The Nazis promised national unity while using racist laws and violence to remove other people's rights. Jewish people were a central target of this persecution.
The Nazis presented Germany as a single "national community" united behind Hitler. But they decided who could belong using false ideas about race. Antisemitism means prejudice or hostility towards Jews. Nazi claims that Jews caused Germany's defeat or economic problems were false; these accusations were used to justify exclusion and violence.
From 1933, discriminatory measures attacked Jewish employment and businesses. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 denied Jews full citizenship and banned marriage and sexual relations between Jews and people the regime classified as having German or related blood. These were racist categories imposed by the state, not facts about biological superiority or a simple record of religious belief.
On 9-10 November 1938, organised anti-Jewish attacks destroyed synagogues, homes and businesses, and Jewish people were arrested in large numbers. This is often called Kristallnacht or the November pogrom. A synagogue is a Jewish place of worship. A pogrom is an organised violent attack on a targeted community. The events show persecution escalating from exclusion through law to widespread, state-backed violence.
Nazi persecution also targeted Roma and Sinti, disabled people, political opponents, gay men and Jehovah's Witnesses. These groups faced different accusations and policies; their experiences should not be treated as identical. During the Second World War, the Holocaust involved the systematic mass murder of Europe's Jews. For a question about the 1930s, use events from that period and distinguish them from the later wartime genocide.
Worked example: Test a promise of unity against a policy
The regime claimed to unite German society, but the Nuremberg Laws denied Jewish Germans full citizenship.
- The promise suggests that people belong to a shared national community.
- The law shows that the regime deliberately excluded Jews from equal membership and legal rights.
- This was unity on the regime's racist terms. Some Germans feeling included does not show equal treatment, or cancel the persecution of those excluded.
Watch out for this
Nazi racial categories described objective biological differences in people's worth.
These were false, racist classifications imposed by the regime. When explaining a Nazi claim, make clear whose belief it was and how it was used to justify persecution.
Check your understanding
Why does a promise of national unity not prove equal treatment?
- Unity is always impossible in any state.
- The regime's definition of belonging excluded groups and removed their rights.
- Only economic statistics can establish equal treatment.