Nuremberg Laws were two anti-Jewish laws enacted in 1935 by the Nazi government of Germany. The Nazis controlled Germany from 1933 to 1945. The laws were the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor. Both laws limited the rights of Jewish people and sought to keep Jews separate from other residents of Germany. The laws were announced at a Nazi rally in the city of Nuremberg on Sept. 15, 1935.
The Reich Citizenship Law stated that only people of “German or related blood” could be German citizens. On Nov. 14, 1935, Nazi authorities announced that Jews could not be citizens. The Nazis identified as Jewish any person who was descended from at least three Jewish grandparents. Under certain circumstances, they also included people who had only two Jewish grandparents. The idea that Jews could not be Germans was based on false Nazi beliefs about race. Nazis believed wrongly that Jews’ genes made it impossible for them to be good German citizens.
The Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor prohibited Jews from marrying German citizens or having sexual relations with them. It also made it illegal for Jews to employ German women under the age of 45 to work in their homes. In addition, the law forbade Jews to fly the German flag. The Nazis believed that children born from relationships between Jews and non-Jewish Germans would be weak and poorly adjusted.
The Nuremberg Laws were part of a process that declared Jews unwanted foreigners in Nazi Germany. Eventually, the Nazis’ anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish) policies escalated into the Holocaust—the systematic murder of Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II (1939-1945). The Nazis killed about 6 million Jewish men, women, and children—more than two-thirds of the Jews in Europe.
See also Anti-Semitism; Eugenics; Holocaust; Nazism.
