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Article

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Revised version of lecture delivered at Cornell Law School, June 7, 2024, as part of Cornell’s 2024 University Wide Alumni Reunion.

Abstract

The core ideology of Hitler Germany — of the Third Reich — was the hardcore, unremittent antisemitism that in short order permeated German society and the German legal system before creating the necessary conditions for the genocide of all Jews under Nazi control.

Two preliminary observations. First, should we view the 1935 Nuremberg laws and other German anti-Jewish laws and measures of the 1930s as the first stages of a process designed culminate in the annihilation of Jews, or were they drafted and enacted by individuals who, at that point in time, were not envisioning a “Final Solution of the Jewish question”?

It is true, of course, that no genocide or crime against humanity begins with the actual killings — it is preceded by words and, in most cases, ideologies – specifically, words of discrimination and hatred and ideologies of discrimination and hatred. But I submit to you that such words and such ideologies are not necessarily in and of themselves evidence of an intent to commit genocide.

Still, while not all forms of racism and other bigotries, including antisemitism and Islamophobia, inexorably result in genocide, we are duty bound not to ignore the fact that they can do so.

Second, we must not lose sight of the fundamental reality that the antisemitism of Nazi Germany did not come to the fore in a vacuum or out of nowhere. In a very real sense, it was a malignant byproduct of a state of mind, a predisposition as it were, of attitudes that were prevalent in many parts of the world long before Hitler came to power in 1933, including here in the United States.

Date of Authorship for this Version

11-8-2025

Keywords

Nuremberg Laws of 1935, Antisemitism, Nazi Germany

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