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A large chart of family trees in German. These charts are made of circles in various colors that would help determine someone’s racial membership according to the law.

The Nuremberg Race Laws

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What were the Nuremberg Race Laws? 

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

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

These laws informally became known as the Nuremberg Laws or Nuremberg Race Laws. This is because they were first announced at a Nazi Party rally held in the German city of Nuremberg. 

Why did the Nazis enact the Nuremberg Race Laws? 

The Nuremberg Race Laws
  • Massed crowds at the 1935 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg

    Spectators in the stands of the Zeppelinfeld look on as Adolf Hitler's car moves towards the speakers' platform at the opening of Reichsparteitag (Reich Party Day) ceremonies in Nuremberg. The Zeppelinfeld was part of the Nazi Party rally grounds. Nuremberg, Germany, September 1935.

  • Samples of the Nuremberg Race Laws

    Samples of the Nuremberg Race Laws (the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor). Germany, September 15, 1935.

  • Passports issued to a German Jewish couple

    Passports issued to a German Jewish couple, with "J" for Jude (the German word for Jew) stamped on the cards. Karlsruhe, Germany, December 29, 1938.

  • Hotel Reichshof flyer

    1939 flyer from the Hotel Reichshof in Hamburg, Germany. The red tag informed Jewish guests of the hotel that they were not permitted in the hotel restaurant, bar, or in the reception rooms. The hotel management required Jewish guests to take their meals in their rooms. Following the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, Jews were systematically excluded from public places in Germany.

  • Ruth Gabriele Silten

    Gabriele was the only child of Jewish parents living in the German capital of Berlin. Her grandfather owned a pharmacy and a pharmaceuticals factory, where Gabriele's father also made his living.

    1933-39: In 1938 the Nazis forced Ruth's grandfather to sell his factory and pharmacy for very little money to an "Aryan" German. After that, her father decided they should move to Amsterdam where it was safer for Jews. She was 5 years old and wanted to stay in Berlin. She didn't understand why she had to leave her toys and friends. In Amsterdam Ruth had to learn a whole new language when she began elementary school, but she soon began to make new friends there.

    1940-44: In May 1940 Germany invaded the Netherlands. Ruth remembers being frightened seeing the German troops march into the city. When she went to school she had to wear a yellow Jewish star, and she couldn't play with her Christian friends anymore. When she was 9, her family was deported to a camp in the eastern Netherlands called Westerbork. There, during the day while her parents worked, Ruth learned to steal things to barter for food. A year later Ruth and her family were sent to the Theresienstadt ghetto. In the ghetto she was hungry all the time.

    Twelve-year-old Gabriele and her parents were liberated from Theresienstadt in May 1945. That June, the Silten family returned to Amsterdam, where they resettled.

  • Henny Schermann

    Henny's parents met in Germany soon after her father emigrated from the Russian Empire. Henny was the first of the Jewish couple's three children. The family lived in Frankfurt am Main, an important center of commerce, banking, industry and the arts.

    1933-39: After the Nazis came to power, they began to persecute Jews, Roma (Gypsies), men accused of homosexuality, people with disabilities, and political opponents. In 1938, as one way of identifying Jews, a Nazi ordinance decreed that "Sara" was to be added in official papers as a middle name for all Jewish women. Twenty-six-year-old Henny was working as a shop assistant, and was living with her family in Frankfurt.

    1940-44: In early 1940 Henny was arrested in Frankfurt and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp for women. On the back of her prisoner photo was written: "Jenny (sic) Sara Schermann, born February 19, 1912, Frankfurt am Main. Unmarried shopgirl in Frankfurt am Main. Licentious lesbian, only visited such [lesbian] bars. Avoided the name 'Sara.' Stateless Jew."

    Henny was among a number of Ravensbrück prisoners selected for murder. In 1942 Henny was gassed at the Bernburg killing facility.

  • Arthur Menke

    Arthur was born to a Jewish family in Germany's largest port city, Hamburg. His father owned a small factory that manufactured rubber stamps. In the early 1930s, Hamburg was home to the fourth largest Jewish community in Germany, which had numerous social and cultural institutions.

    1933-39: By 1935 conditions for Hamburg's Jews were bad. Arthur's family was moved to another part of town and in 1938, the Nazis seized his father's business. On national holidays many German citizens unfurled red, white and black Nazi flags to show patriotism. Arthur and his sister made their own "Nazi" flag and hung it out of the window. But his parents got angry with them and reeled it back in. Arthur and his sister didn't understand why they couldn't support their own country.

    1940-44: In 1941 Arthur was deported 800 miles east to Minsk ghetto in the USSR. The ghetto there was vast, with 85,000 people. He was put to work in a nearby German army base, cutting peat for fuel. The soldiers were regular army and didn't abuse the prisoners as badly as did the SS. Walking to and from our labor site, he would push the guard's bicycle for him. Food was so scarce that one day he locked Arthur in the potato cellar so he could steal potatoes for him. He let Arthur take some for himself. They smuggled them back to camp on his bike.

