History Unfolded: US Newspapers and the Holocaust

Headline: CITIZENSHIP
Sub-Headline: Of Reich Limited

Publication Date: Monday, September 16, 1935
Historical Event: Hitler Announces Nuremberg Race Laws
This database includes 982 articles about this event
Tags: Gannett full page downloadable; Early Acts of Persecution
Article Type: News Article
Newspaper: The Cincinnati Enquirer
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Page Section and Number: 1
Author/Byline: AP
Article Text: Nurnberg, Germany, September 15—(AP)—Adolf Hitler's Reichstag, stung by the strictures of a New York Magistrate against the Nazi emblem, tonight pronounced the swastika to be the Reich's sole flag, hurled defiance to Jews throughout the world, and limited German citizenship to members of the Germanic race.

The specially summoned lawmakers acted after their Fuehrer, in a fiery mood, had opened the Reichstag session with a bitter attack on Lithuanians for their alleged treatment of Germans in the Memel territory, and had called upon the solons to approve three new laws.

Der Fuehrer and his legislators permitted Jews to continue as German subjects, but forbade them to fly any flag save the blue and white Zionist emblem.

MIXED MARRIAGE BANNED.
Hitler and the Reichstag also forbade intermarriage between Aryans and non-Aryans and provided for punishment for sexual relations between the two. They also forbade Jews to engage Aryan domestic servants, under the age of 45 years.

Hitler charged Lithuania with responsibility for events in Memel which, he said, contained the seeds of trouble. Then he made known his refusal to allow Germany to be drawn into ' any international controversy in which she is not directly involved.

Expressing his contempt for Communism, he voiced his appreciation of the United States Government's regrets for the Bremen-Brodsky incident in New York. But he used it as an example of how Jewry, even in high places, allegedly fights against the Nazi state.

(Magistrate Louis Brodsky in New York dismissed five men arrested when the Swastika was ripped from the prow of the German liner Bremen at a Manhattan dock last month, commenting that "in the minds" of the defendants and others the Nazi emblem was a "pirate flag.")

THREATENS MORE LAWS.
The Relchsfuehrer threatened in his brief but vivid speech to enact even more stringent laws if today's legislation fails to solve the Jewish problem. Two of the three laws he decreed dealt with the Jewish question; the third honored the Swastika as the national emblem.

The Relchsfuehrer charged Memel has "tortured Germans only because they are members of the German nation and because they wanted to remain Germans."

Of the Brodsky-Bremen incident, he said:

"The insult to the German flag in the United States for which the United States apologized in dignified form shows how far the international Jewish agitation has progressed."

SUBJECTS AND CITIZENS
After Hitler had stepped aside, General Hermann Wilhelm Goering, in a 25-minute speech, thus presented the three sets of laws:

(1) Black, white, and red are to be the colors of the Reich, and the Nazi swastika is to be the flag of the Reich and nation, as well as the flag of commerce. The law leaves to Hitler and to General Werner von Blomberg, Defense Minister, the decision as to what the war flag will be.

(2) Defining the Reich's citizens and dividing Germans into (a) members of the state whose protection they enjoy, and (b) the Reich's citizens, who alone can be of German or similar blood and who are to be allowed to faithfully serve the Reich and her people. This Reich citizen is to be given a letter which makes him the sole bearer of citizenship privileges.

(3) Entitled "protection of Mood and honor," it provides that marriages between Jews and Germans or persons of similar blood be forbidden, and in the case they are contracted abroad renders them null and void.

Extra matrimonial sexual rela-

Continued On Page 2, Column 7.
History Unfolded Contributor: Maria B.
Location of Research: Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)

Nuremberg Race Laws: Background (Encyclopedia Article)
Nuremberg Race Laws: Translation (Encyclopedia Article)
The Nuremberg Race Laws (The Holocaust: A Learning Site for Students)
Anti-Jewish Legislation in Pre-War Germany (Encyclopedia Article)
Racism (Encyclopedia Article)

Bibliography

Burleigh, Michael, and Wolfgang Wippermann. The Racial State: Germany 1933–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Edelheit, Abraham J., and Hershel Edelheit. "Legislation, Anti-Jewish." In History of the Holocaust: A Handbook and Dictionary, pp. 299–331. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994.

Friedländer, Saul. Nazi Germany and the Jews. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

Mosse, George L. Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.

Schleunes, Karl A. The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy Toward German Jews, 1933–1939. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970.

Wistrich, Robert S. Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred. London: Thames Methuen, 1991.

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