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Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service (April 7, 1933)

During the first years of the Hitler regime, Germany’s Jewish population suffered arbitrary violence and harassment – especially from the SA. Discriminatory laws and regulations aimed at their socioeconomic isolation and marginalization meant that they were also the victims of state persecution. As part of the Nazi "coordination" [Gleichschaltung] of all public offices, the Reich Ministry of the Interior, under the leadership of Wilhelm Frick (1877-1946), issued the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” (the so-called Civil Service Law) on April 7, 1933. This law excluded all racial and political “enemies” of the regime from the civil service. Henceforth, all public sector employees were required to provide a so-called certification of Aryan ancestry [Ariernachweis] documenting their racial purity. Frick, who, as a Reichstag delegate, had called for the exclusion of all Jews from the civil service as early as 1924, soon went on to issue a series of additional regulations, which forced Jews out of the judicial system and the administration as well.

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Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service (April 7, 1933)


The Reich government has enacted the following law, which is hereby promulgated:

§ 1.
1. For the restoration of a national professional civil service and for the simplification of administration, civil servants may be discharged from office in accordance with the following regulations, even when there are no grounds for such action under existing law.
2. For the purposes of this law, the term “civil servant” means immediate [unmittelbare] and mediate [mittelbare] officials of the Reich, immediate and mediate officials of the federal states [Länder], officials of local governments [Gemeinde] and local government associations, officials of public corporations and of institutions and enterprises with the same status. The stipulations apply also to social insurance agency employees who have the rights and duties of civil servants.
3. “Civil servants,” for the purposes of this law, also includes officials in temporary retirement.
4. The Reichsbank and the German State Railway Co. are empowered to make corresponding regulations.

§ 2.
1. Civil servants who attained their status after November 9, 1918, without possessing the required or customary training or other qualifications are to be dismissed from service. Their former salaries will be accorded to them for a period of 3 months after their dismissal.
2. They possess no right to allowances, pensions, or survivors’ pensions, nor to continued use of the official designation, the title, the official uniform, and the official insignia.
3. In cases of need, a pension, revocable at any time, equivalent to a third of the normal base pay for the last position held by them may be granted to them, especially when they are caring for dependent relatives; reinsurance according to the provisions of the Reich’s social insurance law will not occur.
4. The stipulations of Section 2 and 3 will be applied in the case of persons who come under the provisions of Section 1 and who had already been retired before this law became effective.

§ 3.
1. Civil servants of non-Aryan descent are to be retired; honorary officials are to be removed from official status.
2. Section 1 does not apply to civil servants who were already employed on August 1, 1914, or who fought during the World War at the front for the German Reich or who fought for its allies or whose fathers or sons were killed in the World War. With the agreement of the appropriate special minister or of the highest authorities of the federal states, the Reich Minister of the Interior can permit further exceptions in the case of officials who are abroad.

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