How Nazi Germany Borrowed from American Racism

Throughout history, racist ideologies and legal frameworks have crossed national borders, influencing and reinforcing one another. One of the most disturbing examples of this phenomenon is the direct connection between American racism and Nazi Germany’s racial policies. Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders closely studied the United States’ history of racial segregation, eugenics, and exclusionary immigration laws as they crafted their own system of antisemitic persecution and genocide. Scholars such as Isabel Wilkerson (Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents) and James Whitman (Hitler’s American Model) have documented how Nazi legal architects took inspiration from American Jim Crow laws, anti-miscegenation policies, and eugenics programs when designing the Nuremberg Laws and broader strategies for racial purity.

Jim Crow as a Model for Nazi Racial Laws

One of the most direct influences on Nazi Germany’s legal framework was the Jim Crow system in the United States. Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation in the American South, systematically denying Black Americans political, economic, and social rights. Nazi leaders found these laws particularly instructive when designing the Nuremberg Laws (1935), which stripped Jews of German citizenship and restricted their rights.

A key similarity between the two systems was the legal enforcement of racial hierarchy. Just as Jim Crow laws categorized Black Americans as inferior and unworthy of full citizenship, the Nuremberg Laws formally classified Jews as a separate and subordinate racial group. Nazi legal theorists also admired the way American laws were structured to allow for systemic oppression without violating the country’s own constitutional ideals.

Anti-Miscegenation Laws and the Nuremberg Laws

The United States’ long history of banning interracial marriage also provided a precedent for the Nazis’ racial purity policies. Many U.S. states had strict laws prohibiting marriage between white and Black people, reflecting the widespread belief that racial mixing would “contaminate” white bloodlines. The Nazis adopted a similar approach in the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor,” which prohibited marriage and sexual relations between Jews and non-Jewish Germans.

Both American anti-miscegenation laws and Nazi racial purity laws relied on pseudoscientific ideas about racial superiority. American laws categorized people based on racial purity, often using the “one-drop rule” (which classified anyone with even one Black ancestor as Black). The Nazis found this rule too extreme but still developed their own racial classification system, determining who was legally considered Jewish based on ancestry.

The Influence of U.S. Immigration Policies on Nazi Racial Purity Laws

In addition to segregation and marriage laws, the United States’ immigration policies also influenced Nazi racial ideology. The 1924 Immigration Act, which severely restricted immigration from non-Northern European countries, was celebrated by Nazi officials, who saw it as a model for preserving racial purity. This law was designed to limit Jewish, Southern European, and Asian immigration to the U.S., reinforcing the idea that America was a nation for white Europeans.

Nazi leaders admired how the U.S. used legal restrictions to control racial demographics, and they incorporated similar strategies to justify their own efforts to keep Jews and other “undesirables” out of Germany.

Lynching and the Normalization of Racial Terror

Another American practice that influenced Nazi policies was the widespread use of racial violence to maintain white dominance. Public lynchings of Black Americans, often celebrated with postcards and large crowds, served as a form of social control and racial terror in the U.S. Nazi officials took note of how American racial violence was tolerated or even encouraged by local governments, using similar strategies to justify Kristallnacht (1938) and other anti-Jewish attacks.

Just as lynchings in the U.S. were often carried out with police complicity, Nazi paramilitary groups like the SA (Brownshirts) attacked Jews and political opponents while the government turned a blind eye. This normalization of racial terror helped lay the groundwork for the mass killings of the Holocaust.

Conclusion: A Disturbing Legacy of Shared Racism

The connections between American racism and Nazi racial ideology reveal a deeply unsettling truth: systems of oppression often learn from and reinforce each other. While Nazi Germany is often viewed as an unprecedented evil, it is crucial to recognize that its architects drew inspiration from American laws and practices. The United States, in turn, did little to oppose Nazi racial policies in the 1930s, in part because similar forms of racial oppression existed at home.

This dark history reminds us that racism is not confined to one country or time period. Understanding how racial oppression spreads and adapts across borders is essential to dismantling it today.