Racial Hygiene Research Center

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"Gypsy capture" accompanied by the police. Robert Ritter doing field work (picture by RHF)
"Gypsy registration", structure of the genealogies (picture of the RHF)

The Racial Hygiene and Population Biology Research Center (RHF for short) of the Reich Health Office , which was founded at the time of National Socialism in 1936, under the direction of Robert Ritter , worked primarily and in close cooperation with the police on about 30,000 " gypsies " living mainly in the German Reich . The RHF thus provided the pseudo-scientific basis for the murder and forced sterilization of thousands of Roma .

In addition, concentration camp prisoners and inmates of youth concentration camps were examined. The RHF was initially based in Tübingen , Ritter's place of residence, then the capital of Berlin . Before the end of the war the relocation took place u. a. to the Security Police School Drögen in Fürstenberg / Havel around 100 km north of Berlin. The Uckermark youth concentration camp and the Ravensbrück concentration camp were in the immediate vicinity .

After 1945, the “Gypsy family archive” created by the RHF, ie the “planning documents for the genocide ” ( Benno Müller-Hill ), continued to be used by the police in the Federal Republic of Germany . None of the employees of the RHF was prosecuted for their work in disciplinary, professional or criminal law.

Foundation, organizational affiliation, financing and goals

Memorial plaque , Unter den Eichen 82, in Berlin-Dahlem

The RHF was founded in August 1936 at the instigation of the head of the public health department in the Reich Ministry of the Interior , Arthur Gütt , as an institute of the Reich Health Office . Robert Ritter , a doctor from Tübingen, became the director ; he was released on April 1, 1936 for his new role. P. 137

Even the name of the institute as a research center for racial hygiene and population biology shows its pseudoscientific and racial ideological orientation. Because the RHF was in truth not a theoretical institute, but had the task of transferring its "research" into "hereditary care practice".

Ritter was selected as director because of his racial hygiene standpoint, which he had taken since the early 1930s. Pp. 17–19 As early as 1933/34 he had the idea of ​​uncovering hidden “gypsy populations” in Württemberg. P. 135 At the international population congress that took place in Berlin in 1935 under the direction of Eugen Fischer , he gave the lecture “Hereditary biological investigations within a breeding group of gypsy hybrids and anti-social psychopaths” ”. P. 135 Ritter was also familiar with the practical side; Since 1934 he has been in charge of a marriage counseling center in Tübingen which, in addition to the mental hospital, was also the local branch of the German Society for Racial Hygiene . P. 135 In 1936 he was promoted to deputy medical officer in Tübingen and thus a member of the Hereditary Health Court . P. 136 Ritter’s habilitation with the title Ein Menschenschlag. Hereditary medical and hereditary historical examinations on the descendants of 'Vagabunden, Jaunern u. Robbers' (published 1937) paradigmatically stands for his racial hygienic and hereditary deterministic ideas. These were rated as third class by the university-oriented racial hygienists.

The exact designation of the RHF and its organizational assignment changed over time. In 1938, Ritter reported in the Reich Health Gazette from the “Department for Hereditary and Racial Care of the Reich Health Office” as head of the “Racial Hygiene Research Center”. At this point in time, the RHF was subordinate to the "Forensic Biological Research Center of the Reich Health Office" founded by Ferdinand von Neureiter in 1937 and also headed by him. In 1940, after Neureiters was appointed to the Reich University of Strasbourg , under the direction of Ritters to the "Forensic Biology Institute at the Reich Health Office ”merged. Pp. 29, 31

In 1940, Ritter stated the official title: "Head of the racial hygiene and population-biological research center of the Reich Health Office". From 1941 the designation was "Racial Hygiene and Forensic Biology Research Center of the Reich Health Office". The designation on the "expert statements" created by the RHF until at least 1944, which served as individual breed reports for "Gypsies", remained "Racial Hygiene Research Center of the Reich Health Office" (head: Robert Ritter). In 1941, Ritter also became head of the "Criminal Biology Institute of the Security Police and SD " (KBI) and thus held a managerial function both in the Reich Health Office and in the Reich Security Main Office . The use of the word institute instead of “research center” had a tactical reason, “research” was viewed by many agencies in the Third Reich as not directly important to the war effort, the consequence could be refusal of deferment from military service or financial means. Ritter initially referred to the collaboration between the RHF and KBI as a working group, but in 1944 had the members of the RHF transferred to the KBI, which was classified as important to the war effort.

Due to the often only slightly different designations and the personal continuity, the designation Forschungsstelle Ritter is also used in the literature without any institutional assignment.

The main focus of the work of the RHF was the registration and assessment of the German and Austrian "Gypsies" (knights) and "Gypsy hybrids" (knights). The recording took place in close cooperation with various police authorities.

The financing was also secured through "third-party funds". The RHF and Ritter were among the preferred recipients of aid from the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 1935 to spring 1944 . The DFG reviewers were Ernst Rüdin and Robert Eugen Gaupp . Ritter's funding applications were approved by the President of the Reich Health Office, Hans Reiter . P. 140f. The Reich Research Council (RFR) injected additional funds .

Employees of the RHF

The staff of the RHF consisted of racists , people's nurses , doctors , genealogists , photographers , shorthand typists and other assistants:

  • Robert Ritter (Head, Doctor, "Flying Working Group")
  • Eva Justin (nurse, Ritter's deputy, "flying work group")
  • Sophie Ehrhardt (anthropologist, "Flying Working Group")
  • Adolf Würth (anthropologist "Flying Working Group")
  • Gerhart Stein (doctor, SA man, "flying work group")
  • Karl Moravek (anthropologist, "Flying Working Group")
  • Ruth Kellermann , née Hesse (racial and folklorist, "flying working group")
  • Mrs. Callies (s), people's nurse
  • Ruth Helmke, Genealogin pp. 68, 214, 257
  • Mrs. Betz
  • Miss Olboeter
  • Miss Lützkendorf
  • Mrs. Plonz
  • Mrs. Kraus
  • Miss von Witzenmleben
  • Hans Wetzel

Würth and Justin were mainly concerned with Sinti, Ehrhardt's specialty until 1942 was the East Prussian Sinti. Morawek and, after his war death, Justin were responsible for Roma, Kellermann dealt with the Lalleri and Roma.

