The event took place on the initiative of Adolf Hitler at the congress of the National Socialist Party of Germany, which was held annually in Nuremberg. According to the adopted legislative acts - the Reich Citizen Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor – Jews were deprived of citizenship (but were considered subjects of the country) and the right to enter marital or extramarital relations with Aryans. Marriages concluded in violation of the law were declared to have no legal force, even if they were registered outside Germany. Violators were liable - one year of imprisonment with forced labor. In the case of extramarital contact, the punishment (imprisonment without forced labor) was imposed only on the husband. Jews were also forbidden to hire women of “German or related blood” who were under 45 years old into their homes – apparently, to reduce the likelihood of adultery.
The Nuremberg Laws were fully consistent with the concept of “racial hygiene,” which had begun to take shape long before the Nazis came to power. In 1853, Joseph Arthur de Gobineau published “Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races,” in which he argued for the special rights of the Aryan race and the need to maintain racial purity. Over the course of several decades, these ideas developed. In the leading countries of the world—Great Britain, Germany, and the United States—a kind of racial messianism developed. A few decades later, racial theory was reinforced by eugenics (a term coined by the British anthropologist Francis Galton)—the doctrine of human selection to improve genetic traits to combat degeneration. Eugenics advocates argued that modern medicine interfered with Darwinian natural selection by preserving the lives of weak individuals and discouraging the reproduction of “valuable” individuals. Ignoring factors such as upbringing, environment, and rapid urbanization, “eugenicists” attributed all of society’s problems—alcoholism, crime, mental illness, even poverty—to heredity.
Before World War I, the German movement for racial hygiene was not much different from the American or other European ones. Radicalization occurred shortly after the defeat and covered the entire interwar period. The factor of economic devastation, together with a general national depression, led to the search for easy solutions. A significant part of German citizens believed that the best “pure-blooded” Germans had died on the battlefield, leaving behind less “valuable” ones – the chronically ill (physically and mentally), prisoners, those on social security. Despair at the prospect of their homeland turning into a Third World country provoked a more rigid way of thinking in some Germans.
Even before the 1930s, the concept of racial hygiene had become extremely popular both in the professional environment (among scientists, doctors) and in the worldview of German society. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain the enthusiasm of doctors who actively joined the NSDAP and its affiliated organizations; the declarations of loyalty of German professors to A. Hitler, which were signed by hundreds of university teachers and scientists (for example, the “Declaration of Professors of German Universities and Colleges on Support for Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist State” of November 11, 1933 was signed by over 900 people). There was also a dead end of totalitarian policy, which left almost no room for maneuver for the individual. But, we admit, there was also an appropriate social atmosphere that formed a demand for further steps by the authorities. It was on such a mental basis that theoretical eugenics became a concrete everyday practice.
The Nuremberg Laws were based on the ideas of the German anthropology professor Eugen Fischer. He developed the concept of euthanasia of Jews, Roma, and economically “unproductive” (due to incurable diseases) Germans; forced sterilization of “racially inferior” Germans (since 1941, O. Fischer insisted on the sterilization of even those Germans whose grandfather or grandmother was Jewish – this plan of the anthropology professor was not fully implemented). Thus, the Nazi regime used the existing scientific tradition and social atmosphere in the country to rationalize its own discriminatory policy, affirm the racial superiority of the Germans, and create a “victorious demographic”.
The laws were unanimously adopted by a session of the Reichstag, specially convened in Nuremberg. According to the amendments to the Reich Citizen Law, the concept of a “Jew” was legally defined as a person who had at least three Jewish ancestors in the third generation (including grandparents). For clarity, special racial tables were developed, which were massively reproduced in textbooks, school diaries, and notebooks. Later, by the law of August 17, 1938, a special mark was introduced in passports for Jews in the Third Reich – “J” (Jude). “Israel” was added to the name of each man, and Jewish women received the middle name “Sarah” in their passports. This was done so that Jews could not hide their nationality through Aryan names.
People of mixed descent belonged to the category of so-called “Mischlings.” Among them, there were first-degree Mischlings, or half-Jews, who were people with two Jewish grandparents who did not practice Judaism and were not married to a Jew on September 15, 1935. Second-degree Mischlings, or quarter-Jews, were people with one Jewish grandfather or grandmother, or an Aryan who married a Jew. It is worth noting that the Nazi policy towards Mischlings was not consistent: against the background of general discrimination, exceptions were made for the most valuable personnel (good professionals, brave soldiers, people with good connections, etc.). However, if a Mischling married a Jew or followed Jewish traditions, he lost his special status and became equal to Jews. Discrimination against Mischlings gave rise to corruption: for a certain amount of money, one could declare oneself Aryan. Many German women married to Jews were forced to slander themselves, saying that they had committed adultery with German men. In this way, mothers saved their half-Jewish children from discrimination.
Of course, German society, which had “swallowed” the reduction of social services for people with disabilities, agreed to mass operations of forced euthanasia and sterilization of Germans, was much easier to convince of the need to restrict the rights of Jews. Therefore, the Nuremberg Laws, which combined eugenics with racial anti-Semitism, were not perceived by a significant part of the population as misanthropic. These laws became the basis for the mass extermination of Jews at the stage of the “final solution of the Jewish question.”
Olena Ishchenko