The Influence of Nazi Racial Policy

The Influence of Nazi Racial Policy

The Nazi racial policy had many varied influences on the German Society. Nazi racial policy changed extensively in the years between 1933 and 1939. The Nazi Party became increasingly extreme in its treatment of the minorities of Germany, particularly Jews.

The racial policy of Nazi Germany refers to the policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the so-called "Aryan race" and based on a specific racist doctrine which claimed scientific legitimacy. It was combined with an eugenics program which aimed to achieve “racial purity” of the “Aryan race”, using compulsory sterilizations and extermination of specific minorities, culminating in the Holocaust. The Nazi ideology and policies targeted first of all Jews, who were considered as the most “inferior races” of all, on a hierarchy which included Jews at the bottom and the “Herrenvolk” (“Master race”) of the “Volksgemeinschaft” (German “national community”) at the top.
Before the Nazis came along, professional s in various countries had been supporting such schemes. The Nazi got the idea for their Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Progeny, introduced on 14th July 1933, from eugenicists. It resulted in the sterilization of more than 30,000 Germans because of their physical and other abnormalities. The Nazi term used to describe such people was “life unworthy of life.” In 1930 a euthanasia program was commenced to arrange for the ‘mercy killing’ of such persons. In 1939 a euthanasia program was commenced to arrange for the ‘mercy killing’ of such persons. The belief in the need to purify the German race led them to eugenics; this effort culminated in the involuntary euthanasia of disabled people and the compulsory sterilization of people with mental deficiencies or illnesses perceived as hereditary. Adolf Hitler considered Sparta to be the first “Völkisch State”, and praised its early eugenics treatment of deformed children.
According to Nazi propaganda, the Jews...

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