Other cooperatives

  • Karin Magnussen , who would later become a teacher for the State of Bremen, had Josef Mengele from Auschwitz send the eyes of several murdered Sinti children to her if they were twins and had heterochrome eye colors. Before that, during his lifetime, Some human tests have been carried out on the eyes . She hid the preserved eyes with her until 1990.

"Gypsy Research"

Development of the “Gypsy genealogical archive” by “flying working groups” - the nationwide records 1937–1940

Ritter and the RHF considered "half-breeds" to be particularly dangerous for the existence of a "healthy national community". Ritter claimed that 90 percent of the “Gypsies” were “mixed race”. He claimed to be able to rely on "large-scale forensic biological investigations" which would prove a "much higher level of crime" in "mixed gypsies" than in "unmixed wandering gypsies". This was based on the ethno-racial axiom of an indigenous “nomadic” way of life of “gypsies”, which alone was “species-appropriate”. Sedentary, therefore "degenerate" members of the minority would have to have entered into "mixed marriages" with "degenerate" members of the majority population and have succumbed to crime. In fact, "the investigations cited by Ritter did not exist." The thesis of the harmfulness of racial mixture was one of the basic assumptions of racial hygienists at least since Eugen Fischer's paradigmatic work The Rehobother Bastards and the human hybridization problem (Jena 1913). However, this central thesis of the hereditary biologists - not only in relation to the groups of people then summarized under the "Gypsy" term - is to be regarded as just as absurd as the application of the genetic health theory as a knowledge-guiding theory is questionable. Despite great efforts, Ritter and the research center headed by Michael Zimmermann had to admit that “the gypsies have no uniform physical constitution and that consequently their 'physical characteristics' and 'symptoms' cannot be correlated with their allegedly 'criminal behavior'. Karl Morawek, who was employed in the RHF in 1939/40, even stated 'Nordic influences' in his measurements and color determinations on 113 Burgenland Roma. The attempt to construct a race using biological characteristics was therefore soon given up against the gypsies. "

From the winter of 1937/38, “flying work groups” of the RHF combed “barrack camps and poor quarters” (Ritter) - the work was not limited to such places, however - and for the first time recorded 2400 “gypsies”. Affected people were summoned by the police for a racial investigation or visited in prisons, as the work reports or daily lists of the RHF show. The personalized data obtained in this way formed the basis of the “Gypsy family archive” of the RHF.

  • Registration of the RHF in Hamburg 1938 with police escort (picture of the RHF)

  • Employees of the RHF record in the gypsy camp Cologne-Bickendorf (picture of the RHF)

  • Recording work in April 1938 by Eva Justin in Stein in the Palatinate (picture by RHF)

  • Location unknown (picture of RHF)

  • 1938 survey (picture of the RHF)

  • Taking blood on the country road (picture by RHF)

  • "Zigeunerschub" 1938 Berlin (picture by RHF)

1938: Himmler's circular to “fight the gypsy plague” ensures the existence of the RHF

On December 8, 1938, a circular issued by Heinrich Himmler “re. Combating the Gypsy Plague ", for which the RHF had done preparatory work, the" Regulation of the Gypsy question based on the nature of this race ". The RHF was entrusted with the preparation of "expert statements" called breed reports, for which the Reich Criminal Police Office paid 5 RM per report.

The expert opinions

An externally visible result of the recordings and the structure of the “Gypsy family archive” were the “expert statements” signed by Ritter, Justin or Ehrhardt. They were a one-sided form in which "based on the documents that are in the Gypsy genealogical archive of the research center" and the "racial clan examinations carried out to date" (text on the form), in addition to personal data, only an assessment as "gypsy" or "gypsy hybrid" was entered in many degrees were. There is no indication of the method with which this assessment was made or the reproduction of individual characteristics or measured values ​​on the form.

Number (consecutive number) of the expert opinions of the Racial Hygiene Research Center. The timeline begins with the maiden deportation . Yellow: Period in which the Auschwitz gypsy camp was operated. (Source for numbers see article text).

The number of reports has increased over the years. On February 4, 1942, Ritter wrote to the DFG of 15,000 "Gypsy cases" that had been finally processed. On March 23, 1943, there were already 21,498 cases. The processing in the Altreich and the Ostmark was "roughly finished", but in a report by Ritter to the DFG of January 30, 1944, the number rose to 23,822 "Gypsies" and "Gypsy hybrids".

This corresponds to the presumably consecutive numbering on the "expert statements" (number 2543 is from July 14, 1941, 6848 from January 14, 1942, 15.061 from April 17, 1942, 16.468 from April 27, 1942, 17.691 from October 14, 194? 21323 of February 25, 1943, 21,732 of May 27, 1943, 23,034 of March 29, 1944, 23,986 of August 26, 1944). It is noticeable that during the maiden deportation in 1940 (see below) already 2300 people were assessed, but in 1941 only the expert opinion 2543 was drawn up.

From 1941 onwards there was an increased need for these reports because the Wehrmacht High Command had issued a decree on February 11, 1941, regulating the exclusion of "Gypsies" from the army, navy and air force. The Reich Criminal Police Office (RKPA) should create special registration lists for this purpose, separated into "full-blooded gypsies" and "gypsy hybrids" with details of the place of birth and address.

The individual assessment lagged considerably behind the overview from mid-1940 (see below). The numbers increased even further when, due to the Auschwitz decree of December 1942, mass deportations to the specially established gypsy camp in Auschwitz took place from February 1943 . Ritter's number of 23,822 closed cases on January 30, 1944 is 14% higher than the number of prisoners in the Auschwitz gypsy camp mentioned elsewhere.

Before 1940, the RHF also recorded and assessed prisoners in concentration camps such as the Buchenwald concentration camp .

