The Development and Implementation of Nazi Denaturalization and Confiscation Policy up to the Eleventh Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law

Abstract

Both Nazi racial policy and confiscation of Jewish property motivated the intensification of denaturalization in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Considerable continuity marked the development of denaturalization policy from 1933 to 1941 as existing laws and practices were progressively extended in scope. The initially small group of outspoken critics of the regime who had fled abroad and been targeted by the Gestapo for denaturalization grew steadily to encompass a wide variety of alleged “opponents,” especially Jews. By 1940 the Gestapo's greed moved the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) to extend denaturalization to all Jewish emigrants who owned significant property in Germany. The Eleventh Decree, promulgated in November 1941, was designed to simplify this enormous bureaucratic task, but it was also intended to legalize the automatic confiscation of property from German Jews “deported East.”