Focus Study 2: The Nazi state 1933-1939
The development of Nazi racial policy 1933 to 1939, including the Nuremberg Laws (1935) and Kristallnacht (1938), and the historiographical debate over the path to the Holocaust
A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Core Study dot point on Nazi racial policy 1933 to 1939. The 1933 boycott, the Nuremberg Laws (1935), Kristallnacht (1938), the historiographical debate between Dawidowicz and Mommsen, and the path from persecution to the Final Solution.
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What this dot point is asking
NESA examines Nazi racial policy as a process, not a single event. You need to trace the escalation from 1933 to 1939, name the key laws and events, and engage with the historiographical debate between intentionalists (Dawidowicz, Goldhagen) and structuralists (Mommsen, Broszat) about the road to the Holocaust.
The answer
1933: Legal discrimination
Nazi racial policy began the day Hitler took office. The boycott of Jewish businesses (1 April 1933) was the first national antisemitic action, led by Julius Streicher's SA but officially "spontaneous." Within a week, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service (7 April 1933) removed Jews from the civil service, the judiciary, and the universities. The Law against Overcrowding in Schools and Universities (April 1933) capped Jewish student enrolments at 1.5 per cent. The Editorial Law (October 1933) banned Jews from journalism.
By the end of 1933, Jews were excluded from public employment, journalism, the arts, and the professions in any state role.
1935: The Nuremberg Laws
Announced at the Nuremberg Rally on 15 September 1935.
The Reich Citizenship Law stripped Jews of German citizenship. Jews became "subjects of the state" without political rights.
The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour banned marriage and extramarital sexual relations between Jews and persons of "German or related blood." Jews were forbidden to employ female "Aryan" domestic workers under 45.
The First Supplementary Decree (14 November 1935) defined a Jew as anyone with three or more Jewish grandparents. Persons with one or two Jewish grandparents were classified as Mischling (mixed) of the first or second degree.
Saul Friedlander argues the Nuremberg Laws crystallised racial antisemitism into the basic operating logic of the state.
1936-1938: Aryanisation
The 1936 Berlin Olympics brought a brief, tactical lull. From 1937 the "Aryanisation" of Jewish businesses accelerated, often through forced sales below market value. The Decree on the Registration of Jewish Property (26 April 1938) required Jews to disclose all assets above 5,000 Reichsmarks, preparing the ground for systematic confiscation. By 1938, identification documents required the middle names "Israel" or "Sara" for Jews, and passports were stamped with a red "J."
November 1938: Kristallnacht
On 7 November 1938 Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish Jew, shot the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath in Paris in protest at the deportation of Polish-Jewish families. Vom Rath died on 9 November. That night, Goebbels coordinated a nationwide pogrom presented as "spontaneous." Between 9 and 10 November 1938, 91 Jews were killed (with hundreds more dying from suicide or injuries), 267 synagogues were burned, 7,500 Jewish businesses were vandalised, and around 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen.
The Jewish community was fined 1 billion Reichsmarks. The Decree on the Exclusion of Jews from German Economic Life (12 November 1938) closed all Jewish businesses. Jews were banned from schools, parks, theatres, and most public spaces.
Emigration and the road to war
Between 1933 and 1939, around 250,000 of Germany's 525,000 Jews emigrated, often after surrendering most of their property. The Evian Conference (July 1938) saw 32 nations refuse to relax immigration quotas for Jewish refugees. After the German invasion of Poland (1 September 1939), Nazi racial policy moved from emigration and persecution to ghettoisation and, from 1941, mass murder.
Historiography
Lucy Dawidowicz (The War Against the Jews, 1975) is the canonical intentionalist: Hitler intended the destruction of European Jewry from the writing of Mein Kampf (1924), and the 1933 to 1939 sequence is the unfolding of a plan.
Hans Mommsen ("The Realisation of the Unthinkable," 1986) is the canonical structuralist: there was no master plan; competing agencies radicalised policy in a cumulative process.
Christopher Browning (The Origins of the Final Solution, 2004) and Ian Kershaw take a middle position: ideology set the destination, but wartime opportunity and bureaucratic competition set the path. Kershaw's "twisted road to Auschwitz" image captures this.
Daniel Goldhagen (Hitler's Willing Executioners, 1996) controversially argues that "eliminationist antisemitism" was widespread in German society, not confined to Nazi institutions.
Escalation timeline
| Date | Event | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Apr 1933 | Boycott of Jewish businesses | First national action |
| 7 Apr 1933 | Civil Service Law | Jews excluded from public office |
| 15 Sept 1935 | Nuremberg Laws | Citizenship and Blood Law |
| 14 Nov 1935 | First Supplementary Decree | Mischling category defined |
| Aug 1936 | Berlin Olympics | Tactical lull |
| 26 Apr 1938 | Registration of Jewish Property | Aryanisation accelerates |
| 9-10 Nov 1938 | Kristallnacht | State-coordinated pogrom |
| 12 Nov 1938 | Decree on Exclusion from Economic Life | Jewish businesses closed |
| Sept 1939 | Invasion of Poland | Ghettoisation begins |
| 22 June 1941 | Operation Barbarossa | Einsatzgruppen begin mass shootings |
| 20 Jan 1942 | Wannsee Conference | Final Solution coordinated |
How to read a source on this topic
Section I sources on Nazi racial policy commonly include Kristallnacht photographs, the Nuremberg Laws text, Goebbels' diary entries, Victor Klemperer's diaries, and survivor testimonies recorded after 1945. Three reading habits.
