Boycott of Shops

In April 1933, the Nazi regime imposed a boycott on Jewish shops and businesses. Hitler claimed that this was in retaliation against Jews in Germany and abroad who had called for a boycott of German goods. Goebbels organized an intensive propaganda campaign, which was manned by SA soldiers, to maximize the impact. Shops were the main target of the boycott, but it also applied to Jewish professionals. The boycott made a big public impact and was prominently featured in news coverage in Germany and foreign countries, but it was not an unqualified success. It was difficult to justify what counted as a Jewish business. The boycott was abandoned after one day.

1933 Civil Service Laws

The Nazis introduced laws that dismissed Jews from the civil service. It was more complicated than expected as they had no clear scientific definition of who was racially Jewish. Another difficulty was that President Hindenburg insisted on exemptions for German Jews who had served during World War I and for those whose fathers had been killed in the war. The civil service law had a devastating economic and psychological impact on middle-class Jews in Germany and contributed to the increasing levels of Jewish emigration.

Education

There was further anti-Semitic legislation in 1933 with the law against overcrowding of German schools and universities. This restricted the number of Jewish children who could attend. Nazi propaganda stressed the danger that a well-educated Jew would be a greater threat to Germany than an uneducated one. German children were being told that their former friends and classmates were unworthy of being in the same schools as them. However, not all Jewish children were forced out of state schools at this point. The process was not completed until 1938, and Jewish children could also still attend private education and Jewish schools. Jewish schools were also one of the few places where Jewish teachers could find work.

Doctors and Lawyers

More than 10 percent of German doctors were Jews. They were attacked by propaganda as a danger to German society, and some local authorities started removing Jewish doctors from their posts. The regime was pushed along by these local initiatives, and Jewish doctors were banned in 1933. In theory, Jewish doctors could now only treat Jewish patients, but many carried on their normal practice for several years. The exclusion of lawyers was more gradual.

The Press

In October 1933, the press law enabled the regime to apply strict censorship and to close down publications they disliked. Jews had a prominent role in journalism and publishing, and with this law, they were effectively silenced.

1935 Nuremberg Laws

In 1935, the Nazis extended the anti-Semitic legislation through the Nuremberg laws. Some radicals felt that the persecution of Jews had not gone far enough, and these radicals were the driving force behind the demands for anti-Jewish legislation. The Nuremberg laws were Hitler’s way of dealing once and for all with Jewish Bolshevism, and it made marriage between Aryans and non-Aryans illegal.