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Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Blood quantum laws

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Members of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Oklahoma around 1877, including some with partial European and African ancestry
 
Blood quantum laws or Indian blood laws are those enacted in the United States and the former Thirteen colonies to define qualification by ancestry as Native American, sometimes in relation to tribal membership. These laws were developed by European Americans and thus did not necessarily reflect how Native Americans had traditionally identified themselves or members of their in-group, and thus ignored the Native American practices of absorbing other peoples by adoption, beginning with other Native Americans, and extending to children and young adults of European and African ancestry. Blood quantum laws also ignored tribal cultural continuity after tribes had absorbed such adoptees and multiracial children. Tribal enrollments were often incomplete or inaccurate for multiple reasons; individuals didn't trust the government and so they refused to enroll, families relocated before censuses were taken, or individuals were incorrectly identified by white men, whom were the census takers.

A person's blood quantum (abbreviated as BQ) is defined as the fraction of their ancestors, out of their total ancestors, who are documented as full-blood Native Americans. For instance, a person who has one parent who is a full-blood Native American and one who has no Native ancestry has a blood quantum of 1/2. Since re-establishing self-government and asserting sovereignty, some tribes may use blood quantum as part of their requirements for membership or enrollment, often in combination with other criteria. For instance, the Omaha Nation requires a blood quantum of 1/4 Native American and descent from a registered ancestor for enrollment.

In 1705 the Colony of Virginia adopted laws that limited civil rights of Native Americans and persons of one-half or more Native American ancestry. The concept of blood quantum was not widely applied by the United States government until the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. At that time, the government required persons to have a certain blood quantum to be recognized as Native American and be eligible for financial and other benefits under treaties or sales of land.

Since that time, however, Native American nations have re-established their own governments, asserting sovereignty in setting their own rules for tribal membership, which vary among them. In some cases, individuals may qualify as tribal members, but not as American Indian for the purposes of certain federal benefits, which are still defined in relation to blood quantum. In the early 21st century, some tribes, such as the Cherokee and Wampanoag, tightened their membership rules and excluded persons who had previously been considered members. Challenges to such policies have been pursued by those excluded. Though individuals can self-identify as Native American, Native Americans are the only racial group in the United States that has to have proof of ancestry to receive government benefits.

Origin of blood quantum law

European Americans passed "Indian Blood law" or blood quantum law to regulate who would be classified as Native American. The Constitution uses the word “Indian” twice but never bothers to define it. The first such law was passed in 1705 in the Colony of Virginia, to define Native Americans and to restrict the civil rights of people who were half or more Native American. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the US government believed tribal members had to be defined, for the purposes of federal benefits or annuities paid under treaties resulting from land cessions.

Many traditionalist Native Americans, known as “irreconcilables” or “blanket Indians,” were so suspicious of the government that they refused to enroll at all, making all their descendants unenrollable as well. Many Native American tribes did not use blood quantum law until the government introduced the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Some tribes, such as the Navajo Nation, did not adopt the type of written constitution suggested in that law until the 1950s. Given intermarriage among tribes, particularly those that are closely related and have settled near each other, critics object to the federal requirement that individuals identify as belonging to only one tribe when defining blood quantum. They believe this reduces an individual's valid membership in more than one tribe, as well as costing some persons their qualification as Native American because of having ancestry from more than one tribe but not 1/4 or more from one tribe. Overall, the numbers of registered members of many Native American tribes have been reduced because of tribal laws that define and limit the definition of acceptable blood quantum. 

"The U.S. census decennial enumerations indicate a Native American population growth for the United States that has been nearly continuous since 1900 (except for an influenza epidemic in 1918 that caused serious losses), to 1.42 million by 1980 and to over 1.9 million by 1990." In the 2000 census, there were 2.5 million American Indians. Since 1960, people may self-identify their ancestry on the US Census. Indian activism and a rising interest in Native American history appear to have resulted in more individuals identifying as having Native American ancestry on the census. 

For decades, individual tribes had established their own requirements for membership. In some cases, they have excluded members who had long been part of the tribe. Common tribal membership requirements required documented lineal descent from a Native American member listed on a prior tribal rations-issue roll, or the Dawes Rolls for the 'Five Civilized Tribes' in Oklahoma, or a late 19th-century census; in some cases they may also require a certain percentage of Native American ancestry, and demonstrated residence with a tribe or commitment to the community. Unlike the provisions of the Indian Reorganization Act, many tribes allow members to claim ancestry in more than one tribe. For instance, the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians accept persons of 1/4 North American Indian ancestry, plus documented descent from an ancestor listed in specific records. In part, this recognizes that the Odawa people historically had a territory on both sides of what is now the border between the US and Canada. 

