Legislative Interventions into the Creation of Local Political Elites as an Instrument of Anti-Jewish Policy during the Holocaust (A Comparative View)

Abstract

The extension of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in the first half of the twentieth century, which hit most European states, required political interferences within the highest legislative and executive authorities of states as well as in local administrations and bodies of self-government. Legislative interventions resulted in the formation of new local political elites whose representatives, mostly recruited by the criterion of political reliability, held the defining positions and played the significant role in implementing anti-Jewish policy during the Holocaust era. The main aim of this contribution is the analysis of the mechanisms of legislative interventions into the creation of new local political elites in selected examples of Nazi-occupied countries (General Government, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia) and allied regimes (Slovak State and Hungary).