Police preventive detention

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Preventive police custody was an instrument of the National Socialist regime with which the criminal police, similar to the protective custody imposed by the Gestapo, could imprison people indefinitely without a judicial decision - usually in a concentration camp .

Early persecution

As early as 1933, some people with multiple previous convictions were taken into "preventive detention". On November 2, 1933, Hermann Göring signed a decree “Application of preventive police detention against professional criminals ”. This was considered to be anyone who was convicted three times or more of criminal offenses out of profit-seeking. This measure was initially limited to a few hundred people who were sent to the concentration camp for an unlimited period of time . At the beginning of 1937, Heinrich Himmler, in a speech to Wehrmacht officers, was determined to “lock up and never let go” of criminals with three or four sentences as professional criminals, despite the “inadequate laws” he complained about. In an express letter on February 27, 1937, he instructed the Prussian State Criminal Police Office to arrest two thousand professional and habitual criminals who were not in work and to send them to concentration camps. This arrangement was implemented in March 1937.

Basic decree of December 1937

The " preventive detention by the police " and the " regular police surveillance " were uniformly regulated nationwide with the basic decree " Preventive Fight against Crime by the Police" of the Reich Ministry of the Interior of December 14, 1937. The decree and the implementation guidelines were largely determined by SS-Standartenführer Paul Werner , head of department at Reich Security Main Office , written.

Certain groups of people could be placed under "scheduled surveillance" by the police and - if the conditions were violated - imprisoned. "Professional criminals" who had been sentenced to six months' imprisonment at least three times for "profit-seeking crimes" were held in preventive detention. The decree also affected “habitual criminals” who had committed their offenses “out of criminal drive or criminal inclination” and were sentenced to at least eight months' imprisonment three times. Anyone who "endangers the general public through their anti-social behavior" could also be taken into preventive detention.

Police preventive detention was carried out in “closed correctional and labor camps” or “in some other way”. A detention test was planned after two years of detention at the latest. No legal remedies could be lodged against the “scheduled police surveillance” and the “preventive detention by the police”, so that a legal vacuum was created here.

Extensions

In April and June 1938, two waves of arrests, known as the “Arbeitsscheu Reich” and the June campaign , followed. The imprisonment and deportation to concentration camps primarily affected “work-shy” , homeless people , Sinti and Roma , prostitutes , homosexuals and Jews with a minor criminal record . The corresponding order, the circular “Protective custody against anti-social people”, refers to the basic decree “Preventive fight against crime by the police” of December 1937.

Interpretations

The historian Peter Longerich states that with the arrest operation carried out in March 1937, the number of "preventive prisoners" increased fivefold and thus no longer an "exceptional case" but became routine. National Socialist criminal biologists would have viewed crime as “genetically determined” and therefore as a race issue. In the case of crime prevention, it was now a matter of "eradicating" the carriers of anti-social and generally criminal genetic traits.

swell

  • Reich Security Main Office - Office V - (Ed.): Preventive fight against crime - Collection of decrees. Edited by SS-Hauptsturmführer Kriminalrat Richrath in the Reich Security Main Office, undated, undated, (Berlin 1943).

Research literature

  • Patrick Wagner: National community without criminals. Concepts and practice of the criminal police during the Weimar Republic and National Socialism. Christians, Hamburg 1996.
  • Karl-Leo Terhorst: Regular police surveillance and preventive detention in the Third Reich. A contribution to the legal history of preventive crime prevention. Müller, Heidelberg 1985.
  • Andreas Schwegel: The police concept in the Nazi state. Police law, legal journalism and judiciary 1931-1944. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2005.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In February 1934 there were 525 people - see Julia Hörath: Terror instrument of the "Volksgemeinschaft?" Concentration camp detention for "anti-social" and "professional criminals" 1933 to 1937/38. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 60 (2012), no. 6, pp. 522–523.
  2. ↑ Doc. 1992 (A) -PS in: IMT: The Nuremberg Trial against the Major War Criminals… , fotomech. Reprint Munich 1989, vol. 29, ISBN 3-7735-2523-0 , p. 220.
  3. ^ Peter Longerich: Heinrich Himmler. Biography . Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88680-859-5 , p. 237.
  4. ↑ Printed by Wolfgang Ayaß (arrangement), "Gemeinschaftfremde". Sources on the persecution of "anti-socials" 1933–1945 , Koblenz 1998, No. 50 and Christian Faludi: The “June Action” 1938. A documentation on the radicalization of the persecution of Jews in Frankfurt / M. 2013, ISBN 978-3-593-39823-5 , No. 1, pp. 121-128.
  5. ↑ Printed by Wolfgang Ayaß: “Gemeinschaftfremde” , No. 62.
  6. ^ Christian Faludi: The "June Action" 1938. A documentation on the radicalization of the persecution of Jews in Frankfurt / M. 2013, ISBN 978-3-593-39823-5 , S, 129.
  7. ^ Peter Longerich: Heinrich Himmler. Biography . Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88680-859-5 , p. 237.
  8. ^ Peter Longerich: Heinrich Himmler. Biography . Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88680-859-5 , p. 237.

See also