Each federally recognized tribe has established its own criteria for membership. Given the new revenues that many tribes are realizing from gambling casinos and other economic development, or from settlement of 19th-century land claims, some have established more restrictive rules to limit membership.

In 2007 the Cherokee Nation voted in the majority to exclude as members those Cherokee Freedmen who had no documented ancestors on the Cherokee-by-blood list of the Dawes Rolls. However, the Cherokee Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that they were legitimate members of the tribe at that time. After the Civil War, the US required the Cherokee and other Native American tribes that had supported the Confederacy to make new treaties. They also required them to emancipate their slaves, and to give full tribal membership to those freedmen who wanted to stay in tribal territory. The Cherokee Freedmen often had intermarried and some had Cherokee ancestry at the time of the Dawes Rolls, qualifying as Cherokee by blood, but registrars typically classified them as Freedmen; registration was often inaccurate. Many individuals also refused to enroll or become documented because they didn't trust the government.

Similarly, in 2000, the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma attempted to exclude two bands of Seminole Freedmen from membership to avoid including them in settlement of land claims in Florida, where Seminole Freedmen had also owned land taken by the US government.

Since 1942, the Seminole have at times tried to exclude Black Seminoles from the tribe. The freedmen were listed separately on the Dawes Rolls and suffered segregation in Oklahoma. More recently, the Seminole refused to share with them the revenues of 20th-century US government settlements of land claims. The Center for Constitutional Rights has filed an amicus brief, taking up the legal case of the Black Seminoles and criticizing some officials of the Bureau of Indian Affairs for collaborating in this discrimination by supporting tribal autonomy in lawsuits. By treaty, after the American Civil War, the Seminole were required to emancipate slaves and provide Black Seminoles with all the rights of full-blood Indian members.
American Indian tribes located on reservations tend to have higher blood quantum requirements for membership than those located off reservation....[reference to table] [O]ver 85 percent of tribes requiring more than a one-quarter blood quantum for membership are reservation based, as compared with less than 64 percent of those having no minimum requirement. Tribes on reservations have seemingly been able to maintain exclusive membership by setting higher blood quanta, since the reservation location has generally served to isolate the tribe from non-Indians and intermarriage with them.

Issues related to blood quantum laws

Many Native Americans have become used to the idea of "blood quantum". The blood quantum laws have caused problems in Native American families whose members were inaccurately recorded as having differing full or partial descent from particular tribes. In some cases, family members or entire families have been excluded from being enrolled as members of their tribe even when they have no non-Native American ancestors.

At certain times, some state governments classified persons with African American and Native American admixture solely as African American, largely because of racial discrimination related to slavery history and the concept of the one drop rule. This was prevalent in the South after Reconstruction, when white-dominated legislatures imposed legal segregation, which classified the entire population only as white or colored (Native Americans, some of whom were of mixed race, were included in the latter designation). It related to the racial caste system of slavery before the American Civil War. Until 1870 there was no separate classification on the census for Indian. 

The Lumbee, a group that appeared to organize from a variety of free people of color on the North Carolina frontier in the 19th century, achieved state recognition as Croatan Indian in 1885 after Reconstruction. This separate status allowed them to establish a school system for their children distinct from that for freedmen's children.

The question of identity is complex. Researcher Paul Heinegg and Dr. Virginia DeMarce found that ancestors of 80 percent of free people of color (including individuals on the census later claimed as Lumbee ancestors) in the 1790 and 1810 censuses on the North Carolina frontier were descended from families of white women and African men, and were free in colonial Virginia because of the mother's status. Many mixed-race people in frontier areas identified as Indian, Portuguese or Arab to escape racial strictures.

In 1952 the Croatan Indians voted to adopt the name of Lumbee. (They were settled near the Lumber River, also called the Lumbee.) They achieved limited federal recognition in 1956 as an ethnic Indian nation by a special act of the US Congress, and accepted at the time that it was without benefits. Since then, they have tried to appeal to Congress for legislation to gain full federal recognition. Their effort has been opposed by several federally recognized tribes.

In other cases, because mixed-race children were often raised in the mother's Native American culture, U.S. society considered them Native American, despite European ancestry. (As the trappers, traders and soldiers on the frontiers were mostly men, for some time most European-Native American unions were between European men and Native women.)

