Historical Context

• Pg. 192 - Nuremberg Laws - "Both held jobs until Max was sacked with the rest of the Jews at the Jedermann Engineering Factory in '35. That wasn't long after the Nuremberg Laws came in, forbidding Jews to have German citizenship and for Germans and Jews to intermarry."

On September 15, 1935, the Nazi regime announced two new laws:

• The Reich Citizenship Law

• The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor

Collectively, these are known as the Nuremberg Laws. According to the Nazis, Jews were not Aryans. They thought Jews belonged to a separate race that was inferior to all other races. The Nazis believed that the presence of Jews in Germany threatened the German people. They believed they had to separate Jews from other Germans to protect and strengthen Germany. The Nuremberg Laws were an important step towards achieving this goal.

What was the Reich Citizenship Law?

The Nazi Party had always promised that, if they came to power, only racially pure Germans would be allowed to hold German citizenship. The Reich Citizenship Law made this a reality. This law defined a citizen as a person who is “of German or related blood.” This meant that Jews, defined as a separate race, could not be full citizens of Germany. They had no political rights.

What was the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor?

The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor was a law against what the Nazis viewed as race-mixing or “race defilement” (“Rassenschande”). It banned future intermarriages and relations between Jews and people “of German or related blood.” The Nazis believed that such relationships were dangerous because they led to “mixed-race” children. According to the Nazis, these children and their descendants undermined the purity of the German race.