Law for Protection of the Nation

His protégé, government lawyer and fellow Ratnik, Alexander Belev, had been sent to study the 1933 Nuremberg Laws in Germany and was closely involved in its drafting.

Modelled on this precedent, the law targeted Jews, together with Freemasonry and other intentional organizations deemed "threatening" to Bulgarian national security.

[2] Bulgaria, as a potential beneficiary from the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939, had competed with other such nations to curry favour with Nazi Germany by gestures of antisemitic legislation.

[5][2] Petar Gabrovski and Alexander Belev were aligned to Nazism and were both members of the fascist group "Combatants for the Advancement of the Bulgarian National Spirit" or Ratniks.

[2] Although anti-Jewish measures were seen as supporting the aim of Bulgaria's territorial expansion via closer with alignment to Germany among politicians and the royal court of Tsar Boris, the bill's announcement in October 1940 divided opinion among Bulgarian society and elite.

Objections were instantly raised, and numerous open letters, petitions, and demands for audiences with the Tsar and Prime Minister Bogdan Filov were lodged.

[2] Political opposition came from the jurist and ex-PM Nikola Mušanov, ex-minister, diplomat and law professor Petko Stajnov, and from Communist members of parliament Ljuben Djugmedžiev and Todor Poljakov.

[9][14] The Law for the Protection of the Nation stipulated that Jews fulfil their compulsory military service in the Labour Corps instead of the regular armed forces.

[2] A decree-law issued on 10 June 1942 (Nerada za podantstvo v osvobodenite prez 1941 godina zemi) confirmed that the "liberated" territories' Jewish residents were ineligible for Bulgarian citizenship.

In late 1938 and early 1939 Bulgarian police officials and the Interior Ministry were already increasingly opposed to the admittance of Jewish refugees from persecution in Central Europe.

[3][2] On 1 April 1941 the Police Directorate allowed the departure of 302 Jewish refugees, mostly underage, from Central Europe for the express purpose of Bulgaria "freeing itself from the foreign element".

[23][24] From early in the war, Bulgarian occupation authorities in Greece and Yugoslavia handed over Jewish refugees fleeing from Axis Europe to the Gestapo.

In October 1941 Bulgarian authorities demanded the registration of 213 Serbian Jews detected by the Gestapo in Bulgarian-administered Skopje; they were arrested on 24 November and 47 of these were taken to Banjica concentration camp in Belgrade, Serbia and killed on 3 December 1941.

[25][2][26] The Law was followed by a decree-law (naredbi) on 26 August 1942, which tightened restrictions on Jews, widened the definition of Jewishness, and increased the burdens of proof required to prove non-Jewish status and exemptions (privilegii).