In 1924 Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act, which required that every individual be classified as either white or black. (Some other states adopted similar laws.) In application, the law was enforced to the standard of the "one drop rule": individuals with any known African ancestry were classified as black. As a result, in the censuses of the 1930s and the 1940s, particularly in the South's segregated society, many people of African American and Native American heritage who were either biracial or multiracial were largely classified as black, even though they identified culturally as Native American. The result negatively affected many individuals with mixed African American and Native American heritage. Because there are few reservations in the South, such individuals had to provide evidence of ancestry to enroll in a tribe. The changes in historic records erased their documentation of continuity of identity as Indian. During the early years of slavery, some Native Americans and Africans intermarried because they were enslaved at the same time and shared a common experience of enslavement. Others made unions before slavery became institutionalized, as they worked together.

Today, the proposed regulations for children adopted into Native families are that they may not be federally recognized members unless they have a biological parent who is enrolled in a tribe. Such cases of adoption are probably less frequent than in the past. Historically, especially recorded during the colonial years and the 19th century in the American West, many tribes adopted young captives taken in war or raids to replace members who had died. Whether European or of another Native American tribe, the captives generally were fully assimilated into the tribal culture and were considered full members of the tribe. Generally, they remained with the tribe, marrying other members and rearing their children within the cultural tradition. 

In some cases, census rolls for tribes such as the Cherokee were incomplete due to intermarriage, immigration, treaties, or because the members were not living within the boundaries of the nation, and thus would not be recorded on the census. However, as noted above many people have identified as Native American on the US Census but are not eligible for tribal enrollment.

Some critics argue that blood quantum laws helped create racism among tribal members. The historian Tony Seybert contends that was why some members of the so-called Five Civilized tribes were slaveholders. The majority of slave owners were of mixed-European ancestry. Some believed they were of higher status than full-blood Indians and people of African ancestry. Other historians contend that the Cherokee and other tribes held slaves because it was in their economic interest and part of the general southeastern culture. Cherokee and other tribes had also traditionally taken captives in warfare to use as slaves, though their institution differed from what developed in the southern colonies.

Issues with DNA ancestry testing

No federally recognized tribe enrolls members solely based on DNA testing, as it generally cannot distinguish among tribes. Some tribes may require DNA testing only to document that a child is related to particular parents. Many researchers have published articles that caution that genetic ancestry DNA testing has limitations and should not be depended on by individuals to answer all their questions about heritage.

Many African Americans may have some Native American ancestry. But, in the PBS series led by historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr., called African American Lives, geneticists said DNA evidence shows that African-Native American admixture may not be that common. Gates summarized the data:
Only 5 percent of African Americans have at least one-eighth Native American ancestry (equivalent to one great-grandparent). On the other hand, nearly 78 percent of African Americans have at least one-eighth European ancestry (the equivalent to a great-grandparent), and nearly 20 percent have at least one-quarter European ancestry (the equivalent to a grandparent.)
Some authors, assert a much higher percentage of Native American ancestry because many people of African American descent knew about their Native American relatives, but felt that to acknowledge it would be to deny their African heritage. However, now many acknowledge both their African and Native American heritage.

Some critics thought the PBS series African American Lives did not sufficiently explain such limitations of DNA testing for assessment of heritage. In terms of persons searching for ethnic ancestry, they need to understand that Y-chromosome and mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) testing looks only at "direct" line male and female ancestors, and thus can fail to pick up many other ancestors' heritage. Newer DNA tests can survey all the DNA that can be inherited from either parent of an individual, but at a cost of precision. DNA tests that survey the full DNA strand focus on "single nucleotide polymorphisms" or SNPs, but SNPs might be found in Africans, Asians, and people from every other part of the world. Full survey DNA testing cannot accurately determine an individual's full ancestry. Though DNA testing for ancestry is limited more recent genetic testing research of 2015, have found that varied ancestries show different tendencies by region and sex of ancestors. These studies found that on average, African Americans have 73.2-82.1% West African, 16.7%-29% European, and 0.8–2% Native American genetic ancestry, with large variation between individuals.

Implementation

Many Native American tribes continue to employ blood quantum in current tribal laws to determine who is eligible for membership or citizenship in the tribe or Native American nation. These often require a minimum degree of blood relationship and often an ancestor listed in a specific tribal census from the late 19th century or early 20th century. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina, for example, require an ancestor listed in the 1924 Baker census and a minimum of 1/16 Cherokee blood inherited from their ancestor(s) on that roll. Meanwhile, the Cherokee Nation requires applicants to descend from an ancestor in the 1906 Dawes roll (direct lineal ancestry), but does not impose minimum blood quantum requirement. The United Keetoowah Band requires a minimum 1/4 blood quantum.

The Ute require a 5/8 blood quantum, the highest requirement of any American tribe. The Miccosukee of Florida, the Mississippi Choctaw, and the St. Croix Chippewa of Wisconsin all require one-half "tribal blood quantum", also a high percentage.

At the other end of the scale, some tribes, such as the Kaw Nation, have no blood quantum requirement. 

