The justice system of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Nazi persecution of the Gypsies

Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Volumn 11, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 330-350

  Margalit, Gilad ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA   (Israel)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 63849157376     PISSN: 87566583     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/hgs/11.3.330     Document Type: Article

References (112)

1. Schnellbrief des RSHA vom 29.1.1943 V A 2 Nr. 59/43 sog. Auschwitz-Erlass. Michael Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid: Die nationalsozialistische "Lösung der Zigeunerfrage," (Hamburg: Christians, 1996), p. 303ff
2. Becker-Hüber-Küster Bundesentschädigungsgesetze (BEG) Kommentar, (Berlin: 1955), p. 50
3. Franz Calvelli-Adorno, "Die rassische Verfolgung der Zigeuner vor den 1 März 1943," Rechtsprechung zum Wiedergutmachungsrecht (RzW), 12 Dec. 1961, p. 529ff
4. Arnold Spitta, "Entschädigung für Zigeuner? Geschichte eines Vorurteils," in Ludolf Herbst and Constantin Goschler, eds., Wiedergutmachung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1989), p. 385ff
5. A list of sentences of German courts in which the appeals of German Gypsies against the compensation authorities were rejected: Becker-Hüber- Küster BEG (1955), p. 50
6. See also the following sentences: District Court (OLG) Munich 8.9.1952 W-EG 30/52 in Stadtarchiv (StA) Bremen 4, 54-08-13
7. OLG Munich 15.9.1952 W-EG 51/52 in StA Bremen 4, 54-08-13
8. OLG Stuttgart RzW 1953, p. 285
9. OLG Munich RzW 1953, p. 286
10. OLG Oldenburg 17.12.1955, cited in Frenkel: Entschädigungsrecht - Entscheidungen, Nr. 327
11. Federal Supreme Court (BGH) 7.1.1956-IV ZR 211/55 RzW 1956, p. 113ff
12. Becker-Hüber-Küster (1955), p. 48
13. Michael Zimmermann, Verfolgt, vertrieben, vernichtet: Die nationalsozialistische Vernichtungspolitik gegen Sinti und Roma, (Essen: Klartext, 1989), pp. 20, 24
14. Hans Eller, "Die Zigeuner - Ein Problem," Kriminalistik 8 (1954), p. 126: "A racial persecution against the Gypsies, contrary to the persecution of the Jews, simply should be denied."
15. Rudolf Uschold, "Das Zigeunerproblem," Die Neue Polizei 5: 4 (1951), p. 60
16. Hauptstaatsarchiv (HSTA) Düsseldorf Trial against Dr. Hans Maly and others. Rep. 231, Nr. 1535, pp. 35-36. This department was integrated as a section of the Bavarian central office for criminal identification (Zentralamt für Kriminal-Identifizierung), very likely because it held a rich collection of fingerprints and other articles useful in the identification of Gypsies
17. A letter of Rudolf Uschold to Eva Justin from 6. 6. 1953. STA Bremen 4, 54-11-30/6, p. 12ff-OLG Munich EK 34/51, 21.9.1951
18. About living conditions of the deported German Gypsies in Poland, see Zimmermann (1996), pp. 176-84
19. Verdict of the Federal Supreme Court (BGH) IV ZR 211/55 7.1.1956, p. 9
20. Hans Buchheim, "Die Zigeunerdeportation vom Mai 1940," in Frenkel, Entschädigungsrecht, Abhandlungen, p. 136ff
21. Hans Günter Hockerts, "Anwälte der Verfolgten: Die United Restitution Organisation," in Herbst and Goschler, eds., p. 269ff
22. Hockerts in Herbst and Goschler, eds., p. 269ff
23. Bayerisches Ministerium der Justiz 109-I SA Beiakte zu den Generalakten Wiedergutmachung nationalsoz. Unrecht auf vermögensrechtl. Ged. Protokol über die Sitzung des Koordinierungsausschusses der 11 Länder, 17.3.1950, pp. 46-50
24. Calvelli-Adorno, p. 532
25. The first article of the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on the Nazi persecution: "Zigeuner - die Nomaden unter uns," FAZ, 16.1.1954
26. Christian Pross, Wiedergutmachung: Der Kleinkrieg gegen die Opfer, (Frankfurt a. M.: Athenäum, 1988), p. 105ff
27. Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München (IfZ) Archiv, 3058/62: Verdict of the Federal Supreme Court, 23.5.1962-IV ZR 221/61 (OLG Cologne)
