Nazi Racial Policy & the Persecution of Jewish People, 1933–39 (Edexcel IGCSE History: Paper 1: Depth Studies): Revision Note

Timeline & Summary

• Nazi ideology divided people into superior and inferior races

  • They saw the Aryan race as the ideal

  • Groups such as Jewish people, Roma and Sinti people, and people with disabilities were condemned as Untermenschen, or "sub-humans"

• The Nazis used forced sterilisation and, from 1939, murder (which they called "euthanasia") against Germans they judged to be a "burden"

  • They persecuted Roma and Sinti people and Black Germans as supposedly inferior races

• Persecution of Jewish people intensified in stages

  • Legal punishment from 1933

  • Formal segregation under the 1935 Nuremberg Laws

  • Economic punishment and violent terror from 1938, resulting in 'Kristallnacht'

• Many Jewish people tried to emigrate

  • However, most countries, including Britain and the USA, severely limited refugee numbers

  • By 1939, around 214,000 Jewish people remained trapped in Greater Germany

Nazi racial policies

• Hitler outlined his belief in a racial hierarchy in his book, Mein Kampf. Hitler stated that:

  • Aryans were the superior race — blonde, blue-eyed and athletic

  • other white Western races were respected, but lower than Aryans

  • races of Eastern Europe like Slavs were seen as Untermenschen (sub-humans)

  • the Nazis believed that gay men lowered moral standards as they could not procreate or be part of a traditional family unit

  • the Nazis believed that people with disabilities were a burden on society

  • Jewish people and Roma were seen as the lowest races and a threat to Aryan "racial purity"

How were minorities treated in Nazi Germany before the Second World War?

• In 1935, marriage between Black people and Aryans was banned

• From 1936, young people in trouble with the law, homeless people, homosexuals and Jewish people were sent to concentration camps

  • After 1938, Roma and Sinti communities were too

The increasing persecution of Jewish people, 1933–39

• Jewish people were less than 1% of the German population (about 500,000 people)

  • After the First World War, many Germans looked for a scapegoat

  • Hitler claimed Jewish people were responsible for defeat and economic hardship

1933–1934

• In March 1933, a nationwide boycott of Jewish shops began

  • SA members blocking entry to Jewish shops

  • Jewish people were banned from government jobs and teaching, and later in 1933 from journalism

    • Jewish doctors lost state health-insurance work, and their licences were taken away in 1938

• From 1934, Jewish people were banned from public places such as parks, cinemas and swimming pools

  • From May 1935, they could not join the army

September 1935, the Nuremberg Laws

• The Reich Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour banned marriage between Jewish people and Aryans

• The Reich Law on Citizenship said only people of German blood were citizens, so Jewish people lost the vote and the right to hold a German passport

• Anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents was considered Jewish, regardless of whether they practised Judaism

  • Many people who had converted to Christianity still faced persecution

• From 1938, Jewish people had to register their possessions and also had to carry identity cards

'Kristallnacht'

• Persecution of Jewish people became much worse in November 1938 following an event known as ‘Kristallnacht’ (Night of Broken Glass)

• The Nazis blamed Jewish people for "Kristallnacht" and punished them

  • They were fined 1 billion marks as an "atonement payment"

    • They also had to pay for the repairs themselves because the government seized their insurance payouts

  • By 12 November, around 20,000 Jewish people were sent to concentration camps like Dachau

How did persecution of Jewish people intensify between 1933 and 1939?

Four escalating stages

Stage 1 – Legal exclusion

• In 1933, Jewish people were banned from certain jobs and their businesses were boycotted, although they remained technically citizens

Stage 2 – Segregation

• In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws removed Jewish citizenship and banned intermarriage with Aryans

Stage 3 – Economic punishment

• In 1938, Jewish possessions had to be registered, and Jewish professionals were barred from taking on non-Jewish clients

Stage 4 – Violent terror

• In November 1938, 'Kristallnacht' unleashed organised, state-sanctioned violence and mass arrest on a nationwide scale for the first time

Conclusions

• Persecution intensified steadily and deliberately across the period, moving from economic and legal discrimination towards organised violence

• By 1939, the foundations were already in place for the far greater horrors that followed once the Second World War began