Maideportation 1940

Deportation May 1940, Sinti under police surveillance in the Hohenasperg Fortress (picture by RHF)
Deportation May 1940, Sinti are led through the village by the police (picture by RHF)
Deportation May 1940, train to the Generalgouvernement (picture of the RHF)

After the attack on Poland , a leadership conference of the RSHA on future race policy took place in Berlin on September 21, 1939 . Representatives of the RHF were involved in this or other meetings in the RSHA in autumn 1939. At the suggestion of the RHF, the deportation was postponed to spring 1940 for practical reasons. From October 1939, the Reich Criminal Police Office ordered lists to be compiled to enable the deportation. An additional pretext for the deportation of the Sinti and Roma from the western border in May offered, in addition to the racist ideas of the RHF, u. a. the allegation of possible espionage.

Shortly before the deportation, Ritter gave a lecture to police officers in Bremen on the "Gypsy mischief" and indicated the imminent deportation. On the night of May 15-16, 1940, 2,500 "Gypsies" in families with children, newborns and very old old people were deported to the three collection points in Hamburg, Cologne (exhibition grounds) and Hohenasperg fortress , from where they were transported to the Government General .

At the three collection points, the deportees were re-examined by employees of the RHF, who were also familiar with the police “gypsy files” and the structure of the police “gypsy offices” and who brought the relevant documents with them.

At the assembly point for the Hohenasperg Fortress, Josef Eichberger from the “Reich Central Office for Combating the Gypsies” led the deportation.

These RHF employees decided on the further fate of those affected by classifying the prisoners as "Gypsies", "Gypsy hybrids" or "non-Gypsies". A classification as “non-Gypsy” meant that they were sent home. On the Hohenasperg, 22 people were classified as “non-Gypsies” and sent back. According to the police report, the RHF employee Adolf Würth had "initially" complained to other people "d. H. assessed as a "non-Gypsy", but since "Adam M. is married to a Z. and he is by no means able to prove his German-blood descent, he was also referred to as ZM and evacuated." "Z" is the abbreviation for " Gypsy ”,“ ZM ”for“ Gypsy hybrid ”.

After the maiden deportation, reports were created that were intended to optimize future deportations, to which the employees of the RHF contributed their tips.

The RHF draws an interim balance

Knight during the capture in the Neumünster camp (picture by RHF)

The RHF probably accounted for the number of "Gypsies" separated by region in mid-1940, including those already resettled in the "Generalgouvernement", ie. H. deported:

Deportation balance
region Remained "Resettled"
East Prussia 2,500
Pomerania 870
Mecklenburg / Lübeck 320
Greater Berlin 1,930
Kurmark 200
Silesia 530
Saxony 220
Bavaria 300
Württemberg / Hohenzollern 1,000
to bathe 500 150
Saar Palatinate 140 160
Hessen-Nassau
Kurhessen 		1,220 180
Cologne / Aachen
Koblenz / Trier 		400 600
Dusseldorf
food 		1,200 330
East Hanover
South Hanover / Braunschweig 		820 130
Weser / Ems 550 30th
Schleswig-Holstein
Hamburg and northern Hanover 		750 750
Ostmark for example 13,000
Sudetenland for example 900
total 29,900 2,330

The results of the appraisal are appalling: “A total of 15,000 people from Germany were killed as 'Gypsies' or 'Gypsy hybrids' between 1938 and 1945,” including around 10,500 in Auschwitz-Birkenau .

Assessment by Georg Elser (1939)

Georg Elser was examined by the RHF on behalf of Arthur Nebes (bust of Kay Winkler)

Ritter worked closely with Arthur Nebe as early as 1936 , and Würth was often present at meetings. Nebe had been the head of the Reich Criminal Police Office since 1937 (Office V of the Reich Security Main Office ). On behalf of Nebes, the RHF investigated Georg Elser , who had carried out an assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler on November 8, 1939 . Nebe had suspected that Elser was a "gypsy". Justin and Würth were responsible for the RHF.

Before deportation to Auschwitz

A few days before the deportation to the gypsy camp Auschwitz in the spring of 1943, so remembered 1965 a. a. the surviving Sinti Kurt Ansin and Otto Weinlich in talks with Reimar Gilsenbach , Robert Ritter , accompanied by Eva Justin , visited the Holzweg gypsy camp in Magdeburg to supplement the "gypsy files". There are carbon copies in the preserved "Gypsy personnel files" in the Magdeburg State Archives .

Forensic biology in the majority population

In December 1941, on the recommendation of the RSHA and the Race and Settlement Main Office, Ritter became head of the "Criminal Biological Institute of the Security Police and the SD " (KBI), but the work of the RHF continued unabated. One of the tasks of the KBI was to set up an archive for "all anti-social and criminal clans". Ritter and his co-workers tried here to extend the "tried and tested" race hygiene methods of their "Gypsy research" to other population groups. The KBI files that have been preserved are only of small size and do not give an adequate idea of ​​the purpose of the institute. 0.6 running meters of shelf are preserved, which contain material on the following areas: "Family history surveys on families of individual prisoners with family trees, extracts from criminal records, statements of reputation in 1942, obtaining personal details and residential addresses of prisoners and their relatives, extracts from criminal records, investigations by local police authorities, birth card certificates with attachments) 1942, hereditary and biographical questionnaires on inmates of the Rheinbach prison with hereditary biology reports, extracts from criminal records, excerpts from prison records in 1942, investigations of criminals in the Rheinbach prison 1942–1943. "

"Youth Protection Camp"

The Ritter Research Center was responsible, among other things, for the criminal biological and racial hygiene assessment of prisoners in youth concentration camps, which were called "youth protection camps" or "youth custody camps" in a National Socialist euphemism . The aim of the work was "to sift through their inmates from a forensic biological point of view, to encourage those who are still capable of community so that they can fill their place in the national community and the ineducable up to their final placement elsewhere (in sanatoriums and nursing homes, detention centers, concentration camps etc.) using their labor. "

One of these camps was the Moringen youth concentration camp set up for male youth in June 1940 . Ritter visited the camp frequently. The Moringen memorial describes the function of the camp as follows:

