Ustawy norymberskie i ich wpływ na zmiany ustrojowe nazistowskich Niemiec
The Nuremberg Laws and Their Impact on the Systemic Changes in Nazi Germany

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on determining the impact of the so-called Nuremberg Laws, particularly the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, on the systemic changes occurring in Germany after Adolf Hitler came to power. It primarily concentrates on the issue regarding the change in the Third Reich’s approach to human rights and freedoms, which constituted the closing of a three-stage transformation (new form of state—new form of governance—new definition of individual rights) from the democratic Weimar Republic to a Nazi totalitarian state. The authors decided to prove the research hypothesis that the Nuremberg Laws had a significant impact on the transformation of the regime in Germany into a totalitarian system based on racist ideology and were a formal confirmation that the law had become merely a tool of this ideology and the racial exclusion policy pursued in the Third Reich. To confirm these claims, the authors examined what systemic legal changes were introduced based on the Nuremberg Laws, how the Nuremberg Laws reshaped the rights and freedoms of individuals with regard to the criteria of national and racial belonging, to what extent they legalized the restriction of minority rights and their exclusion from social life, and finally how they influenced the possibility of introducing further legislative changes that allowed for the consolidation of totalitarian regime in Germany. The research was conducted on the basis of two main research methods: the legal-dogmatic method and the historical-legal method, and led to the conclusion that the Nuremberg Laws did indeed play a key role in transforming the system into a totalitarian Nazi system. Firstly, they complemented the triad of elements of the state system by introducing a new approach to human rights and freedoms, based on the principle of unification of the needs of the state and the individual. Secondly, they created an apparent legalism of the procedure of restricting rights and freedoms on the basis of national and racial affiliation. Thirdly, they became the basis for the issuance of subsequent executive acts, which systematically and constantly led to the deepening of discrimination against people of Jewish origin, their social, political and economic exclusion. And finally, fourthly, they ultimately led to the legalization of the existence of death camps and the physical elimination of Jews.

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