Täterinnen der Weiblichen Kriminalpolizei bei der NS-Verfolgung von Sinti*ze und Rom*nja

The Role of Female Criminal Police Officers as Perpetrators in the Nazi Persecution of Sinti und Roma

Abstract

By analysing the role of the Female Criminal Police in the persecution of Sinti und Roma in Magdeburg under the Nazi regime, this article makes an important contribution to the hitherto largely ignored gender-historical research on the genocide of Sinti und Roma. First, the establishment of this criminal police department and its self-conception as a modern and democratic institution during the Weimar Republic will be analysed. It will be shown that the development of the department was highly connected to the women’s rights movement. Second, the article examines the ideological reframing of the female criminal police department under the Nazi regime. It investigates how it was embedded in an institutional apparatus that committed crimes against those persecuted based on a departmental division of labour. Throughout the different governmental systems, the work of female criminal police officers was, however, characterized by gender role expectations of contemporary German society.