By Christine Stenner, German Attorney in the United States at Stenner Law| Foreign Legal Consultant (PA) | May 8, 2026
May 8, 1945, marked the end of World War II in Europe and the collapse of a regime built on racial hatred, political oppression, and religious persecution. Eighty one years later, this date remains one of the most important reminders of how legal systems can either protect human rights or become instruments of injustice.
For Jewish families across Europe, the Nazi era was not only a period of violence and displacement. It was also a period of systematic legal persecution. German citizenship was revoked. Civil rights disappeared. Property was seized. Jewish citizens were excluded from public life through laws intentionally designed to isolate and dehumanize them.
The Holocaust did not happen outside the legal system. It happened through it.
How Nazi Germany Used the Law to Persecute Jewish Citizens
The persecution of Jewish people under National Socialism was carried out through legislation, court decisions, administrative actions, and legal interpretation. Laws such as the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 stripped Jewish citizens of their rights and redefined citizenship based on race.
Judges, prosecutors, legal scholars, and government officials participated in creating a system that legalized discrimination and exclusion. Legal institutions that were meant to protect individuals instead enforced ideology.
Understanding this reality shaped my own view of law very early in my legal education.
In my first year of law school at the University of Constance in Germany, I took a legal ethics class with Professor Bernd Rüthers, one of Germany’s leading legal scholars examining how legal systems function under authoritarian regimes.
His work, including his book Entartetes Recht: Rechtslehren und Kronjuristen im Dritten Reich, analyzes how the German legal system was not simply controlled from the outside. It was transformed from within by judges, scholars, prosecutors, and legal institutions that adapted legal reasoning to serve political ideology and persecution.
That class had a lasting impact on me.
It taught me that injustice does not always begin where there is no law. Sometimes injustice begins when legal systems lose their moral foundation and legal professionals stop questioning the misuse of power. Under National Socialism, legal language and legal interpretation were used to justify exclusion, confiscation of property, loss of citizenship, and ultimately the destruction of Jewish life in Germany.
This lesson continues to shape how I view the role of lawyers and legal systems today.
The Nuremberg Trials and the Principle of Accountability
After World War II, the Nuremberg Trials established a principle that still defines international law today: individuals can be held accountable for crimes against humanity, even when acting under state authority.
The trials demonstrated that legality alone does not equal justice.
This principle remains essential when confronting racial persecution, political oppression, antisemitism, and violations of human rights. Legal systems must not only create laws. They must also protect human dignity and fundamental rights.
Restoring German Citizenship for Descendants of Victims of Nazi Persecution
For many Jewish families and descendants of those persecuted under the Nazi regime, the legal consequences of that period continue today.
Germany now provides pathways for many descendants of victims of Nazi persecution to restore German citizenship. These laws recognize that citizenship was unlawfully stripped from individuals because of religion, race, political beliefs, and persecution by the Nazi regime.
In my law firm, I help clients navigate these citizenship restoration processes, including applications under Article 116(2) of the German Basic Law and Section 15 StAG (German Nationality Act).
These cases are not simply administrative matters.
Each application tells a family story shaped by displacement, loss, exile, and survival. Many clients are reconnecting with a part of their identity and family history that was interrupted generations ago.
Why I Am Passionate About Helping Clients Restore German Citizenship
My work in German citizenship law is deeply connected to this history and to my understanding of how law can be abused or used to restore justice.
Helping clients restore German citizenship is meaningful because it represents more than obtaining a passport. It represents recognition. It acknowledges that rights were taken unlawfully and that legal systems have a responsibility to address those wrongs, even decades later.
Restoring citizenship cannot undo the suffering experienced by prior generations. But it can restore a legal connection that should never have been broken.
For me, this work reflects what the law should ultimately do: protect human dignity, correct injustice where possible, and help families reclaim a part of their history that persecution tried to erase.
May 8 as a Reminder for Today
May 8 is not only about remembering the past. It is about understanding the responsibility legal systems carry in the present.
Antisemitism, racial discrimination, political persecution, and attacks on religious freedom still exist today. The lessons of history require vigilance, accountability, and legal systems willing to defend fundamental rights.
The law can be used to destroy rights.
It can also be used to restore them.
At Stenner Law, German citizenship restoration is part of a broader legal effort to recognize Nazi injustice and help families reconnect with their history.
Photo: Installation “Shalekhet (Fallen Leaves)” by Israeli artist Menashe Kadishman at the Jewish Museum Berlin. The artwork consists of more than 10,000 iron faces spread across the floor, representing the pain, loss, and silenced voices of victims of war, violence, and the Holocaust.
About the author
Christine Stenner is a German attorney with 30 years of experience. She is admitted to practice German law in the United States and focuses exclusively on German citizenship law for clients living in the United States. At STENNER LAW, she assists applicants with restoring or reclaiming German citizenship through declaration, re-naturalization, and restitution-based applications.
