Race Political Office of the NSDAP

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The Race Political Office (RPA) was a party office of the NSDAP .

As a forerunner organization, the National Socialist German Medical Association founded the "Enlightenment Office for Population Policy and Race Care" in 1933. On May 15, 1934, the "Enlightenment Office" was subordinated to the "Deputy Leader", Rudolf Hess , and renamed the "Race Political Office of the NSDAP". The physician Walter Gross became head ; about 25 employees worked under him.

In the decree establishing the Office of Racial Policy it said:

"In addition to the standardization and monitoring of training and propaganda in the relevant areas, the tasks of the office also include all factual, population and race-political issues insofar as they are dealt with by the party."

Portrait of two young blond athletes from 1933, from the collection of the Racial Political Office of the NSDAP

Accordingly, the training of speakers was one of the main tasks of the Racial Political Office, with which a uniform language regulation in the field of racial hygiene was to be achieved. For this purpose, a speaker school was founded in Potsdam-Babelsberg , at which 1,400 speakers are said to have been trained by 1936. The graduates included Konrad Lorenz and the later managing director of the Lebensborn , Gregor Ebner . In addition, the Race Political Office published the newspaper Neues Volk and a large-scale calendar of the same name. Several films were also made in cooperation with the Reich Propaganda Management.

The Racial Political Office saw itself as a "hub for suggestions" and was able to show the party leadership more detailed proposals for the measures to be implemented. This includes, in particular, participation in legislative measures.

At the regional level, the Racial Political Office was represented at the Gau and district level by honorary representatives. The district commissioners were often professors from the local universities. An example of this is the Gau Mainfranken : Ludwig Schmidt-Kehl , since 1934 Gaubeauftragter the Race Policy Office, headed from 1937 in personal union also emerged from the Race Policy Office of the Gau Mainfranken, founded on April 1, 1937 "Institute of science of heredity and race research" of University of Würzburg . Racial Politics Office (until October 1938 in Ludwigstrasse 8) and the university institute were in the same building (Klinikstrasse 6, in the building also called "Welzhaus" after Robert Ritter von Welz ) and also for residential purposes, in which the institute was given its premises in November 1938 and on It was inaugurated on May 10, 1939). Schmidt-Kehl was in charge of hereditary studies as part of the so-called Dr. Hellmuth Plan .

The Racial Political Office attained its greatest importance in the first years of the Nazi state . Here Walter Groß and his colleagues succeeded in enforcing a uniform language regulation in the so-called race question and in gaining influence on the relevant legislation. Through the connections in offices of the state and the party, the speaker training in Babelsberg, but also the representatives in the districts and districts, a large number of personal connections emerged. Later the office gradually lost its weight, while the SS and security service gained in importance in Nazi racial politics. In 1944 the activities of the Racial Political Office were restricted due to the war, and the destruction of the files is said to have begun the year before.

With the Control Council Act No. 2 of October 10, 1945, the race policy office of the NSDAP was banned by the Allied Control Council and its property was confiscated.

Propaganda films

The Racial Political Office of the NSDAP produced several propaganda films to promote euthanasia : The sins of the fathers (1935), Away from the Path (1935), Erbkrank (1936), Was Du Ererbet… (1936), Victims of the Past (1937), Ich indictment (1941).

literature

  • Roger Uhle: New people and pure race. Walter Gross and the Race Political Office of the NSDAP (RPA). Dissertation Aachen 1999.
  • Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945 . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1995, ISBN 3-88479-932-0 (= Würzburg medical historical research. Supplement 3.) - At the same time: Dissertation Würzburg 1995).
  • Gerhard Koch : The Society for Constitution Research. Beginning and end of 1942–1965: The institutes for anthropology, racial biology, human genetics at German universities. The racial political offices of the years 1933–1945. Erlangen 1985.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ IfZ-Munich, files d. Party Chancellery, 117 04801, May 15, 1934, quoted from Uhle, p. 30.
  2. ↑ Advertising poster for Neues Volk at the German Historical Museum .
  3. ↑ Neues Volk 1944, Heft 2, S. 1f, quoted from Uhle, S. 50
  4. ^ Ludwig Schmidt: The Institute for Hereditary Science and Race Research of the University of Würzburg. In: Journal for Racial Studies and all human research. Volume 9, 1939, p. 281.
  5. ↑ Ute Felbor: The Institute for Hereditary Science and Race Research at the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 11, 1993, pp. 155-173.
  6. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1995 (= Würzburg medical historical research. Supplement 3.) At the same time dissertation Würzburg 1995, ISBN 3-88479-932-0 , pp. 13-27 and 51.
  7. ^ The new Institute for Racial Studies and Hereditary Science. In: Mainfränkische Zeitung. May 9, 1939; and Institute for Hereditary Science and Race Research. In: Mainfränkische Zeitung. May 11, 1939.
  8. ↑ Uwe Kaminsky: "Gnadentod" and Economism. In: Wolfgang Bialas (Hrsg.): Moral orders of National Socialism. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014, ISBN 978-3-647-36963-1 , p. 245.