“From 1941 the youth concentration camp was an experimental field within the Nazi racial policy. So-called forensic biologists - under the leadership of Dr. Dr. Robert Ritter - tried to prove their theses, according to which “crime” and “antisociality” should be hereditary, with pseudo-scientific investigations on the imprisoned boys. As part of Nazi racial biology, the racist justification for the extermination or sterility of entire population groups in Germany and the occupied territories was to be created on the basis of the “scientific” foundations created in Moringen. The young prisoners were the test subjects. "

Ritter developed the structure of the block system and assessed the "pupils" for the individual blocks:

  • D-block long-term failure 10-15%
  • F-Block questionable Parents 20-25%
  • E-Block Parenting 5-8%
  • G-block casual failure 10-15%
  • S-block troublemakers (prisoners interpreted this as a punishment block) 5–10%
  • U-Block Unfit 5–10%

The prisoners were between 16 and 21 years of age, most of them between 19 and 20 years of age. By January 1, 1943, 106 “pupils” had been released “after they had completed their camp education”, 70 of them for the Wehrmacht or the Reich Labor Service , 25 in institutions of welfare authorities and 11 in regular jobs. 42 were released as "uneducable", 12 of them in concentration camps and 30 in sanatoriums and nursing homes. Due to the desperate conditions, tuberculosis broke out in the camp several times , brutality such as corporal punishment, deprivation of food, punishment, harassment of all kinds or penis clamps for bed-wetting were part of the usual punishment program . By the time the camp was dissolved in March 1945, 56 deaths occurred. One prisoner was shot while fleeing by the Waffen-SS guards and one was killed during a punitive operation. “Gypsies” among the Moring prisoners were deported to Auschwitz in 1943.

Youth protection camps were controversial among the practitioners, such as u. a. which in some regions only proves hesitant referral of "pupils", the insufficient capacity had to be compensated for by tightening guidelines of the Reich Ministry of the Interior . In practice, the camps also became penal camps for non-conformist and politically suspicious young people, for example from the swing youth or the edelweiss pirates . A 1943/1944 new ST block (Stapo block) comprised around 120-180 political individual perpetrators, mostly swing boys from Hamburg, and from 1944 also children of Slovenian partisans. Of the 1231 “pupils” who were imprisoned there in July 1944, 90 cases were homosexual and 92 were subversive statements.

The Uckermark camp for women had a less differentiated block system, as the “type of neglected asocial girl” was “more uniform”. Both camps were forced to work 8-10 hours a day. Moringen earned several hundred thousand Reichsmarks, including all costs, including the guards.

In the eyes of Paul Werner , head of the criminal policy and prevention office and representative of Arthur Nebe in the RSHA, the camps for “very bad human material”, whose “depravity” is “biologically conditioned”, were better suited than regular public youth welfare institutions.

"Youth protection camps" and criminal biological investigations were banned in 1945 in one of the first Allied guidelines. The equality of the youth protection camps Moringen for the period from August 15, 1940 to April 9, 1945 and Uckermark for the period from June 1, 1942 to April 20, 1945 with concentration camps by German authorities did not take place until 1970.

Work on Jehovah's Witnesses and Yeniche

Concentration camp marking "Bible Students"

In the winter of 1943/44 Ritter's assistants began to investigate the “hereditary value” p. 208 and the “family origin” of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Ravensbrück concentration camp . It remains to be seen whether Ritter wanted to justify the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses on a racial basis or, on the contrary, to document "positive racial characteristics" that would have legitimized Himmler's better treatment of Jehovah's Witnesses prisoners.

Insofar as the RHF also recorded Yeniche for a “Landfahrersippenarchiv” introduced in addition to the “Gypsy family archive”, it subsumed them under the category of “non-Gypsies” according to genetic criteria. Ritter's assessment of Yenish as "inferior" and his demand for segregation did not prevail on the standardization level. Their absence in later norms is rated as "unquestionably [er] [...] evidence" that Ritter did not succeed in convincing the legislature that the Yeniche represent a relevant racial hygiene group and threat ".

Only after the completion of the “Gypsy family archive” - the racial classification as a prerequisite for the extermination deportations was now given - the RHF began to record Yenish families and the families of other “traveling” non-Roma in a “land driver family archive”. It did not get beyond limited regional beginnings.

War-related relocations

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After 1945

The files of the RHF

In the 1980s there were political disputes between the civil rights movement and state authorities over the whereabouts of the RHF's archives, which were accompanied by national and international media coverage, as well as criminal, disciplinary and civil law disputes. The files were only brought to the Federal Archives in 1980, over 35 years after the RHF went down.

Even before the end of the war, a considerable part of the RHF's files and materials were taken away from Berlin by their employees. A part, the whereabouts of which is still unclear, came to Mecklenburg, another to Winnenden in what is now Baden-Württemberg. In Mecklenburg the RHF branch was located near concentration camps, in Winnenden a sanatorium.

In 1947 Sophie Ehrhardt (formerly RHF), who had belonged to the Racial Biology Institute (after 1945: Anthropological Institute) at the University of Tübingen, received part of the material. Shortly after the handover, she edited it e.g. B. in relation to skin ridges or finger ridge pattern. She disguised the origin by stating that the material was kindly made available by the forensic biology side. This research resulted in several publications, such as Ehrhardt's Über Handfurchen bei Zigeunern (1974) in the commemorative publication for the 65th birthday of the Mainz anthropologist Ilse Schwidetzky , in which information about the origin of the material is missing. Their population genetic studies on Gypsies based on the RHF material were funded by the DFG between 1966 and 1970. After the new head of the Tübingen Anthropological Institute Horst Ritter (not related to R. Ritter) had issued a processing ban in 1969, the material was handed over to the Anthropological Institute in Mainz.

Eva Justin (formerly RHF) handed over further files and materials to the State Criminal Police Office in Munich on May 21, 1949, where a “Landfahrerzentrale” had existed since 1946. The “Landfahrerzentrale” in Munich was run by “Gypsy experts” from the former Reich Central Office for Combating the Gypsies of the former RSHA. Presumably there were personal acquaintances here from the Third Reich.

