English translations of Third Reich statutes

[Matthew Novak]

Greetings,

 

I am seeking English translations of various pieces of legislation from Nazi-era Germany —for example, the Denaturalization Law passed on July 14, 1933 (Reichsgesetzblatt, No. 81, 1933, I, p. 480).

 

While I’ve found translations of various laws scattered across sources such as Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (the "Red Series"), Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals (the "Green Series"), and various scholarly articles, I’m wondering if there exists an authoritative or reasonably comprehensive resource compiling English translations of Nazi-era legislation.

 

I would greatly appreciate any recommendations or leads.

 

Best regards,

 

Matt

University of Nebraska–Lincoln

College of Law

Schmid Law Library

402 472 8302

 

 

 

[Knobelsdorf, Andreas]

Matt,

Seen from Germany, this is a very good question. Apparently the Nazis shouldn’t have had much interest in getting their nasty laws translated.

Apart from that, many of their actions didn’t need a law.

 

Your Brigham Young University, Utah, offers some in their ‘EuroDocs’ collection: Germany: National Socialism and World War II - EuroDocs, e.g. the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor’ of September 15^th, 1935.

 

The German Historical Institute Washington (Homepage – GHI Washington) has some documents on its page, e.g. the ‘Law to Safeguard the Unity of Party and State’ (December 1^st, 1933):

At the end of 1933, Hitler controlled the legislative authority of the Reichstag

 

I hoped the English translation the 1933 ‘Braunbuch’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brown_Book_of_the_Reichstag_Fire_and_Hitler_Terror) would contain some laws, but it seems to be too early and more focused on newspaper and witness reports.

A digital copy here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015046786375&seq=368&q1=Law.

 

Maybe there were some German documents in the handouts for officials of the occupying US and British forces, but that is rather archival material than being published as a book.

 

Of interest for you should be the laws repealed by the Control Council Law No. 1 of September 20^th, 1945 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_Council_Law_No._1_%E2%80%93_Repealing_of_Nazi_Laws with a list of those and only a few translations).

 

 

May I suppose the work you are looking for still needs to be compiled? Anyway, my suggestion is to send an enquiry to the German Historical Institute at Washington, they are the professional historians and should know:

German Historical Institute
1607 New Hampshire Ave NW
Washington, DC 20009-2562

Phone: +1.202.387.3355
in...@ghi-dc.org

For the documents this address should be used: gh...@ghi-dc.org
www.ghi-dc.org

Best of luck and please be so kind to tell the list in case we missed something.

 

Andreas, Hamburg, Germany

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