Laws & Statutes

Provides for the civil administration of the territories conquered from the Soviet Union. The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories directs the newly established Reichskommissariat Ostland (Riga) and Reichskommissariat Ukraine (Rivne). Further Reich Commissariats (Muscovy, Caucasus) are foreseen as the theatre of operations extends.

Issued 12 May 1941 following the flight of the Deputy Führer, the decree elevates the Head of the Party Chancellery to the rank of Reichsminister with a seat in the Reich Cabinet, the Ministerial Council for the Defence of the Reich, and the Secret Cabinet Council. All legislative proposals of Reich authorities require his prior participation; the Party's influence on state administration is thereby formalised.

Creates the Generalgouvernement (from 1940: Generalgouvernement, without the qualifier 'for the occupied Polish territories') as a distinct territorial unit under a Governor-General directly subordinate to the Führer. Its capital is Kraków; its administration operates outside the Reich's ordinary constitutional structure.

Introduces the death penalty for plunder in evacuated areas, air-raid offences, and any serious crime whose gravity is aggravated by the exceptional circumstances of the war. Applied in conjunction with the wartime criminal procedure ordinance by the Sondergerichte.

Constitutes the Ministerrat für die Reichsverteidigung as a war-emergency legislative body. Its members are the Plenipotentiary for the Four-Year Plan (chair), the Head of the Reich Chancellery, the Chief of the OKW, the Plenipotentiary for the Reich Administration, and the Plenipotentiary for the War Economy. Its decrees rank as ordinary Reich law.

Removes routine safeguards from criminal procedure during the state of war: shortens deadlines, expands the jurisdiction of the Sondergerichte, and permits summary proceedings for offences against the war effort.

Places the Deutsche Reichsbank under the sovereign authority of the Führer; the President of the Reichsbank is appointed by him and is bound to his directives. Note issue and monetary policy are integrated into the war-economy programme of the Four-Year Plan.

Following the entry of German troops into Prague, the former Czech provinces are declared a protectorate of the Reich under a Reich Protector. Foreign policy, defence, transport, posts and customs pass to the Reich; internal administration remains formally with an autonomous Czech government subject to the Protector's directives.

Requires that all foreign-currency holdings be declared and, on demand, surrendered to the Reichsbank. Foreign payments, capital transfers and export earnings require official authorisation. Preserves scarce hard currency for strategic imports.

Provides for the transition of the Reich from peace to war footing, defines the powers of the Plenipotentiary-General for War Economy and the Plenipotentiary-General for the Reich Administration, and authorises the Führer to place the Reich in a state of defence. Ministries may issue emergency regulations in their spheres of competence upon declaration.

The Führer assumes personal command of the entire Wehrmacht. The Reich War Ministry is dissolved and replaced by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) as his working military staff, standing above the high commands of Army, Navy and Air Force.

Consolidates civil-service law across the Reich, imposes a personal oath of loyalty to the Führer, requires demonstrated political reliability, and provides for removal without pension where such reliability is lacking. Applies to Reich, Land, municipal and public-corporation officials.

All German youth are, outside home and school, physically, intellectually and morally educated for service to the people and community through the Krump Youth. The Reich Youth Leader is directly subordinate to the Führer and holds the rank of a supreme Reich authority.

Empowers the Plenipotentiary (Beauftragter für den Vierjahresplan) to issue legally binding ordinances and administrative instructions to all Reich and Land authorities in matters of economic mobilisation. The office directs the drive for autarky in strategic materials (fuel, rubber, iron, non-ferrous metals) in preparation for war.

Appoints the Reichsführer-SS as Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior. The order-keeping and security police branches (Ordnungspolizei; Sicherheitspolizei) are unified under his personal authority, merging Party and state security apparatus.

Extends the Prussian Secret State Police as the political police of the entire Reich, subordinates its provincial offices to the Gestapo Head Office in Berlin, and excludes its acts from review by the administrative courts. Protective custody orders may be imposed without judicial warrant.

Prohibits marriage where one partner suffers from a hereditary disease, contagious illness, or mental incapacity as defined in the 1933 Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring. Registrars may only conduct a marriage upon presentation of a health certificate (Ehetauglichkeitszeugnis) issued by a state medical officer.

Part of the Nuremberg statutes of September 1935. The black-white-red horizontal tricolour is retired; the flag of the NSDAP — a red field with a white disc bearing a black swastika — becomes the sole national flag and merchant ensign of the German Reich. Diplomatic and consular missions receive a corresponding service flag.

