"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (137 page)

38.
“Vertrauliche Information der Parteikanzlei,” no. 34/355 of August 9, 1941, in
Verfügungen
, 2:48 f. Similarly, the designation “white” or “European race” was not permitted.

39.
Gütt and Linden,
Kommentar zum Erbgesundheitsgesetz
(1936), 20 f., for example, wanted to rescue the notion of the homogeneous race by ascertaining that this can be understood in relation to the German people only in the sense of the
Systemrasse
(system race), as a scientific classification, not in the sense of the
Vitalrasse
(vital race), i.e., having the same genotype. Similarly, Kluge and Krüger,
Verfassung und Verwaltung
, 162, consider that
Volk
is not synonymous with race but is made up of several races.

40.
Gütt and Linden,
Kommentar zum Erbgesundheitsgesetz
, 21.

41.
Hitler, quoted in Rauschning,
Gespräche mit Hitler
, 232 ff.

42.
Held,
Volk, Recht und Staat
, 25 ff.

43.
However, the term
non-Aryan
was kept; cf. sec. 3 of the so-called Professional Civil Service Code of April 7, 1933. Regarding the etymology of the terms
deutschen oder artverwandten Blutes
(German or related blood) and
deutschblütig
(of German blood), cf. Berning,
Vom Abstammungsnachweis zum Zuchtwert
(1964), 54.

44.
Kluge and Krüger,
Verfassung und Verwaltung
, 18; cf. also sec. 13, par. 2, Reich Entailment Law: “Not included among those of German or kindred (
stammesgleich
) blood is anyone who has ancestors on either side of the family with Jewish or colored blood.”

45.
Palandt,
Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch
(1942), appendix 1 to the Marriage Law, first decree to sec. 1, “Blood Protection Law,” according to which
artverwandtes Blut
was “the blood of peoples racially related to the German people, that is peoples settled in Europe,” and the blood of their descendants in other parts of the world, insofar as this has been kept pure.

46.
Hitler,
Mein Kampf
, 368 ff., 372 ff.

47.
For more details, see Scheuner, “Die nationale Revolution,” 271.

48.
An excellent example is given in the comprehensive account in ibid., in particular 266 ff., where he expressly refers to Herder and German Romanticism.

49.
Cf. Held,
Volk, Recht und Staat—Volk
as
Naturgemeinschaft
(natural community),
Geschichts- und Kulturgemeinschaft
(historical and cultural community) (19). According to Huber, “the
Volk
[was] … a political community determined by the homogeneity of the race, characterized by its common history” (
Idee und Ordnung des Reiches
[1941], 25); cf. also Huber,
Verfassungsrecht des Großdeutschen Reiches
(1939), 150; Gerber,
Staatsrechtliche Grundlinien des neuen Reiches
(1933), 19.

50.
Gerber,
Staatsrechtliche Grundlinien des neuen Reiches
, 19.

51.
Cf., for example, Koellreuter,
Volk und Staat
; Höhn, “Rechtsgemeinschaft und Volksgemeinschaft”; Nicolai,
Die rassengesetzliche Rechtslehre;
the
völkisch
political theory of the state was also championed by Poetzsch-Heffter, Ule, and Dernedde, “Der völkische Staat” (1935), 30 ff.; Walz, “Neue Grundlagen des Volksgruppenrechts” (1940); Kluge and Krüger,
Verfassung und Verwaltung
, 16 ff., and many more.

52.
See, among many others, Scheuner, “Die nationale Revolution,” 261 ff., although he uses the concept of race as well as that of
völkisch
.

53.
Gerber,
Staatsrechtliche Grundlinien des neuen Reiches
, 19, according to which the state was “the
Volk
in its historical reality.” In the
Volk
“the state embodies the idea of the guarantor who allows the will of creation to be fulfilled in history.” Huber,
Vom Sinn der Verfassung
, 19 ff. Koellreuter,
Staat und Rechtsgemeinschaft
, 16, 22, 23. Frank, “Die staatsrechliche Bedeutung” (1934), 25 f.: “Blood and soil are the foundations of the state. The new state should be built on customs, race and soil.”

54.
Cf. in particular Schmitt,
Staat, Bewegung, Volk
(1933); Huber,
Vom Sinn der Verfassung
; Huber,
Verfassung des Großdeutschen Reiches
(1935); Scheuner, “Die nationale Revolution.”

