Preventive fight against crime

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The preventive fight against crime was a catalog of measures of the Nazi regime for the planned monitoring of potential (repeat) offenders and also for terror against politically and otherwise unpleasant people. After the scope of preventive detention by the police had been expanded to include " anti-social ", the catalog was intended to serve " to evaluate the knowledge gained through criminal biological research ".

The two main instruments were " regular police surveillance " and " preventive police detention ", with which the criminal police , similar to the protective custody imposed by the Gestapo , was granted the right to monitor people without a judicial decision and - usually in a concentration camp - indefinitely to hold on. The measures were particularly directed against “ professional criminals ”, “ work-shy ”, homeless people , Roma , prostitutes and homosexuals .

December 1937 circular

With the circular " Basic decree on the preventive fight against crime by the police " of the Reich Ministry of the Interior of December 14, 1937 on the basis of the decree of the Reich President for the protection of people and state , the preventive fight against crime was standardized across the Reich . Preventive custody was therefore applicable to people who had been convicted of "professional or habitual criminals" at least three times with imprisonment terms of at least six months if they were expected to continue to commit criminal offenses in the future. Preventive detention could also be ordered against people who endangered the general public through their “anti-social behavior”. In contrast to protective custody, which was checked quarterly, in preventive custody an examination was only required within the second year of imprisonment and then every two years. In the guidelines issued by the Reich Criminal Police Office on April 4, 1938, the concentration camps were expressly assigned the function of "state reformatory and labor camps".

The representatives of the “volkish police concept” denied individual rights of defense and saw in the “institutional authorization” the police as a “state security corps”, as an “instrument in the hands of the Führer ” with the “obligation [...] of the community before every pest to protect the necessary measures ”. The local police stations thus had almost unlimited discretion in practice as to whom they wanted to impose the measures of the “preventive fight against crime”.

Part of the procedure was for police officers to use the data available to them to compile “criminal résumés” of the persons concerned. Convictions abroad that were not more than five years ago were also taken into account in both the “scheduled police surveillance” and the “preventive detention by the police”, but not counting periods of detention.

No legal remedies could be lodged against the "regular police surveillance" and against the "criminal police preventive detention" . “ Complaints and requests” could be submitted to the Reichskriminalpolizeihauptamt, “on complaints against the decisions of the Reichskriminalpolizeiamt [decided] finally by the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police”, Heinrich Himmler .

The decree and the implementation guidelines were drawn up in particular by SS-Standartenführer Paul Werner , department head in the Reich Security Main Office .

See also

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

  • Jens Kolata: Between social discipline and “racial hygiene”. The persecution of “anti-social”, “work-shy”, “swing youth” and Sinti . In: Ingrid Bauz, Sigrid Brüggemann, Roland Maier (eds.): The Secret State Police in Württemberg and Hohenzollern. Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 3-89657-145-1 , pp. 321–337.
  • Andreas Schwegel: The police concept in the Nazi state. Police law, legal journalism and judiciary 1931–1944. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 3-16-148762-1 ( contributions to the legal history of the 20th century 48) (also diss., Göttingen, Univ. 2004).
  • Karl-Leo Terhorst: Regular police surveillance and preventive detention in the Third Reich. A contribution to the legal history of preventive crime prevention. Müller Juristischer Verlag, Heidelberg 1985, ISBN 3-8114-4085-3 ( Studies and sources on the history of German constitutional law A, 13) (also Diss., Bonn, Univ. 1984/85).
  • Patrick Wagner : National community without criminals. Concepts and practice of the criminal police during the Weimar Republic and National Socialism. Christians, Hamburg 1996, ISBN 3-7672-1271-4 ( Hamburg contributions to social and contemporary history 34) (also diss., Hamburg, Univ. 1995: Inspector Sisyphus dreams of the last case ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the reprint of the "Basic Decree" in: Wolfgang Ayaß (arrangement), "Community foreigners". Sources on the persecution of "anti-social" 1933–1945 , Koblenz 1998, no. 50.
  2. ^ Martin Broszat: National Socialist Concentration Camp 1933-1945. In: Anatomie des SS-Staates , Munich 1967, Volume 2, p. 70.
  3. ↑ Reprinted by Wolfgang Ayaß, “Community foreigners” No. 62.
  4. ^ Martin Broszat: National Socialist Concentration Camp 1933-1945. In: Anatomie des SS-Staates , Munich 1967, Volume 2, p. 76.