How did the Nazis treat the Jews for the first years after their accession?How did the Nazis treat the Jews for the first years after their accession?
The pre-war persecution of Jews in Germany took place under very different circumstances from that of the Nazis’ extermination campaign during World War II. The operative aim of Nazi policy during the first years was not yet the physical annihilation of the Jews but rather their social and economic displacement and their removal from German soil. In pursuing these goals, the regime was still subject to internal and external constraints that restrained the brutality of its antisemitic measures. Most of the anti-Jewish campaign was carried out in the full glare of world publicity. Its typical manifestations were discriminatory legislation, economic deprivation, public defamation, administrative harassment, and social ostracism rather than physical torture and murder. A distinctive feature of Nazi policy before the war was the confusing interplay between repression and normalcy, the constant tightening and untightening of the antisemitic pressure. Spurts of intense antisemitic activity we
