Critical Analysis Of 'The Gypsy Nuisance'

Europe in the pre-World War II years was a continent that had recently undergone massive social and political upheaval. Germany, bought to its knees in the wake of the First World War, was rapidly regaining strength and emerging once again as a formidable threat to the former Entente Allies. This was due in part to the rise of the Nazi movement, whose leader Adolf Hitler was determined to reestablish Germany as one of the Great European Powers, and who had succeeded in uniting Germany under his totalitarian regime. Though Nazism had undoubtedly strengthened Germany’s national foundations, the party established heterophobia as an integral element of the political sphere, with documents such as �The Gypsy Nuisance’ published and incorporated into national policy . This was to be the precursor for unprecedented acts of genocide, culminating in the murder of tens of millions of people across Europe, all in the name of science and national progress.

The rise of Nazism in Germany would serve to legitimize theories centred on вЂ?racial hygiene’ and as a result, elevate the process of racial purification to the status of a вЂ?divine mission’ of the government . Nazism was not entirely a uniquely German phenomenon, but its emphasis on ultra-nationalism, ethnicity and racial purity coupled with its intrinsic anti-Semitism were the qualities that would serve to distinguish it from other forms of totalitarianism. As a nationalist state, Germany required a certain degree of homogeneity between its citizens вЂ" in Nazi Germany, the binding (and also dividing) characteristic was German blood . The author of вЂ?The Gypsy Nuisance’, Heinrich Himmler, was the ReichsfÐ"јhrer (leader) of the SS, and one of the most prominent political figureheads of the Nazi regime. As a young man, Himmler had studied agriculture, and it was here that he first became familiar with aspects of social-Darwinism and вЂ?Nordic Thinking’ . Essentially, these theories espoused the view that Aryans were racially superior to other ethnic groups, and people of вЂ?inferior’ ethnicity, ie. Jews, Gypsies, blacks etc. served as a threat to the вЂ?health’ of the German nation, and were therefore enemies of the State. Gypsies, or the tribes of Roma and Sinti people, were the descendents of Indian ethnic groups, with the Gypsy population in Europe in the 1930’s was estimated at between 800,000 to 1 million . Their lifestyle was traditionally nomadic, and their blood, which was originally thought to be pure, had been contaminated (in the eyes of the Germans) as a result of this. It was this, in addition to their failure to settle and secure gainful employment (and their tendency to make a living through petty thievery) that caused the Gypsies to be viewed as a social menace by the Nazis. Portrayed as “economic parasites…characterized by high fertility rates,” their treatment was, according to Himmler, “part of the…task of national regeneration.”

The development of a вЂ?healthy’ German nation was facilitated through the creation of the Nuremberg Laws, intended to preserve the purity of German blood and restrict citizenship (and the privileges attached thereto) to those whose blood was deemed to be untainted. These laws were initially aimed at marginalizing the Jewish population in Germany, but their application was extended to “Gypsies, Negroes and their bastards” . Himmler’s intentions towards the treatment of the Gypsies were stated explicitly in the publication of вЂ?The Gypsy Nuisance’, and included “…the physical separation of Gypsydom from the German nation, the prevention of miscegenation, and finally the regulation of the way of life of pure and par-Gypsies”. Various laws and decrees were passed in order to ensure that these goals were met, beginning with the compulsory registration of all people who were known to be of Gypsy origin, or those who looked or behaved like Gypsies. In order to prevent any further “intermingling of blood”, strict decrees were passed in relation to marriage; applications for marriage were denied if people could not provide adequate evidence of the purity of their bloodline, and those with Gypsy ancestry were automatically rejected. An article in a German medical journal went so far as to recommend that Gypsies were to be treated as “hereditarily diseased people”; hence, sterilization was widely employed in order to prevent the spread of these imagined genetic defects . Himmler, chief of the German police since 1936, expanded their powers in 1938 to enable them to detain individuals that were deemed вЂ?asocials’ вЂ" in particular “gypsies