LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
FEBRUARY 28, 1933
REICHSTAG FIRE DECREE
• On February 27, 1933, an arsonist
burned down the Reichstag, the German
parliament building.
• The “Decree of the Reich President for
the Protection of the People and the
State,” known as the “Reichstag Fire
Decree,” declared a state of emergency.
• With Nazi encouragement, President von
Hindenburg suspended freedom of
speech, freedom of the press, and the
right to assemble. The government could
arrest political opponents without
charge, dissolve political organizations,
and censor newspapers.
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
MARCH 23, 1933
ENABLING ACT
• The German parliament passed the
“Law for Rectification of the
Distress of Nation and Reich,”
commonly called the “Enabling
Act.” The law allowed Hitler to
propose and sign legislation into
law without consulting the
parliament.
• This law effectively created a
dictatorship in Germany.
• This propaganda flyer exclaims,
“The Reichstag in Flames!” and
urges, “Choose Hitler!”
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
APRIL 7, 1933
CIVIL SERVICE LAW
• The German government issued the
“Law for the Restoration of the
Professional Civil Service.”
• The law removed Jews and political
opponents of the Nazis from civil
service positions, including school,
university, and government jobs.
People were exempt only if they had
been in that job before August 1914,
had fought in World War I, or had
lost a father or son in the war.
• Most Jewish lawyers were also
forbidden to practice law.
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
APRIL 25, 1933
EDUCATION LAW
• The German government issued the
“Law Against Overcrowding in
Schools and Universities.”
• The law stated that Jewish students
could be no more than 5 percent of the
student population of any public school
or university.
• Many Jewish students had to leave
public school and start attending
private school.
• German schools taught Nazi racial
ideas about the superiority of “Aryans”
and the inferiority of Jews.
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
JULY 14, 1933
STERILIZATION LAW
• The German government passed the
“Law for the Prevention of
Offspring with Hereditary
Diseases.”
• The law allowed the government to
forcibly sterilize people with
physical or mental disabilities so
they could not have children.
• Under the law, 400,000 Germans
were sterilized from January 1934
to May 1945.
• The caption of this propaganda slide
reads “Life only as a Burden.”
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
OCTOBER 4, 1933
PRESS CENSORSHIP LAW
• The “Editors’ Law” forbade Jews
from working in journalism.
• The German Propaganda Ministry
kept registries of “racially pure”
editors and journalists. New reporters
had to register and show they were not
Jewish.
• Newspapers could not publish any
information that would “weaken the
strength of the Reich abroad or
at home.”
• Journalists who broke this law could
be sent to concentration camps.
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
NOVEMBER 24, 1933
LAW AGAINST “CRIMINALS”
• The German government passed a
“Law Against Dangerous Habitual
Criminals.”
• The government was authorized
to hold prisoners indefinitely, even
if they had successfully served a
prison term, if Nazi officials
decided the prisoner was a
“dangerous habitual criminal.”
• Instead of being released from
jail, the prisoner would often be
transferred to a concentration
camp.
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
MARCH 16, 1935
MANDATORY MILITARY SERVICE
• The German government enacted
a conscription law, which applied
to all men between 18 and 45.
• After May 1935, drafted soldiers
had to show evidence that they were
“Aryan.” Jews were forbidden to
serve, and Jehovah’s Witnesses
refused to join the military.
• Hitler also officially announced that
Germany would begin rebuilding its
military (which it was already
secretly doing). This was a violation
of the Treaty of Versailles, which
had limited the size of Germany’s
military after World War I.
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
APRIL 1, 1935
JEHOVAH’S WITNESS
• The German government banned the Watchtower
Bible and Tract Society, a Jehovah’s Witness
publishing house. Local laws had already banned
the Jehovah’s Witness organization entirely. Many
Witnesses violated laws against practicing their
religion and distributing religious literature.
• Jehovah’s Witnesses also refused to swear
allegiance to Hitler or Nazi Germany or to serve
in the military.
• Witnesses faced persecution and arrest. To be
released from imprisonment, they could sign a
form like this one, swearing allegiance to Nazi
Germany. Few did so.
ORGANIZATION BANNED
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
JUNE 28, 1935
REVISION OF PARAGRAPH 175
• The German government revised an
existing law that already outlawed
male homosexuality.
• The revision expanded what
activities qualified as sexual contact
and increased the punishments for
those acts.
• Gay men were persecuted because
they were seen as corrupting
“German values” and not adding to
the population. Because lesbians
could still have biological children,
they were usually not targeted.
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
SEPTEMBER 15, 1935
REICH CITIZENSHIP LAW
• This law defined who the German
government considered “German”
and who was a “Jew.”
• The law defined Jews as a race
identified by blood and genealogy.
It did not identify Judaism as a
religion or culture.
• Under this law, Jews lost their
citizenship and became “subjects
of the state.”