28. Sentence of the BGH, 23.5.1962-IV ZR 198/61 (OLG Cologne)
29. This verdict only solved partly the problem of compensation for Gypsies persecuted by the Nazi regime. See Henning Stanicki, "Zur Problematik der Ansprüche von Zigeuner nach dem BEG-Schlussgesetz," RzW 9 (12 Dec. 1968), p. 529ff
30. A survey of the investigation procedures and the trials conducted in the Federal Republic against perpetrators who participated in the persecution of the Gypsies during the Third Reich is: Staatsanwaltschaft Stuttgart-3 (19) Js 921/81 21.11.1985-Beschluss des Ermittlungsverfahrens gegen Prof. S. Ehrhardt und Dr. A Würth, pp. 3-5
31. Robert Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988)
32. Paul Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics Between National Unification and Nazism, 1870-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)
33. Ritter denied after 1945 that he ever had been a member of the Nazi Party or any other Nazi organization. After he was presented in a document of the American Military Government in Germany (OMGUS) as a member of the Nazi party and the S.S., OMGUS initiated in 1949 an investigation against Ritter accusing him of supplying false information in his denazification process. Inquiry at the Berlin Document Center reveals that the charges against Ritter ultimately were dismissed. Ritter investigation files: Hess. HSTA Wiesbaden 501/1547 Riek-Ritt
34. Hess. HSTA Wiesbaden 520/F 7019. Benno Müller-Hill, Tödliche Wissenschaft: Die Aussonderung von Juden, Zigeunern und Geisteskranken 1933-1945, (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1984), pp. 153, 156
35. BA Koblenz R73/ 14005: in a letter of recommendation for Ritter directed to the DFG of 16.6.1937, written by the president of the Reich Health Office, Hans Reiter, Ritter was described as "one of the few young scholars who follows his research drive in an almost fanatic devotion, and is totally free of selfish consideration."
36. Hans Reiter, "Das Reichsgesundheitsamt 1933-1939." Sechs Jahre nationalsozialistischen Führung (Berlin: 1939), p. 356
37. StA Frankfurt Dr. Ritter's Personal file (PA) sig. 18.576, Robert Ritter "Erläuterungen zu unseren Asozialen und Zigeunerforschungen," 20.5.1947, p. 41ff
38. BA Koblenz R 73/14005-A, Report of Ritter to the DFG of 20.1.1940
39. Das falsche Wort: Wiedergutmachung an Zigeunern (Sinte) in Deutschland? A film of Melanie Spitta and Katrin Seibold, 1987
40. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1535, pp. 26ff, 34ff
41. Ritter, "Erläuterungen," p. 41ff
42. BA Koblenz R 73/14005: Ritter's letter to the president of the DFG of 12.2. 1935. In his reports and publications of later years this position is much clearer: e.g., a report to the DFG of 20.1.1940
43. Robert Ritter, "Erbbiologische Untersuchungen innerhalb eines Züchtungskreis Zigeunermischlingen und 'asozialen Psychopathen,'" in Hans Harmsen & Franz Lohse, eds. Bevölkerungsfragen (München, 1936), pp. 713-18
44. Jörg Friedrich, "Confronting the Past: The Attitude Towards Nazi War Criminals in the Federal Republic" in Moshe Zimmermann and Oded Heilbronner, eds., "Normal Relations": Israeli-German Relations (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1993), p. 62
45. Friedrich (1993), p. 60
46. Ingo Müller (transl. Deborah Lucas Schneider), Hitler's Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 249-50
47. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231/1535 B1. 39: The conclusion of the public prosecutor to suspend the judicial proceeding against Ritter: "The attestations of the witnesses imply that they voluntarily agreed to undergo a sterilization. . . . Their statements make it clear that they agreed to undergo sterilization in order to prevent their deportation to the concentration camps."
48. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231/1540, p. 856: The resolution of the public prosecutor to suspend the judicial proceeding against Justin: "The girl herself applied for the sterilization."
49. Joachim S. Hohmann, "Robert Ritter und die Erben der Kriminalbiologie: Zigeunerforschung im Nationalsozialismus und in Westdeutschland im Zeichen des Rassismus," in Studien zur Tsiganologie und Folkloristik (Frankfurt a.M: Peter Lang Verlag, 1991), vol. 4, pp. 136ff, 146ff
50. Hohmann (1991), p. 130
51. Zimmermann (1989), pp. 33ff
52. Reimar Gilsenbach, Oh Django, sing deinen Zorn: Sinti und Roma unter den Deutschen (Berlin: BasisDruck, 1993), pp. 97-133
53. Eva Justin, Lebensschicksale artfremd erzogener Zigeunerkinder und ihrer Nachkommen, in Veröffentlichungen aus dem Gebiete des Volksgesundheitsdienstes, LVII Band - Heft 4, (Berlin: 1944), p. 121
54. StA Frankfurt: PA Dr. Ritter sig. 18.576, pp. 001ff (p. 1 of Ritter's personal file)
55. Staatsarchiv Stuttgart Js 5582/48
56. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1535, p. 21ff
57. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1535, pp. 37-39
58. Hess. HSTA Wiesbaden 461/29090: the registration of the destruction of the file on the Ritter investigation
59. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1536, p. 287ff
60. StA Frankfurt: PA Dr. Eva Justin sig. 92.546, p. 1ff
61. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1535 p. 6ff
62. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1535, p. 29: the resolution of the public prosecutor to suspend the judicial process against Ritter
63. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1540, p. 852ff: the resolution of the public prosecutor to suspend the judicial process against Justin
64. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1535, p. 32ff
65. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1540, p. 852
66. More famous as one of the Nuremberg Race Laws
67. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1540, pp. 853: "From the subjective respect the burden of proof does not fall on the defendant. He had not known or could not have assessed when he gave his opinion, that an unlawful decree would be issued on January 29, 1943."
68. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1540, pp. 854; p. 329ff: list of files
69. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1540, p. 854
70. Zimmermann (1996), p. 150
71. StA Frankfurt personal file sig. 18.576, Robert Ritter "Erläuterungen zu unseren Asozialen, und Zigeunerforschungen," 20.5.1947, p. 39ff
72. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1535, p. 22
73. Robert Ritter, "NS und Jugend," Kölnische Zeitung, 11.1.1931
74. StA Frankfurt PA 18.576, Robert Ritter "Erläuterungen . . .," p. 39
75. StA Frankfurt PA 18.576, Robert Ritter "Erläuterungen . . .," p. 40
76. Hermann Arnold, Die NS-Zigeunerverfolgung: Ihre Ausdeutung und Ausbeutung. Fakten, Mythos, Agitation, Kommerz (Aschaffenburg: Karl-Heinz Gerster, 1989), p. 9 (letter from Ritter of 28.4.1949)
77. StA Frankfurt PA 18.576, Robert Ritter "Erläuterungen . . .," p. 40ff
78. Fabian v. Schlabrendorff, Offiziere gegen Hitler: Nach einem Erlebnisbericht (Zürich: Europa Verlag, 1946), p. 49
79. StA Frankfurt PA 18.576, Robert Ritter "Erläuterungen'," p. 41
80. BA Koblenz R 73/ 14005: in his letter to the Deutsche Notgemeinschaft of 12.2.1935, Ritter emphasized that the results of his research on the Gypsies had great significance to the policy of the criminal police and to the state's activity in the field of racial hygiene
