Center Piece to Nazi Racial Legislation- Complete Questions to Consider- upload and submit answers The guiding ideology of the Nazi movement was provided, of course, by Adolf tler (1889-1945) and outlined in his Mein Kampf (a hybrid memoir and political manifesto that he dictated in prison following the failed attempt to overthrow the Bavarian state government in 1924). In addition to his virulent hatred of the Versailles settlement, tler emphasized two main tenets: lebensraum (living space) and racial purity. s fixation on racial purity derived from his early introduction to social Darwinism and anti-Semitism in Vienna before World War I. tler believed that the racially superior Germanic race was being polluted by intermarriage with non-Germans, by definition inferior, especially Jews. Moreover, the inferior races were reproducing at a higher rate than were the Germans. This is the genesis of his determination not only to annihilate the Jews (and others) but also to increase the size of the racially pure German population. The Jews were particularly targeted by tler and the Nazis with if not positive support at least passive acceptance by a substantial portion of the German population. Throughout the 1920s, gangs of Nazis (Brown S
hirts) frequently and viciously attacked Jews, both in their person and their property. Once the Nazis were in power, attacks on Jews became more legalistic: Jews were excluded from government jobs and licensed professions (law, medicine, etc.), and ultimately stripped of their German citizenship. The Nuremberg Laws, which defined who a Jew was, were a major step on the path to the Final Solution, as tlers plan to eradicate European Jewry was known. The Holocaust that ensued claimed the lives of six million Jews. Thoroughly convinced by the knowledge that the purity of German blood is essential for the further existence of the German people and animated by the inflexible will to safe-guard the German nation for the entire future, the Reichstag has resolved upon the following law unanimously, which is promulgated herewith: Relation[s] outside marriage between Jews and nationals of German or kindred blood are forbidden. Jews will not be permitted to employ female nationals of German or kindred blood in their household. U.S. Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), vol. 4, doc. no. 1417-PS, 8-10; vol. 4, doc. no. 2000-PS, 636-638.