Many tribes, such as Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town and the Wyandotte Nation, require an unspecified amount of Indian ancestry (known as "lineal descendancy") documented by descent from a recognized member. Others require a specified degree of Indian ancestry but an unspecified share of ancestry from the ancestral tribe or tribes from which the contemporary tribal entity is derived, such as the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. Many tribes today are confederations of different ethnic groups joined into a single political entity making the determination of blood quantum challenging. 

Other tribes require a minimum blood degree only for tribal members born "off" (outside) the nominal reservation. This is a concept comparable to the legal principles of Jus soli and Jus sanguinis in the nationality laws of modern sovereign states.

Tribes requiring 1/2 degree blood quantum for membership

(equivalent to one parent)

Tribes requiring 1/4 degree blood quantum for membership

(equivalent to one grandparent)

Tribes requiring 1/8 degree blood quantum for membership

(equivalent to one great-grandparent)

Tribes requiring 1/16 degree blood quantum for membership

(equivalent to one great-great-grandparent)

Tribes determining membership by lineal descent

These tribes do not have a minimum blood quantum requirement, but members must be able to document descent from original enrollees of tribal rolls.

Tribes determining membership by both blood quantum and lineal descent

These tribes require both a specified blood quantum and lineal descent from an individual on a designated tribal roll.
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Nuremberg Laws

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Title page of the German government gazette Reichsgesetzblatt issue proclaiming the laws, published on 16 September 1935 (RGB I No. 100)
 
The Nuremberg Laws (German: Nürnberger Gesetze) were antisemitic and racial laws in Nazi Germany. They were enacted by the Reichstag on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). The two laws were the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour, which forbade marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans and the employment of German females under 45 in Jewish households; and the Reich Citizenship Law, which declared that only those of German or related blood were eligible to be Reich citizens; the remainder were classed as state subjects, without citizenship rights. A supplementary decree outlining the definition of who was Jewish was passed on 14 November, and the Reich Citizenship Law officially came into force on that date. The laws were expanded on 26 November 1935 to include Romani people. This supplementary decree defined Romanis as "enemies of the race-based state", the same category as Jews.

Out of foreign policy concerns, prosecutions under the two laws did not commence until after the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin. After the Nazis seized power in 1933, they began to implement their policies, which included the formation of a Volksgemeinschaft (people's community) based on race. Chancellor and Führer (leader) Adolf Hitler declared a national boycott of Jewish businesses on 1 April 1933, and the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, passed on 7 April, excluded non-Aryans from the legal profession and civil service. Books considered un-German, including those by Jewish authors, were destroyed in a nationwide book burning on 10 May. Jewish citizens were harassed and subjected to violent attacks. They were actively suppressed, stripped of their citizenship and civil rights, and eventually completely removed from German society. 

The Nuremberg Laws had a crippling economic and social impact on the Jewish community. Persons convicted of violating the marriage laws were imprisoned, and (subsequent to 8 March 1938) upon completing their sentences were re-arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Nazi concentration camps. Non-Jews gradually stopped socialising with Jews or shopping in Jewish-owned stores, many of which closed due to lack of customers. As Jews were no longer permitted to work in the civil service or government-regulated professions such as medicine and education, many middle class business owners and professionals were forced to take menial employment. Emigration was problematic, as Jews were required to remit up to 90% of their wealth as a tax upon leaving the country. By 1938 it was almost impossible for potential Jewish emigrants to find a country willing to take them. Mass deportation schemes such as the Madagascar Plan proved to be impossible for the Nazis to carry out, and starting in mid-1941, the German government started mass exterminations of the Jews of Europe.

Background

The National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP; Nazi Party) was one of several far-right political parties active in Germany after the end of the First World War. The party platform included removal of the Weimar Republic, rejection of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, radical antisemitism, and anti-Bolshevism. They promised a strong central government, increased Lebensraum (living space) for Germanic peoples, formation of a Volksgemeinschaft (people's community) based on race, and racial cleansing via the active suppression of Jews, who would be stripped of their citizenship and civil rights.

While imprisoned in 1924 after the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler dictated Mein Kampf to his deputy, Rudolf Hess. The book is an autobiography and exposition of Hitler's ideology in which he laid out his plans for transforming German society into one based on race. In it he outlined his belief in Jewish Bolshevism, a conspiracy theory that posited the existence of an international Jewish conspiracy for world domination in which the Jews were the mortal enemy of the German people. Throughout his life Hitler never wavered in his world view as expounded in Mein Kampf. The NSDAP advocated the concept of a Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community") with the aim of uniting all Germans as national comrades, whilst excluding those deemed either to be community aliens or of a foreign race (Fremdvölkische).

