What, if any, rights did Jewish people have in Nazi Germany?

Factual Questions
21

From The Destruction of the European Jews by Hilbel - more than you ever want to know.
Trust the Germans to make things complicated: The original decree said anyone who had at least one Jewish grandparent (or practiced the Jewish faith) Then there was subsequent clarification. Everything was done with laws, including provisions for “aryanization” of Jewish businesses, Jews were forced out professions (doctor, performer, anything) because doing certian jobs required license from offical organizations and Jews were denied licenses as non-citizens. Everything was done by precise laws, although state violence against jews was not prosecuted.

The Losener proposal was incorporated into the First Ordinance to the Reich Citizenship Law, dated November 14, 1935.15 In its final form the automatic sorting method separated the “non-Aryans” into the following categories: Everyone was defined as a Jew who (1) descended from at least three Jewish grandparents (full Jews and three-quarter Jews) or (2) descended from two Jewish grandparents (half-Jews) and (a) belonged to the Jewish religious community on September 15, 1935, or joined the community on a subsequent date, or (b) was married to a Jewish person on September 15, 1935, or married one on a subsequent date, or (c) was the offspring of a marriage contracted with a three-quarter or full Jew after the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor had come into force (September 15, 1935), or (d) was the offspring of an extramarital relationship with a three-quarter or full Jew and was born out of wedlock after July 31, 1936. For the determination of the status of the grandparents, the presumption remained that the grandparent was Jewish if he or she belonged to the Jewish religious community

Then they get into Misclings of first and second degree -

Defined not as a Jew but as an individual of “mixed Jewish blood” was (1) any person who descended from two Jewish grandparents (half- Jewish), but who (a) did not adhere (or adhered no longer) to the Jewish religion on September 15, 1935, and who did not join it at any subsequent time, and (b) was not married (or was married no longer) to a Jewish person on September 15, 1935, and who did not marry such a person at any subsequent time (such half-Jews were called Mischlinge of the first degree), and (2) any person descended from one Jewish grandparent (Mischling of the second degree). The designations “Mischling of the first degree” and “Mischling of the second degree” were not contained in the decree of November 14, 1935, but were added in a later ruling by the Interior Ministry.17 In practice, therefore, Losener had split the non-Aryans into two groups: Mischlinge and Jews. The Mischlinge were no longer subjected to the destruction process. They remained non-Aryans under the earlier decrees and continued to be affected by them, but subsequent measures were, on the whole, taken only against “Jews.” Henceforth the Mischlinge were left out.

As an example, there were specific laws by 1938 on how to buy out Jewish businesses, limiting prices and how the resulting broken contracts (i.e. contract with another jewish business) were to be paid. So someone could not just walk in and take a business, there was a formal sale. A sale was required, but it had the trappings of a legal contract. The law limited prices because they Nazis found that too many businesses were competing to buy out Jewish competitors, bidding up the price (anf giving Jews too much money).

All the vicious nastiness of the Nazi ideology was carefully wrapped in legal niceties to appear legitimate.By removing citizenship from Jews, they could fall back on the premise that non-citizens were unreliable and could not participate in assorted parts of German society.

22

I was wondering why 1b was ignored by the government during the Rosenstrasse protests. German wives of Jews protested when their husbands were being sent to concentration nookcamps. The Nazis caved and cancelled the order. But 1b would make the wives Jewish under the law, so why listen to them?

23

The non-Jewish wife of a Jew does not come with para (1)(b). The whole of para (1) applies to people who have two Jewish grandparents; it determines when they will, and when they will not, be treated as Jewish. It doesn’t affect anyone with no Jewish ancestry.

24

Keep in mind “Jewish” was as much a racial concept for the Nazis as it was religious. The two communities - Jewish and Christian - in general did not intermarry. But, in a population of millions that was becoming less religious and self-isolated, there were plenty of examples of intermarriage, and of non-observant and outright atheists of both religions. So the law was being written to also catch those of generally Jewish ancestry who claimed not to be religiously observant for a generation or more. The Nazis had to apply hair-splitting legalisms to define where individual A qualified as a Jew. Presumably the “grandfather clause” applied easily because there was a long enough registry going back to a time when the minions of the empire required and did not accept anything other than an established religion as an entry into the records. A citizen of the 1930’s did not have ancestors who, when an 1800’s census asked their religion, said “it’s complicated.” They were either Jewish or Christian.

However, for those who were of “mixed race” the Nazis had to tread lightly, especially in the early days. Exceptions were made - at first - for Jewish WWI veterans, for example. They kept their pensions.

25

Hitler was also a big fan of the “Neger”, “Chinesen”, you name it. Were they formally written down as “Jewish”, or were there parallel efforts to deprive them of their rights? Or did they simply suffer violence and persecution without any “legal” trappings until the Gestapo eventually got to them?

26

I wouldn’t categorize that as an exception. The only reason they were collecting their pensions in the first place was because they were dismissed from their jobs effective Dec 31, 1935, at the same time that they lost their citizenship in the country that they had just been serving as an official for.

27

The Germans were nothing if not correct in their formal legality. The book I cited delves into a number of larger enterprises being transferred - Rothschild-Guttman steelworks, Petscheks coal mines, Weinmann Enterprises. These larger enterprises used offshore holding companies (French, British, Swedish, American) to make it difficult for the Nazis to enfore their takeovers before the war. (Nonetheless, Herman Goring Works (!) managed to become de facto owner or partner in many steelworks. The takeovers in 1938 and later involved negotiations, questions about price and foreign currency -Czech crowns being rather useless halfway through negotiations. When one obstinant owner refused to sell, the government eventually stepped in and confiscated his enterprise.

On April 26, 1938, the Interior Ministry ordered all Jews to register their property. …Another decree of the same date provided that contracts involving transfer of a business from a Jew to a German required the approval of the “higher administrative offices”. … On June 14, 1938, the Interior Ministry took the third preparatory measure: the definition of a Jewish enterprise.105 This decree provided that a business was Jewish if the proprietor was a Jew, if a partner was a Jew, or if on January 1, 1938, one of the Vorstand or Aufsichtsrat members was a Jew. Also considered Jewish was a business in which Jews had more than one-fourth of the shares or more than one-half of the votes, or that was factually under predominantly Jewish influence. A branch of a Jewish business was declared Jewish, and a branch of a non-Jewish business was considered Jewish, if the manager of the branch was a Jew.

There’s a lot of detail. From July to December 1938 a series of decrees closed down commercial services, doctors’ and lawyers’ offices, retail establishments, and any number of other enterprises and self-employed businesses. Those in overcrowed fields were “liquidated”, the valuable ones to be taken over by efficient Aryan businesses. Goring had expressed concern about low level party functionaries profiting (“… chauffeurs to Gauleiters … now have over half a million [marks]…” ) so with the takeovers strict controls were put in place. Of course, no compensation for the losses. Aryans with contracts etc. simply suffered, the party suggesting if a citizen had continued to that point doing business with Jews, that was their problem.

Again, the point is - it was not a wild west “grab what you can” for the general citizen. All confiscations were politely disguised as legal sales or confiscations.

You are correct, and pensions only applied to those civil servants who were fired but had served as front-line soldiers in WWI.