3.16 How were social, religious and racial minorities treated
within the Nazi state?
Volksgenossen: Those who failed to fit Nazi criteria for Volksgenossen were subject to
This term refers to intimidation and persecution.
a person who was Political enemies have already been considered, but two other important
racially pure and minority groups suffered:
was therefore Asocials such as habitual criminals, the work-shy, tramps and beggars,
considered worthy alcoholics, prostitutes, gay men and lesbians, and juvenile
of German delinquents.
citizenship. Biological outsiders, including those suffering hereditary defects that
were considered a threat to the future of the German race and those
who were regarded as a threat because of their race, such as Roma,
Sinti and Jews.
‘Asocials’
In September 1933, 300,000-500,000 so-called beggar and tramps were
rounded up. Some were given a permit and had to perform compulsory work
in return for board and lodgings, but the ‘work-shy’ were dealt with under
the Law Against Dangerous Habitual Criminals, 1933. They were sent to
concentration camps and made to wear a black triangle. They could also be
compulsorily sterilized, since ‘social deviance’ was considered to be
biologically determined.
In the summer of 1938, another big roundup took place under the ‘Work-shy
Reich’ programme. Of the 10,000 tramps incarcerated during the Third Reich,
few survived.
In 1939, the Reich Central Agency for the Struggle Against Juvenile
Delinquency was established and a youth concentration camp was set up in
Moringen near Hannover in 1940. Here, youths were subject to biological and
racial examination and those deemed unreformable were sterilized.
‘Biological Outsiders’
In July 1933, the Nazis introduced a law demanding the compulsory
sterilization of those suffering from specified hereditary illnesses. These
included some illnesses that had a dubious hereditary base, such as
schizophrenia and ‘chronic alcoholism’.
Hereditary courts were established to consider individual cases, and between
1934 and 1945 around 350,000 people were sterilized under this law. People
who had been sterilized were forbidden to marry fertile partners.
, Euthanasia
The Nazis also launched a propaganda campaign to devalue people with
mental or physical disabilities as ‘burdens on the community’. This
culminated in the euthanasia programme (began in the summer of 1939).
Practiced in secret, the programme initially targeted children under
three, but it was later extended to children up to sixteen years of age.
By 1945, 5,000 children had been murdered by injection or deliberate
starvation.
In order to extend this programme to adults, carbon monoxide gas
was used in six mental hospitals in various parts of Germany.
By Aug. 1941, when the programme was officially stopped because of public
outrage, 72,000 people had been murdered.
However, between 1941 and 1943, the secret programme ‘14F13’ led to the
gassing of 30,000-50,000 in the concentration camps on the grounds of
mental illness or physical incapacity.
Roma and Sinti
The Nazis persecuted Roma and Sinti people, then called Gypsies, because of
their alleged inferior racial character.
There were only around 30,000 ‘Gypsies’ in Germany, but they were included
in the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which banned marriage between Aryans and
non-Aryans.
Physical traits were analyzed and efforts were made to distinguish between
pure ‘Gypsies’ and half-‘Gypsies’ at the Research Centre for Racial Hygiene
and Biological Population Studies.
From Dec. 1938, gypsies were registered, and from 1940 they were deported
to Poland to work in camps. In Dec. 1942, they were transferred to Auschwitz
and subjected to medical experiment carried out by Dr Josef Mengele, a Nazi
German SS officer known as the ‘Anger of Death’.
Mengele supervised the selection of incoming prisoners to determine
who should be killed, who would become a forced labourer, and who
would be used for human medical experiments.
Most of those Mengele experimented on died, either from the
experiments or later infections. He also had people killed in order to
dissect them afterwards.
Probably a total of around half a million gypsies were killed in occupied
Europe.
within the Nazi state?
Volksgenossen: Those who failed to fit Nazi criteria for Volksgenossen were subject to
This term refers to intimidation and persecution.
a person who was Political enemies have already been considered, but two other important
racially pure and minority groups suffered:
was therefore Asocials such as habitual criminals, the work-shy, tramps and beggars,
considered worthy alcoholics, prostitutes, gay men and lesbians, and juvenile
of German delinquents.
citizenship. Biological outsiders, including those suffering hereditary defects that
were considered a threat to the future of the German race and those
who were regarded as a threat because of their race, such as Roma,
Sinti and Jews.
‘Asocials’
In September 1933, 300,000-500,000 so-called beggar and tramps were
rounded up. Some were given a permit and had to perform compulsory work
in return for board and lodgings, but the ‘work-shy’ were dealt with under
the Law Against Dangerous Habitual Criminals, 1933. They were sent to
concentration camps and made to wear a black triangle. They could also be
compulsorily sterilized, since ‘social deviance’ was considered to be
biologically determined.
In the summer of 1938, another big roundup took place under the ‘Work-shy
Reich’ programme. Of the 10,000 tramps incarcerated during the Third Reich,
few survived.
In 1939, the Reich Central Agency for the Struggle Against Juvenile
Delinquency was established and a youth concentration camp was set up in
Moringen near Hannover in 1940. Here, youths were subject to biological and
racial examination and those deemed unreformable were sterilized.
‘Biological Outsiders’
In July 1933, the Nazis introduced a law demanding the compulsory
sterilization of those suffering from specified hereditary illnesses. These
included some illnesses that had a dubious hereditary base, such as
schizophrenia and ‘chronic alcoholism’.
Hereditary courts were established to consider individual cases, and between
1934 and 1945 around 350,000 people were sterilized under this law. People
who had been sterilized were forbidden to marry fertile partners.
, Euthanasia
The Nazis also launched a propaganda campaign to devalue people with
mental or physical disabilities as ‘burdens on the community’. This
culminated in the euthanasia programme (began in the summer of 1939).
Practiced in secret, the programme initially targeted children under
three, but it was later extended to children up to sixteen years of age.
By 1945, 5,000 children had been murdered by injection or deliberate
starvation.
In order to extend this programme to adults, carbon monoxide gas
was used in six mental hospitals in various parts of Germany.
By Aug. 1941, when the programme was officially stopped because of public
outrage, 72,000 people had been murdered.
However, between 1941 and 1943, the secret programme ‘14F13’ led to the
gassing of 30,000-50,000 in the concentration camps on the grounds of
mental illness or physical incapacity.
Roma and Sinti
The Nazis persecuted Roma and Sinti people, then called Gypsies, because of
their alleged inferior racial character.
There were only around 30,000 ‘Gypsies’ in Germany, but they were included
in the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which banned marriage between Aryans and
non-Aryans.
Physical traits were analyzed and efforts were made to distinguish between
pure ‘Gypsies’ and half-‘Gypsies’ at the Research Centre for Racial Hygiene
and Biological Population Studies.
From Dec. 1938, gypsies were registered, and from 1940 they were deported
to Poland to work in camps. In Dec. 1942, they were transferred to Auschwitz
and subjected to medical experiment carried out by Dr Josef Mengele, a Nazi
German SS officer known as the ‘Anger of Death’.
Mengele supervised the selection of incoming prisoners to determine
who should be killed, who would become a forced labourer, and who
would be used for human medical experiments.
Most of those Mengele experimented on died, either from the
experiments or later infections. He also had people killed in order to
dissect them afterwards.
Probably a total of around half a million gypsies were killed in occupied
Europe.
