Laws and the National Community

About This Lesson

In the previous lesson, students analyzed some of the dilemmas experienced by individual Germans during the National Socialist revolution in Germany. In this lesson, students will continue this unit’s historical case study by turning their attention to what happened after the revolution was complete and the Nazis firmly established control over Germany. Specifically, students will be introduced to the Nazis’ idea of a “national community” shaped according to their racial ideals, a concept students will continue to explore in two lessons that follow this one. While there were many ways in which the Nazis shaped and cultivated their ideal “national community,” in this unit students will look closely at three of those methods. In this lesson, they will examine the way the Nazis used laws to define who belonged to the “national community” and then separate those who did not belong. In future lessons, students will look at the Nazis’ use of propaganda and their creation of youth groups to shape German society.

Essential Question

• How can learning about the choices people made during past episodes of injustice, mass violence, or genocide help guide our choices today?

Guiding Questions

• What are the consequences when governments use laws to create “in” groups and “out” groups in a society?
• How do laws affect the ways that individuals think about their own identities and the identities of others? How do laws affect the relationships between individuals in a society?

Learning Objectives

• Through a close reading and discussion of the Nuremberg Laws, students will examine how the Nazis sought to create a racially pure “national community,” one that stripped Jews of their citizenship rights and narrowed Germany’s universe of obligation.
• By reflecting on a story of how the Nuremberg Laws affected one family, students will think more broadly about the power and limitations of laws to shape society and influence individual behavior. 

Lesson Plan

Activity 1: Briefly Introduce the Nazi Concept of “National Community”

Open by telling students that in this lesson, and the two following lessons, they are going to examine closely the “national community” that the Nazis envisioned for Germany and the ways in which they tried to create it in the 1930s. To illustrate for students the importance of the concept of “national community” to the Nazis, you might tell them that the Nazis had a specific word for this special community: Volksgemeinschaft. Tell students that defining who belongs in the Nazis’ idea of a “national community” is similar to defining who belongs in their universe of obligation.

Activity 2: Reflect on Responding to Injustice in Our Own Lives

Now, before looking at laws enacted by the Nazis, ask students to reflect on unfair laws or rules that they have experienced or witnessed in their own lives. Use the following journal prompt:

How do laws help to define a nation’s universe of obligation? Can you think of an example of a current or past law that excludes people from your country’s universe of obligation? Explain your example.

Students can share and discuss their thinking in a brief Think, Pair, Share activity.

Activity 3: Analyze Laws Used to Shape the National Community

Tell students that there are a variety of measures a government can take to shape society—and a variety of ways a government can exclude those who leaders consider to be outsiders from enjoying the benefits of belonging to the nation. Laws were one powerful tool the Nazis used for these purposes; between 1933 and 1939 they enacted nearly 1,500 laws, policies, and decrees that privileged “Aryans” and excluded, discriminated against, and persecuted Jews and other supposedly inferior groups.  

In this activity, students will examine a set of laws known as the Nuremberg Laws using the Big Paper silent discussion strategy. (For classes with additional time, an extension to this lesson analyzes a variety of additional laws enacted by the Nazis.)

Divide the class into groups of three or four, and prepare a piece of chart paper for each group with one of the following handouts taped in the middle:

• First Regulation to the Reich Citizenship Law
• Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor, Part 1
• Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor, Part 2 

Make sure that each student has a pen or marker to write with, and then give them eight minutes to have a written discussion about their assigned handout in complete silence. The following questions can help guide their discussion:

• What is the purpose of this law?
• Who benefits from it and who is harmed by it?
• What does the law suggest about who is included in Germany’s “national community”?
• How does the law define Germany's universe of obligation?

The written conversation should start with students’ responses to these questions, but it can continue wherever the students take it. Students should feel free to annotate the text. If someone in the group writes a question, another member of the group should answer it. Students can draw lines connecting a comment to a particular question. Make sure students know that more than one of them can write on the Big Paper at the same time.  

After the ten minutes, rotate each group to a different “big paper,” and give them two or three minutes to read the document and the written conversation on that paper. They can add new comments and questions if they have them. Then rotate the groups one more time, making sure that each group has seen each of the three handouts at least once.  

Finally, debrief the activity with the class, asking the following questions as checks for understanding:

• How would you summarize the purpose of the Nuremberg Laws?
• How did the laws you read and discussed contribute to creating the type of “national community” that the Nazis desired?
• How might these laws have influenced the attitudes and actions of the German people? How might their lives and beliefs have changed as a result of these laws?

Activity 4: Examine the Impact of the Nuremberg Laws

Tell students that they will now read a personal account of how one family was affected by the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws. Instruct students that as you read aloud from the reading Discovering Jewish Blood, they should underline any information that helps them answer the following question:
How did the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws affect the lives of Marianne Schweitzer and her family?

After you finish reading, discuss with students their annotations as well as the effects of the Nuremberg Laws on the Schweitzer family using the Think, Pair, Share strategy.

End the lesson by giving students a few minutes to respond in their journals to one or more of the questions below. If necessary, they can complete their reflections for homework:

• How did the Nuremberg Laws affect Marianne Schweitzer and her family members’ status in German society? How did the laws influence how they thought about their own identities?
• How might discriminatory laws influence the way we think about others in our society? About ourselves?  
• What other examples can you think of from history, literature, or your own life of laws or rules affecting how people think about and treat others? Of laws and rules affecting how people think about themselves?
• What can be done to change laws that you disagree with? What would be required to change laws in your community (local, state, or national)? Which of these options, if any, were available to people in Germany in the 1930s?