• This law and the “Law for the
Protection of German Blood and
German Honor” are called the
“Nuremberg Race Laws.”
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
SEPTEMBER 15, 1935
LAW FOR THE PROTECTION OF
• The German government
banned the marriage between
Jews and non-Jews.
• It also made sexual relations
between these “mixed race”
couples illegal. This crime was
called Rassenschande [race
defilement].
• This law and the “Reich
Citizenship Law” are called
the “Nuremberg Race Laws.”
GERMAN BLOOD AND HONOR
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
NOVEMBER 14, 1935
RACIAL DEFINITIONS EXPLAINED
• The German government issued the “First
Regulation” to the September 15, 1935 Reich
Citizenship Law.
• The regulation clarified that Germans who were
descended from one or two Jewish grandparents
would be considered Mischling (mixed race).
Those who had three or more Jewish
grandparents were classified as Jews.
• Mischling were still permitted to vote and hold
civil service jobs.
• German Jews who served in World War I lost
their exemption from the April 7, 1933 law.
They had to retire from civil service jobs by the
end of the year.
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
NOVEMBER 26, 1935
NUREMBERG LAWS EXTENDED
• The Reich Minister of the Interior,
Wilhelm Frick, announced an expansion
of the September 15, 1935 Reich
Citizenship Law.
• Frick stated that the citizenship law also
applied to Roma and Sinti (so-called
“gypsies”) and to Afro-Germans.
• Roma, Sinti, and Afro-Germans lost their
citizenship and were not permitted to
marry “Aryan” Germans.
• This racial identity card identifies Konrad
Lehman as a Zigeuner (Gypsy).
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
AUGUST 17, 1938
JEWISH NAME LAW
• The “Law on the Alteration
of Family and Personal
Names” required Jews who
did not have “Jewish first
names” to take the middle
names “Israel” (for men) or
“Sara” (for women).
• By January 1, 1939, all Jews
needed to obtain new
passports or identity cards
listing their new names.
These documents were
marked with the letter “J.”
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
NOVEMBER 12, 1938
ANTI-JEWISH ECONOMY LAW
• The “Decree on the Exclusion of Jews
from Economic Life” prohibited Jews
from owning businesses or engaging
in trade.
• Jewish-owned businesses had already
faced pressure to “Aryanize,” which
meant that the Jewish owner would be
forced to sell his or her business at a
steep discount to a non-Jewish
employee or Nazi supporter.
• This photo was taken at Arthur Lewy’s
cigar shop in Berlin in the 1930s.
After this decree, Arthur was forced
to “Aryanize” his shop and could no
longer work.
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
EUTHANASIA DECREE
• In the fall of 1939, Hitler signed a note that
authorized designated physicians to carry
out “mercy killings.” In fact, the letter was
meant to protect doctors participating in the
“euthanasia” program, a secret program of
mass murder targeting institutionalized
people with disabilities.
• The Nazi euthanasia program was called
“Operation T-4” because the address where
it was planned was Tiergartenstrasse 4 in
Berlin.
• Operation T4 was Germany’s first program
of mass murder. Historians estimate
250,000 people were murdered as part of
the Nazi euthanasia program.
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
JUNE 6, 1941
GERMAN MILITARY ISSUES
• Commissars were officials in the
Soviet Communist Party assigned
to Soviet military units. They
spread patriotic, pro-communist
propaganda to Soviet troops.
• This order authorized and
encouraged German soldiers to
execute commissars.
• The commissar order sent a
message to the German military
that they did not have to follow the
international laws of war.
COMMISSAR ORDER
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
SEPTEMBER 1, 1941
JEWISH BADGE INTRODUCED
• A “Jewish badge” was not unique to Nazi
Germany but had a long history. In pre-modern
times, Jews were sometimes forced to wear
badges, patches, medals, or other means of
identification. These orders were almost always
accompanied by antisemitic laws.
• Nazi Germany forced Jews to wear badges—most
often a yellow patch in the shape of a Star of
David—as an easy way to identify them.
• Geography mattered. Jews in German-occupied
Poland were forced to wear a badge beginning in
1939; Jews in the Netherlands didn’t have to wear
one until 1942.
IN GERMANY
LAWS AND DECREES
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
SEPTEMBER 5, 1942
ANNOUNCEMENT OF DEATH
• Non-Jews were often warned against assisting
Jews. Although this poster was issued in Warsaw
in September 1942, this warning was not new or
limited to Poland.
• The poster warned that Jews in hiding would be
subjected to the death penalty. Anyone caught
hiding Jews or helping them—transporting
them, buying valuables from them, or providing
them with food—would also be sentenced to
death in Poland.
• Very few non-Jews were willing to risk their
lives to help Jews.
PENALTY FOR AIDING JEWS
LAWS AND DECREES
