisemitism within the populace were able to plunge an entire society into a feverish, 12-year-long (and consequential still ongoing) witch-hunt against evils which only existed in the mind of Hitler and his accomplices. All of this found its legal justification – and with it, validity for the German people – in laws, decrees and orders passed by the government. The fact that almost everything the Nazis did was legal in the eyes of the judges holding office at the time, coupled with the importance of the “Rechtsstaat” to the German people, meant that it was easy to believe that what was happening was right. With it being legally correct, and the idea of a “Rechtsstaat” being that laws representing the public consensus are what is morally right, it would have arguably been immoral not to support the NSDAP’s anti-Semitism.
Thanks to the powerful combination of the way the German public’s mind worked and the skillful manipulation of legislation, the Nazis were able to commit one of the biggest crimes in history legally and with the support of their own people.
Events such as the Holocaust aren’t coincidental. They are planned and executed deliberately by the perpetrators. But they are also only possible because the potential for such atrocities is embedded within human structures and societies’ social fabric. Laws, the foundation of our society’s functioning, can work to normalize violence and allow us to ignore otherwise wrong happenings that take place before our own eyes – for nothing stands above the law, so whatever is the law is must be right.
Though the systematic murder of more than six million people seems long over today, humanity roughly 70 years later is in no way immune from such inhumanity, as evidenced by more recent genocides in various parts of the world – including in Europe – and the increasing power and reach of right-wing, nationalist and populist leaders throughout much of the West. In the wake of the Nazi nightmare, Europe unified through the common belief that such should never happen again. However today, with new challenges and a tendency towards isolationism, Europe is becoming more fractured once again, providing a fruitful basis for history to repeat itself in one way or another.
It is essential to understand what went wrong in the past and how such atrocities were made possible. In doing so, we have to learn from the past and avoid wedges being driven in between people once more.
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[1] English: “Seizure of power”
[2] Harran, Marilyn J. Die Holocaust-Chronik. Ullmann, 2011.
[3] NSDAP = Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party)
[4] König von Preußen, Wilhelm. “Gesetz, Betreffend Die Gleichberechtigung Der Konfessionen in Bürgerlicher Und Staatsbürgerlicher Beziehung.” 3 July 1869.
[5] “Introduction to the Holocaust.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143.
[6] Translated from German: Staatsbürger
[7] Translated from German: Volksgenosse
[8] Riedel, Kai. “Das 25-Punkte-Programm Der Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterpartei (24.02.1920).” DocumentArchiv.de – Gesetz Zur Verhütung Erbkranken Nachwuchses (14.07.1933), www.documentarchiv.de/wr/1920/nsdap-programm.html.
[9] 563,773
[10] Straßenburg, Marc. “Gedenkbuch – Opfer Der Verfolgung Der Juden Unter Der Nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933-1945.” Kabinettsprotokolle Online “4. Sofortprogramm Zur Modernisierung Und Inten…” (2.46.4:), Herausgegeben Für Das Bundesarchiv Von Michael Hollmann, www.bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch/einfuehrung.html.de?page=2.
[11] As outlined by www.genocidewatch.org
[12] “National Community”
[13] Bildung. “Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland.” Regulations and Policies on Syrian Refugees in Lebanon | Bpb, www.bpb.de/izpb/7687/1933-1945-verdraengung-und-vernichtung?p=all.
[14] “‘Juden Sind Hier Unerwünscht.’” Der Spiegel, 6 Apr. 1981.
[15] Stih, Renata, et al. Orte Des Erinnerns: Ausgrenzung Und Entrechtung, Vertreibung, Deportation Und Ermordung Von Berliner Juden in Den Jahren 1933 Bis 1945 ; Denkmal in Berlin-Schöneberg = Places of Remembrance. Stih & Schnock, 2009.
[16] Passed on the following days, in order: 31.03.1933, 01.04.1933 (Berlin public schools), 07.04.1933, 28.05.1933, 05.03.1934, 03.1934, 31.03.1935, 03.04.1936, 15.04.1936
[17] Der Gelbe Stern – Ein Film Über Die Judenverfolgung 1933 – 1945, 16 Mar. 2014, youtu.be/PAgWOYvTDKs.
[18] Bund Deutscher Mädel – League of German Girls
[19] BrumlikAutor, Micha, and Kolumnist. “Judenboykott Am 1. April 1933 : „Sie Prügelten Sie Zu Tode.’” 2016 Erneut Rekord Beim Stromexport, 29 Mar. 2013, www.taz.de/!5070323/.
