Final answer:
The Nuremberg Laws formalized Nazi racial ideology by legally encoding anti-Semitic and racist theories into discrimination against Jews and other groups, reflecting earlier racial hierarchies and the Nazi conception of a master race.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Nuremberg Laws reflected earlier ideas about racial difference and hierarchies by formalizing the Nazi ideology, which promoted the belief in a master race and racial purity. These laws institutionalized many of the anti-Semitic and racist theories that had been circulating in Europe, but the Nazis took these concepts further by turning them into legislation that systematically discriminated against Jews and other perceived racial groups. The laws were a culmination of Adolf Hitler's ideas, which had been expounded in Mein Kampf and included notions such as lebensraum and the idea that Jews, Slavs, and other groups were inferior or subhumans (untermenschen).
These laws stripped Jews of their citizenship, barred them from marrying or having sexual relations with non-Jews, and expelled them from various professions. It symbolized the legal foundation for the broader, horrific genocidal activities that would follow, culminating in the Holocaust. In essence, the Nuremberg Laws cemented the legal segregation of Jews and others from German society, reflecting the Nazi regime's ideologically driven, racialized worldview, which was also influenced by earlier 19th-century European theories of race.