Nuremberg Laws in the context of "1930s"

A racial hierarchy is a system of stratification that is based on the pseudoscientific belief that some racial groups are superior to other racial groups. At various points of history, racial hierarchies have featured in societies, often being formally instituted in law, such as in the Nuremberg Laws in Nazi Germany. Generally, those who support racial hierarchies believe themselves to be part of the putative 'superior' race and base their supposed superiority on pseudo-biological, cultural or religious arguments. However, systems of racial hierarchy have also been widely rejected and challenged, and many, such as Apartheid have been abolished. The abolition of such systems has not stopped debate around racial hierarchy and racism more broadly.

Fremdvölkische ('foreign races') was a term used during the Nazi era to describe people who were not of "German or related blood" (Nuremberg Laws). The term at first was used only by members of the Schutzstaffel, but later was used by the Reich police, justice system, and state bureaucracy.

Elise "Lise" Meitner (/ˈmaɪtnər/ MYTE-ner; German: [ˈliːzə ˈmaɪtnɐ] ; 7 November 1878 – 27 October 1968) was an Austrian and Swedish nuclear physicist who was instrumental in the discovery of nuclear fission.

After completing her doctoral research in 1906, Meitner became the second woman to earn a doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna. She spent much of her scientific career in Berlin, where she was a physics professor and a department head at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry. She was the first woman to become a full professor of physics in Germany. She lost her positions in 1935 because of the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany, and the 1938 Anschluss resulted in the loss of her Austrian citizenship. On 13–14 July 1938, she fled to the Netherlands with the help of Dirk Coster. She lived in Stockholm for many years, ultimately becoming a Swedish citizen in 1949, but relocated to Britain in the 1950s to be with family members.

Emil Maurice (German pronunciation: [ˈeːmiːl moˈʁiːs]; 19 January 1897 – 6 February 1972) was a German Nazi official and a founding member of the Schutzstaffel (SS). He was Adolf Hitler's first personal chauffeur, and one of only a few people of mixed Jewish and ethnic German ancestry to serve in the SS.

Maurice had no Jewish parents or grandparents, and was thus considered a German and not classified as Jewish or Mischling under the Nuremberg Laws; nonetheless, his great-grandfather (1805–1896) was Jewish, and the more racially stringent SS required officers to prove Aryan ancestry back to 1750. Accordingly, he was given the status of Honorary Aryan by Hitler.

The Romani Holocaust was the genocide of European Roma and Sinti people during World War II. Beginning in 1933, Nazi Germany systematically persecuted the European Roma, Sinti and other peoples pejoratively labeled "Gypsy" through forcible internment and compulsory sterilization. German authorities summarily and arbitrarily subjected Romani people to incarceration, forced labor, deportation and mass murder in concentration and extermination camps.

Under Adolf Hitler, a supplementary decree to the Nuremberg Laws was issued on 26 November 1935, classifying the Romani people (or Roma) as "enemies of the race-based state", thereby placing them in the same category as the Jews. Thus, the fate of the Sinti and Roma in Europe paralleled that of the Jews in the Holocaust. Historians estimate that between 250,000 and 500,000 Romani and Sinti were killed by Nazi Germans and their collaborators.

Anti-Jewish legislation in pre-war Nazi Germany comprised several laws that segregated the Jews from German society and restricted Jewish people's political, legal and civil rights. Major legislative initiatives included a series of restrictive laws passed in 1933, the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, and a final wave of legislation preceding Germany's entry into World War II and the Holocaust.

The Nazi term Gleichschaltung (German pronunciation: [ˈɡlaɪçʃaltʊŋ] ), meaning "synchronization" or "coordination", was the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler—leader of the Nazi Party in Germany—established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society "from the economy and trade associations to the media, culture and education".

Although the Weimar Constitution remained nominally in effect throughout Hitler's dictatorship, near total Nazification was achieved by 1935 with the resolutions approved during that year's Nuremberg Rally, fusing the symbols of the party and the state (see Flag of Nazi Germany) and depriving German Jews of their citizenship (see Nuremberg Laws). The tenets of Gleichschaltung, including the Nuremberg Laws, also applied to territories occupied by the German Reich.

In Nazi Germany, the Aryan certificate or Aryan passport (German: Ariernachweis) was a document which certified that a person was a member of the presumed Aryan race. Beginning in April 1933, it was required from all employees and officials in the public sector, including education, according to the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. It was also a primary requirement to become a Reich citizen for those who were of German or related blood (Aryan) and wanted to become Reich citizens after the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935. A "Swede or an Englishman, a Frenchman or Czech, a Pole or Italian" was considered to be of related blood to the Germans, that is, "Aryan".