How many texts contain the Nuremberg Laws passed by Hitler in 1935?
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The Nuremberg Laws, adopted by Nazi Germany on September 15, 1935, are the founding texts of the Third Reich’s racist legal system. Officially, the Nuremberg Laws consist of two main laws, the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor. A third law, the Reich Flag Act, was promulgated on the same day in Nuremberg, but is generally not included in the term “Nuremberg Laws” in the strict sense, as it has no direct connection with Nazi racial policy.
The two real Nuremberg Laws are pillars of the Hitler regime’s anti-Semitic legislation.
The Reich Citizenship Act redefined German citizenship. Only people of German or related blood could now be considered Reich citizens. This law excluded Jews from civil rights, relegating them to the inferior status of individuals protected by the state but deprived of fundamental rights.
The Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor prohibited marriage and sexual relations between Jews and pure-blood Germans, and criminalized mixed marriages. It also prohibited Jews from employing German women as domestic servants and from hoisting the national flag.
These laws were the legal embodiment of the Nazi ideology of racial purity. They were based on pseudo-scientific criteria defining who was Jewish according to family ancestry, over several generations. This rigid framework would later lead to the mass exclusion of Jews from German society, paving the way for even more violent persecution.
In addition to these two laws, a third was passed on the same day, the Reich Flag Law. This made the swastika flag the official emblem of Germany. This highly symbolic measure was intended to reinforce the ideological unity of the regime.
However, this law had no racial or legal dimension on the rights of citizens, which explains why it is not considered a Nuremberg law in the strict sense. In official Nazi texts, only the first two are referred to as such.
These laws were passed at the annual Nazi party congress in Nuremberg, hence their name. They were a decisive step in the establishment of Hitler’s racist state, providing a legal basis for state anti-Semitism. They were followed by numerous other discriminatory measures, culminating in the deportation and extermination of Jews during the Holocaust.
The Nuremberg Laws show how an authoritarian regime can abuse the law to serve an ideology of hatred. After the war, they were also used as evidence at the Nuremberg trials to demonstrate the systematic planning of Nazi crimes.
The Nuremberg Laws include two official texts of a racial nature, and sometimes a third law, on the flag, is mentioned because it was passed on the same day. However, only the first two texts fully embody the discriminatory and anti-Semitic spirit of the Nazi regime. It is essential to understand the structure of these laws to grasp how a mortifying ideology can become legally anchored in a state.
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How many texts contain the Nuremberg Laws passed by Hitler in 1935?
Answer
The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 include two official racial texts, but a third, on the flag, was promulgated on the same day as a symbolic gesture.