How did thomas aquinas’s idea of natural law influence the lawmakers and philosophers of the enlightenment?

The work of Thomas Aquinas was the first attempt to develop the Christian doctrine of the state on the basis of the Aristotelian Politics. He returned to the ancient notions of law and the state, recognized the importance of Roman law and the interpretation of the natural character of the state. The eternal law is enclosed in God, and the natural law is a reflection of the eternal law in the human mind. Natural law prescribes to strive for self-preservation and procreation, obliges to seek the truth (God) and respect the dignity of people. The concretization of the natural law is the human (positive) law. Its purpose is to force people to avoid evil and achieve virtue by force and fear. His philosophical and legal views were further developed in the Tomist and neo-Thomistic concepts of natural law.

Explanation

the ss was the main organization responsible for the genocidal murder of around six million people of european ethnic minorities, essentially jews, in the holocaust. the members of all its branches committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the second world war (1939-1945). likewise, the ss were involved in commercial enterprises and exploited the inmates of the concentration camps as slave laborers.

the tortures and assassinations committed by the ss were the result of an ideology developed long before the armed conflict, this ideology was based on the racial supremacy of the germans over the rest.