GHL Bard College Berlin

November 10, 2021

CS2 Track A: Statelessness

Religion, Expulsion, and Extermination:

Becoming Stateless - Jews In Nazi Germany

Challenge Question: How did Nazis turn German Jews into pariahs? Did restrictions on

citizenship create the conditions for extermination?

Throughout the Middle Ages, religious prejudice and anti-Jewish violence caused Jews to dwell

on the periphery of society. This marginal existence then changed radically for the smaller

number of Jews residing in parts of Western and Central Europe. Beginning in the 17th and 18th

centuries, the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment led many European countries

to stress ideas of liberty, tolerance, rationality over traditions, and the separation of church and

state. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the potency of these ideas enticed people to lift

restrictions on Jews. France became the first country to provide full citizenship to its Jews in

1789, and many countries quickly followed. This legal change became known as Jewish

emancipation, and it marked the beginning of a new chapter in Jewish history. As a result, some

Jews found the opportunity to flourish in this quickly changing society. Jews were already much

more literate and well educated than most other groups that were around them, and education

as a method of social development has become increasingly significant. While more Jews than

ever before were becoming prominent and important members of society, they were still a

small minority in the late 1800s, and the great majority of Jews did not become affluent or

powerful. Nonetheless, their success prompted hostility from those who were ill-equipped to

deal with the changes brought about by new ideas and new industries in Europe.

For more than 1,000 years, myths born of Christian religious writing and imagery had been used

to justify the persecution of Jewish people. However, in an increasingly scientific and secular

society, opponents to Jewish prosperity attempted to justify old hostilities with the language of

science, claiming there was a scientific basis for preventing Jews from continuing to climb the

economic and social ladder. In 1879, the German publicist, Wilhelm Marr, published a book that

erroneously claimed that Jewish liberation had allowed Jews to seize control of German

industry. Additionally, he established the League of Anti-Semites to resist the Jews’ continued

emancipation and integration into society. While the idea of the Jews as a race of people rather

than a religious group had roots dating back to Spain hundreds of years earlier, however,

referring to the Jews as “Semites” was new, as was Marr's claim that the Germans and Jews had

been in a longstanding racial battle that could only end when one group had eliminated the

other.

Moreover, old biases against Jews were being justified all across the world in the name of racial

science and eugenics. Supporters of race science asserted that certain races were superior to

others and that the distinctions between groups were not due to ideas or circumstances, but

rather to biological differences passed on in the blood. The shift from anti-Judaism to

antisemitism was only feasible when Europeans conceived of the notion of race in the

nineteenth century. Wilhelm Marr believed the Jews were a race. As a result, antisemitism can

be considered a form of racism.

As Germany fought to recover from World War I, the power of old beliefs, the proliferation of

pseudoscientific theories about race, and the advent of a dictator who instilled public hate of

Jews would prove catastrophic. Between 1933 and 1945, Germany was dominated by Adolf

Hitler and the Nazi Party. During this time of totalitarian tyranny, the Nazis began to purge

Germany of Jews, driven by a belief in the superiority of an 'Aryan' race and a desire for racial

purity, initiating the process of stripping Jews of their citizenship and statehood. The Nazis

adopted new regulations based on racial ideas prominent in Nazi ideology at an annual party

assembly held in Nuremberg in 1935. The Nuremberg Laws classified Jews as a race rather than

a religious community. It excluded Jews from citizenship, prohibited them from marrying or

having sexual relations with those of "German or related blood.", and banned the employment

of German women under the age of 45 as domestic servants in Jewish households. The Reich

Citizenship Law stated that only those of German or related blood were defined as citizens;

thus, Jews and other minority groups were stripped of their German citizenship despite the fact

that they still had their German passports. A supplementary decree was issued and defined as

Jewish anyone with three Jewish grandparents, or two grandparents if the Jewish faith was

followed. By the start of World War II in 1939, around 250,000 of Germany's 437,000 Jews

emigrated to the United States, Palestine, Great Britain, and other countries.