Nazi Germany

Members of the SA picket in front of a Jewish place of business during the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses, 1 April 1933.
 
Discrimination against Jews intensified after the NSDAP seized power; following a month-long series of attacks by members of the Sturmabteilung (SA; paramilitary wing of the NSDAP) on Jewish businesses, synagogues, and members of the legal profession, on 1 April 1933 Hitler declared a national boycott of Jewish businesses. By 1933, many people who were not NSDAP members advocated segregating Jews from the rest of German society. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, passed on 7 April 1933, forced all non-Aryans to retire from the legal profession and civil service. Similar legislation soon deprived Jewish members of other professions of their right to practise. In 1934, the NSDAP published a pamphlet titled "Warum Arierparagraph?" ("Why the Aryan Law?"), which summarised the perceived need for the law. As part of the drive to remove Jewish influence from cultural life, members of the National Socialist Student League removed from libraries any books considered un-German, and a nationwide book burning was held on 10 May. Violence and economic pressure were used by the regime to encourage Jews to voluntarily leave the country. Legislation passed in July 1933 stripped naturalised German Jews of their citizenship, creating a legal basis for recent immigrants (particularly Eastern European Jews) to be deported. Many towns posted signs forbidding entry to Jews. Throughout 1933 and 1934, Jewish businesses were denied access to markets, forbidden to advertise in newspapers, and deprived of access to government contracts. Citizens were harassed and subjected to violent attacks.

Other laws promulgated in this period included the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring (passed on 14 July 1933), which called for the compulsory sterilisation of people with a range of hereditary, physical, and mental illnesses. Under the Law against Dangerous Habitual Criminals (passed 24 November 1935), habitual criminals were forced to undergo sterilisation as well. This law was also used to force the incarceration in prison or Nazi concentration camps of "social misfits" such as the chronically unemployed, prostitutes, beggars, alcoholics, homeless vagrants, and Romani (referred to as "Gypsies").

Reich Gypsy Law

The Central Office for Combatting Gypsies was established in 1929. In December 1938 Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler issued an order for "combatting the Gypsy plague". Romanis were to be categorised in terms of their Roma ancestry as a racial characteristic, rather than their previous association as 'anti-social' elements of society. This work was advanced by Dr Robert Ritter of the Racial Hygiene and Population unit of the Ministry of Health, who by 1942, had produced a scale of ZM+, ZM of the first and second degree, and ZM- to reflect an individual's decreasing level of Romani ancestry. This classification meant that one could be classified as Roma and subject to anti-Roma legislation on the basis of having two Roma great-great grandparents. Dr Zindel of the Ministry of the Interior prepared a draft of a Reich "Gypsy Law" intended to supplement and accompany the Nuremberg Laws. According to Zindel, the "Gypsy problem" could not be dealt with by forced resettlement or imprisonment within Germany. He recommended identification and registration of all Roma, followed by sterilisation and deportation. In 1938, public health authorities were ordered to register all Roma and Roma Mischlinge. Despite Himmler's interest in enacting such legislation, which he said would prevent "further intermingling of blood, and which regulates all the most pressing questions which go together with the existences of Gypsies in the living space of the German nation", the regime never promulgated the "Gypsy Law". In December 1942, Himmler ordered that all Roma were to be sent to Nazi concentration camps.

"The Jewish problem"

The SA had nearly three million members at the start of 1934.
 
Disenchanted with the unfulfilled promise of the NSDAP to eliminate Jews from German society, SA members were eager to lash out against the Jewish minority as a way of expressing their frustrations. A Gestapo report from early 1935 stated that the rank and file of the NSDAP would set in motion a solution to the "Jewish problem ... from below that the government would then have to follow". Assaults, vandalism, and boycotts against Jews, which the Nazi government had temporarily curbed in 1934, increased again in 1935 amidst a propaganda campaign authorised at the highest levels of government. Most non-party members ignored the boycotts and objected to the violence out of concern for their own safety. The Israeli historian Otto Dov Kulka argues that there was a disparity between the views of the Alte Kämpfer (longtime party members) and the general public, but that even those Germans who were not politically active favoured bringing in tougher new antisemitic laws in 1935. The matter was raised to the forefront of the state agenda as a result of this antisemitic agitation.

The Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick announced on 25 July that a law forbidding marriages between Jews and non-Jews would shortly be promulgated, and recommended that registrars should avoid issuing licences for such marriages for the time being. The draft law also called for a ban on marriage for persons with hereditary illnesses.

Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, the Economics Minister and Reichsbank president, criticised the violent behaviour of the Alte Kämpfer and SA because of its negative impact on the economy. The violence also had a negative impact on Germany's reputation in the international community. For these reasons, Hitler ordered a stop to "individual actions" against German Jews on 8 August 1935, and the Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick threatened to take legal action against Party members who ignored the order. From Hitler's perspective, it was imperative to quickly bring in new antisemitic laws to appease the radical elements in the NSDAP who persisted in attempting to remove the Jews from German society by violent means. A conference of ministers was held on 20 August 1935 to discuss the question. Hitler argued against violent methods because of the damage being done to the economy, and insisted the matter must be settled through legislation. The focus of the new laws would be marriage laws to prevent "racial defilement", stripping Jews of their German citizenship, and laws to prevent Jews from participating freely in the economy.

Events at Nuremberg

NSDAP dignitaries at the 1935 Nuremberg Rally
 
The seventh annual Nazi Party Rally, held in Nuremberg from 10–16 September 1935, featured the only Reichstag session held outside Berlin during the Nazi regime. Hitler decided that the rally would be a good opportunity to introduce the long-awaited anti-Jewish laws. In a speech on 12 September, leading Nazi physician Gerhard Wagner announced that the government would soon introduce a "law for the protection of German blood". The next day, Hitler summoned the Reichstag to meet in session at Nuremberg on 15 September, the last day of the rally. Franz Albrecht Medicus and Bernhard Lösener of the Interior Ministry were summoned to Nuremberg and directed to start preparing a draft of a law forbidding sexual relations or marriages between Jews and non-Jews. The two men arrived on 14 September. That evening, Hitler ordered them to also have ready by morning a draft of the Reich citizenship law. Hitler found the initial drafts of the Blood Law to be too lenient, so at around midnight Frick brought him four new drafts that differed mainly in the severity of the penalties they imposed. Hitler chose the most lenient version, but left vague the definition of who was a Jew. Hitler stated at the rally that the laws were "an attempt at the legal settlement of a problem, which, if this proved a failure, would have to be entrusted by law to the National Socialist Party for a definitive solution". Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels had the radio broadcast of the passing of the laws cut short, and ordered the German media to not mention them until a decision was made as to how they would be implemented.

Text of the laws

Nuremberg Race Laws
 
Reich Citizenship Law
 
Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour
 
The two Nuremberg Laws were unanimously passed by the Reichstag on 15 September 1935. The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour prohibited marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans, and forbade the employment of German females under 45 in Jewish households. The Reich Citizenship Law declared that only those of German or related blood were eligible to be Reich citizens; the remainder were classed as state subjects, without citizenship rights. The wording in the Citizenship Law that a person must prove "by his conduct that he is willing and fit to faithfully serve the German people and Reich" meant that political opponents could also be stripped of their German citizenship. This law was effectively a means of stripping Jews, Roma, and other "undesirables" of their legal rights, and their citizenship.

Over the coming years, an additional 13 supplementary laws were promulgated that further marginalised the Jewish community in Germany. For example, Jewish families were not permitted to submit claims for subsidies for large families and were forbidden to transact business with Aryans.

Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour

Moved by the understanding that purity of German blood is the essential condition for the continued existence of the German people, and inspired by the inflexible determination to ensure the existence of the German nation for all time, the Reichstag has unanimously adopted the following law, which is promulgated herewith:
Article 1
  1. Marriages between Jews and citizens of German or related blood are forbidden. Marriages nevertheless concluded are invalid, even if concluded abroad to circumvent this law.
  2. Annulment proceedings can be initiated only by the state prosecutor.
Article 2
Extramarital relations between Jews and citizens of German or related blood are forbidden.
Article 3
Jews may not employ in their households female citizens of German or related blood who are under 45 years old.
Article 4
  1. Jews are forbidden to fly the Reich or national flag or display Reich colours.
  2. They are, on the other hand, permitted to display the Jewish colours. The exercise of this right is protected by the state.
Article 5
  1. Any person who violates the prohibition under Article 1 will be punished with prison with hard labour [Zuchthaus].
  2. A male who violates the prohibition under Article 2 will be punished with prison [Gefängnis] or prison with hard labour.
  3. Any person violating the provisions under Articles 3 or 4 will be punished with prison with hard labour for up to one year and a fine, or with one or the other of these penalties.
Article 6
The Reich Minister of the Interior, in co-ordination with the Deputy of the Führer and the Reich Minister of Justice, will issue the legal and administrative regulations required to implement and complete this law.
Article 7
The law takes effect on the day following promulgation, except for Article 3, which goes into force on 1 January 1936.

