Der „Kampf gegen das Verbrechertum“ im nationalsozialistischen Österreich

Die Kriminalpolizei und die Radikalisierung der NS-Verfolgungspolitik nach 1938

Abstract

Abstract: The “fight against crime” in Nazi Austria. The Criminal Police and the radicalization of National Socialist policies of persecution after 1938. Immediately after Austria’s “Anschluss” to the German Reich in 1938, National Socialist crime prevention was introduced there too. Hundreds of people were labelled “professional criminals” on the basis of their earlier sentences and were taken into “preventive detention” by the Criminal Police. They were deported to National Socialist concentration camps, mostly to Dachau and Mauthausen. Based on archival sources, this article presents the historical sequences and backgrounds of crime prevention policies in National Socialist Austria. An analysis of these sources reveals differing interests by different (local and governmental) actors and demonstrates that the introduction of “crime prevention” measures in Austria after the “Anschluss” was an integral part of the process of radicalization in persecuting alleged enemies of the Nazi “Volksgemeinschaft”.