Family trees and other materials from the RHF reached Landau's medical officer Hermann Arnold from the 1950s onwards .

In 1960 the material from the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office was handed over to Arnold with the consent of the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior. He had stated that he had been engaged in socio-biological studies, especially on gypsies, since 1947. The rural driver's office of the Munich police was dissolved in 1970 because of the violation of the constitution.

In 1972 Arnold also handed over genealogical materials to the Anthropological Institute of the University of Mainz, the two known parts were thus united for the first time after 1945.

In 1979, a letter from the Society for Threatened Peoples made the Federal Archives aware of the whereabouts of the files of the office of the Reich Health Office. The Federal Archives sifted through the files in Mainz and stated that the materials should be transferred to the Federal Archives' magazines as soon as possible, as they undisputedly fell within its area of ​​responsibility.

Under circumstances that were not fully clarified, the files were transferred to the Tübingen University Archives on June 19, 1980, as they could be "scientifically evaluated" there by Sophie Ehrhardt. On the Mainz side, Ilse Schwidetzky's successor Wolfram Bernhard is responsible for the handover. He was “no longer fully aware of the content”, as he said to the public prosecutor, about the agreement to submit it to the Federal Archives.

“The Central Council of German Sinti and Roma put an end to this archive-technically and politically untenable situation”, wrote an archivist at the Federal Archives, “with a spectacular action. On September 1, 1981, Sinti and Roma occupied the university archive in Tübingen. Immediate surrender of the documents was forced, the files were brought to Koblenz that same night and at midnight they were immediately accepted into the magazines of the Federal Archives without reservation with regard to any archival evaluation measures. Since then they have been archived there as state archives for the sake of responsibility. "

The remains of the files stored in the Federal Archives today comprise 14 running meters of shelving in 338 archive units (AE). Of this, morphological material accounts for 45 AE, photos including negative films 30 AE, slides 30 AE, prints 9 AE, genealogical material 172 AE, miscellaneous 14 AE, correspondence 1936–1939 8 AE, alphabetical files including excerpts files 1734–1808, 1815–1938 21 AE, alphabetical and numerical auxiliary indexes 9 AE.

The "Gypsy Collection" handed over by Arnold to the Federal Archives also contained documents from the RHF that had been sorted out over a meter of shelf.

In the files stored in the Federal Archives today, many parts are missing, including the approximately 24,000 expert statements that the RHF had created. Also the originally extensive correspondence with police authorities, which can be proven by the counter delivery received in exceptional cases, is missing. Moving and allegedly deliberately destroying parts, using them for police or research purposes is not only a moral problem, but has certainly also hampered the prosecution of the perpetrators and the reparation of the victims.

Criminal proceedings against RHF employees

In 1948 the public prosecutor's office in Frankfurt a. M. opened a preliminary investigation against Ritter and Justin. The case against Justin was dropped due to lack of evidence. In the case of Ritter, the public prosecutor followed his argument that he had stopped race research before the Auschwitz decree in 1942 and could therefore have nothing to do with the deportations. These proceedings were also discontinued. No further proceedings followed until Ritter's death in 1951. Another criminal case was opened against Justin in 1959, in which the tsiganologist Herrmann Arnold wrote the exonerating report and acquitted Justin of any involvement in the "Gypsy persecution". The trial was dropped in 1960, and Justin died in 1966 without further trial.

The first criminal case against Würth and Ehrhardt was opened by the prosecution Cologne in 1961 set in 1963, second in 1986 also set exculpatory evaluators in this process was Hans Wilhelm Jürgens . P. 420f. The last criminal case against an employee of the RHF was opened against Kellermann in 1984 and discontinued in 1989 because she had no indirect involvement in deportations and a. could be proven after Auschwitz and the public prosecutor's office took the view that they had not been able to assess that their work served genocide. Pp. 288, 290

Nothing is known about legal proceedings against doctors Ritter, Stein and Würth. The German Society for Anthropology refused to expel Ehrhardt in the mid-1990s.

Commemoration

On March 29, 2019, a stele will be erected in front of the building. It is intended to remind people that the “racial biological” work was carried out in this Nazi research center, which was a prerequisite for the persecution and killing of the Sinti and Roma. The stele is dedicated to the victims. The artistic design comes from Karin Rosenberg .

literature

  • Ute Brucker-Boroujerdi: The Race Hygiene and Hereditary Biological Research Center in the Reich Health Office. In: Federal Health Gazette. 32 (special issue March 1989). Inventory of archival sources of the Nazi state, ed. by Heinz Boberach, Munich 1991, part 1, p. 166.
  • Barbara Danckwortt: Science or Pseudoscience? The "Racial Hygiene Research Center" at the Reich Health Office. In: Judith Hahn u. a. (Ed.): Medicine under National Socialism and the concentration camp system. Contributions to an interdisciplinary symposium. Frankfurt a. M. 2005, ISBN 3-935964-74-9 , pp. 140-164.
  • Josef Henke: The fate of sources and evaluation questions. Archival problems in the formation of records on the persecution of the Sinti and Roma in the Third Reich. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 1993, issue 1, pp. 61–77. ifz-muenchen.de (PDF; 7.1 MB)
  • Joachim S. Hohmann : Robert Ritter and the heirs of criminal biology. "Gypsy Research" in National Socialism . Frankfurt a. M. 1991. Excerpts
  • On the other hand: "Persil notes" for the desk clerk. The example of the Nazi criminal biologist Dr. Dr. Robert Ritter. In: Historical Social Research. Vol. 19 1994 No. 4, pp. 52-59. zhsf.uni-koeln.de (PDF; 2.3 MB)
  • Carola Kuhlmann: Hereditary illness or educable? Youth welfare as precaution and segregation in welfare education in Westphalia from 1933–1945. Weinheim / Munich 1989.
  • Mathias Winter: Continuities in German Gypsy Research and Gypsy Policy. In: Enemy Declaration and Prevention. Westberlin 1988, pp. 135-152. (Contributions to National Socialist Health and Social Policy, Vol. 6)
  • Michael Zimmermann: Racial Utopia and Genocide. The National Socialist "Solution to the Gypsy Question". Christians, Hamburg 1996, ISBN 3-7672-1270-6 .
  • Ders .: "So nothing would be achieved with refusals" - Robert Ritter and the Racial Hygiene Research Center. In: Gerhard Hirschfeld, Tobias Jersak: Careers under National Socialism: Functional elites between participation and distance. Campus, Frankfurt a. M. / New York 2004.

