the Nazis, downplaying exactly how much inspiration the United States’ racial segregation laws provided to the Third Reich. But the evidence is copious. Hitler emulated America’s westward expansion in his annexation of territory in Europe, and its treatment of Native Americans in his programs to remove Jews from places he felt should be occupied by Aryans. According to historian James Q. Whitman, “The Nazis took a sustained, significant, and sometimes even eager interest in the American example in race law”—racial segregation laws like the ones present all over the South.[1] In other words,
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