Hitler's American model: the United States and the making of Nazi race law

Nazism triumphed in Germany during the high era of Jim Crow laws in the United States. Did the American regime of racial oppression in any way inspire the Nazis? The unsettling answer is yes. The author presents an investigation of the American impact on the notorious Nuremberg Laws, the centerpiece anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi regime. Contrary to those who have insisted that there was no meaningful connection between American and German racial repression, the author demonstrates that the Nazis took a real, sustained, significant, and revealing interest in American race policies. The Nuremberg Laws were crafted in an atmosphere of considerable attention to the precedents American race laws had to offer. German praise for American practices, already found in Hitler's Mein Kampf, was continuous throughout the early 1930s, and the most radical Nazi lawyers were eager advocates of the use of American models. But while Jim Crow segregation was one aspect of American law that appealed to Nazi radicals, it was not the most consequential one. Rather, both American citizenship and anti-miscegenation laws proved directly relevant to the two principal Nuremberg Laws - the Citizenship Law and the Blood Law. The author looks at the ultimate, ugly irony that when Nazis rejected American practices, it was sometimes not because they found them too enlightened, but too harsh. Indelibly linking American race laws to the shaping of Nazi policies in Germany, this book upends understandings of America's influence on racist practices in the wider world.--adapted from jacket description

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- CONTENTS -- A Note on Translations -- Introduction -- CHAPTER 1 Making Nazi Flags and Nazi Citizens -- The First Nuremberg Law: Of New York Jews and Nazi Flags -- The Second Nuremberg Law: Making Nazi Citizens -- America: The Global Leader in Racist Immigration Law -- American Second-Class Citizenship -- The Nazis Pick Up the Thread -- Toward the Citizenship Law: Nazi Politics in the Early 1930s -- The Nazis Look to American Second-Class Citizenship -- Conclusion -- CHAPTER 2 Protecting Nazi Blood and Nazi Honor -- Toward the Blood Law: Battles in the Streets and the Ministries -- Battles in the Streets: The Call for "Unambiguous Laws" -- Battles in the Ministries: The Prussian Memorandum and the American Example -- Conservative Juristic Resistance: Gürtner and Lösener -- The Meeting of June 5, 1934 -- The Sources of Nazi Knowledge of American Law -- Evaluating American Influence -- Defining "Mongrels": The One-Drop Rule and the Limits of American Influence -- CONCLUSION America through Nazi Eyes -- America's Place in the Global History of Racism -- Nazism and American Legal Culture -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Suggestions for Further Reading -- Index.