Reich Citizenship Law

The Reichstag has unanimously enacted the following law, which is promulgated herewith:
Article 1
  1. A subject of the state is a person who enjoys the protection of the German Reich and who in consequence has specific obligations toward it.
  2. The status of subject of the state is acquired in accordance with the provisions of the Reich and the Reich Citizenship Law.
Article 2
  1. A Reich citizen is a subject of the state who is of German or related blood, and proves by his conduct that he is willing and fit to faithfully serve the German people and Reich.
  2. Reich citizenship is acquired through the granting of a Reich citizenship certificate.
  3. The Reich citizen is the sole bearer of full political rights in accordance with the law.
Article 3
The Reich Minister of the Interior, in co-ordination with the Deputy of the Führer, will issue the legal and administrative orders required to implement and complete this law.

Classifications under the laws

1935
Translation Heritage Definition
Deutschblütiger German-blooded German Belongs to the German race and nation; approved to have Reich citizenship
Deutschblütiger German-blooded ​1⁄8 Jewish Considered as belonging to the German race and nation; approved to have Reich citizenship
Mischling zweiten Grades Mixed race (second degree) ​1⁄4 Jewish Only partly belongs to the German race and nation; approved to have Reich citizenship
Mischling ersten Grades Mixed race (first degree) ​3⁄8 or ​1⁄2 Jewish Only partly belongs to the German race and nation; approved to have Reich citizenship
Jude Jew ​3⁄4 Jewish Belongs to the Jewish race and community; not approved to have Reich citizenship
Jude Jew Jewish Belongs to the Jewish race and community; not approved to have Reich citizenship
Special Cases with First Degree Mischlinge
Date Decree
15 September 1935 A Mischling will be considered a Jew if they are a member of the Jewish religious community.
15 September 1935 A Mischling will be considered a Jew if they are married to a Jew. Their children will be considered Jews.
17 September 1935 A mixed-race child that is born of a marriage with a Jew, where the marriage date is after 17 September 1935, will be classified as a Jew. Those born in marriages officiated on or before 17 September 1935 will still be classified as Mischlinge.
31 July 1936 A mixed-race child originating from forbidden extramarital sexual intercourse with a Jew that is born out of wedlock after 31 July 1936 will be classified as a Jew.

Impact

1935 chart shows racial classifications under the Nuremberg Laws: German, Mischlinge, and Jew.
 
While both the Interior Ministry and the NSDAP agreed that persons with three or more Jewish grandparents would be classed as being Jewish and those with only one (Mischlinge of the second degree) would not, a debate arose as to the status of persons with two Jewish grandparents (Mischlinge of the first degree). The NSDAP, especially its more radical elements, wanted the laws to apply to Mischlinge of both the first and second degree. For this reason Hitler continued to stall, and did not make a decision until early November 1935. His final ruling was that persons with three Jewish grandparents were classed as Jewish; those with two Jewish grandparents would be considered Jewish only if they practised the faith or had a Jewish spouse. The supplementary decree outlining the definition of who was Jewish was passed on 14 November, and the Reich Citizenship Law came into force on that date. Jews were no longer German citizens and did not have the right to vote. Jews and Gypsies were not allowed to vote in Reichstag elections or the Anschluss. Civil servants who had been granted an exemption to the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service because of their status as war veterans were forced out of their jobs on this date. A supplementary decree issued on 21 December ordered the dismissal of Jewish veterans from other state-regulated professions such as medicine and education.

While Frick's suggestion that a citizenship tribunal before which every German would have to prove that they were Aryan was not acted upon, proving one's racial heritage became a necessary part of daily life. Non-government employers were authorised to include in their statutes an Aryan paragraph excluding both Mischlinge and Jews from employment. Proof of Aryan descent was achieved by obtaining an Aryan certificate. One form was to acquire an Ahnenpass, which could be obtained by providing birth or baptismal certificates that all four grandparents were of Aryan descent. The Ahnenpass could also be acquired by citizens of other countries, as long as they were of "German or related blood".

Under the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour (15 September 1935), marriages were forbidden between Jews and Germans; between Mischlinge of the first degree and Germans; between Jews and Mischlinge of the second degree; and between two Mischlinge of the second degree. Mischlinge of the first degree were permitted to marry Jews, but they would henceforth be classed as Jewish themselves. All marriages undertaken between half-Jews and Germans required the approval of a Committee for the Protection of German Blood. Few such permissions were granted. A supplementary decree issued on 26 November 1935 extended the law to "Gypsies, Negroes, and their bastards".

Beginning in 1941, Jews were required by law to self-identify by wearing a yellow badge on their clothing.
 