First, distinguish perpetrator from victim sources. Goebbels' diary (10 November 1938) celebrates the "spontaneous" violence; Klemperer's diary entries record fear and bewilderment. Both are evidence, but of different things.
Second, fix the stage in the trajectory. A 1933 source (boycott) shows discrimination; a 1935 source (Nuremberg Laws) shows legal codification; a 1938 source (Kristallnacht) shows organised violence. The same Jewish community faces different states at each stage.
Third, treat the staged as state policy. Kristallnacht was presented as a "spontaneous" reaction to vom Rath's assassination but was coordinated by Goebbels with SA and SS participation. Treat "spontaneous" claims as themselves evidence of state intent.
Examples in context
Example 1. The Nuremberg Laws (15 September 1935). The Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour created the categories of Reichsburger and Jew (defined by grandparental ancestry in the November 1935 First Supplementary Decree). Saul Friedlander (Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, 1997) draws on Jewish-German diaries (Victor Klemperer, Willy Cohn) to show the immediate effects on professional life. Peter Longerich (Holocaust, 2010) reads the laws as the legal scaffolding for everything from the 1938 Aryanisation decrees to the Final Solution.
Example 2. The Kristallnacht reports (November 1938). Heydrich's telex of 10 November 1938 ordered SD and Gestapo units to coordinate but not to be visible. Approximately 91 Jews were killed, 267 synagogues burned, and 30,000 men sent to Buchenwald, Dachau, and Sachsenhausen. Christopher Browning (The Origins of the Final Solution, 2004) places Kristallnacht in the radicalisation curve between the Nuremberg Laws and the war; Hans Mommsen's structuralist account treats it as the result of competition between Goebbels, Goering, and the SS.
Try this
Q1. Source A is the Reich Citizenship Law (15 September 1935), Article 2 defining a Reichsburger as a German of "German or kindred blood." Using Source A and your own knowledge, explain how Nazi racial policy was legally formalised in 1935. [5 marks]
- What the marker wants. Define Reichsburger and Jew; cite the First Supplementary Decree of November 1935; link to professional exclusion.
Q2. Evaluate the extent to which Nazi racial policy between 1933 and 1939 was the product of a coherent ideological plan. [25 marks]
- What the marker wants. Weigh Dawidowicz intentionalism against Mommsen structuralism; use Friedlander on victim voices, Longerich on policy curve.
Q3. Compare the views of Lucy Dawidowicz and Hans Mommsen on the origins of Nazi antisemitic policy. [10 marks]
- What the marker wants. Dawidowicz (The War Against the Jews, 1975: long-planned trajectory) versus Mommsen (cumulative radicalisation); judgement.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of NESA exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
2020 HSC (verbatim)7 marksExplain the value and limitations of Source B in understanding the impact of Nazi repression on Jewish people.Show worked answer →
A 7-mark source-analysis task requires balanced value and limitations, with own knowledge.
- Step 1: Identify the source
- Note the date, the author, and the genre. Common Section I source types on Jewish persecution: Kristallnacht photographs (synagogue fires, smashed shop windows in Berlin), Jewish refugee testimonies, Goebbels' diary entries (especially 10 November 1938), Nuremberg Laws text, or extracts from Victor Klemperer's diaries (I Will Bear Witness, kept 1933 to 1945).
- Value
- A Jewish testimony or diary provides the lived experience of exclusion: the loss of citizenship after the Nuremberg Laws (September 1935), the public humiliation, the Aryanisation of property from 1937, the violence of Kristallnacht (9 to 10 November 1938). A Klemperer diary entry shows the daily texture of repression.
- Limitations
- A single perspective cannot capture the full scope. A photograph captures one moment, not the cumulative effect of 1933 to 1939. A perpetrator source (Goebbels' diary) reveals state intent but suppresses victim experience. Most Jewish testimonies are from survivors; the experience of the murdered is largely silent.
- Wider knowledge
- Around 250,000 of Germany's 525,000 Jews emigrated by 1939. The Evian Conference (July 1938) saw 32 nations refuse to relax immigration quotas. Saul Friedlander (Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1997) emphasises the importance of integrating victim voices into the historiography.
Markers reward balanced value and limitations, three to four substantive facts of repression, and a named historian.
Practice (NESA)6 marksExplain the significance of the Nuremberg Laws in the development of Nazi racial policy.Show worked answer →
A 6-mark "explain" needs three significances developed with evidence.
- Legal codification of racism
- The Nuremberg Laws (15 September 1935) were the first explicit legal framework that defined Jewish identity by ancestry rather than religion. The First Supplementary Decree (November 1935) classified anyone with three Jewish grandparents as a Jew, and created the intermediate category of Mischling (mixed). This made racial status hereditary and irreversible.
- End of Jewish citizenship
- The Reich Citizenship Law downgraded Jews from "Reich citizens" to "subjects of the state," removing political rights, the vote, and the protection of civil law.
- Foundation for later escalation
- The Nuremberg Laws established the legal architecture that later legislation (the 1938 decrees, Aryanisation, deportation orders) was built on. They also normalised state-sponsored racial classification in everyday administration: passports, schools, civil service records.
Saul Friedlander (Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1997) describes the laws as the moment when racial antisemitism became "the law of the land." Markers reward the technical detail (Mischling category), the political consequence, and the historiographical link to the wider trajectory.
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