Such was the context of the making of the Nuremberg Laws: With mob violence periodically erupting in the streets, Nazi legal officials were under pressure to draft “unambiguous” laws banning mixed marriages and sexual liaisons. Nazi leaders with an eye on foreign relations were hesitant to see the passage of provocative race legislation. Party radicals wished to criminalize all sexual mixing; moderate jurists were full of doubts. The radicals wanted an expansive definition of “Jews”; moderates resisted. In the ensuing debates, Germans went looking for foreign models, and they found the
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