The racial policy of Nazi Germany is the set of policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the "Aryan race," and based on a specific racist doctrine which claimed scientific legitimacy. It was combined with a eugenics programme that aimed to achieve "racial purity" of the "Aryan race" by using compulsory sterilizations and extermination of specific minorities, which eventually culminated in the Holocaust. These policies targeted, first of all, Jews, who were considered as the most "inferior races" of all on a hierarchy that included Jews at the bottom and the Herrenvolk (or "master race") of the Volksgemeinschaft (or "national community") at the top.Hitler and the origin of racial policy ideas
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Further information: Nazism and race
Scientific racism became popular at the end of the 19th century in Europe, and had a direct influence on the pan-Germanism movement, including the Alldeutscher Verband (Pangermanic League). Adolf Hitler, who lived as a youth in Vienna, administrated until 1910 by the anti-semitic mayor Karl Lueger, admired the latter and was exposed to anti-Semitic and racially-charged books and literature. He developed these concepts in Mein Kampf (1925). He concluded that the Northern European peoples belonged to the "Aryan race", believed to be superior to all other ethnic groups and races. This belief system, fundamental to the Nazi ideology, held that "Aryans" had been responsible for all advances in civilization and morality in world history, and that Jews wanted to destroy it. Hitler also theorized the Lebensraum space, claiming that Eastern Europe should be submitted to the Reich in order to give "living space" for the expansion of the "Aryan race." This would be implemented during the war under the name of the Generalplan Ost.
[edit]Racial policies regarding Jews between 1933 to 1940
Between 1933 and 1934, Nazi policy was fairly moderate, not wishing to scare off voters or moderately-minded politicians (although the eugenics program was established as soon as July 1933). The Nazi Party used popular anti-semitism to gain votes. They blamed poverty, unemployment, and the loss of World War I all on the Jews and the left-wing. German woes were attributed to the effects of the Treaty of Versailles. In 1933, persecution of the Jews became active Nazi policy. It only became worse with the years, culminating in the Holocaust, or so-called “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem”, which was decided by Hitler during World War II and officialized at the January 1942 Wannsee Conference.
On April 1, 1933, Jewish doctors, lawyers, police, teachers and stores were boycotted. Only six days later, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was passed, banning Jews from government jobs. It is notable that the proponents of this law, and the several thousand more that were to follow, most frequently explained them as necessary to prevent the infiltration of damaging, "alien-type" (Artfremd) hereditary traits into the German national or racial community (Volksgemeinschaft). [1] These laws meant that Jews were now indirectly and directly dissuaded or banned from privileged and superior positions reserved for “Aryan Germans”. From then on, Jews were forced to work at more menial positions, becoming second-class citizens or to the point they are "illegally residing" in the German Reich.
The July 1933 Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, written by Ernst Rüdin and other theorists of "racial hygiene," established "Genetic Health Courts" which decided on compulsory sterilization of "any person suffering from a hereditary disease." These included, for the Nazis, those suffering from "Congenital Mental Deficiency," schizophrenia,"Manic-Depressive Insanity," "Hereditary Epilepsy," "Hereditary Chorea" (Huntington’s), Hereditary Blindness, Hereditary Deafness, "any severe hereditary deformity," as well as "any person suffering from severe alcoholism"[2]. Further modifications of the law enforced sterilization of the "Rhineland bastards" (children of mixed German and African parentage).
After the Night of the Long Knives on June 30-July 1, 1934, during which the SS attacked the SA, considered by Hitler to be too “revolutionary”, the SS became the dominant policing power in Germany. Heinrich Himmler was eager to please Hitler, and so willingly obeyed his orders. Since the SS had been Hitler's personal bodyguard, they were even more obedient and loyal to Hitler than the SA had been. They were also supported by the army, which was now more willing to comply with Hitler's decisions than when the SA had still existed.
On August 2, 1934, President Paul von Hindenburg died. No new President was selected; instead the powers of the Chancellor and President were combined. This change, and a tame government with no opposition parties, allowed Hitler full control of
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