Discrimination in Nazi Germany

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Anti-Semitism was an important Nazi belief.  As soon as Hitler came to power in 1933 the persecution of the Jews started.

The first act of the Third Reich against the Jews was to organise a boycott of Jewish shops and businesses in April 1933, with SA brownshirts standing outside Jewish shops discouraging people from entering.  But it was not as successful as the Nazis had hoped.

Six days later the Reichstag passed a law which banned all Jews from working for the civil service (government).  But Hitler was forced by President Hindenburg to allow Jews who had fought, or who had a relative killed, in the First World War, to keep their jobs.

When Hindenburg died in 1934, the Nazis were able to increase their persecution of the Jews.  They were banned from public parks, swimming pools, cinemas, theatres and restaurants.

Things got even worse for the Jews in 1935, when at the massive Nuremberg rally, Hitler announced what became known as the Nuremberg Laws.  There were two of these laws:

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  1. The Reich Citizenship Act which said that no Jew could vote or be elected to a government post.  Jews were stripped of the right to be citizens of Germany.

  1. The Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour.  Jews were defined as anyone with a Jewish grandparent, and forbidden to marry or have sexual relations with German citizens.

The second of these two laws showed an important difference between the Nazis’ anti-Semitism, and how Jews had been persecuted before.  The Nazis said that the Jews inherited their evil from previous generations and the evil ...

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