How American race law provided a blueprint for Nazi Germany

Nazism triumphed in Germany during the high era of Jim Crow laws in the United States. Did the American regime of racial oppression in any way inspire the Nazis? The unsettling answer is yes. In Hitler's American Model?? James Whitman presents a detailed investigation of the American impact on the notorious Nuremberg Laws?? the centerpiece anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi regime. Contrary to those who have insisted that there was no meaningful connection between American and German racial repression?? Whitman demonstrates that the Nazis took a real?? sustained?? significant?? and revealing interest in American race policies.

As Whitman shows?? the Nuremberg Laws were crafted in an atmosphere of considerable attention to the precedents American race laws had to offer. German praise for American practices?? already found in Hitler's Mein Kampf?? was continuous throughout the early 1930s?? and the most radical Nazi lawyers were eager advocates of the use of American models. But while Jim Crow segregatio