Anti-Semitic

• The first wave of policies against the Jews (1933-1934) focused mainly on the limiting of Jewish participation in public life.
• Hitler exploited hatred for the Jews by blaming them for the loss of WW1. His hatred was obsessive and vindictive, he had a commitment about attacking the Jewish people. However, many Nazis didn't join the party due to anti-semitism. Less than 40% joined due to their hatred. Hitler had a gradualist approach.
• Legal Discrimination:

  National Boycott of Jewish shops -> 1st April 1933

  • Jewish businesses were picketed by the SA, who stood outside telling people not to go in. They also drew the Star of David on the windows/Doors of these businesses. Although, many Germans continued shopping in there, and many spoke publicly against it

  The Nazi leaders developed subtle ways to show their anti-semitism. Legally initiated anti-Jewish policy. Jewish rights were gradually removed.
• Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service: 7th April 1933

  • Jewish and politically unreliable civil servants and employees were removed from the state service. First formulation of the so-called Aryan Paragraph, a regulation to exclude Jews/
• Local governments introduced regulation that affected spheres of Jewish life.

  In Saxony, Jews could no longer slaughter animals according to ritual purity requirements, effectively meaning Jews couldn't eat kosher food.
• April 1933-

  Jewish students limited at German schools and universities. Furthermore, in this month, Jewish doctors were banned from treating non-Jewish patients.
• The Nuremberg Laws 1935 -

  Reich Citizenship Act: banned Jews from being citizens

  Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour: Jews and Germans couldn't marry or have sexual relations
• December 1935 -> Reich Propaganda Ministry issued a decree forbidding Jewish soldiers to be damned among the dead on WW1 memorials
• Propaganda and indoctrination:

  • posters and signs => saying the Jews are not wanted here
  • newspapers => Der Angriff which was founded by Goebbels which was anti-semitic
  • cinema => The Eternal Jew and the Suss the Jew
  • Goebbels was a stark anti-semite, and began indoctrinating the Jewish people
  • influencing the German youth => easier to change the minds of
  • seen in the curriculum with eugenics being taught and the Hitler Youth
• Kristallnacht:

  • 9-10 November 1938
  • Night of Broken Glass = Polish Jew killed German diplomat on the 7th November
  • started in Berlin and it spread throughout Germany
  • 100 deaths, attacks on 10 000 shops, 200 Synagogues burnt, 20 000 Jewish people sent to concentration camps
  • Leading Nazis were surprised by the damage
  • portrayed as a 'spontaneous demonstration' of popular outrage
  • co-ordinated by Goebbels
  • Goring used it to allow the Decree to Exclude Jews from Ger,am Economic Life => aryanisation of Jewish businesses
• The Anschluss:

  • takeover of Austria
  • Increase in anti-semitism over a shorter amount of time
• Forced Emigration:

  • many chose to leave => popular destinations were Britain, USA and Palestine
  • famous people => Albert Einstein
  • 1938 => Adolf Eichmann was head of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration and had forced 45 000 to emigrate within 6 months
  • 1933 -1939 => 257 000 emigres
  • forced to leave all their belongings
• Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. Jewish people excluded from the government's civil service

  7th April 1933
• The Nuremberg Race Laws

  15th September 1935
• Decree for the registration of Jewish Property

  26th April 1938
• Decree prohibiting Jewish doctors practising medicine

  5th July 1938
• Decree to exclude Jewish people from German Economic Life (Arising from interministeral meeting chaired by Goring) 


  12th November 1938
• Law excluding Jewish pupils from schools and universities

  15th November 1938
• Law restricting the freedom of movement of Jewish people, for example public swimming pools, theatres

  28th November 1938
• Law for the compulsory closure and sale of all Jewish businesses

  3rd December 1938
• Decree for the introduction of curfew for Jewish people

  1st September 1939
• Laws before the start of WW2