The ‘New Nationalities Law’: The 1930s Illiberal Re-negotiation of Collective National Rights and the Path Towards Ethnic Sovereignty

The article discusses the intellectual processes taking place within the sphere of national minority activism during the 1930s, focusing on the illiberal re-negotiation of nationalities law (Nationalitätenrecht, Volksgruppenrecht). A legal discipline aiming at accommodating minorities with collective rights, nationalities law was not necessarily an illiberal endeavour. The 1930s, however, saw a popularization of new forms, which rested on völkisch theoretical tenets and were adjusted to the needs of radically nationalist politics. Underpinned by an organicist, total and politicized conception of nationality and distinguished by the essential subordination of the individual to the national community, it also entailed the idea of ethno-national groups as original sources of sovereignty.