The Nazi regime's treatment of Jews between 1933 and 1939 was gradually radicalized. Each new phase was preceded by public acts of violence instigated by party radicals and then finally transformed into anti-Jewish legislation. The process could be described as a dialectical relationship between organized actions coming from below and legal–administrative measures undertaken from above. The forces at work (e.g., storm troopers and local party bosses) usually brought about Hitler's own intervention, which assumed the form of a state act and created thereby a new, temporary anti-Semitic consensus that provided a basis for the next, more radical wave of activities from below and intervention from above.

Each wave of more radical behavior was related to developments in domestic political and economic affairs in Germany itself and in its relations with foreign powers. Between each wave, however, there were periods of relative calm and stabilization. Yet the very nature of the Nazi phenomenon was dictated by its dynamism. It could not accept a status quo for a long time but perceived in it a return to the past, which it wanted to prevent. Hence, a policy aimed at retention of the status quo would have been an inadmissible gain for existing pre-Nazi forces and values in society such as Christianity, liberalism, and leftist ideologies. Therefore, from a Nazi point of view, such a development would have been a triumph for “Jewish-inspired” forces.