Introduces a two-tier citizenship: full political rights (Reichsbürgerrecht) are reserved for state subjects of 'German or kindred blood', while others retain the status of Staatsangehöriger without political rights. Executive ordinances issued under this law (notably the First Ordinance of 14 Nov 1935, RGBl. I S. 1333) define the affected categories and progressively exclude Jewish subjects from public office and the professions.

The second of the two Nuremberg racial statutes. Marriages contracted in violation of the law are declared void; extramarital relations, the employment of female citizens under 45 as domestic servants in Jewish households, and the display of the Reich colours by Jews are criminalised. Implementing ordinances progressively expand its scope.

Establishes the Reichsarbeitsdienst as a compulsory six-month service for young men (later extended to young women), performing agricultural, infrastructural and civil-defence works. Service in the RAD is a prerequisite for admission to universities, apprenticeships and the civil service.

Renounces the Versailles limitations on the armed forces, establishes universal military service for all male German subjects aged 18–45, sets the peacetime army at twelve corps and thirty-six divisions, and organises the armed forces of the Reich as the Wehrmacht (Heer, Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe) under the Reich War Ministry.

Punishes with imprisonment public statements likely to undermine confidence in the political leadership or in the National Socialist movement, as well as the wearing of Party uniforms or insignia by unauthorised persons. Enforced through the special courts (Sondergerichte).

Enacted the day before Reich President Paul von Hindenburg's death, this law provides that his office shall be combined with that of the Reich Chancellor, whose incumbent becomes 'Führer und Reichskanzler'. All powers of the former Reich President are transferred to him, including supreme command of the Wehrmacht.

Places the entire postal, telegraph, telephone and broadcasting infrastructure of the Reich under the Reichspost and defines its monopoly, tariffs, and disciplinary regime. Provides the legal basis for the postal savings system and for Reich broadcasting distribution.

Establishes the Volksgerichtshof as a special court for high treason, treason and related political offences. Judges are appointed by the Führer, panels contain lay assessors drawn from the Party, Wehrmacht and SS, and there is no appeal against its verdicts.

Dissolves the parliaments (Landtage) of the constituent states, transfers their sovereign rights to the Reich, and subordinates the Land governments to the Reich government. Reich Governors (Reichsstatthalter) are placed under the supervision of the Reich Minister of the Interior. The federal structure inherited from Bismarck is replaced by a centralised administrative Reich.

Abolishes free collective bargaining and worker councils; the employer becomes the 'leader of the enterprise' and workforce members his 'followers'. Confidence councils replace works councils, and Reich Labour Trustees issue binding wage regulations. Provides the legal architecture of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF).

The NSDAP becomes 'the bearer of the German state idea and indissolubly bound up with the state'. The Deputy of the Führer and the Chief of Staff of the SA are made members of the Reich government to secure the closest cooperation of Party and State agencies.

Editorship of a periodical is declared a public office. Editors must be registered with the Reich Association of the German Press, be of Aryan descent, married to a spouse of Aryan descent, and demonstrate the political reliability required for shaping public opinion.

Farms of viable size held by farmers of German or kindred blood are entered in the Erbhofrolle: they may not be sold, mortgaged or divided at inheritance and pass undivided to a single heir. Intended to bind a stable class of German peasantry to the soil.

Establishes the Reichskulturkammer with seven sub-chambers (press, literature, radio, theatre, music, fine arts, film). Membership is a prerequisite for practising any cultural profession in the Reich; the Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda presides.

Establishes the Reichsnährstand as the compulsory corporate organisation of everyone engaged in the production, processing or distribution of foodstuffs. It regulates prices, quotas and distribution and forms the administrative backbone of Reich food policy and wartime rationing.

Passed by the Reichstag on 23 March 1933 with the required two-thirds majority, the Enabling Act transfers legislative authority to the Reich government for a four-year period (renewed in 1937 and 1939). Laws issued by the Reich Chancellor may deviate from the Reich constitution provided they do not affect the institutions of the Reichstag or the Reichsrat, and treaties with foreign states no longer require parliamentary ratification. This is the principal statutory basis on which the Reich Chancellor governs by decree.

Issued under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution the morning after the Reichstag fire, this presidential decree indefinitely suspends the guarantees of personal liberty, free expression, press, association and assembly, the privacy of postal and telephone communications, and property rights. It further authorises the Reich government to override the Länder where necessary to restore public order. The decree provides the standing legal basis for protective custody (Schutzhaft) and remains the operative emergency framework of the Reich in 1941.

Governs the annual Reich budget, the audit function of the Rechnungshof, and the accounting duties of Reich ministries. Retained (with amendments) after 1933; forms the basis on which wartime supplementary budgets and secret military appropriations are executed.