[20] “Martin Luther King.” GENOCIDE – BOSNIA, www.ppu.org.uk/e_publications/mlk_4.html.
[21] Speech delivered 04.10.1935. “Innenpolitik (Oktober).” Zeitschrift Für Politik, vol. 25, no. 11/12, ser. 1935, Nov. 1935, pp. 848–851. 1935, JStor, www.jstor.org/stable/43527251.
[22] Brünneck, Alexander von. “Die Justiz Im Deutschen Faschismus.” Kritische Justiz, vol. 3, no. 1, 1970, pp. 21–35., www.jstor.org/stable/23984311. Jstor.
[23] Rule of Law
[24] “Law, Justice, and the Holocaust.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007887.
[25] “Die Justiz im Deutschen Faschismus“, Brünneck (see above)
[26] As above.
[27] 31st of March 1933
[28] 7th of April 1933
[29] Gesetz zur Widerherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums
[30] From „Drei Jahre Gesetzgebung der Regierung Adolf Hitler“ (see above)
[31] „Die Justiz im Deutschen Faschismus“, Brünneck (see above)
[32] “Recht Und Justiz Im Dritten Reich – Eine Instrumentalisierung | ZbE.” Zukunft Braucht Erinnerung, 4 Mar. 2017, www.zukunft-braucht-erinnerung.de/recht-und-justiz-im-dritten-reich/.
[33] United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org/confront-antisemitism/origins-of-neo-nazi-and-white-supremacist-terms-and-symbols.
[34] “Drei Jahre Gesetzgebung der Regierung Adolf Hitler” (see above)
[35] Riedel, Kai. “Erste Verordnung Zur Durchführung Des Gesetzes Zur Wiederherstellung Des Berufsbeamtentums (11.04.1933).” DocumentArchiv.de – Gesetz Zur Verhütung Erbkranken Nachwuchses (14.07.1933), www.documentarchiv.de/ns/1933/berufsbeamtentum_vo01.html.
[36]Under this definition; SS membership required Aryan descent since 1755.
[37] (a number so small that it is written out!)
[38] Fricke-Finkelnburg, Renate. “Rassenkunde.” Nationalsozialismus Und Schule, 1989, pp. 211–222., doi:10.1007/978-3-322-97207-1_8.
[39] Die Grafschaft Bentheim in Der Geschichte, www.grafschafter-geschichte.de/08/1933-Schule/schulpolitik2.htm.
[40] Hitlerjugend = HJ
[41] Bund Deutscher Mädel; HJ’s female branch
[42] “Nationalsozialismus – Hitlerjugend.” Deutsches Historisches Museum, www.dhm.de/archiv/ausstellungen/lebensstationen/ns_4.htm.
[43] Museum, Stiftung Deutsches Historisches. “Gerade Auf LeMO Gesehen: LeMO Kapitel: NS-Regime.” Deutsches Historisches Museum, www.dhm.de/lemo/kapitel/ns-regime/ns-organisationen/hitler-jugend.html.
[44] “Orte des Erinnerns” (see above)
[45] See above.
[46] See above.
[47] Pressburger, Gertrude, and Marlene Groihofer. Gelebt, Erlebt, überlebt. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, 2018.
[48] “Schulalltag Nach 1933: Kreuzug Gegen Jüdische Kinder | Themen | Stolpersteine | SWR2.” Swr.online, www.swr.de/swr2/stolpersteine/themen/juedische-schulkinder-nazis/-/id=12117604/did=12853372/nid=12117604/xqtjxo/index.html.
[49] “Orte des Erinnerns”. See above.
[50] Orte des Gedenkens, see above
[51] 22nd of April
[52] 5th of May
[53] 25th of April
[54] 28th of June
[55] 9th of July
[56] 16th of August
[57] 1st of October
[58] 22nd of August
[59] US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Symbols of Hate (see above)
[60] “Die Holocaust Chronik”, see above
[61] Harding, Luke. “Schröder Says All Germans Must Take Blame for the Holocaust.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 26 Jan. 2005, www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jan/26/germany.secondworldwar.
[62] “Who Is Responsible for the Holocaust.” The Holocaust History – A People’s and Survivor History – Remember.org, remember.org/imagine/limits/gabriel.
[63] United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/law-justice-and-the-holocaust.
