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Only people of "German or kindred blood" could be citizens of the Reich.
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Jews were legally reclassified as "subjects" of the state, not citizens.
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Crucially, the law stated that only a Reich citizen was the "sole bearer of full political rights," which explicitly excluded Jews from the right to vote.
This law formalized a process that had already been underway since the Nazis took power in 1933, as their anti-Jewish legislation was designed to remove Jewish people from all aspects of German public life and ultimately, from the country itself.
es, Jewish people in Germany had voting rights before the Nuremberg Laws were enacted in September 1935.
Here is a breakdown of the period:
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Weimar Republic (1919-1933): Under the Weimar Constitution, Jews were full citizens of Germany and enjoyed equal civil and political rights, including the right to vote. This period was actually one of the greatest periods of integration and freedom for German Jewry.
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Early Nazi Rule (1933-1935): When the Nazis came to power in January 1933, they immediately began to pass a series of discriminatory laws aimed at removing Jews from public life, especially from professions like the civil service, law, and medicine.
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While their rights were being aggressively attacked and stripped away in other areas, their formal citizenship and the right to vote were not revoked on a national level until the Nuremberg Laws of September 1935.
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They were likely still allowed to cast a vote in the last multi-party election in March 1933, before the Nazi government was fully consolidated, although their civil liberties were already severely curtailed and the entire political environment was based on terror.
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The Nuremberg Laws were the legal action that definitively and systematically revoked the citizenship of German Jews, thereby stripping them of all political rights, including the right to vote.