81. Hohmann (1991), pp. 271-75: a survey of Moravek's research activities
82. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1535, B1. 37
83. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1540, p. 37; p. 855
84. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1535, p. 33
85. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1535, p. 35ff
86. Uschold (1951) Nr. 3, pp. 38-40; Nr. 4, pp. 60-62
87. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1535, p. 36
88. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1535, p. 25
89. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1535, p. 29
90. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1535, p. 37
91. IfZ Archiv, Micro. MA-21, Landgericht Munich I, 13.10.1951
92. Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellmann, Historische Versuch über die Zigeuner, betreffend die Lebensart und Verfassung, Sitten und Schicksale dieses Volkes seit seiner Erscheinung in Europa und dessen Ursprung (Göttingen: Johann Christian Dietrich, 1787)
93. Martin Block, Zigeuner: Ihr Leben und ihre Seele (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1936)
94. The entries on Gypsies in the post Weimar-era German encyclopedias supply an irrefutable proof for this claim
95. Zimmermann (1989), pp. 57-60
96. Gisela Bock, Zwangssterilization im Nationalsozialismus: Studien zur Rassenpolitik und Frauenpolitik (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1986), p. 24ff, 79
97. Franz Neukamp (1950) "Ist die Unfruchtbarmachung von Menschen immer strafbar?", Neue Juristische Wochenschrift, 3:20 (1950) p. 773ff
98. Neukamp (1950), p. 773ff
99. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1536, p. 301ff: Martha Adler's testimony on the pressure put on her husband by the racial researcher and the police to undergo a sterilization
100. BA Koblenz R 73/14005: Ritter's report on his research to the FG, of 20.1.1940, p. 5
101. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1540, p. 854ff
102. HSTA Düsseldorf Rep. 231, Nr. 1540, p. 851ff
103. Friedrich (1993) pp. 57-77
104. Müller (1991), pp. 249ff
105. Friedrich (1993), p. 66
106. Ruth Wodak, et al., "Wir sind alle unschuldige Täter!" Diskurshistorische Studien zum Nachkriegsantisemitismus (Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1990), p. 210ff
107. Staatsanwaltschaft Stuttgart-3 (19) Js 921/81, 21.11.1985: Beschluss des Ermittlungsverfahrens gegen Prof. S. Ehrhardt und Dr. A Würth
108. Hans W. Jürgens, Asozialität als biologisches und sozialbiologisches Problem, (Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke Verlag, 1961)
109. Lau Mazirel, "Die Verfolgung der 'Zigeuner' im Dritten Reich: Vorgeschichte ab 1870 und Fortsetzung bis Heute" in Essays über Naziverbrechen, Simon Wiesenthal gewidmet (Wien and Amsterdam: Wiesenthal Fonds, 1973), p. 149ff
110. Staatsanwaltschaft Stuttgart-3 (19) Js 921781 v. 21.11.1985: Beschluss des Ermittlungsverfahrens gegen Prof. S. Ehrhardt und Dr. A. Würth, p. 7
111. Karl Heinz Roth, "'Erbbiologische Bestandsaufnahme': Ein Aspekt 'auszumerzender' Erfassung vor der Entfesslung des Zweites Weltkrieges" in Karl Heinz Roth, ed., Erfassung zur Vernichtung: Von der Sozialhygiene zum "Gesetz über Sterbehilfe" (Berlin: Verlagsgesellschaft Gesundheit GmbH, 1984), p. 94. As far as I know this was the earliest publication of documents from Ritter's personal file in the DFG
112. Norbert Frei, Vergangenheitspolitik: Die Anfänge der Bundesrepublik und die NS-Vergangenheit (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1996)