Ernst Rabel possessed Jewish ancestry. For a relatively long time he is able to retain his position as director of the Institute, in part owing to the protection of Friedrich Glum, the director general of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. However, increasing pressure within the Kaiser Wilhelm Society ultimately results in his dismissal in 1937. Rabel had already been removed as dean of the law faculty at the University of Berlin in the spring of 1933. Two years later, on 1 October 1935, he was placed on compulsory leave and shortly thereafter forced to retire from his university post without the privilege of emeritus status. In 1939 Rabel chooses to emigrate to the United States. Rabel’s departure marks the end of the Institute’s first internationally oriented phase.

At least six other staff members before Rabel are forced to leave the Institute as a consequence of Nazi racial ideology: Alice Breu (secretary), Felix Eckstein (research fellow), Friedrich Kessler (research fellow), Max Rheinstein (senior research fellow, library director, administrative director), Stefan Albrecht Riesenfeld (research assistant), and Martin Wolff (scientific member).

Rabel’s successor, Ernst Heymann, is a reputable legal scholar, but he cannot match Rabel’s brilliance or international reputation. Given that Heymann is already 66 years old, he is destined to be a transitional figure. Although Heymann is not a member of the NSDAP and has not authored ideologically driven tracts, he accommodates the Nazi agenda and, as dean of the law faculty of the University of Berlin, actively participates in its Nazi reorganization.