In the history of the 20th century, the 1930s and 1940s were a time when anti-Semitism was institutionalized at the state level in Nazi Germany and Vichy France. Two key legal phenomena of this period - the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 and the anti-Semitic laws (statutes) of the Vichy regime in France (1940 and 1941) – are examples of how law can be used for the purposes of discrimination, segregation, and ultimately, national annihilation. Despite the apparent common ideological foundation of anti-Semitism in France and Germany, these legal systems emerged in different political, historical, and legal contexts. Their comparative analysis allows us to understand not only the mechanisms of "legal" registration of hatred at the state level, but also two models of anti-Semitic policy: active, initiating (Nazism) and passive-active, adapting (Vichy). This study contains a historical and legal analysis of these legislative complexes, highlighting their legal nature, goals, and legal mechanisms.