In 1942, the Wannsee Conference was held between Nazi officials to plan the “final solution” to

the so-called “Jewish question”. The aim was straightforward: establish a strategy that would

result in a "final solution to the Jewish question" in Europe. Several heinous suggestions,

including mass sterilization and deportation to the island of Madagascar, were explored. When

deportation was not possible, Heydrich, a high-ranking German SS, police official during the

Nazi era, and a principal architect of the Holocaust recommended shipping Jews from all across

Europe to concentration camps in Poland, where they would be worked to death.

Did restrictions on citizenship create the conditions for extermination?

Citizenship limitations were one of the most important measures in Nazi Germany's

dehumanization of the Jewish people. Jews were routinely subjected to a wide range of abuses

because they were unable to exercise their basic human rights. Thus, they fell victims to

discrimination, exclusion, robbery, and violence without any legal protection. An example of this

would be the Kristallnacht (Crystal Night) in which Jewish houses, synagogues, and shops were

destroyed and hundreds of Jewish people were killed. Moreover, the Nuremberg Racial Laws

came into force which officially turned the Jews into second-class citizens with fewer rights than

non-Jews. Denying Jews’ civil rights at a period when nationalism was at its height, as well as

conflict and bloodshed sweeping over the country, all contributed to the normalization of

anti-Semitism, creating circumstances for extermination.

When Germany was defeated in the First World War in 1918. Right-wing fanatics blamed Jews

for the defeat. They also accused Jews of being capitalist exploiters who thrived at the cost of

others. Simultaneously, Jews were accused of being communists seeking global dominance

through revolution. The blame of the Jews did not follow a logical structure but the Nazis'

primary goal at the time was to expel Jews from Germany at any cost.

Between 1933 and 1939, a lot of steps were taken inside Germany to isolate German Jews from

the rest of the population. From sterilizing, isolating, and eventually killing, to rearm Germany in

preparation for the conquest war, but also to cover up that rearmament by talking peaceful

intentions publicly so that people elsewhere in the world wouldn't be too alarmed.

The Second World War was critical in escalating the Nazis' anti-Semitic agenda into genocide.

The Nazis intensified their anti-Jewish measures in response to certain occurrences throughout

the war. Mass murder appeared to be an extreme alternative to previous deportation efforts.

The war made deporting Jews to Madagascar difficult, and the plan to send Jews farther east

could not be carried out since victory over the Soviet Union was not imminent. As a result, the

"final solution to the Jewish question" came in the form of extermination.

Although the Republic of Germany heavily recognizes its past, and what the Jews had to

experience under Nazi rule from 1933-1945, there are still antisemitic presences in Germany.

The Nazi party may not exist in Germany anymore, but there is an established right-extremist

party called the AfD, Alternativ für Deutschland. The AfD is responsible for sending out racial

discriminatory advertisements. They believe that Germany should remain “German,” and that

immigrants, specifically from the middle-east, shouldn’t be allowed into the country. The AfD is

also responsible for using fear mongering tactics to make immigrants look like a threat to the

German people. The threats that the AfD are saying is that Muslims threaten German identity

and they will cause an increase of intermixing with anyone who isn’t “German.”

The Holocaust was one of the most horrific events to have ever happened in global history and

the remembrance of the Holocaust is important in order to prevent future actions that could

potentially be genocidal to a specific group of people. However, one genocide that isn’t heavily

recognized throughout the whole world is the Armenian genocide. This genocide started in

1915 and ended in 1917. The Ottoman authorities were responsible for killing 600,000 to even

1.5 million Armenians. It was also targeted at a specific group of people and it was also done

because of this idea of ethnic cleansing. Today, the Turkish government still doesn’t recognize

this genocide, but because it is not nationally recognized in certain countries doesn’t mean that

it shouldn’t be remembered. The recognition of many specific groups who were targeted by

different governments and authorities because of who they were ethnically and religiously is

essential when trying to prevent events like the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide to

happen in the future.

1933- Nazi Germany

2021- Democratic Germany