13 Spring 2026 Tomorrow not a German man nor a German woman shall enter a Jewish store. Jewish trade throughout Germany must remain paralyzed tomorrow. We shall then call a three-day pause in order to give the world a chance to recant its anti-German agitation. If it has not been abandoned at the end of that respite, the boycott will be resumed Wednesday until German Jewry has been annihilated.14 On April 6, Hitler himself weighed in. “We must meet the natural demand of Germany for intellectual leadership according to our own kind by the early elimination of the preponderance of Jewish intellectuals from our cultural and spiritual life,” he told a reception for new leaders of the German Association of Medical Associations. “True intellectual achievements have never been made by racial aliens but always by strictly Aryan Germanic spiritual forces.”15 Turning to the anti-German protests in the United States, Hitler expressed his admiration for the discriminatory attitudes that were prevalent in the U.S. at the time. “The American people,” he said, “were the first to draw practical political consequences from the differentiation of races. Through its immigration law America has inhibited the unwelcome influx of such races as it has been unable to tolerate within its midst.” “Nor,” he added insightfully, “is America ready now to open its doors to Jews fleeing from Germany.” Over the next two years, the German authorities increasingly tightened the noose around the collective necks of Germany’s Jews until September 1935 when the German parliament, the Reichstag, enacted two draconian laws that formalized the inferior status of Jews in Nazi Germany. These were the aforementioned Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, collectively known as the Nuremberg Laws because they were announced by Hitler at a Nazi Party rally in the city of Nuremberg.16 The first of these provided that “only a subject of the State who is of German or kindred blood” can be a citizen of the Reich (Reichsbürger) with “full political rights.” This meant that Jews and other non-Aryans were relegated to the inferior status of subjects of the State (Staatsangehörige), essentially individuals without rights but, according to this law, with “particular obligations towards the Reich,” and who were thus effectively at the mercy of the German government.17 While the core Reich Citizenship Law did not mention or refer to Jews, a supplemental decree issued on November 15, 1935, provided that “A Jew cannot be a citizen of the Reich. He has no right to vote in political affairs, he cannot occupy a public office,” and that Jewish public servants would have to retire at the end of 1935.18 This supplemental decree also defined a Jew as anyone with three grandparents “who were fully Jewish by race,” as well as someone with two “fully Jewish grandparents” if they (a) belonged to the Jewish religious community, (b) were married to a Jew, (c) were the offspring from a marriage with a Jew, or (d) were the offspring of an extramarital relationship with a Jew and was born after July 31, 1936. The regulation also created the category of a Mischling — a person with mixed Jewish blood who was not classified as a Jew. This decree further provided that “The Führer and Reich Chancellor can grant exemptions from the regulations laid down in the law.” The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, meanwhile, prohibited and criminalized marriages and sexual relations between Jews and nationals of German or related blood. This law also prohibited Jews from employing female nationals of German or related blood in their households.19 14. “Nazis Cut Boycott to Day with Threat of Renewal if World Does Not Recant,” N.Y. TIMES, April 1, 1933, at 1. 15. “Hitler Challenges American Protests,” N.Y. TIMES, April 7, 1933, at 10. 16. A third Nuremberg law enacted at the same time relates to the German flag and is of no relevance here. 17. The Reich Citizens Law (September 15, 1935) and the First Regulation to the Reich Citizenship Law (November 14, 1935), German History in Documents and Images, Vol. 7, Nazi Germany, 1933-1945, available at https://ghdi.ghi-dc. org/pdf/eng/English32.pdf; the German text of the Reich Citizens Law (Reichsbürgergesetz) is available at https:// www.jku.at/fileadmin/gruppen/142/reichsbuergergesetz.pdf 18. The First Regulation to the Reich Citizenship, supra note 17. 19. Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor (Sept. 15, 1935), available at https://www.vaholocaust. org/law-for-the-protection-of-german/
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