"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (28 page)

The Law on the Revocation of Naturalization and the Deprivation of German Citizenship was passed as early as July 14, 1933.
⁴
According to it, naturalizations that took place between November 9, 1918, and January 30, 1933, could be revoked “if the naturalization [was] not deemed to be desirable.”
⁵
This regulation directly contradicted the Reich Citizenship Law of 1913, because under the latter, naturalization was fundamentally irrevocable, and ex officio rescission of citizenship was limited to certain well-defined exceptional cases (for instance, failure to heed a summons to return to the homeland in case of war, etc. [secs. 27–29]). A further grave contravention of existing law lay in the fact that not only citizens by virtue of naturalization but also citizens by birth were threatened with the loss of citizenship. Under section 2, Reich citizens (
Reichsangehörige
) living abroad who had “harmed German interests” by violating their “obligation to show allegiance to Reich and
Volk
” (that is, persons who had fled for political or racial reasons or were otherwise troublesome) could be declared to have forfeited their German citizenship. Both possibilities of depriving citizenship were discriminatory policies that worked above all to the detriment of German citizens of Jewish descent. If grounds for racial and political “incrimination” coincided in one person, the administration apparently focused exclusively upon the political behavior rather than the racial extraction of the person concerned.
⁶

As explained in the implementing regulations of the Reich minister of the interior dated July 26, 1933, the term
undesirable
as defined in section 1 of the law of July 14, 1933, was to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis according to “ethnic-national” principles, taking due account of all facts both before and after the naturalization;
⁷
that is to say, it was nothing other than a blanket clause that endowed the administration with unlimited means to proceed against any and all (racial) opponents of the regime, without the possibility of judicial review. Thus, as stated in those same implementing regulations, the primary targets to be considered for revocation of naturalization under section 1 were, logically enough, naturalized “eastern Jews” (
Ostjuden
) (“elements originating in Eastern and Southern Europe and their descendants”),
⁸
with exceptions made for those who had “fought in the World War or done particularly commendable service on behalf of Germany.” Also targeted were persons who had “committed a serious crime or misdemeanor or otherwise [behaved] in a way that detracted from the welfare of
Volk
and state,” that is, in a manner “disloyal to the Reich.”
⁹
Racial discrimination is already expressed here in unambiguous form: naturalized “eastern Jews” were deemed undesirable solely by virtue of their origin. They did not need to display any “disloyal” behavior toward the Reich; to the contrary, they were expected to furnish proof of special merit in order to retain their citizenship.

Here the institution of
Sippenhaftung
enters the picture—that is, penalization of an (entire) family for (political) crimes or actions committed by one of its members. Revocation of naturalization automatically extended to all family members who would not otherwise have acquired German citizenship (wives and minor children [sec. 16, RuStAG]).
¹⁰
No reasons were given for revocation, the right of appeal was denied,
¹¹
and revocation took effect upon proclamation in the
Reich Gazette
(sec. 2, par. 5, of the law of July 14, 1933).

The term
disloyal behavior
as it applied to forfeiture of German citizenship was even more broadly defined under section 2 of the law, which was also in force in the territories annexed to the German Reich beginning in 1938 (Austria and Sudetengau [or Sudetenland]).
¹²
As stated in the implementing regulations, this was defined as any behavior by which “a German encouraged propaganda inimical to Germany … or [sought to] demean Germany’s standing or the actions of the national government”
¹³
—offenses that might be laid at the feet of all opponents living abroad but also of all fugitives (particularly Jews), since the very fact of their emigration or flight was proof of their critical attitude.

The financial repercussions were also far-reaching. Upon initiation of deprivation proceedings, the assets of the persons concerned could be confiscated for a period of up to two years; once proceedings were concluded, their assets could be made forfeit to the Reich (sec. 2, par. 1, of the law).
¹⁴
Moreover, according to a later law passed in 1937, persons whose German citizenship was forfeited under these provisions were not permitted to inherit anything from Germans; gifts to them by German citizens were prohibited and punishable by law, as was the acceptance of gifts.
¹⁵
Thus, what we have here are provisions that were, in every detail, the exact forerunner of the later collective expatriation of Jews; indeed, the anti-Jewish excesses of later years brought no fundamentally new developments.

Nevertheless, such legal preliminaries were by no means extensive enough for the radical forces within the political leadership. The tendency toward unrestrained interpretation of legal standards served to impel them onward to new deeds. As early as the promulgation of the Reich Citizenship Law, there were calls for revision of the regulations on acquisition and forfeiture of German citizenship, and in particular for abolition of the provisions governing acquisition, forfeiture, and change in citizenship by application of the individual. Such cases, suggested the official commentators in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, were now to be “codetermined” by the state.
¹⁶
Although no such new, comprehensively defined legal revision took place, a considerable amount had still been accomplished. Besides the individual regulations already mentioned, sections 1 and 2 of the Law to Amend Reich and State Citizenship of May 15, 1935,
¹⁷
voided all cases in which there was a legitimate claim to naturalization under the Reich Citizenship Law and left future naturalizations solely up to the discretion of the authorities.

