Feb 28, 1933

Reichstag Fire Decree

• Context (Why): Just days before the election, the Reichstag (Parliament) building was set on fire. The government blamed a Communist plot. The public feared a violent Red Revolution was beginning.
• Law: This decree suspended most civil liberties. This included freedom of speech, press, and assembly. It allowed for “Protective Custody,” meaning police could arrest anyone without a trial.
• Argument For (Order): It allowed the state to immediately crush the potential Communist uprising. Agitators were taken off the streets. This prevented a civil war and restored public safety.
• Argument Against (Liberty): It destroyed personal privacy and due process. Police could tap phones, open mail, and search homes without warrants.

March 23, 1933

Enabling Act

• Context (Why): The German Parliament was gridlocked. Dozens of political parties fought constantly. No laws were being passed to fix the economic crisis.
• Law: This law amended the Constitution. It allowed the Chancellor (Hitler) to enact laws without the consent of Parliament for four years.
• Argument For (Order): It ended the political paralysis. Decisions could be made instantly. If a trade deal needed signing or a road built, it happened immediately. It created a highly efficient government.
• Argument Against (Liberty): It was the suicide of democracy, which they did not have a real democracy leading up to this. It removed all checks and balances. It gave one man the power to change the Constitution at will.

June 1, 1933

Law for Reduction of Unemployment

• Context (Why): Six million Germans were unemployed. Families were starving, and men felt hopeless.
• Law: The government created massive public works programs (like the Autobahn). It also offered “Marriage Loans” to women if they left the workforce. This freed up jobs for men.
• Argument For (Order): It worked economically. Unemployment dropped to near zero within a few years. Men regained their dignity as providers. Families could afford food. The marriage loans encouraged family formation.
• Argument Against (Liberty): It was funded by massive debt and printing money (the “MEFO bills”). It also forced women out of factory life. It reduced them to the role of mothers. Which does not seem like a huge disadvantage to either party.

Nov 24, 1933

Habitual Criminals Law

• Context (Why): Crime rates in Weimar Germany were skyrocketing. Murder, robbery, and sexual assault were rampant. Judges were seen as too lenient.
• Law: This allowed judges to keep “career criminals” in prison indefinitely (“preventive detention”) even after their sentence ended. It also authorized the forced castration of dangerous sex offenders.
• Argument For (Order): Crime plummeted. Murder dropped by 34% and robbery by 64% within two years. The streets became safe for women and children to walk at night.
• Argument Against (Liberty): It gave the state power to decide who was “socially unfit.” Indefinite detention meant a person could be imprisoned for life based on a prediction of future crime, not a proven future act. However, a lot of these criminals were repeat offenders, so most law abiding citizens agreed with this.

Jan 20, 1934

Law on Organization of National Labor

• Context (Why): Germany had been plagued by constant strikes and class warfare between workers and business owners. This hurt the economy.
• Law: It abolished all trade unions and strikes. It replaced them with the “German Labor Front” (DAF). Employers became “Leaders” and workers became “Followers.”
• Argument For (Order): It created industrial peace. Factories ran without interruption. This boosted the economic recovery. It established “Courts of Honor” where workers could sue bosses for mistreatment.
• Argument Against (Liberty): Workers lost their collective voice. They could not negotiate for higher wages. It turned the workforce into a military-style unit serving the state’s goals, not their own.

Sept 29, 1933

Heredity Farms Act

• Context (Why): Small farmers were losing their land to big banks because they couldn’t pay their mortgages. The traditional peasantry was disappearing.
• Law: It designated medium-sized farms as “Hereditary Farms.” These could not be sold, divided, or foreclosed upon by banks. The farm had to be passed to the eldest son.
• Argument For (Order): It saved the farmers from bankruptcy. Banks could no longer seize their land. It protected the “Blood and Soil” of the rural population and ensured food security.
• Argument Against (Liberty): It tied the farmer to the land like a feudal serf. A farmer could not sell his land to move to the city or change careers even if he wanted to.

April–July 1933

Exclusion from Public Life

Context (Why): The Nazis argued that key cultural and state institutions were dominated by a group that made up less than 1% of the total population (approx. 0.76%). They claimed this minority used their positions to influence German culture and politics against the interests of the majority.

• Legal System (The Lawyer Stat): In Berlin in 1933, 54% of all lawyers and notaries were Jewish. The Nazis argued that German law was being interpreted through a “foreign” lens that was too lenient on criminals.
• Medical System (The Doctor Stat): In Berlin, roughly 52% of all doctors were Jewish. The argument was that German health and biology should be managed by German doctors.
• Education (The School Stat): In 1933, Jewish students made up 2.5% of the total university population, but in law and medicine faculties in big cities like Berlin and Vienna, they often exceeded 20-30%. The Nazis argued that German children were being “crowded out” of higher education and denied spots in their own universities.
• The Media/Culture: The Nazis pointed out that the majority of theater directors, art critics, and newspaper editors in Berlin were Jewish, claiming this allowed a small group to dictate the “cultural taste” of the entire nation (e.g., the “Cultural Bolshevism” discussed in Lesson 2).

The Laws:

• Civil Service Law (April 7): Fired all Jewish government employees, teachers, and professors.
• Legal Profession Law (April 7): Banned Jewish lawyers and judges.
• School Overcrowding Law (April 25): Restricted Jewish enrollment in schools to 1.5% of the student body (to match their percentage of the population).
• Denaturalization Law (July 14): Stripped citizenship from Jews who had immigrated to Germany after 1918 (mostly refugees from the East).

Arguments:

• Argument For (Order): “Proportionality.” The government stated that every profession should reflect the racial makeup of the nation. They argued that by limiting Jews to 1.5% of the spots, they were simply “leveling the playing field” for native Germans who had been shut out of high-status jobs during the depression.
• Argument Against (Liberty): Meritocracy. It fired the most qualified people solely based on their heritage. It ignored the fact that these high numbers were due to a cultural emphasis on education and hard work within the Jewish community, not a conspiracy. It stripped the nation of its best surgeons, scientists, and legal minds.

Oct 27, 1933

Amendment to the Banking Law

• Context (Why): As we learned in Lesson 3, the German central bank (Reichsbank) was independent and controlled by international financiers. Hitler needed direct control over the money supply to fund his rearmament and work programs.
• Law: This law abolished the General Council of the Reichsbank. It gave the Chancellor (Hitler) the sole power to appoint and dismiss the Reichsbank President and board members.
• Argument For (Order): It restored national sovereignty. The German government could finally control its own money without asking foreign bankers for permission.
• Argument Against (Liberty): It removed the only “check” on the government’s power to print money. It centralized total financial power in the hands of one man.

Philosophy

Legal Philosophy: Shift

• Old System: Nullum Crimen Sine Lege (No crime without a law). You could only be punished if you broke a specific written law.
• New System: The Nazis abandoned this. Judges could punish any act that offended “healthy popular sentiment,” even if no law was written against it.
• Implication: The law became subjective. It was no longer about a written code. It was about the “will of the people” as interpreted by the judge and the Führer.

The Laws

Summary Table

Erich Schinnerer, German Law and Legislation (1938).
Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power (2005).
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960).
Robert Gellately, Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany (2001).
Simone Ladwig-Winters, Lawyers Without Rights (2018).
Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal / NIH (Medical Statistics).
USHMM, “The Nuremberg Race Laws” and “Anti-Jewish Legislation 1933.”