IRREGULARITIES IN NAZI RACIAL POLICY

On the eve of the 1938 Anschluß, the official status of mixed families in the Third Reich remained in flux. The passage of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935 had, in effect, created a “third race.” Behind closed doors, moreover, heated debates continued to rage between agencies of the Nazi Party and the Ministry of the Interior over the definition of race and Jewish identity. Adding to the tug of war were the aspirations of party careerists, youthful bureaucrats, and various interest groups including genealogists, anthropologists, and physicians. There were also nasty personal rivalries. Representing the NSDAP was Dr. Walter Gross, head of the National Socialist Racial Policy Office (Rassenpolitisches Amt – RPA). He and his colleagues persisted in pressing for measures to dissolve mixed marriages and to reduce the status of half-Jews to that of full Jews. Their collaborators in the Office for Kinship Research, headed by Dr. Walter Mayer, worked closely with an agency in the Interior Ministry having a similar name: the Reich Office for Kinship Research (Reichsamt für Sippenforschung [RfS], which was changed in 1940 to the Reich Kinship Office (Reichssippenamt – RSA).

As may be surmised, party officials and civil servants quarreled incessantly over the ultimate power to make racial classification decisions. It is true that in 1938 the Office of the Deputy Führer considered a proposal to clarify lines of authority, though after the outbreak of war, Rudolf Hess blocked any measure altering the organizational structure of the NSDAP. One trend did emerge.