Persons suspected of having sexual relations with non-Aryans were charged with Rassenschande (racial defilement) and tried in the regular courts. Evidence provided to the Gestapo for such cases was largely provided by ordinary citizens such as neighbours, co-workers, or other informants. Persons accused of race defilement were publicly humiliated by being paraded through the streets with a placard around their necks detailing their crime. Those convicted were typically sentenced to prison terms, and (subsequent to 8 March 1938) upon completing their sentences were re-arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Nazi concentration camps. As the law did not permit capital punishment for racial defilement, special courts were convened to allow the death penalty for some cases. From the end of 1935 through 1940, 1,911 people were convicted of Rassenschande. Over time, the law was extended to include non-sexual forms of physical contact such as greeting someone with a kiss or an embrace.

For the most part, Germans accepted the Nuremberg Laws, partly because Nazi propaganda had successfully swayed public opinion towards the general belief that Jews were a separate race, but also because to oppose the regime meant leaving oneself open to harassment or arrest by the Gestapo. Citizens were relieved that the antisemitic violence ceased after the laws were passed. Non-Jews gradually stopped socialising with Jews or shopping in Jewish-owned stores. Wholesalers who continued to serve Jewish merchants were marched through the streets with placards around their necks proclaiming them as traitors. The Communist party and some elements of the Catholic Church were critical of the laws. Concerned that international opinion would be adversely swayed by the new laws, the Interior Ministry did not actively enforce them until after the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin that August.

The Interior Ministry estimated there were 750,000 Mischlinge as of April 1935 (studies done after the war put the number of Mischlinge at around 200,000). As Jews became more and more excluded from German society, they organised social events, schools, and activities of their own. Economic problems were not so easily solved, however; many Jewish firms went out of business due to lack of customers. This was part of the ongoing Aryanization process (the transfer of Jewish firms to non-Jewish owners, usually at prices far below market value) that the regime had initiated in 1933, which intensified after the Nuremberg Laws were passed. Former middle-class or wealthy business owners were forced to take employment in menial jobs to support their families, and many were unable to find work at all.

Although a stated goal of the Nazis was that all Jews should leave the country, emigration was problematic, as Jews were required to remit up to 90 per cent of their wealth as a tax upon leaving the country. Anyone caught transferring their money overseas were sentenced to lengthy terms in prison as "economic saboteurs". An exception was money sent to Palestine under the terms of the Haavara Agreement, whereby Jews could transfer some of their assets and emigrate to that country. Around 52,000 Jews emigrated to Palestine under the terms of this agreement between 1933 and 1939.

By the start of the Second World War in 1939, around 250,000 of Germany's 437,000 Jews had emigrated to the United States, Palestine, Great Britain, and other countries. By 1938 it was becoming almost impossible for potential Jewish emigrants to find a country that would take them. After the 1936–39 Arab revolt, the British were disinclined to accept any more Jews into Palestine for fear it would further destabilise the region. Nationalistic and xenophobic people in other countries pressured their governments not to accept waves of Jewish immigrants, especially poverty-stricken ones. The Madagascar Plan, a proposed mass deportation of European Jews to Madagascar, proved to be impossible to carry out. Starting in mid-1941, the German government started mass exterminations of the Jews of Europe. The total number of Jews murdered during the resulting Holocaust is estimated at 5.5 to 6 million people. Estimates of the death toll of Romanis in the Porajmos range from 150,000 to 1,500,000.

Legislation in other countries

Decree of Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria for approval of The law for protection of the nation
 
Some of the other Axis powers passed their own versions of the Nuremberg Laws.
  • In 1938, Fascist Italy passed the Italian Racial Laws and Manifesto of Race which stripped Jews of their citizenship and forbade sexual relations and marriages between Jewish and non-Jewish Italians.
  • Hungary passed laws on 28 May 1938 and 5 May 1939 banning Jews from various professions. A third law, added in August 1941, defined Jews as anyone with at least two Jewish grandparents, and forbade sexual relations or marriages between Jews and non-Jews.
  • In 1940 the ruling Iron Guard in Romania passed the Law Defining the Legal Status of Romanian Jews,
  • In 1941 the Codex Judaicus was enacted in Slovakia,
  • In 1941 Bulgaria passed the Law for Protection of the Nation,
  • In 1941 the Ustashe in Croatia passed legislation defining who was a Jew and restricting contact with them.
  • The Empire of Japan did not draft or pass any such legislation.

Existing copies

An original typescript of the laws signed by Hitler was found by the US Army's Counterintelligence Corps in 1945. It ended up in the possession of General George S. Patton, who kept it, in violation of orders that such finds should be turned over to the government. During a visit to Los Angeles in 1945, he handed it over to the Huntington Library, where it was stored in a bomb-proof vault. The library revealed the existence of the document in 1999, and sent it on permanent loan to the Skirball Cultural Center, which placed it on public display. The document was transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington in August 2010.
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