For decades after the war, there was neither recognition nor commemoration of those people whom the Nazis had termed »community aliens«. It was not until February 2020, after decades of disavowal, that the German Bundestag recognised »career criminals« and »asocials« as victims of National Socialism. Why did it take so long for them to be recognised as victims? Who campaigned on their behalf? And what steps were necessary for their suffering to finally be acknowledged?
Joining forces
»The Forgotten Ones« (1946)
In 1946 a group of people who had been persecuted as »asocials« and »career criminals« formed an association in Munich called Die Vergessenen – The Forgotten Ones . The members were all survivors of Dachau concentration camp. Through the association they made clear their disappointment at the lack of solidarity shown by other former prisoners. Between May and July 1946, The Forgotten Ones published three monthly bulletins under the title »Truth and Justice! ›Black-Green‹: Internal Information Bulletin of Former Concentration Camp Prisoners with the Black or Green Triangle in Germany«. The bulletin urged former fellow prisoners to join forces and stand up for the »good reputation of the blacks and greens«. However, their campaign came to an abrupt end when the US military administration banned it after just a few months. The ban came about because many people continued to believe that the persecution of »asocials« and »career criminals« had been justified.
Source: Arolsen Archives
TRUTH and JUSTICE!
“Black-Green”
Internal Information Bulletin of Former Concentration Camp Prisoners with the Black or Green Triangle in Germany
No. 1
Munich, May 1946
Join in!
Former Concentration Camp Prisoners! “Blacks!” “Greens!”
I have in front of me a pamphlet from a former Buchenwald inmate, which has really made me think. It compels us to finally break our lengthy silence.
Every line of this pamphlet is an accusation against us, against the Blacks and Greens; it is libel of the first order and necessitates a suitable response.
We therefore urge you to take a stand against these nasty demagogues and manipulators of the worst kind! – –
We do not deserve such abuse from those who would do better to put their own house in order and dispense with the title “political prisoners”.
But because they are apparently blind to these matters, we will scrutinise them and open their eyes to their inglorious activities in the various concentration camps! –
Having faith in the decent character and determination of these *political prisoners*, we have remained silent up to now; we remained silent because we did not want to air dirty laundry in public, because we did not want to bring the trust and reputation of the former concentration camp inmates into further disrepute. Our silence seems to have been misinterpreted and it has not been appreciated. We will therefore fight back with all means at our disposal. Those who libel us will have to bear the consequences, for they will be discredited in the process.
We are being showered with fanatical hatred and evil and we will not hold back in our response, for if we accept this blow without reacting, we are no longer worthy to call ourselves concentration camp prisoners.
Even if we are “asocials” and “career criminals”, we have enough honour and strength of character to see that this type of troublemaking demands atonement! – –
For this reason, we urge you to fight alongside us for our rights and our reputation, despite all the malicious agitators!
Unite in the fight for truth and justice, for a fair and honest fight! Work with us, and against those who deserve to sit in the dock next to the accused SS guards.
Our aims have nothing at all to do with politics or religion and serve solely to put right the untruths and libel that people are circulating about us, and to uphold our reputation.
In this spirit, dear comrades, let us revive our former sense of comradeship and unrelentingly take up the fight that the pirates and freebooters have started against us!
Gg. Tauber,
K. Jochheim-Armin,
“Black” and “Green”
Just a few weeks after the last concentration camps were liberated, former concentration camp prisoners joined forces. They called for recognition of the injustice they had endured and for compensation. In a number of German towns, survivors who had been held in the camps as »political« prisoners set up advice centres for people who had been persecuted under the Nazi regime. These centres issued proof of detention, which enabled people to access initial aid. However, they refused aid to certain groups who had been persecuted. These included those whom the SS had made wear a black triangle in the camps as »asocials« or a green triangle as »career criminals«. After the war, their former fellow inmates continued to stigmatise them as »asocial« and »criminal«.
Georg Tauber was one of the two founders of the association, which also called itself The Forgotten Ones: A Community of Fate. After the war, Tauber, who had himself been interned in Dachau concentration camp as an »asocial«, produced at least 60 drawings and watercolours that captured for posterity the horror of the concentration camps and the experience of social exclusion. His anger and disappointment at the behaviour of the »political« prisoners inspired the watercolour »The Burden« (Die Last, 1946). These former fellow inmates did nothing to support Tauber and others who had been persecuted as »asocials« and »criminals« and now continued to be rejected by mainstream society.