Archival material

  • Bundesarchiv Koblenz inventory R 165: Race hygiene and forensic biology research center of the Reich Health Office, duration 1936–1941 (14 running meters)
  • Federal Archives Koblenz Stock R 160: Criminal Biology Research Center of the Reich Health Office, duration: 1942–1943 (0.5 running meters)
  • Bundesarchiv Koblenz ZSg 142 Anh .: Documents sorted out from the Arnold Collection (ZSg 142), which were obtained from the Racial Hygiene and Forensic Biology Research Center of the Reich Health Office or from the papers of Dr. Robert Ritter and Eva Justin originate. Duration 1830–1975 (1 running meter)

Web links

Commons : Racial hygiene and forensic biological research center  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ The Reich Health Office under National Socialism. Federal Institute for Consumer Health Protection and Veterinary Medicine, September 11, 2001, press release 27/2001
  2. ↑ Description of the holdings of the Federal Archives R 165  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Name Gütt added@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bundesarchiv.de  
  3. ↑ Gernot Haupt: Antiziganism and Social Work , Frank & Timme, Berlin, 2006, p. 124.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l see literature Joachim S. Hohmann: Robert Ritter und die Erben der Kriminalbiologie. "Gypsy Research" in National Socialism
  5. ↑ a b Henke 1993, p. 66.
  6. ↑ a b Description of the holdings of the Federal Archives
  7. ↑ Robert Ritter: Hereditary biological investigations within a breeding group of gypsy hybrids and "anti-social psychopaths". In: Hans Harmsen , Franz Lohse Hgg .: Population issues. Report of the International Congress on Population Science. Berlin August 26 - September 1, 1935. Munich 1936, pp. 713–718.
  8. ↑ a b Zimmermann 2004, p. 294.
  9. ↑ a b c Zimmermann 2004, p. 305.
  10. ↑ Robert Ritter: On the question of race biology and race psychology of the gypsies in Germany. In: Reichs-Gesundheitsblatt Nr. 22/1938, documented In: Joachim S. Hohmann .: Gypsies and Gypsy Science 1980, p. 205.
  11. ↑ a b Federal Archives - Research . In: bundesarchiv.de .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bundesarchiv.de  
  12. ↑ Robert Ritter: Primitivity and Crime. In: Monthly booklets for criminal biology and criminal law reform. Issue 9/1940, p. 15.
  13. ↑ a b Federal Archives - Research . In: bundesarchiv.de .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bundesarchiv.de  
  14. ^ Robert Ritter: The tasks of criminal biology and criminal biological population research. In: Kriminalistik 4/1941. P. 38.
  15. ↑ Letterhead expert opinion 2543 of July 14, 1941, reproduced in Gilsenbach 1993, p. 188; Letterhead expert opinion 16468 of April 27, 1942, reproduced in Gilsenbach 1988, p. 108; Letterhead expert opinion 17691 from October 14, 194 ?, reproduced by Hase-Michalik / Kreuzkamp p. 83.
  16. ↑ a b c d Dietmar Sedlaczek: The Moringen youth concentration camp. (PDF; 130 kB) Moringen 2004
  17. ↑ Hohmann 1991, p. 30. Hohmann deviates from the beginning of 1942.
  18. ↑ Robert Ritter: The criminal biological institute of the security police. In: Kriminalistik 11/1942. Pp. 117-119.
  19. ↑ Hohmann 1991, p. 140. 1935: 1500 RM for the hereditary biological investigations on the Würtemberger suspected of being a hidden "gypsy population" from Ritter
  20. ^ Research group on the history of the German Research Foundation 1920–1970: Report on the final conference on January 30 and 31, 2008 in Berlin.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.5 MB) p. 57.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.histsem.uni-freiburg.de  
  21. ^ Müller Hill 1988, p. 15, other grants 1938; 1500 RM ibid. P. 16, 194X 15,000 RM ibid. P. XY, equipment (cameras, anthropometric measuring devices) was also loaned to Ritter.
  22. ↑ a b Research group on the history of the German Research Foundation 1920–1970: Report on the final conference on January 30 and 31, 2008 in Berlin  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.5 MB), p. 72.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.histsem.uni-freiburg.de  
  23. ↑ after Müller-Hill 1988, p. 156f.
  24. ^ "On the official channels ..." Documents on the registration, exclusion and deportation of the Leipzig Sinti and Roma under National Socialism ( Memento of the original from February 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 2.1 MB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.weiterhaben.de
  25. ↑ Paul Behrens: Trial: “Vollzigeuner und Mischlinge” . In: Die Zeit , No. 7/1986
  26. ^ According to Ritter report to Reichsforschungsrat BA R 73 14005, letter of November 5, 1942, report to DFG March 23, 1943
  27. ↑ according to Ritter report to Reichsforschungsrat BA R 73 14005, letter of November 5, 1942
  28. ↑ according to Ritter report to Reichsforschungsrat BA R 73 14005, letter of March 6, 1944
  29. ^ According to Ritter report to Reichsforschungsrat BA R 73 14005, letter of March 6, 1944, to DFG March 23, 1943
  30. ↑ a b c d according to Ritter report to DFG March 23, 1943
  31. ↑ Katrin Reemtsma : Exotism and homogenization - reification and exploitation. Aspects of ethnological considerations of the Gypsies in Germany after 1945 . In: LpB (Hrsg.): Module "Between Romanticization and Racism" Sinti and Roma 600 years in Germany . Stuttgart 1998, p. 63–68 ( lpb-bw.de [PDF]).
