Here you will find descriptions of a range of terms, events, themes and institutions featured on the website.
National community
In Nazi ideology the »national community« (»Volksgemeinschaft«) was a society in which German »racial comrades« (»Volksgenossen«) lived side by side. Racist criteria determined whether someone belonged. People excluded from the »national community« were denigrated as »vermin harmful to the German people« (»Volksschädlinge«). Among them were Jews, Sinti and Roma, political opponents, people with disabilities, homosexuals, but also »asocials« and »career criminals«.
NSDAP
The National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) ruled the German Reich from 1933 to 1945. The party was founded in Munich in 1919. It had an antisemitic and »völkisch« orientation and sought to establish a dictatorship. The Nazi Party was structured as a hierarchy with leader Adolf Hitler at the very top. After his appointment as Reich Chancellor in 1933, Hitler banned all other parties. In 1943 the Nazi Party had more than 7.5 million members.
The SD (Security Service of the Reichsführer SS) was established in 1931 by Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler as the intelligence service of the SS (Schutzstaffel). Its task was to gather information on political opponents and oppositional movements within and outside the National Socialist circles. From 1934, the SD became the intelligence service of the NSDAP. It was subordinated to Reinhard Heydrich, who merged the SD with the security police (Gestapo and Kripo) into the newly formed Reich Security Main Office in 1939.