Hitler and his followers immediately enacted legislation making the Nazi doctrines of racism and anti-Semitism the law of the land. The program was instituted in four phases: (1) the economic persecution of German Jews, (2) the passage and enforcement of legislation to remove Jews from the German public and social life, (3) the forced removal of Jews from their homes in Germany and conquered lands, and (4) the eradication of all Jews through systematic mass murder.

Economic Persecution

Hitler began the economic persecution of the Jewish people on April 1, 1933, by ordering a boycott of all Jewish businesses. Falling back on the Nazi trick of claiming to do God's work, Hitler stated: “I believe that I act today in unison with the Almighty Creator's intentions: By fighting the Jews, I do battle for the Lord.”

Just in case the German people weren't up for a boycott, the edict was enforced by SA goons who stood in front of Jewish-owned stores and verbally and physically intimidated all who might try to do business with them. Almost immediately, Jewish businesses saw a devastating drop in trade, and many were financially ruined within weeks.

This was just the first step. A week after instigating the economic boycott, Hitler removed Jews from the civil service. Then, over the course of the following year, he systematically ordered all non-Aryans (meaning Jews and those who had at least one Jewish parent or grandparent) removed from positions in banks, the stock market, the law, medicine, and journalism. The result was a national “brain drain” as thousands of prominent Jews in science and academia fled the country before it was too late. Among them were Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud.

From 1933 to 1937, an estimated 130,000 Jews fled Nazi Germany and Austria. However, the world didn't exactly put out a welcome mat for them. In one of the most notorious incidents of international anti-Semitism, 937 Jews sailed from Germany for Havana, Cuba, aboard the liner St. Louis on May 13, 1939. When the ship reached its destination, however, all but 22 of the passengers were denied entry. The United States also refused entry to the ship. Having nowhere else to go, it returned to Europe, where the passengers got off and scattered for whatever safe haven they could find. Many were not able to find it, however — an estimated 600 of them died in concentration camps over the course of the war.

In late 1935, two years after his rise to power, Hitler successfully coaxed the Reichstag into passing what became known as the Nuremberg Laws, after the Bavarian Nazi stronghold. These laws essentially stripped Jews of all rights within Germany. Blood laws, for example, stated that only persons of “German or related blood” could be citizens. Other laws made Jews the property of the state, prohibited marriage or sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews, and prevented Jews from hiring female servants under the age of forty-five.

With the Jewish people's legal protection removed by the state, persecution increased. The Nazis seized numerous Jewish businesses and canceled legally binding business contracts simply by claiming that the owners had violated one of the many Nuremberg Laws. Jewish employees of businesses owned by non-Jews were let go en masse. Anti-Semitism became compulsory in German schools with the teaching of so-called racial science and mandatory membership in Hitler Youth for all children except those of Jewish descent. Before too long, Jewish children were barred from attending public schools.

The Night of Broken Glass

The Nazi campaign against the Jews reached a murderous plateau on November 9, 1938, with Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. Using the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris as an excuse, Nazi officials secretly orchestrated a one-night campaign of vicious retribution against German Jews that resulted in more than 200 synagogues being burned to the ground, 7,500 Jewish businesses destroyed, and more than 800 Jews killed or severely injured.

In the terror that followed, more than 20,000 Jews were arrested and 10,000 were sent to the concentration camp at Buchenwald. From that night on, no German Jew was safe from state-sanctioned attack.