The Nature and Influence of Racism in Germany 1933-1939

The nature of racism in Germany from 1933-1939 was increasing, thriving under the influence of Hitler’s Nazi party. From the very outline of Nazism: the 25 point plan we can see racist views. For example point number 4 “Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently no Jew can be a member of the race”. Historian Ian Kershaw explains that racism within the nazi party was not the sole intent of Hitler but all of the people of authority in the party. For example Hitler’s minister for propaganda, Joseph Goebbles once wrote “The Jew is the enemy and destroyer of the purity of blood, the conscious destroyer of our race”. Hitler and his Nazi party mainly used racism to influence people to gain their support and create a pure German race, and this racism was expressed by use of propaganda.

Before and throughout 1933 to 1940 the Nazi party was using its anti Semitic views to gain supporters. The Nazis made the people believe that Jewish people were the source of a lot of problems facing Germany at the time for example the economic and political instability which had been caused by the Treaty of Versailles. In Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf  he states “In the oppression of the treaty (Versailles) and shamelessness of its demands, there lies the greatest propaganda weapon for the reawakening of a nation’s spirit.” The Nazis influenced the middle classes the most with anti-Semitism and usually targeted specific areas where anti-Semitism had been a tradition for example Franconia. Historian Jeremy Noakes expresses why the anti-Semitism was tolerated: “the fact that the latent anti-Semitism was extremely widespread meant that the party’s anti-Semitism was generally tolerated even where it had little active support”. The nature of the anti Semitic views was not only verbal, but also physical, for example the boycotting of Jewish shops and burning of books from Jewish authors. Although the racism was not at first a huge part of the Nazi party it was a large part of the Nazi party’s means in which to gain supporters.

The reason Hitler’s nazi party was so racist was that they believed in ‘purifying’ German people to create a master race called the Herrenvolk. This race was only for pure Germans with no Jewish and no general birth defects, such as blindness. If you were to hold a place of public service you had to be classed in the Herrenvolk race. The Nuremberg laws of 1935 were designed to clearly separate the Jewish people from the Germans. Discrimination of Jews had already been legalised before the Nuremberg laws but the Nuremberg laws attempted to use pseudoscience to create their Herrenvolk race, that is, by the use of a science without following any scientific method. The Nazis created a chart discriminating the Jews from the Germans by showing grandparents with a white dot showing pure German blood or a black dot showing Jewish heritage. If all four grandparents were white dots then the person was classed as German. From 1933 onwards physicians were allowed to limit the reproduction of these ‘inferior’ people. This was mainly done by forced sterilisations so that reproduction of them could not happen. To ensure the number of Jews was kept at bay Jews were not allowed to marry Germans. The Nuremberg laws of 1935 were a large part of defining the Nazi racist view against Jews. The Jewish were more heavily influenced that they were not wanted in Germany and the people of Germany were influenced into believing that Jewish were not good enough for Germany.