Aryan paragraph

As Aryan paragraph is referred to certain discriminatory paragraphs in laws, ordinances and regulations of governmental and nongovernmental entities (eg laws on civil service of the state, or simply a discriminatory paragraphs to membership in the statute ordinary associations ), whereby only " Aryans " as members were admitted ( see, eg, § 3 of the law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service of the National Socialists ).

These paragraphs were directed specifically against the Jewish part of the population - in some cases also against other minorities, such as Sinti and Roma - and based on historical antisemitic resentment of organizations, which only permitted " Aryans " as members of such provisions existed in nationalist political parties., clubs and associations in Germany and Austria since about 1880.

Early Aryan paragraph

The Austrian Rassenantisemit Georg von Schönerer extended the Linz program of the Austrian German nationalism in 1885 one of the earliest documentable Aryan paragraph. Many German national sports, singing, school and other clubs, reading clubs and student organizations also participated since such provisions into their constitutions.

At the request of Rudolf Kolisko, a member of the Viennese academic fraternity Libertas - the parent compound Georg von Schönerer - at the end of 1878, the membership was in the statutes of the connection but anchored that " Jews could not be regarded as German " and this group thus effectively denied. The fraternity Libertas became the first fraternity in the entire German-speaking countries, which had established an Aryan paragraph.

In the Weimar Republic, the German fraternity decided as the umbrella organization of Austrian and German Fraternities in Eisenach in 1920 a record stop for Jews and demanded henceforth a word of honor of all new members to be "free of Jewish or colored blood strike " and to have no Jewish or colored spouse or future to choose.

The German nobility accepted cooperative since 1920, only nobles "pure German blood " as members.

Also not initially open folkish Defence Associations joined by ideological conflicts of the "Jewish Question" people of Jewish descent: so

• The steel helmet ( 1924). (see Reich Association of Jewish Front Soldiers )
• The Young German Order,
• The National Association of German officers, the Association of nationally minded soldiers,
• The National Association of German soldiers,

Numerous right-wing para-military formations were explicitly anti -Semitic ( some of them were members of the umbrella organization United patriotic associations in Germany ) and took no Jews as members.

Period of National Socialism

On April 7, 1933, the National Socialist Reich Government issued under Chancellor Adolf Hitler the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. This first racist law of the Nazi regime followed the Jewish boycott of April 1, 1933 and contained in paragraph 3, the statement:

As a non-Aryan purposes of this Act was, according to a in addition adopted implementing regulations, any person under whose parents or grandparents were Jewish or colored people. It did not matter to religion or marital status; Conversion from the Mosaic to the Christian faith was thus irrelevant; Rather, the law was explicitly racist.

The goal was the Gleichschaltung of the civil service by dismissal of unpopular, especially Jewish and politically classified as oppositional official. The decision issued on the same day the law on the admission to the legal profession, the Regulation on the admission of doctors to work in the health insurance of 22 April and the Law against the Overcrowding of German Schools and colleges of 25 April the Aryan clause in the subsequent period was on extended more and more areas of social life.

The introduction of the Aryan clause was the first step of the Nazi regime to the statutory exclusion of Jews and other so-called non-Aryans from society and to their progressive disenfranchisement.

The second step was the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws September 15, 1935, were abolished by the well initially applicable exceptions such as the front-line fighters privilege for Jewish front-line soldiers of the First World War. From then on, inter alia, were sexual relations between members of different "races " are punishable ( " racial defilement ) ".

These laws were based on the allegation of an alleged Jewish race; this is in contrast to the " Aryan race " characterized by substandard properties that were inherited. The " subversive spirit" of the "inferior race" must be fought " with the means of racial hygiene ".

Associations

Also, almost all organizations and associations took over since 1933 Aryan clause in their statutes and regulations.

Churches

In the area of the German Evangelical Church (DEK ) possessed some country churches since the fall of 1933 analogous to the state Aryan paragraph the exclusion of Christians of Jewish descent from church offices: Pastor and higher church officials had to be retired if they had Jewish parents or at least one Jewish grandparent.

The General Synod of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union decided such a church Aryan paragraph as the first line of a Protestant church on 6 September 1933. On September 12, 1933, the Thuringian State Church followed with an analog "Law on the Status of church officials to the nation ." Appropriate measures are adopted in the following years, the country churches in Saxony, Schleswig -Holstein, Braunschweig, Lübeck, Mecklenburg, Hesse -Nassau and Württemberg. The exclusion affected a little over 100 people, mostly theologians. The initiative came from the church party of the German Christians (DC ), which were able to capture some majorities synod and church leaders in July 1933 since the church elections.

The old Prussian decision prompted Martin Niemöller with other opponents of the DC establishing the Pastors, whose members signed the by Dietrich Bonhoeffer excited or formulated sentence:

" I testify that a violation of the confessional is created with the use of the Aryan paragraph within the Church of Jesus Christ. "

They should also protect the Jewish -born Christians from attacks and material support. The theological faculties of Marburg and Erlangen created opinion on the compatibility of the Aryan paragraph with the Constitution of DEK; Marburger denied this, the Erlanger recommended only restrained application. 20 German New Testament scholar declared that a church Aryan clause was not authorized by the New Testament.

From this opposition to the Confessing Church in 1934 DC went out, the church also rejected Aryan paragraph as directed against the Protestant faith heresy with their positions. The state Aryan Paragraph, however, considered the most evangelical, even professing Christians allowed to be politically or even required.