Hitler's American Model

By James Q. Whitman

Subjects: Law and legislation, African-Americans, Segregation, Race discrimination -- Law and legislation -- United States -- History -- 20th century, African Americans, Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945 -- Political and social views, Jews -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Germany -- History -- 20th century, Race defilement (Nuremberg Laws of 1935), National socialism -- Germany -- History, Citizenship, Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) fast (OCoLC)fst00958866, Antisemitism -- Germany -- History -- 20th century, Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), Rassentrennung, National socialism, Segregation -- United States -- History, Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945, African Americans -- Segregation -- History, Race discrimination, Race discrimination -- Law and legislation -- Germany -- History -- 20th century, Nürnberger Gesetze, History, United states, race relations, Jews, Race defilement (Nuremberg Laws of 1935.), Holocaust, Jewish (1935-1945.), African Americans -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Southern States -- History, Legal status, laws, Antisemitism, Citizenship -- Germany -- History -- 20th century, Political and social views

Description: How American race law provided a blueprint for Nazi Germany. 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. In Hitler's American Model, James Whitman presents a detailed 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, Whitman demonstrates that the Nazis took a real, sustained, significant, and revealing interest in American race policies. As Whitman shows, 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. Whitman 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, Hitler's American Model upends understandings of America's influence on racist practices in the wider world. - Jacket.