    After two years in Minsk, Arthur was deported to various camps in Poland where he was put to work welding planes. He was liberated while on a forced march to the Dachau camp in 1945.

  • Johanna Gerechter Neumann describes anti-Jewish measures in Hamburg, Germany

    Amid intensifying anti-Jewish measures and the 1938 Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogrom, Johanna's family decided to leave Germany. They obtained visas for Albania, crossed into Italy, and sailed in 1939. They remained in Albania under the Italian occupation and, after Italy surrendered in 1943, under German occupation. The family was liberated after a battle between the Germans and Albanian partisans in December 1944.

  • Edward Adler describes arrest and imprisonment in prewar Germany for his relationship with a non-Jewish woman

    Edward was born to a Jewish family in Hamburg. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws prohibited marriage or sexual relations between German non-Jews and Jews. Edward was then in his mid-twenties. Edward was arrested for dating a non-Jewish woman. Classified as a habitual offender, he was later deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, near Berlin. He was forced to perform hard labor in construction projects. Edward had married shortly before his imprisonment, and his wife made arrangements for their emigration from Germany. Edward was released from custody in September 1938 and left Germany. He stayed with relatives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and later immigrated to the United States.

The Nazis enacted the Nuremberg Laws, because they wanted to put their ideas about race into law. They believed in the false theory that the world is divided into distinct races that are not equally strong and valuable. The Nazis considered Germans to be members of the supposedly superior “Aryan” race. They saw the so-called Aryan German race as the strongest, and most valuable race of all. 

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 sexual 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. 

Who was Jewish according to the Nuremberg Laws?

According to the Nuremberg Laws, a person with three or four Jewish grandparents was a Jew. A grandparent was considered Jewish if they belonged to the Jewish religious community. Thus, the Nazis defined Jews by their religion (Judaism), and not by the supposed racial traits that Nazism attributed to Jews. 

The laws also categorized some people in Germany as “Mischlinge” (“mixed-race persons”). According to law, Mischlinge were neither German nor Jewish. These were people who had one or two Jewish grandparents.

The Nazi regime required individuals to prove their grandparents’ racial identities. To do so, people used religious records. These included baptism records, Jewish community records, and gravestones. 

Did the Nuremberg Laws apply to other groups?

Yes. While initially focused on Jews, the Nazi government clarified that the Nuremberg Laws also applied to Roma (also called Gypsies), Black people, and their descendants. They could not be full citizens of Germany. Nor could they marry or have sexual relations with “people of German or related blood.”

What were the consequences of the Nuremberg Laws? 

The Nuremberg Laws changed the everyday lives of Jews in Germany by making Jews legally different from their non-Jewish neighbors. In the years that followed, the Nazi regime enacted more and more anti-Jewish laws and decrees. These later laws relied on the definition of “Jew” as defined in the Nuremberg Laws. Examples of these other laws or decrees include: 

  • The Law on the Alteration of Family and Personal Names (August 1938)
  • The Decree on Passports of Jews (October 1938)
  • The Police Regulation on the Marking of Jews (September 1941)

The Nuremberg Laws were an important step in the Nazi regime’s process of isolating and excluding Jews from the rest of German society. 

Key Dates 

August 17, 1938
Law on the Alteration of Family and Personal Names 

On August 17, 1938, the Law on the Alteration of Family and Personal Names sets new name requirements for Jews in Germany. This law states that Jews can only be given specific Jewish first names. New Jewish parents must choose a name from a government-approved list. Also, any Jew who does not already have a name from this list, must add an additional first name: “Israel” (for men) and “Sara” (for women). Individuals have to report their new names to government offices. They also have to use both their given and added first names for business transactions. 

October 5, 1938
Decree on Passports of Jews

The Nazi regime invalidates the German passports of all German Jews. For their passports to become valid again, German Jews must submit them to a passport office so that they can be stamped with the letter “J.” The decree specifies that this applies to the passports of German Jews as defined by the Nuremberg Laws. 

September 1, 1941
Police Regulation on the Marking of Jews 

Beginning in September 1941, all Jews in Nazi Germany are required to wear a special yellow badge in public. The badge must be a palm-sized, yellow six-pointed star with black lines outlining the Star of David. The star must have the word “Jude” (German for “Jew”) written in the middle. It must be visible anytime a Jew appears in public. Specifically, Jews are required to sew this yellow star onto the left breast of their clothes. This order applies to all German Jews (as defined by the Nuremberg Laws) who are six years old and older. Germans categorized as Mischlinge do not have to wear the star.

Last Edited: Jul 2, 2021

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