17 - Antisemitic Policy in the Early Years of the Third Reich

Summary

Antisemitism was a determining feature of Nazi ideology. The racial state was to be established through the so-called “Judenpolitik,” which aimed to “reduce Jewish influence,” make life for Jews in Germany difficult or impossible, and eventually drive Jews out of Germany. Although this policy was directly inspired by Hitler’s own thinking and by Nazi ideology, the resulting discrimination and persecution, culminating in genocide, was not a linear top-down process but rather the result of a dynamic interaction between central Nazi Party and state institutions, often triggered by bottom-up initiatives by local party activists at municipal level. Terror against Jews was used to drive this policy. It encompassed coercion and violence against Jews or people considered to be Jewish accompanied by legal measures to oust Jews from public life in Germany, reflecting what émigré lawyer Ernst Fraenkel described as a “dual state”: a “state of measure or action,” which used terror to quench opposition and fight “racial opponents,” and the “state of norms,” which employed legislation to achieve its aims while preserving legal certainty in order to avoid antagonizing majority society.