Two measures were taken today to intensify enforcement of the Nuremberg “Rassenschande” (race defilement) laws, which have brought fines and jail terms to hundreds of German Jews and many “Aryans” for maintaining intimate relations.
The Ministry of Justice revealed it has issued an order for the establishment of special courts throughout Germany to be used exclusively for the trial of “Rassenschande” cases.
Establishment of these courts, the ministry explained, was necessary “to bring unity into the system of punishment for violation of the Nuremberg laws for the protection of German blood.”
At the same time, the ministry instructed all State’s attorneys that anyone convicted of race defilement must be sentenced to penal servitude as a criminal. The instructions emphasized that the fact that relations between a Jewish defendant and an “Aryan” woman had started prior to enactment of the Nuremberg laws was not to be considered as an extenuating circumstance.
The measures are believed to be directly due to the drive currently conducted by Der Stuermer, rabidly anti-Semitic weekly published by Julius Streicher, for more stringent application of this section of the Nuremberg laws.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
