« Harmful tramps » Police professionalization and gypsies in Germany, 1700-1945
Why, and with what effects, have (travelling) people been labelled as « Gypsies » and what does this labelling process lear us about more general developments, such as the professionalisation of the police, the emergence of the national state, (im)migration controls and the granting of poor relief a...
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| Veröffentlicht in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/chs, |
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| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Sprache: | Anglais |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Crime, Histoire & Sociétés
2009
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| Online Zugang: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Zusammenfassung: | Why, and with what effects, have (travelling) people been labelled as « Gypsies » and what does this labelling process lear us about more general developments, such as the professionalisation of the police, the emergence of the national state, (im)migration controls and the granting of poor relief and welfare ? These are the questions that are dealt with in this article, which focuses mainly on Germany, but has wider relevance for other Western European countries as well. By using a long time-span (1700-1945), it tries to lay bare some fundamental mechanisms in the labelling process which are easily missed by studies on more restricted periods. Our reconstruction shows that in many aspects the Nazi period just continued the traditional labelling of Gypsies by the German police. The significant change was the means it was offered by the dictatorial and terrorist regime and the extermination policy. The specific contribution to the history of the police in Germany is that it sheds light on the early beginnings of the professionalisation of the police. The most striking aspect of the tracing is the continuity in the target-groups and methods used. In the eighteenth century as well as in the twentieth, policemen were primarily interested in obtaining a better insight in the real and the potential criminals (broadly defined) and thus curbing the danger these persons posed to the public. One of the consequences was the formation of certain categories, such as vagrants, Gypsies, Jews, journeymen, prostitutes, and during the Nazi period « anti-social enemies », who were thus problematized and stigmatized. |
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