55.
A striking description is given in Scheuner, “Die nationale Revolution”:

Volk
does not mean the outward union of a nation state, formed of rights of citizenship: the sum of its citizens.
Volk
is the living community, born of the natural affinity of blood ties and shaped by its historical destiny, in which a particular primordial law of creative development unfolds. Liberalism had gone too far in turning the concept of the
Volk
into a question of mere mentality and therefore a matter of individual belief. By contrast, this new concept—here as elsewhere reaching down into the depths of the irrational forces underlying human life—places a decisive emphasis on the natural fundament of the
Volk
, the racial element. However, we should not be misled by the stress on the influence of the basic nature into assuming that this view of the phenomenon of nationality (
Volkstum
) focuses exclusively on the biological element. No less weight is given to the mental element; only the two together—the natural and spiritual traits—form the basis of the individuality of the
Volkstum
, form that entirety … that whole which—bound by a particular law—gives rise to the divine … that constitutes a special human essence whose living form imbues its every member. (261 ff.)

Cf. furthermore:

Moreover, for National Socialism,
Volk
is not merely a number of people, rather it is a social structure, a unity, springing from the diversity of the groups formed by nature and history … This emphasis on the significance of the racial basis of the
Volk
gives rise to the National Socialist demand for protection of these blood-related forces through the state. It is the basis for legislation in the interests and for the health of the
Volk
, to maintain and strengthen the perpetuation of the racial substance by preventing the admixture of foreign blood and fostering the sound elements of the German
Volk
, above all those constituent parts which stem from the countryfolk. (244)

In similar vein is Koellreuter,
Deutsches Verfassungsrecht
(1936), 67; Wolf, “Das Rechtsideal des nationalsozialistischen Staates,” 352.

56.
See Gerber, “Der politische Begriff des Volkes” (1940); he places the
völkisch
idea to the fore, while rejecting other national ideas (e.g., that of the French, which demands an avowal of
la civilisation française
, “thereby opening wide the door to the assimilation of foreign races”). Spirit and nature are inseparable. The “natural” (“racially determined”)
Volk
is at the same time a political
Volk
(“In our historical situation the racial identity of the
Volk
has at last taken up a dominant position in the political sphere”) (133 ff., 139 ff., 146 ff., 153).

57.
Cf. Höhn, “Rechtsgemeinschaft und Volksgemeinschaft” (1935); Höhn, “Volk und Verfassung” (1937); Koellreuter,
Grundriß der allgemeinen Staatslehre
(1933); Koellreuter,
Deutsches Verfassungsrecht
; Koellreuter,
Deutsches Verwaltungsrecht
(1938); Walz,
Artgleichheit gegen Gleichartigkeit
(1938); Walz,
Der Begriff der Verfassung
(1942); Gerber,
Staatsrechtliche Grundlinien des neuen Reiches
, 6 ff., 14, 19.

58.
For a fuller account, see Walz,
Artgleichheit gegen Gleichartigkeit
, in particular 14 f.

59.
Höhn, “Volk und Verfassung,” 107.

60.
Stolleis,
Gemeinwohlformeln im nationalsozialstischen Recht
(1974), 255.

61.
Ibid.

62.
Scheuner, “Die nationale Revolution,” 269, 272.

63.
Huber,
Verfassungsrecht des Großdeutschen Reiches
(1939), 141 f. Schmitt,
Staat, Bewegung, Volk
(1933), 46.

64.
Rauschning,
Gespräche mit Hitler,
44.

65.
Scheuner, “Der Gleichheitsgedanke,” 243 ff., 260, 267; H. H. Lammers, “Staatsführung im Dritten Reich,”
Reich und Ostmark
(1938): 9 ff., 13.

66.
A. Mohler,
Die Konservative Revolution
(1950), 94, states that there were 430 such organizations.

67.
Mohrmann,
Antisemitismus, Ideologie und Geschichte
(1972), 111, 136 ff., 149 ff.; Pulzer,
Die Entstehung des politischen Antisemitismus
(1966), 235 ff., 245 ff., 251 ff., 264 ff.

68.
For further details, see Pulzer,
Die Entstehung des politischen Antisemitismus
, 264 ff.

69.
Scheuner, “Der Gleichheitsgedanke,” 245 ff.

70.
For an account of the basic principles of the National Socialist concept of equality, see Walz,
Artgleichheit gegen Gleichartigkeit
.