  32. ↑ Tobias Joachim Schmidt-Degenhard: Robert Ritter (1901-1951). On the life and work of the Nazi "gypsy researcher" . (Diss. Tübingen) 2008, p. 194.
  33. ↑ Robert Ritter: Primitivity and Crime. In: Monthly for criminal biology and criminal law reform. Organ of the criminal biological society. 9 (1940), p. 200.
  34. ↑ Volker Berbüsse: The image of the "Gypsies" in German-language criminological textbooks. In: Yearbook for Research on Antisemitism. 1 (1992), Frankfurt (Main) / New York 1992, pp. 122, 146.
  35. ^ Peter Weingart, Jürgen Kroll, Kurt Bayertz: Race, Blood and Genes. History of eugenics and racial hygiene in Germany. Frankfurt a. M. 1992, here p. 102.
  36. ↑ On this, for example, explicitly in the context of antiziganism, Erich Renner: On the history and home of the Palatinate Gypsies. In: Palatinate home. 40 (1988), No. 3, pp. 113-123.
  37. ^ Michael Zimmermann: Racial Utopia and Genocide. In: Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 38, 1996, p. 132.
  38. ↑ a b Robert Ritter: Gypsies and land drivers. In: Bavarian state association for hiking service (ed.): The non-sedentary man. Quoted from: Fings, Sparing 1992, p. 51.
  39. ↑ Example documented in Uwe Jens Wandel: The Schorndorfer Guttenberger family. In: Heimatblätter. Yearbook for Schorndorf and the surrounding area. Vol. 7, 1989; quoted from: Study Group German Resistance 1933–1945 e. V .: Self-assertion and resistance by Sinti and Roma under National Socialism. Information No. 58, November 2003.
  40. ↑ Zimmermann 1996, p. 126.
  41. ↑ Zimmermann 1996, p. 148 - "Implementation instructions" of the RKPA on this, from March 1, 1939, as an extract in Lemma Porajmos
  42. ↑ Rose 1988, pp. 130f.
  43. ^ Report to the DFG based on Müller-Hill 1988, p. 21.
  44. ^ Report to the DFG based on Müller-Hill 1988, pp. 23, 62.
  45. ^ Report to the DFG based on Müller-Hill 1988, p. 62.
  46. ^ Report to the DFG based on Müller-Hill 1988, p. 23; Hohmann 1991, p. 209.
  47. ↑ reproduced in Gilsenbach 1993, p. 188.
  48. ↑ Google results for http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qgVJILGU6L4/UJrlFayhZzI/AAAAAAAAAxo/qa1MbUDdHfg/s1600/stojan-lassisch-gutachten100~_v-image360h_-ec2d8b4e42b653670c47d% . In: google.de .
  49. ↑ Asta Hemmerlein: Eva Justin: The terrible "red girl" . haGalil.com
  50. ↑ Gilsenbach 1988, p. 108.
  51. ↑ Hase-Michalik / Kreuzkamp p. 83.
  52. ↑ Gilsenbach Django, p. 135.
  53. ↑ Gilsenbach Django, p. 136.
  54. ↑ a b c Rose 1988, p. 130.
  55. ↑ Gilsenbach p. 134.
  56. ↑ Müller-Hill 1988, p. 63.
  57. ↑ Harry Stein (1999): Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937–1945. (Buchenwald Memorial) Wallstein Verlag pp. 74–76.
  58. ↑ Rose 2003, p. 90; Zimmermann 1996, p. 169.
  59. ↑ Interview Würth with Müller-Hill 1988, p. 153 .; Hans-Joachim Döring: The motives of the gypsy deportation from May 1940. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 1959/4 (PDF 5.5 MB) p. 428, uncritically reproduces a protective claim of Ritter from his criminal proceedings (STA Frankfurt / M. 55 / 3 Js 5582/48). Ritter claims here “… he was never informed about measures relating to Gypsies, admissions to concentration camps, etc., but heard of the order to relocate the Gypsies to Poland in the winter of 1939/40 and opposed this plan, which was not without Success' remained. ”The presentation by his employee Würth not only contradicted his former boss, but also spoke of Ritter's direct, personal involvement in the planning, with an influence on the time of the deportation. The number of 30,000 "Gypsies" in the Reich territory given by Reinhard Heydrich in the minutes of the meeting also speaks in favor of participation. Ritter did not publish the same number until 1941. Döring ibid. P. 426.
  60. ↑ Book: Hans-Joachim Döring, The Gypsies in the National Socialist State. 1962. This also contains the guidelines for the resettlement of gypsies (first transport from the western and north-western border zones) of April 27, 1940. All relevant documents quickly accessible together: Documents relating to the "fight against the gypsy plague" under National Socialism
  61. ↑ 1959 Döring discusses these further reasons as if they were ever meant seriously. The " Western Campaign " began on May 10, 1940. From today's perspective, the known documents show that it was all about the extermination of an undesirable ethnic group
  62. ↑ Hans Hesse, Jens Schreiber: From the slaughterhouse to Auschwitz: the Nazi persecution of the Sinti and Roma from Bremen, Bremerhaven and Northwest Germany. 1999, p. 89.
  63. ^ A b Hedwig Brüchert: National Socialist Rassenwahn. Disenfranchisement, deportation and murder of Mainz Jews, Sinti and mentally handicapped people . (PDF; 130 kB) Mainz 2008
  64. ↑ "According to Dr. Wirth (sic!) The local police lists are still in Berlin. He was not at all aware of the fact that the Frankfurt a. M. Gypsies were considered for resettlement. ”He“ immediately went to the assessment of the gypsies brought in by the Darmstadt detective station. For this purpose he had brought his file for the Darmstadt criminal investigation department. ”Police report on the deportation. HHStA Dept. 407/863; according to Hartmut Bohrer: "Commendable courtesy of the Reichsbahn" - The deportation of the Lehmann family . (PDF 120 kB). Zimmermann 1996, p. 45 also explains Würth's work in the “collection camp”.