Source: Private collection
Initiatives and associations
Efforts to keep memory alive
After the war, people previously persecuted as »asocials« and »career criminals« had no organisation to represent their interests. There was one decisive reasons for this. First, the only thing they had in common was the way they had been categorised in National Socialist society. Only the independent Association the Victims of »Euthanasia« and Forced Sterilisation, founded in 1987, offered the possibility of dialogue. After all, many of those persecuted as »asocials« were also affected by forced sterilisation, which was ordered in many cases following a diagnosis of »congenital idiocy«. The Association for the Victims of »Euthanasia« and Forced Sterilisation campaigned for the rehabilitation of all those who had forcibly sterilised. In 2007 the German Bundestag enacted a resolution to this effect.
As the years progressed, additional initiatives, working groups and associations were founded, although not all of them were independent associations of people persecuted under National Socialism. These groups used various methods to campaign for the recognition of »asocials« and »career criminals« as victims of persecution.
Since 1997 the Initiative to Establish a Memorial Site at the Former Uckermark Concentration Camp has organised regular digs on the grounds of this former youth concentration camp, where girls and young women were incarcerated, as well as workstays where volunteers carry out excavation and construction work and address the history of the camp. It also campaigns for the establishment of a memorial site. Since 2006 commemorative events and guided visits have taken place in the grounds of the former camp. The initiative has also financed a small monument, which was unveiled in 2009.
In 2007 the working group Marginalised in Past and Present was established. It has its roots in the unemployed workers’ movement and was set up in the context of protests against the controversial German unemployment benefit reform known as Hartz IV. The working group organised a large number of events and brought out two anthologies dealing with the persecution of supposed »asocials« under National Socialism and continuity (and change) in terms of the marginalisation of this group after the war. In the 2010s the working group was among the initiators of the memorial and exhibition on the site of the former workhouse in Rummelsburg (Berlin).
The Central Council of Asocials in Deutschland (ZaiD) adopted an entirely different approach. The impetus was an art project set up by Tucké Royale in 2015 through which he and a group of other artists campaigned for compensation for people persecuted as »asocials« and sought to draw attention to continuities between past and present with regard to the marginalisation of this group. Over a period of three years, the ZaiD ran public art campaigns in Hamburg and Berlin under the slogan »No one is asocial«.
For a number of years so-called Stolpersteine (»stumbling stones«) have also been laid to remember people classified by the Nazis as »asocials« or »career criminals«. However, a number of fundamental questions arise when considering Stolpersteine as a form of remembrance. Are the individuals concerned stigmatised once again by the reference to categories of persecution established by the Nazis? At which places or addresses can Stolpersteine be laid for people who were homeless or of no fixed abode?
Photo: Private collection
People of no fixed abode
were deemed asocial and workshy by the Nazis;
they were stigmatised, criminalised,
persecuted and murdered
Otto Bülow
Born 1913
Arrested several times from 1931
lastly on 23 January 1941
»Preventive custody«
in Sachsenhausen.
Murdered 12 February 1943
Joachim Ebel,
Born 1919
Admitted to Rummelsburg workhouse
Arrested November 1942
Sachsenhausen
Murdered 4 February 1943
Paul Kobelt
Born 1892
Multiple spells in Rummelsburg workhouse after 1935
»Preventive custody« 9 February 1942
Sachsenhausen
Took his own life
25 March 1942
Willi Kochannek
Born 1907
Admitted to Rummelsburg workhouse
Arrested August 1942
Sachsenhausen
Murdered 20 August 1942
Karl Otto Mielke
Born 1909
Arrested 19 April 1939
Charlottenburg prison
»Preventive custody« 11 August 1939
Sachsenhausen
Murdered 24 January 1940
The persecution of people labelled »career criminals« by the Nazis was not confronted until recently. No initiative or organisation addressed the suffering of this group or the failure to acknowledge their persecution and award them compensation after the war. The initiative founded by Frank Nonnenmacher was the first to campaign actively for official recognition of the persecution of »career criminals«.
Initial research
Focus on previously unacknowledged victims of National Socialism
It was not until four decades after the end of World War Two that the suffering of people persecuted as »asocials«, which had previously been ignored, was addressed publicly in West Germany. In the Bundestag the Green Party called on several occasions for the Federal Compensation Law to be extended to include the »forgotten victims«. At the same time, academics began to research the topic. Detlev Peukert and Gisela Bock are considered trailblazers in this field. In 1982 Peukert published the landmark monograph Racial Comrades and Community Aliens, which dealt with »racialism as social policy« under National Socialism. Four years later Bock published the first comprehensive study on forced sterilisation under National Socialism.
Alongside scholarly research, in the 1980s regional history initiatives were formed in various parts of Germany. In Hamburg the Project Group for the Forgotten Victims of the Nazi Regime was set up in 1983. Through exhibitions and publications, it raised awareness of the persecution of the »ignored victims« of National Socialism – including the supposed »asocials«. In 1989 the initiative succeeded in its efforts to establish a regional foundation. It was only from this point that individuals who were not officially eligible for compensation could receive financial assistance from the federal state of Hamburg.