2. The Reich Citizenship Law, September 15, 1935 (
Reichsbürgergesetz
)

A further important pillar of this intended comprehensive revision was the Reich Citizenship Law of September 15, 1935,
¹⁸
which implemented the demands of the NSDAP program of 1920 (“Only national comrades can be citizens. Only persons of German blood can be national comrades…. Therefore, no Jew can be a national comrade”).
¹⁹
And the thirteen decrees to the Reich Citizenship Law laid the foundation for the later special legislation against the Jews.
²⁰
This law, like the simultaneously decreed Blood Protection Law, was effusively hailed by its authors at the Race Policy Office of the Reich Ministry of the Interior as “the result of a breakthrough recognition, put into real-life practice at the twelfth hour, of the inequality of the human race, as opposed to the smarmy liberal slogan touting the equality of anything that has a human visage.”
²¹
It was thereafter considered an “anchoring and supporting foundation of the entire political-ethnic order of the Third Reich.”
²²
Under it, the idea that “national comrade equals citizen” was annulled and a distinction set up between persons “of German or racially related blood” and persons “of foreign racial ethnicity.”
²³

Starting from a definition of the state as the “ethnic-political organization of the living organism of the
Volk
,” this law put citizenship on “an ethnic basis.” At its core was the principle of “like blood,”
²⁴
that is, the notion that only within the class of “like-blooded ethnic comrades” were racial-biological and constitutional citizenship identical. For these people, a privileged class of citizenship was created, the so-called Right of Reich Citizenship (
Reichsbürgerrecht
). As usual with key National Socialist ideas, its main feature was its indeterminacy, which resisted any legal definition. Nevertheless, because from the Nazi point of view the idea of race or blood comprised both biological and political elements (“spiritual essence”),
²⁵
the Right of Reich Citizenship was made up of two different components. Thus, under the regulation in section 2, paragraph 1, of the Reich Citizenship Law, only that “citizen of German or related blood who [proved] by his conduct that he [was] willing and able to serve the German
Volk
and Reich in fidelity” was considered a citizen of the Reich (
Reichsbürger
).
²⁶

Persons “of foreign blood” were thus automatically excluded from acquiring the protection of the Right of Reich Citizenship. According to the commentators in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, this meant, in Europe, only “Jews and Gypsies”;
²⁷
it was later amended to include members of certain Eastern European peoples as well. That Jewish subjects of the state were excluded from the Right of Reich Citizenship, however, was not stated in the law itself but only in the First Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law dated November 14, 1935.
²⁸

Corresponding distinctions were made in the definition of the rights and obligations of
Reichsbürgers
and simple citizens. The latter’s status in the Reich involved merely a “relationship of protection and obligation” (sec. 1, par. 1, of the Reich Citizenship Law), and thus they possessed a citizenship of inferior legal status. They enjoyed the protection of the state only within the framework—alterable at any time—of the prevailing laws.
²⁹
Full possession of rights was guaranteed only by the Right of Reich Citizenship. Although, juristically speaking, quite a dubious phenomenon, one that was conceived ad hoc on Hitler’s instructions during a few hours at the Nuremberg Party Congress of 1935 in order “to be able to show the beginning of
völkisch
legislation,”
³⁰
the Right of Reich Citizenship was treated as a concept of substantive law and provided with vague glosses: on the basis of his ethnic membership in the
Volk
, which in turn was determined by ancestry and political belief,
³¹
“the
Reichsbürger
owed [the Reich] obedience and loyalty” and thus stood in relation to it “in total existential obligation.”
³²
Only the
Reichsbürger
enjoyed all political rights (sec. 2, par. 3, of the Reich Citizenship Law). Because only he was in a position “to feel, know, and distinguish” what was German, he alone was “the
Volksgenosse
endowed with full political rights,”
³³
with legitimate claim to the protection and support of the state,
independent
of the framework of existing legal standards.

Outwardly, however, the distinction between citizens of the Reich (
Reichsbürger
) and subjects of the state (
Staatsangehörige
) was never completely realized. The Right of Reich Citizenship was to have been acquired by the bestowal of a so-called
Reichsbürger
Charter (
Reichsbürgerbrief
) (sec. 2, par. 2, of the Reich Citizenship Law). However, this was never issued. In the interim, all citizens “of German or racially related blood” who had possessed the right to vote in Reichstag elections at the time the Reich Citizenship Law took effect (September 15, 1935) were deemed to be
Reichsbürger
.
³⁴
Pending proof to the contrary, the subjective requirement for the Right of Reich Citizenship, “the will to serve the German people and the Reich,” was assumed to exist in citizens “of German or racially related blood.”
³⁵
By contrast, citizens who were not simultaneously members of the
Volk
, in violation of the guarantee of equal citizenship rights for all Germans (art. 109 of the Weimar Constitution), were deprived of their political rights, particularly the right to vote and the right to hold public office—a provision that, as evidenced by section 4 of the First Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law dated November 14, 1935, was first and foremost directed at Jews, as subjects of the German state.

Along with the creation of new terminology of Reich citizenship and state subject status went attempts to bring order to the muddle of ethnic-racial and traditional constitutional terms that had prevailed ever since the Nazi seizure of power.

Whereas the earlier provisions under special law had used the terms
Aryan descent
or
non-Aryan descent
, after the Nuremberg Laws of September 15, 1935, took effect, the only term in use was
German or racially related blood or non-German or racially unrelated blood
³⁶
—even though these terms were never officially defined.
³⁷
Persons of “German or racially related blood” were in future to be grouped together under the expression
German-blooded
,
³⁸
a term, however, that did not take hold to any great extent until the relevant regulations were promulgated beginning in 1939. Definitions of the terms
Jew
and
Jewish descent
were contained in section 5 of the First Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law dated November 14, 1935. Despite all attempts to find a racially based definition, it proved impossible to come up with an anthropological term;
³⁹
rather, for reasons of documentation, religious faith alone offered a defining criterion.
⁴⁰
Section 5 read as follows: