Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews, Peter Longerich [essential books to read TXT] 📗

to increased discrimination and

persecution by the authorities, measures which can be interpreted as a radicaliza-

tion of traditional anti-Gypsy policies. Some states tightened up their regulations

on the rights of Gypsies, local authorities discriminated against Gypsies when

granting welfare or interpreted the administrative regulations in a restrictive

manner. Gypsies were frequently hauled in as part of the operations undertaken

against ‘social misfits’. From 1935 many municipalities, especially the larger cities,

began to accommodate Gypsies in dedicated camps, which were closely guarded

and strictly regulated. 104

However, Gypsies were particularly affected by the new legal requirements

governing the control and management of reproduction and were disproportion-

ately the victims of enforced sterilization. Qualified estimates assess that some

2 per cent of all Sinti and Roma aged between 14 and 50 were detailed for

sterilization and that about 400 of the 450 people concerned were actually sub-

jected to enforced sterilization.

50

Racial Persecution, 1933–1939

Gypsies were prevented from marrying those ‘of German blood’ both by the

Blood Protection Law and the Marriage Health Law. (The First Implementation

Order of the Blood Protection Law, 14 November 1935, made explicit provision for

extending the marriage ban to non-Jewish ‘members of alien races’, and soon

afterwards the Reich Ministry of the Interior confirmed that it was to be applied to

‘Gypsies, negroes, and their bastards’. 105) The racist paradigm thus affected the Gypsies in two different ways, as ‘alien races’ and as ‘inferiors’ to be excised from

the ‘Aryan’ race. With the implementation of enforced sterilization and marriage

bans on Gypsies the regime was beginning to depart from the traditional paths of

Gypsy persecution. The supposedly genetic reasons for ‘typically Gypsy’ behav-

iour were now being moved into the heart of Gypsy policy.

Enforced sterilization, exceptions to the regulations on abortion, and the

institution of marriage bans gave the National Socialist regime a whole battery

of weapons for the social discipline of individuals whose lives—at a more personal

level than political opposition—did not conform with National Socialist norms.

Those who were in any way inconvenient, conspicuous, non-conformist, or

potentially disruptive could be kept in check with the help of these three eugenicist

measures. It was precisely the fact that the criteria for making these interventions

were indistinct and indefinable that made them a potential threat for all those

whose private lives deviated from what was considered to be ‘normal’.

Aiming wider even than the control of marginal social groups, and working

alongside massive racial ‘hygiene’ propaganda, 106 the eugenicist measures were designed to form one of the cornerstones of the National Socialist project to

establish a new order of values and authority in German society, one determined

by the hegemony of ‘race’. Sterilization, abortion for reasons of racial hygiene, and

bans on marriage represented not only a deep intrusion into people’s private lives

but were intended to abolish the very notion of a private sphere. Decisions about

who to live with, when to start a family, and parenthood were now subject to a

state veto. 107 The eugenicist measures helped replace the principle of equality of citizenship with the principle of racial inequality, and did so in a manner that was

directly effective at an individual level. In essence there were no limits to the

continuing exclusion of citizens from reproduction. Experts juggled with numbers

of ‘inferior people’ that ran into millions. 108 Using racial hygiene arguments it was theoretically possible to use a self-defining position of ‘normality’ as a basis for

declaring everything else, everything different, a ‘deviant biological development’

and thus open the way to its ‘eradication’. It was the very inconsistency and

irrationality of the concept of race, which was not scientifically definable, that left

it up to the National Socialist state to determine the content of its cherished racial

ideals. In reality, a form of ‘biologization’ subjugated society to the totalizing

claims of National Socialist policy.

Another group that should be investigated within the context of racist perse-

cution is homosexuals. Attacks on homosexuality by the NS regime were on the

Displacement from Public Life, 1933–4

51

one hand clearly consistent with the long tradition of persecuting homosexuals in

Germany, but on the other it is equally clear that such persecution in the ‘Third

Reich’ was radicalized and motivated in a new and distinct manner. The perse-

cution of homosexuals was rooted in population policy and formed a fixed

component of the plan for the racial ‘enhancement’ of German society.

Between the ‘seizure of power’ and the murder of Ernst Röhm, known to be

homosexual, and his followers on 30 June 1934, the NS regime did intensify police

measures against visible focal points of the homosexual sub-culture, but the

majority of homosexuals were left largely free of persecution. 109 This situation changed when the SA leadership was eliminated and the systematic persecution of

homosexuals began. A special section was established in the Gestapo headquarters

and in the last months of 1934 large-scale raids on homosexuals were carried out.

In the summer of 1935 the relevant paragraph of the penal code (§175) was made

significantly more severe, in particular by the introduction of a penalty of impris-

onment of up to ten years for certain groups of offenders. 110

In the course of these racist measures, non-Europeans living in Germany were

also affected by policies aimed at the segregation of ‘alien peoples’. In 1933 and 1934

the Reich Ministry of the Interior and the Foreign Ministry both had to deal with

numerous complaints on the part of non-European states concerning discrimin-

ation against foreigners living in Germany and fears that they too might be

sterilized. 111 In order to minimize foreign-policy difficulties, as has already been shown, the Reich government was prepared to apply racial policy to foreigners

with a degree of flexibility. 112

Since the spring of 1933 the authorities had been concerned with the special

problem of children born of German women and coloured soldiers during the

French occupation of the Rhineland. 113 Initially they were identified by the authorities and as early as February 1935 one of the working parties of the Committee of

Experts on Population and Racial Policy was to consider the possibility of sterilizing

the ‘Rhineland bastards’. It was agreed that the decision about whether or not to

bring in legislation to deal with this matter should be left to Hitler himself, as will be discussed in Chapter 4. 114

chapter 2

SEGREGATION AND COMPREHENSIVE

DISCRIMINATION, 1935–1937

The second wave of anti-Semitism set in at the beginning of 1935 with renewed

violence