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The term
"Nuremberg Laws" refers to anti-Jewish legislation adopted
at the Nazi Party Convention, where the Reichstag were guests, in
Nuremberg on September 15, 1935. Two swiftly elaborated acts brought
about the final legal and social separation of Jews and non-Jews in
Germany. The Reich Citizenship Law deprived Jews of electoral rights
and made them into second-class citizens. The immediate result was
the dismissal of all Jewish civil servants, employees, and workers
who still held their jobs. The Citizenship Law provided the legal
basis for 13 subsequent administrative orders.
The second
law endorsed by the Reichstag that day was the Law for the
Protection of German Blood and German Honor. This statute forbade
Jews to marry nationals of German or kindred blood. In the wake of
this law, a complicated classification system was enacted, defining
various degrees of Jewishness according to how many grandparents
were Jews, i.e., members of the Jewish community: "full
Jew," "considered Jewish," etc. Each degree had its
own specified privileges, rights, and disabilities. Aryans and
German blood were never defined.
The law is
a clear expression of Nazi racial ideology, and also clearly
illustrates the pseudo-science behind it. Individual Jews were
defined by their lineage (an objective biological criterion), but
the root of their lineage (their grandparents’ identity as Jews)
was determined by "membership in the Jewish religious
community," a most subjective and non-scientific criterion. |