71.
See also U. Scheuner’s essay “Der Gleichheitsgedanke,” 245 ff.

72.
Ibid., 259. The
völkisch
constitution no longer embodies the idea of the citizen, but instead of the “productive and devoted
Volksgenosse
(national comrade),” a concept that takes into account the natural differences between people and the “differences between Führer and followers.”

73.
For further details, see Fraenkel,
Der Doppelstaat
, 175; Schmitt had taken over from Hegel the tendency—inherent in Liberalism—to use the concrete as a weapon against the abstract.

74.
C. Schmitt,
Die drei Arten des rechtswissenschaftlichen Denkens
(1934), 13, 52.

75.
Wolf, “Das Rechtsideal des nationalsozialistischen Staates,” 352.

76.
I refer here to a series of essays, all of which polemicize against the “formalization of rights” in the liberal epoch. The series opened with an essay by the Nazi ideologue Höhn, “Form und Formalismus im Rechtsleben” (1934). This was followed by Forsthoff, “Der Formalismus im öffentlichen Recht” (1934); Schaffstein, “Formalismus im Strafrecht” (1934), 249 ff.; Hildebrandt, “Formalismus im bürgerlichen Recht” (1934); Noack (
Gauführer
of the League of National Socialist German Jurists), “Formalismus im Strafprozeß” (1934), 357 f.; Wagner, “Formalismus in der bürgerlichen Rechtspraxis” (1934); see also Fraenkel,
Der Doppelstaat
, 172 f.

77.
For an overview, see Anschütz,
Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reiches
(1933), 521 ff. (This commentary was published before the Nazi seizure of power.)

78.
Stuckart and Globke,
Reichsbürgergesetz
(1936), introduction, 3, 13, 24 f.: “The doctrine of the equality of all men and of the basic, unrestricted freedom of the individual vis-à-vis the state is countered in the National Socialist philosophy by the harsh but essential acknowledgment of the natural inequality and diversity of man.” Cf. also Scheuner, “Der Gleichheitsgedanke,” 249 f., with examples.

79.
Schmitt,
Die drei Arten des rechtswissenschaftlichen Denkens
, 13, 52.

80.
Stuckart and Globke,
Reichsbürgergesetz
; cf. also Scheuner, “Der Gleichheitsgedanke.”

81.
The Reich Supreme Court expressed the view that the Weimar Constitution had “lost its validity through the upheaval of 1933” (judgment of February 17, 1939 [
DR
(1939): 1785]).

82.
RGBl.
I 83; according to the preamble, the order was to serve the protection against “acts of Communist violence,” but de facto it constituted a
general
waiver of the reservations of basic legal rights; cf. Supreme Court for Criminal Cases, 69, 342 f.; OVG (Prussian Administrative Supreme Court) 98, 93; 96, 99; Administrative Court, Hamburg,
RVerwBl.
(1935): 1045; Supreme Court, Berlin,
RVerwBl.
(1936): 61 (extension of the scope of the order to other parties when “this serves the defense against Communism in the broadest sense”); Reich Administrative Court,
DVerw
(1943): 288; for a summary of the “unrestricted interpretation” of the order in legal theory, see Reich Administrative Court,
DVerw
(1943): 288.

83.
Huber, “Bedeutungswandel der Grundrechte” (1932), 1 ff., 30 ff.; Huber, “Die Rechtsstellung des Volksgenossen” (1936), illustrated by the example of property rights. Maunz, “Das Ende des subjektiven öffentlichen Rechts” (1935), 71 ff. (92 ff.); cf. also Löwenstein, “Law in the Third Reich” (1936). For a detailed account of the dismantling of basic rights, see Echterhölter,
Das öffentliche Recht im Nationalsozialismus
(1970), 15 ff., with numerous examples.

84.
Cf., for example, Law on the Revocation of Naturalization and the Deprivation of German Citizenship of July 14, 1933 (
RGBl.
I 480), which provided for the seizure of assets in cases of forfeiture of citizenship. Emigrants always had their assets confiscated (cf. statement of the
Oberfinanzdirektionspräsident
[head of finance authority], Berlin, February 2, 1942, quoted in Schorn,
Der Richter im Dritten Reich
[1959], 456 ff.). See also sec. 2 of the order of July 26, 1933 (
RGBl.
I 538), which threatened anyone making antigovernment statements abroad with deprival of citizenship and confiscation of assets.