Initial research focused primarily on the role of the National Socialist welfare system. In 1995 Wolfgang Ayaß published the first comprehensive study on the persecution of »asocials« and the role of local welfare institutions. Representatives of the next generation approached the topic from another angle. They shifted the focus from the role of welfare institutions to the police. One example was Patrick Wagner’s book National Community without Criminals (1996). It was not until this point that attention turned to those persecuted as »career criminals«, a topic which had been largely absent from academic research up until then.
Ayaß, Wolfgang (1995): »Asoziale« im Nationalsozialismus. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart.
Bock, Gisela (1986): Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus. Studien zur Rassenpolitik und Frauenpolitik. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen.
Peukert, Detlev (1982): Volksgenossen und Gemeinschaftsfremde. Anpassung, Ausmerze und Aufbegehren unter dem Nationalsozialismus. Bund-Verlag, Frankfurt/Main.
Projektgruppe für die vergessenen Opfer des NS-Regimes, Hrsg. (1988): Verachtet – verfolgt – vernichtet. Zu den »vergessenen« Opfern des NS-Regimes. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg.
Wagner, Patrick (1996): Volksgemeinschaft ohne Verbrecher. Konzeptionen und Praxis der Kriminalpolizei in der Zeit der Weimarer Republik und des Nationalsozialismus. Christians Verlag, Hamburg.
From a petition to a resolution by the German parliament (2018)
An initiative for the recognition of the supposed »asocials« and »career criminals« as victims of National Socialism
In April 2018 a group of five academics from Germany and Austria submitted a petition to the German parliament, the Bundestag. Its main demand was that those who had been categorised and persecuted as »asocials« or »career criminals« should be recognised as victims of National Socialism. The individuals behind the petition made one thing clear: the lengthy period that had gone by without these victims being recognised as such had already led to a situation where only few survivors were in the position to claim compensation at all. For this reason, additional resources were to be made available for research, exhibitions and political education.
Almost 22,000 people signed the initiative’s petition, which thereby achieved its objective of being referred for discussion in the Bundestag. In April 2019 both Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (Green Party) and the FDP (Free Democratic Party) submitted motions to the plenary in the Bundestag. Around six months later there was an expert hearing in the Committee for Culture and Media. On 13 February 2020 the five democratic parties represented in the Bundestag reached an agreement to recognise those persecuted as »asocials« and »career criminals« as victims of National Socialism.
One of the people behind the petition was Frank Nonnenmacher, a social scientist. His uncle, Ernst Nonnenmacher, was persecuted as a supposed »asocial« and later as a »career criminal«, and held in Flossenbürg and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. In 2014 Frank Nonnenmacher published the book You had it Better Than Me: Two Brothers in the 20th Century, which tells the story of his uncle Ernst alongside that of his father, Gustav. Ernst Nonnenmacher died in 1989. He did not live to experience the recognition of his status as a victim of National Socialism.
Bundestag resolution
»No one was justifiably detained, tortured or murdered in a concentration camp«
On 13 February 2020 the German Bundestag passed a resolution to officially recognise those who were persecuted as »asocials« and »career criminals« as victims of National Socialism – 75 years after the end of World War Two. The coalition government’s motion was approved by the governing parties at the time – the CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Party / Christian Social Union) and the SPD (Social Democratic Party) – along with the opposition parties the FDP (Free Democratic Party), Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (Green Party) and Die Linke (Left Party). Only the right-wing populist AfD (Alternative for Germany) party abstained.
The resolution adopted contains a crucial sentence: »No one was justifiably detained, tortured or murdered in a concentration camp.« This is a reason to focus greater attention on those whom the Nazis categorised as »asocials« and »career criminals«. A travelling exhibition, which includes this website, will contribute to raising awareness. In addition, financial support will be provided for research and for activities at memorial sites and documentation centres.
The German Bundestag’s resolution also stipulates that survivors are to have easier access to financial compensation. Up until 2019 the Federal Republic had awarded compensation to just 288 people who had been persecuted as »asocials« and 46 »career criminals« on the basis of the hardship guidelines of the General Act Regulating Compensation for War-Induced Losses (AKG).
Two aspects of the resolution attracted particular criticism. First, the democratic parties in the Bundestag had not agreed on a joint motion in advance of the resolution granting official recognition. Along with the governing Christian Democratic und Social Democratic coalition, the Green, the Liberal and the Left party all also put forward their own motions. Frank Nonnenmacher, who was a relative of one of those persecuted and among the initiators of the Bundestag resolution, had previously warned of this approach, saying that the actual cause would be overshadowed by party politics. Criticism also came from historian Julia Hörath, another member of the group that initiated the resolution. She remarked that the resolution had barely altered the framework for awarding compensation. Compensation can still only be claimed in line with the so-called hardship guidelines within the General Act Regulating Compensation for War-Induced Losses (AKG). However, Hörath pointed out that it would have been appropriate to revise the Federal Compensation Law (BEG), which was applied until 1969. While it was in force, the BEG recognised those eligible for compensation as having been »persecuted« under National Socialism. Within the AKG the individuals concerned are considered only as »victims« of World War Two.
