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The last photo of the entire Kusserow family, persecuted for being Jehovah's Witnesses. Bad Lippspringe, Germany, ca. 1935.

"Enemies of the State"

The Nazis aimed to reshape German society according to ideas about race and the nation. They labeled some racial and social groups as "outsiders" or "enemies." Many members of these groups were targeted for persecution.
Enemies of the State

Although Jews were the main target of Nazi hatred, they were not the only group persecuted. Other individuals and groups were considered "undesirable" and "enemies of the state."

  • Prisoners in the Dachau camp

    Prisoners carrying bowls in the Dachau concentration camp. Dachau, Germany, between 1933 and 1940.

  • Internment camp for Roma (Gypsies)

    Roll call at an internment camp for Roma (Gypsies). Lackenbach, Austria, 1940–41.

  • Franz Wohlfahrt describes imprisonment in Graz

    Franz and his family were Jehovah's Witnesses. Germany annexed Austria in 1938. After World War II began, Franz's father was executed because, as a Witness, he opposed war. In 1940, Franz refused to participate in military training and would not salute the Nazi flag. He was imprisoned, interrogated by the Gestapo (German Secret State Police) in Graz, and sentenced to five years of hard labor in a camp in Germany. Franz was liberated by US forces in 1945.

  • Berthold Mewes

    Berthold was an only child. He was raised in Paderborn, a town in a largely Catholic region of western Germany. Paderborn was near Bad Lippspringe, where there was a Jehovah's Witnesses congregation engaged in missionary work. Beginning in 1933, the Nazis moved to outlaw Jehovah's Witness activities.

    1933-39: When Berthold was 4, his parents became Jehovah's Witnesses and he began to attend secret Bible meetings with them. Berthold began public school in 1936. His mother was arrested in 1939 and sent to the Ravensbrueck concentration camp. When he was 9, his father sent him to live with his uncle in Berlin; however, three months later his father was forced to deliver him to the authorities. Afterwards, his father was imprisoned for refusing to serve in the military.

    1940-44: The Germans sent Berthold to live with a childless couple who had a small farm. In the morning he would attend school and afterwards he would do farm work. Berthold could write one letter every six months to either his mother or father. But in 1943 he was forbidden to write any more letters to his parents. He could only hope and pray that they were still alive. Although he had no contact with other Jehovah's Witnesses, his faith in Jehovah and the teachings of the Bible helped him overcome his loneliness and uncertainty.

    Berthold was reunited with his parents in 1945 when he was 15, and together the family resumed their lives as Jehovah's Witnesses. Berthold later moved to the United States.

  • Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim

    Friedrich-Paul was born in the old trading city of Lübeck in northern Germany. He was 11 when his father was killed in World War I. After his mother died, he and his sister Ina were raised by two elderly aunts. After graduating from school, Friedrich-Paul trained to be a merchant.

    1933-39: In January 1937 the SS arrested 230 men in Lübeck under the Nazi-revised criminal code's Paragraph 175, which banned sexual relations between men. Friedrich-Paul was imprisoned for 10 months. In 1938 he was re-arrested, humiliated, and tortured. The Nazis finally released him, but only on the condition that he agree to be castrated. Friedrich-Paul submitted to the operation.

    1940-44: Because of the nature of his operation, Friedrich-Paul was rejected as “physically unfit” when he came up for military service in 1940. In 1943 he was arrested again, this time for being a monarchist, a supporter of the former Kaiser Wilhelm II. The Nazis imprisoned him as a political prisoner in an annex of the Neuengamme concentration camp at Lübeck.

    After the war, Friedrich-Paul settled in Hamburg.

Although Jews were the main target of Nazi hatred, they were not the only group persecuted. Other individuals and groups were considered "undesirable" and "enemies of the state." Once the voices of political opponents were silenced, the Nazis stepped up their terror against other "outsiders."

Like Jews, Roma (Gypsies) were targeted by the Nazis as "non-Aryans" and racial "inferiors." Roma had been in Germany since the 1400s and had faced prejudice there for centuries. They had also been victims of official discrimination long before 1933. Under the Nazis, Romani (Gypsy) families in major cities were rounded up, fingerprinted and photographed, and forced to live in special camps under police guard.

Jehovah's Witnesses, members of a small Christian group, were victimized not for reasons of race but because of their beliefs. Witnesses' beliefs prohibited them from entering the army or showing obedience to any government by saluting the flag or, in Nazi Germany, raising their arms in the "Heil Hitler" salute. Soon after Hitler took power, Witnesses were sent to concentration camps. Those who remained at large lost their jobs, unemployment and social welfare benefits, and all civil rights. The Witnesses, nevertheless, continued to meet, to preach, and to distribute religious pamphlets.

The Nazis persecuted gay men between 1933 and 1945. They closed gay bars and meeting places. They also dissolved gay associations and shuttered gay presses. The Nazi regime also arrested and tried tens of thousands of gay men. They arrested them for violating Paragraph 175. This was a statute of the German criminal code that banned sexual relations between men. During the Nazi era, between 5,000 and 15,000 men were imprisoned in concentration camps as “homosexual” (“homosexuell”) offenders. This group of prisoners was typically required to wear a pink triangle on their camp uniforms.

Key Dates

June 24, 1933
Jehovah's Witnesses banned in Prussia
The Nazi government of Prussia, the largest state government in Germany, bans Jehovah's Witnesses. Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to make the "Heil Hitler" greeting and, beginning in 1935, to serve in the German army. The Nazis begin mass arrests of Jehovah's Witnesses in 1936. Many Witnesses are imprisoned in concentration camps, and they are represented in nearly every major camp. Generally, Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to renounce their convictions, even though they could obtain release from the camps by signing a declaration renouncing their beliefs.

June 28, 1935
Revision of Paragraph 175
Paragraph 175 was a statute of the German criminal code since 1871. It criminalized sexual relations between men. On June 28, 1935, the Nazi state amends this statute. The revision expands the type of acts that can be punished by law. A wide range of intimate and sexual acts are now seen as criminal. This even includes a man touching another man. There are approximately 100,000 arrests for violations of Paragraph 175 between 1933–1945. Over half of these arrests result in convictions. In most cases, men accused of violating Paragraph 175 were sentenced to prison by ordinary courts.

August 18, 1944
Communist Party leader executed in Buchenwald
Ernst Thaelmann, leader of the German Communist party since 1925 and one-time candidate for the German presidency, is executed in the Buchenwald camp. He is killed by his SS guards during an air raid on a nearby factory. Thaelmann had been arrested after the fire that destroyed the Reichstag (German parliament) building in 1933. He spent more almost 12 years in the camps. Communists, Social Democrats, and trade unionists were among the first groups persecuted by the Nazis.

Last Edited: May 19, 2023

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