The Nazi regime instituted laws which discriminated against Jews, declared a race by the Nazis, and thus needed a working definition of who is a Jew as to its law-defined race system. These definitions almost completely categorised persons through the religions followed by each individual's ancestors, according to membership registries. Thus, personal faith or individual observance, as well as the religious definitions of Judaism as given by the Halacha, were mostly ignored. In Germany itself, the Ahnenpass and the Nuremberg Laws classified people as being of the Jewish race if they were descended from three or four grandparents enrolled in Jewish congregations. A person with one or two grandparents enrolled in a Jewish congregation could be classified as Mischling, a crossbreed, of "mixed blood", even if they were not a member of a Jewish congregation at the time the Nuremberg Laws were enacted. The Mischling Test was introduced in order to identify Europeans with Jewish blood, and these were classified as "Jews of the first or second degree". Only people with at least two grandparents of "German blood" could be German Reich citizens. Other Germans were dropped into a new second class group of citizens, the so-called "state subjects" (Staatsangehörige). If a person with grandparents of the same religious combination was enrolled as a member of a Jewish congregation in 1935, or later enrolled, they switched from the discriminatory class of Mischlinge into that of Geltungsjude, "Jew by legal validity" even if they did not meet the criterion of descent from three or four Jewish grandparents. In the eyes of the Nazi government, one could not become a non-Jew by seceding from one's Jewish congregation, becoming non-practicing, marrying outside the religion, or converting to Christianity. Thus any Mischling could move into the class of Geltungsjude by joining a Jewish congregation, but the Nuremberg Laws provided that the classification of any Geltungsjude would not change even she or he tried to evade harm by withdrawing from their Jewish congregation after 1935, considering such secessions as being of no effect. Similarly, after 1935, any Mischling with two Jewish grandparents (colloquially called a half-Jew) who married anybody classified as a Jew would drop into the Geltungsjude class. Mischlinge with one Jewish grandparent were usually forbidden from marrying anybody with any Jewish grandparents. In 1935 the Nuremberg Laws forbade new marriages between people who were classified as Jews and people who belonged to other