Nazi law: the logical conclusion of class justice?

Nazi law: extreme class justice

The National Socialist theory of law in Hitler’s Germany included the following:

• The “leadership principle”. The state is a group and a group has no strength or unity without a leader. The leader is the mystical personification of national unity. Law and the state mean the same thing. Since the leader is the embodiment of the state, law is what the leader commands. Therefore, unquestioning obedience is demanded; the law serves political ends; nothing must stand in the way of implementing the will of the leader.

• The “racial principle”. Law is inherited by blood. It should serve the ends of the state and its policies. It should help to preserve racial purity. The German Code of 1900 was based on Justinian’s version of Roman law. It was therefore “Jewish” in origin. The only international system which could be tolerated was a Nordic one. Every state has a natural privilege and power to prevail over other states and to take their land as room for its people. Any treaty which attempted to restrict this privilege could be ignored.

Nazi law was not central to the exercise of power by the National Socialist party, but it formed part of a system which brought unimaginable suffering to millions.