Short Jingle
»Today is an important moment for the German Bundestag. It is important because we are giving victims of National Socialist tyranny a voice, a face, and recognition. People whose fate was sidelined for too long. Victims of the National Socialists who were not only overlooked by us for a long time, but whom the state did not want to acknowledge either.«
These words were spoken by the CSU politician Volker Ullrich in the German Bundestag’s plenary session on 13 February 2020. It was not until 75 years after the end of the war that the German parliament voted to grant official recognition to those people who had been persecuted under National Socialism as »asocials« and »career criminals«. This political decision was preceded by decades in which these victims were ignored and their history repressed. Only in isolated cases did survivors receive compensation. Most were not recognised as victims of National Socialism.
Delegates of the German Bundestag were involved in discussions on the recognition of supposed »asocials« and »career criminals« for almost three years. CDU delegate Melanie Bernstein describes the process:
»Right from the start of the parliamentary discussions, within the working groups, the committee, and during public hearings, all parties – with the exception of the AfD – fundamentally agreed that something needed to be done. I gladly concede that it was the Green party, which first put the topic on our political agenda and which, by submitting the first motion on the topic, initiated the constructive discussions which are still ongoing. Since last year we have discussed the topic in detail on many occasions in various committees, most recently during a public hearing convened by the Committee for Culture and the Media on 6 November 2019.«
The two governing parties at the time (the CDU/CSU und the SPD) finally agreed to central demands, summed up as follows by SPD delegate Marianne Schieder:
»With our motion it will be possible to produce the touring exhibition, which will present the results of scholarly research to the broader public. This exhibition will provide an excellent format to examine what the Nazis understood by the terms »asocial« or »career criminal« and the arbitrary process by which people were stigmatised, marginalised, tortured and murdered. The exhibition will have a modular structure, which means it can be expanded continuously, for example to include the research findings of young people from schools or youth groups who address the biographies of people from their home town who were persecuted. In addition, among other things the […] coalition motion envisages greater cooperation between memorial sites and educational institutions and the local community. People who were persecuted as »asocials« and »career criminals« will also be explicitly listed as eligible for compensation under the hardship guidelines of the General Act Regulating Compensation for War-Induced Losses. In this way it will be clear to everyone that the survivors have a right to compensation.«
However, in addition to the motion from the governing parties, there were three other motions for discussion on 13 February 2020. Three of the opposition parties (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, Die Linke and the FDP) put forward their own motions. In the subsequent debate there was criticism that the democratic parties had not agreed on a joint motion:
»The three named opposition parties were willing to draw up a joint motion with the CDU/CSU and the SPD. However, the coalition parties, specifically the CDU/CSU, evidently did not wish to do so. This is most regrettable as this is simply not an issue where groups should be pushing their own political agenda.«
This criticism voiced by Petra Pau from Die Linke was echoed by Hartmut Ebbing from the FDP and Erhard Grundl from the Green party:
»If we democratic parties cannot even manage to produce a joint, cross-party motion on this issue, when will we ever be able to work together on anything? Instead of signalling solidarity and public spirit on behalf of the victims, it seems that party lines were considered more important, especially within the Grand Coalition. […] Ladies and gentlemen, and particularly delegates from the CDU, this is something we could and should have dealt with better.«
»Since April 2018 we from the Green Party have been calling for a cross-party motion as a clear signal to the victims and their families, as a clear signal against hatred and the contempt targeted at certain groups both back then and today. It would have been a clear signal against all those who call for a line to be drawn under the process of addressing the National Socialist regime. In view of the increase in violence against those of a different mindset, against religious minorities or against disadvantaged people within society, that would have been a strong and significant statement.«
Nonetheless, all the democratic parties were united in the orientation of the motion and in their condemnation of the AfD. Both prior to and during the debate, the AfD had called for a case-by-case assessment. This was rejected vehemently by all other parties during the debate.
Delegates from all the democratic parties ultimately voted in favour of the motion from the coalition parties. On a political level at least, 13 February 2020 marked the end of the many years in which the Nazi persecution of »career criminals« and »asocials« had not been recognised as such.
End credits, getting quieter, transition to the jingle:
»The coalition parties, the FDP, Die Linke and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen have voted to adopt the recommended resolution; the AfD abstained.«