Racial policy of Nazi Germany
The racial policy of Nazi Germany is the set of policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the so-called “Aryan race,” and based on a specific racist doctrine which claimed scientific legitimacy. It was combined with a eugenics programme that aimed to achieve “racial purity” of the “Aryan race” by using compulsory sterilizations and extermination of specific minorities, which eventually culminated in the Holocaust. These policies targeted, first of all, Jews, who were considered as the most “inferior races” of all on a hierarchy that included Jews at the bottom and the “Herrenvolk” (or “master race”) of the “Volksgemeinschaft” (or “national community”) at the top. Scientific racism became popular at the end of the 19th century in Europe, and had a direct influence on the pan-Germanism movement, including the Alldeutscher Verband (Pangermanic League).
