The Nuremberg Laws and the Gradual Stripping of Rights

At their core, Nazi law institutionalized anti-Jewish hatred. Additionally, it introduced progressive laws designed to marginalize Jews and other minority groups.

In 1933, laws were first implemented which legally defined Jews as an identifiable race and barred them from citizenship and employment in professions like farming or medicine.

The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor

At a Nazi party rally in Nuremberg on September 15, 1935, Hitler unveiled two laws known as the Nuremberg Laws. The first, known as the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, prohibiting marriages or extramarital sexual relationships between Jews and subjects of Germany with "German or related blood" -- thus intended to maintain purity within German-based races by guarding against those whom Hitler considered threats to them.

The Reich Citizenship Law was another piece of legislation which rendered Jews stateless and dependent upon State authority. Individuals were classified either as Staatsburger or Reichsburger (Richtsburger), with citizenship being awarded on genetic grounds alone. Furthermore, interracial marriage was illegal while any relationship between Jews and Reich citizens could lead to criminal penalties; furthermore Jewish children were forced into being raised within Reich society thereby stripping away legal rights they were entitled to as citizens of this Reich state.

Nazi bureaucrats did not create their discriminatory legislation by drawing ideas out of thin air; rather they extensively researched laws from another country--namely, America. One of the lawyers involved with drafting both laws - Heinrich Krieger who assisted with developing both laws for German Blood Protection and Reich Citizenship Law- had just returned from a year studying law at University of Arkansas School of Law Fayetteville where he researched how American laws segregated and disenfranchised Native Americans and African Americans.

Krieger held firm to his belief that "law is that which serves the German Volk, while illegality harms it". As evidenced by his use of Wilhelm Tell as an example in court arguments, Krieger saw himself as upholding German culture rather than violating any international conventions or breaking any international agreements.

After World War II, documents used to shape German policies ended up in the hands of an Allied general who placed them outside Germany for safe keeping at California's Huntington Library - in violation of an order from Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower himself. These materials now form an important part of its collections.

The Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health

Hitler unveiled two laws at a Nazi party rally in Nuremberg that would alter who could qualify as German citizens. The Reich Citizenship Law stipulated that citizens had to have German "blood," demoting Jews and those with Jewish ancestry to state subjects without citizenship rights. The second law, the Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health, allowed public health officials to determine who belonged to a "racially Jewish" community by looking at who "suffered from one or more hereditary illnesses", such as hereditary feeblemindedness, schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder (or Huntington's chorea), genetic blindness, severe physical deformity due to inheritance and chronic alcoholism.

The laws enacted after World War I further marginalized and persecuted Jews by making it illegal to marry non-Aryans or Jews, restricting extramarital relations between Aryans and Jews, prohibiting employment of females younger than 45 in Jewish households, prohibiting extra-marital relations between Aryans and Jews, prohibiting extramarital affairs between Aryans and Jews, prohibiting extramarital affairs between Aryans and Jews and forbidding extramarital relations between Aryans and Jews; additionally, regulations related to Reich Citizenship Law ensured that only Reich citizens had full political rights and could vote or run for public office - creating what became known as Volksgemeinschaft - a nation defined by race rather than culture.

Two months after the Nazi's rise to power, a law was put into effect which allowed for forced sterilisation of those suffering from hereditary conditions such as hereditary feeblemindedness, asthma, schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder and mental illnesses such as depression or bipolarity. This program, later known as T4 Euthanasia Programme led directly to over 200,000 disabled children and adults being murdered in gas chambers.

Under Nazi rule, people were stripped of citizenship through systematic removal that denied them of all legal rights and left them powerless to fight for their own survival. An example of how Nazis utilized Nuremberg Trials to create a system whereby the government dictated how life should be lived or how protection must be sought against themselves was evident here.

The Reich Citizenship Law

On September 15, 1935, the Reich Citizenship Law and its accompanying decrees went into effect, formalizing many of the racist ideologies at the foundation of Nazi ideology. According to this law, only those of German blood were considered citizens and eligible to vote and hold public office; others were classified as state subjects without citizenship rights - intended as an exclusionary mechanism against Jews from their nation of birth.

Under this legislation, Jews were defined as those with two, three, or four grandparents who were "racially full Jews" regardless of whether these people practiced the Jewish religion. This attempt by Nazi Germany to define who counted as Jews biologically was unsuccessful.

As part of its comprehensive Citizenship Law and its accompanying decrees, Reich Citizenship Law forbade marriage and extramarital sexual relations between Jews and non-Jewish Germans; such relationships were considered "race defilment" and criminalized. Furthermore, non-Jewish Germans could no longer employ Jewish women under 45 in their homes and all farms up to 308 acres were designated capable of supporting hereditary estates which must pass down to direct male relatives of the owner in an estate structure. This effectively stripped Jews of property while granting citizenship by law granting them citizenship rights in addition to citizenship rights granted to non-Jewish Germans as per citizenship law regulations.

Reich Citizenship Law and its Supplemental Ordinances allowed for the confiscation of property belonging to those not citizens and whose conduct cast doubt upon their loyalty to the nation, such as naturalized citizens from Romania, Poland and Russia between November 9, 1918 and January 30, 1933 who had their citizenship stripped by this provision; those considered stateless were no longer eligible to travel between countries or obtain visas into other nations.

The Reich Citizenship Law provided that an individual could lose his citizenship if he or she engaged in any activity which violated German values, including any activity which endangered German nationals overseas or damaged their reputation abroad. Revocation would then be issued by the Reich Minister of Interior after consulting with their representative of Fuehrer.

The Gradual Stripping of Rights

At their annual rally in Nuremberg in 1935, Nazi Party leaders announced new laws that would formalize many of their racist ideologies and policies. These 'Nuremberg Laws' stripped Jews of citizenship, civil rights and even their right to reside within Germany itself; furthermore they were forbidden from marrying or engaging in sexual intercourse with 'Aryans' or running farms - these discriminatory regulations spell doom for Jewish citizens as it began dehumanizing and marginalizing them from all aspects of daily life.

The Nazis were determined to eliminate every aspect of Jews' lives, and one way this could occur was for them to be physically eliminated from society. To achieve this goal, concentration camps were used as detention facilities where brutal treatment such as medical experiments and sexual violence would take place against these prisoners.

Homosexuals were one of the many groups targeted by Nazi regime, being sent into camps as early as 1933 and subject to harsh treatment including illnesses, diseases and starvation; further humiliating their lives they were also forced to wear pink triangles as a symbol of their orientation.

As the Nazi regime intensified their campaign for total war, they increasingly ignored international laws and treaties that protect civilian populations during combat. This horrified both international communities, especially Allies. In 1948, the United Nations issued the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that is heavily influenced by Nuremberg principles and ideologies. Crimes Against Humanity was coined from this idea and applied to various governments, collectives, as well as individuals. International law has also evolved significantly due to this shift, leading to numerous conventions and resolutions within international law that now serve as the cornerstone for modern legal protection of human rights and freedoms. The Tokyo trials played an instrumental role in this development as they demonstrated that engaging in total war did not exempt nations from international prosecution.