Extermination policy and practice: non-Jews
Interesting notes taken from two separate articles. The first one deals with Himmlers fascination with the Gypsy peoples in Germany and the bizarre policies pursed towards them and the second deals with the persecution of ‘regular’ state prisoners under nazi Germany and their inclusion in the holocaust out of Hitler’s fear of a negative selection process where the criminally deviant remained safe in penal institutions while Germany’s finest lost their lives at the front…(notes taken from the articles: ‘Himmler and the Racially Pure Gypsies’ by Guenter Lewy and ‘Annihilation through Labor: the killing of state prisoners in the Third Reich’ by Nikolaus Wachsmann)
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posted by Benjamin Nakizo at 7:53 PM
1 Comments:
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Jews numbered 525,000 in Germany. Gypsies only 26,000 or so. So it was less of a problem and Hitler himself never once mentioned the need to exterminate Gypsies. At least not directly by name.
Identifying who was and who was not a Gypsy was more difficult that identifying Jews because most Gypsies were Christian and were often integrated in the local population. So the Nazis set up a specialist institution to study and trace the ancestral origins of the German population in order to identify those of Gypsy origin.
Himmler had a fascination with the Gypsies. They were said to descend from ‘pure’ Indo-Aryan roots. As such Himmler granted them special freedoms and prviledges. People of non-pure Gyspie blood were rounded up in camps but those of pure blood were allowed to be free. In a order on the 13th October 1943 the RKPA gave out word that a new policy was to be enacted that allowed bands of pure blood Gypsies to select people from the camp they approved of and for them to also be designated as ‘pure’.
Yet in practice the ‘pure’ Gypsies never were granted any land or special rights. It was on paper only that they were given. Although seven spokesmen were selected from the ranks of the ‘pure’ Gypsy communities to select those to be freed from the camps. This did happen and the stakes were obviously very high with lots of corruption and bribery taking place.
The ‘pure’ Gypsy communities were not allowed to mix with the German people and they were effectively kept separate and safe by Himmler in order that his own department could conduct anthropological investigations into their heritage to prove if they were worthy or not of a place in the Reich.
As the war deteriorated and many departments, including Himmler’s SS were cutting back on non-essential projects, especially those of a scientific kind Himmler still insisted that his department studying the Gypsies remain active. This indicates the importance he placed on the project.
It is utterly bizarre that pure Gypsies were allowed to live in relative peace whereas those of mixed blood were detained in camps and executed. Very strange indeed.
Yet it is clear that this strange situation was a product almost entirely of Himmler’s fascination with the ancestral origins of the Gypsy peoples. It was NOT a reflective of general attitudes among the population where a feeling that there was a ‘Gypsy nuisance’ had been entrenched for generations. Nor did Hitler ever make any allowances for the protection of ‘pure’ Gypsies.
The other authorities did not share Himmlers affection for pure Gypsies and on 12th April 1943 a 12th amendment to the German citizenship law was passed that stated that Gypsies were to be counted as Jews in terms of their eligibility for German citizenship and were even denied the right to be deemed half citizens (they had created this status) or entitled to be called ‘protected persons’ (another title which had been created for them).
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On the 20th August Hitler appointed Otto-Georg Thierack as his Minister of Justice. Hitler explained to him that there was a dilemma he wished to avoid. Hitler sought to ensure that while he was sacrificing the brave and the good on the front lines the morally inferior were not being safeguarded in German prisons. He believed this to be bad news for the future of the German people. Accordingly those in prison had to be exterminated for the good of the race. Hitler believed that the revolution against the Kaiser in 1918 had been led largely by criminal elements and hence was even more determined to see them removed from the equation.
Thierack set about his business but was presented with a problem. He was under orders to exterminate those offenders in prison and believed to be un reformable. But given that they had been sentenced to prison and no more how could he legitimately have them killed? In a meeting the Himmler he found the answer. Rather than have them intentionally killed arranged for the immediate transfer of all non-German prisoners (e.g. Jews, Poles, Gypsies etc) to police control to be worked to death in labour camps. Hence nicely sidestepping any legal issues. That they would die in labour was an unfortunate side effect of a process that otherwise was perfectly legal. Germans the Czech prisoners deemed to be un reformable were to be put in front of a panel to decide for sure as to their suitability for reintegration into society and if they were deemed unsuitable then they too would be put under police jurisdiction in the labour camps.
“The term ‘asocial’ was popular in the Third Reich because it could be applied to all forms of nonnormative behaviour. Its power lay precisely in the fact that it could not be clearly defined”
Conflicts of interest began to arise as the war dragged on and labour for economic reasons became more important. The orders to transfer unreformable prisoners away from prisons in which they had been performing industrial and efficient work to camps where they would be deliberately worked to death came as unwelcome news to many prison governors who were proud of their industrial output. In the end a law was passed that exempted those prisoners designated for execution but involved in skilled labour for the duration of time it took to train up another prisoner to do their job.
“But one must not overlook the contribution of prison officials in Berlin and the rest of Germany. Without the active support of local prison governors Chief State Persecutors, many of the murdered state prisoners would have survived the war”.
The historian here is trying to look at the argument that the state institutions tried to act normally while it was the party institutions that committed the atrocities. The historians finds the two heavily involved in all activities.
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