  65. ↑ Romani Rose: The removal went smoothly (PDF) Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma . S. 3. 2010. Retrieved December 26, 2010.
  66. ^ Police report on the deportation. HHStA Dept. 407/863 according to Hartmut Bohrer: "Commendable courtesy of the Reichsbahn" - The deportation of the Lehmann family . (PDF 120 kB).
  67. ↑ a b c Interview with Würth in Müller-Hill 1988, p. 153f.
  68. ↑ Table after the document reproduced by Arnold 1989/90, p. 32.
  69. ^ Michael Zimmermann: Racial Utopia and Genocide. The National Socialist "Solution to the Gypsy Question". Hamburg 1996, p. 381.
  70. ↑ Gilsenbach 1988, p. 110 (footnote 23) p. 132.
  71. ↑ Hohmann 1991, p. 30. Hohmann mentions the beginning of 1942.
  72. ↑ Founding decree of the Reich Minister of the Interior published in 1942, description of the institute's tasks by Ritter in the journal Kriminalistik (1942) according to Wagner 1988, p. 93 and footnotes.
  73. ^ Hanna Vogt: Moringen Concentration Camp. Moringen 1983, p. 27.
  74. ↑ Gedenkstätte Moringen.de: Information on the history of the Moringen concentration camp and on the work of the memorial - youth concentration camp 1940–1945
  75. ↑ The percentages come unchanged from a NS source and do not result in 100%. after: Hanna Vogt: Moringen concentration camp. Moringen 1983, p. 30.
  76. ^ Hanna Vogt: Moringen Concentration Camp. Moringen 1983, p. 31.
  77. ↑ RSHA report of July 29, 1943 based on Kuhlmann 1989, p. 204.
  78. ↑ Kuhlmann 1989, pp. 204f.
  79. ^ Hanna Vogt: Moringen Concentration Camp. Moringen 1983, p. 55.
  80. ↑ Kuhlmann 1989, p. 237.
  81. ↑ Kuhlmann 1989, pp. 206f.
  82. ↑ Kuhlmann 1989, p. 207.
  83. ^ Hanna Vogt: Moringen Concentration Camp. Moringen 1983, p. 46f.
  84. ^ Hanna Vogt: Moringen Concentration Camp. Moringen 1983, p. 46.
  85. ↑ Bulletin of the Reich Criminal Police Office from January 1945 according to Kuhlmann 1989, pp. 205f.
  86. ↑ Kuhlmann 1989, pp. 204, 206.
  87. ↑ a b Hanna Vogt: Moringen concentration camp. Moringen 1983, p. 41.
  88. ↑ Kuhlmann 1989, p. 208.
  89. ↑ Michael Hepp: Courtyard to Hell. Girls in the "youth protection camp" Uckermark. In: Angelika Ebbinghaus (ed.): Victims and perpetrators. Nördlingen 1987, p. 191.
  90. ^ Hanna Vogt: Moringen Concentration Camp. Moringen 1983, p. 26, excerpt from the Federal Law Gazette.
  91. ↑ Hans Hesse, Jürgen Harder: "... and if I had to stay in a concentration camp for life ..." - The Jehovah's Witnesses in the women's concentration camps in Moringen, Lichtenberg and Ravensbrück. Klartext, Essen 2001. p. 198.
  92. ↑ Jürgen Harder, Hans Hesse: The Jehovah's Witnesses in the Moringen Women's Concentration Camp: a contribution to the resistance of women under National Socialism. in: Hans Hesse (ed.): “The Jehovah's Witnesses were always the bravest.” Persecution and resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses under National Socialism. Edition Temmen, Bremen 1998. p. 55.
  93. ↑ Gerald Hacke: The Jehovah's Witnesses in the Third Reich and in the GDR. Image of enemy and practice of persecution. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011. pp. 199ff.
  94. ↑ Andrew d'Arcangelis: The Yeniche - persecuted in the Nazi state 1934-1944. A socio-linguistic and historical study. Hamburg 2006, p. 312.
  95. ^ Michael Zimmermann: Racial Utopia and Genocide. The National Socialist "Solution to the Gypsy Question". Hamburg 1996, p. 153, p. 436.
  96. ↑ Die Zeit: How did the "Gypsy index" come to Tübingen? , September 11, 1981.
  97. ↑ a b c d e Henke 1993, p. 67.
  98. ↑ a b Winter 1988, p. 145.
  99. ↑ Wolfram Bernhard, ed. "Population biology - contributions to the structure and dynamics of human populations from an anthropological point of view". Stuttgart 1974
  100. ↑ Hans Joachim Lang : A nice insight into the research work. Preparatory contributions Tübingen scientists for the forced sterilization and murder of German Sinti. In: Ulrich Hägele (Ed.): Sinti and Roma and we . Tübingen 1998, p. 89; Ernst Klee: German blood and empty folders. In: Die Zeit of October 12, 2000, No. 42.
  101. ↑ a b c d e f g h Henke 1993, p. 68.
  102. ^ A b Romani Rose: Civil rights for Sinti and Roma. 1987, p. 123.
  103. ^ Gilad Margalit: The German Gypsy Policy after 1945 . (PDF; 7.2 MB) In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , issue 4/1997
  104. ^ Arnold 1978, p. 4 after Arnold Spitta p. 188 and 323, In: Tilman Zülch: In Auschwitz gassed, persecuted to this day . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1979, ISBN 3-499-14430-1 .
  105. ↑ Hohmann 1988, p. 203.
  106. ↑ Rose 1987, p. 122.
  107. ↑ Henke 1993, p. 69.
  108. ↑ Bundesarchiv Koblenz ZSg 142 Anh .: From the Arnold Collection (ZSg 142), inventory description.
  109. ↑ a b c Rose 1988, p. 131.
  110. ↑ Between romanticization and racism. LpB, Stuttgart 1998.
  111. ^ Arnold: The Nazi Gypsy Persecution. Your interpretation and exploitation. P. 95f.
  112. ^ Mathias Winter: Continuities in German Gypsy Research and Gypsy Policy. In: Enemy Declaration and Prevention. Berlin 1988, pp. 135-152. (Contributions to National Socialist Health and Social Policy, Vol. 6)
  113. ↑ Inauguration of a stele in memory of the persecution of the Sinti and Roma , report from the Berlin House of Representatives