The racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the "Aryan race", and based on a specific racist doctrine which claimed scientific legitimacy. It was combined with a eugenics programme that aimed for racial hygiene by using compulsory sterilizations and extermination of the Untermensch (or "sub-humans"), and which eventually culminated in the Holocaust. These policies targeted peoples, in particular Jews, as well as Gypsies, homosexuals and handicapped people, ethnic Poles, Russians who were labeled as "inferior" in a racial hierarchy that placed the Herrenvolk (or "master race") of the Volksgemeinschaft (or "national community") at the top, and ranked Poles, Russians, Romani, persons of color and Jews at the bottom.
Read more about Racial Policy Of Nazi Germany: Basis of Nazi Policies and Constitution of The Aryan Master Race, Racial Policies Regarding The Jews, 1933-1940, Other "non-Aryans", Policies Regarding Poles and Russians, Germanization Between 1939 and 1945
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“What is most original in a man’s nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are forced on the world by men who simply cannot bear the pain of living with what is. Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. If Hitler had been born in Nazi Germany he wouldn’t have been content to enjoy the atmosphere.”
—Leonard Cohen (b. 1934)
“From whichever angle one looks at it, the application of racial theories remains a striking proof of the lowered demands of public opinion upon the purity of critical judgment.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“Men must learn now with pity to dispense,
For policy sits above conscience.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“We’ll build a democracy here, even if it’s with Nazi bricks.”
—Samuel Fuller, U.S. screenwriter. Samuel Fuller. Captain Harvey, Verboten! American Military Government officer explaining the practicalities of de-Nazification (1959)
“If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.”
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955)