"Annihilation through labor": the killing of state prisoners in the Third Reich

One of the most distinctive features of Nazi society was the increasingly radical division of its members into “national comrades” and “community aliens.” The former were to be protected by the state and encouraged to procreate, while the latter were seen as political, social, racial, or eugenic threats and were to be ruthlessly eliminated from society. With the start of the Second World War, various nonlethal forms of discrimination against these “community aliens” were gradually replaced by policies geared to physical annihilation, culminating above all in the extermination of the European Jews. In view of a crime of this previously unimaginable magnitude, it is hardly surprising that when historians started in earnest to examine the genocidal policies of the Nazi dictatorship in the 1960s they focused on the development and administration of the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question,” as the Nazis called it. But in the last two decades, the fate of other “community aliens” in the Third Reich, such as the Roma and Sinti (“Gypsies”), slave laborers, and the disabled, has been investigated too. Some historians have also begun to examine those who deviated in various other ways from the norms of society, people who were often classified in the Third Reich, and indeed before, as “asocials.” There was never an agreed definition as to who these people were, and the term was used to stigmatize a vast variety of nonnormative behavior. According to a 1938 directive by the head of the German security police, Reinhard Heydrich, any person could be classified as “asocial” who “demonstrates through conduct opposed to the community . . . that he does not want to adapt to the community.” During the Third Reich, such vague statements served as the basis for the persecution of juvenile delinquents, criminal offenders, vagrants, prostitutes, and homosexuals, among many others. Certain groups were simultaneously classified as racial and social outsiders and thus suffered “dual racism.” This was true in particular for the Sinti and Roma, who had been persecuted for their way of life long before the Nazi “seizure of power” in 1933. Historical research into the fate of the “asocials” has produced some valuable insights into the treatment of members of these marginal groups in the Third Reich, many of whom died in SS concentration or extermination camps. Yet despite this growing interest, the most comprehensive of all the extermination programs directed against “asocials” in the Third Reich has never been investigated. From late 1942 onward, over twenty thousand offenders classified as “asocial” were taken out of the state penal system and transferred to the police for “annihilation through labor.” At least two-thirds of them perished in concentration camps. But in the historical literature this program has either been dealt with in passing or completely ignored. Why have historians neglected the murder of state prisoners? There appears to be a reluctance to focus on offenders against the law in the Third Reich, unless their offences can be seen in some way as forms of political or social protest. In contrast to the racially or politically persecuted, not all common criminals can be described merely as innocent victims, and the often brutal behavior of criminal Kapos in concentration camps probably further alienated historians from dealing with the criminals. Another factor that explains the poor state of research is the inaccessibility of source material. Leading officials in the Ministry of Justice made sure that most files relating to the “annihilation through labor” of state prisoners were pulped before the end of the war.8 Yet individual documents have survived, scattered around various archives in Germany. They can be complemented by information gained from individual prisoner files, as well as from unpublished documents and testimonies collected in numerous postwar legal investigations. None of these criminal investigations ever led to the conviction of the prison officials involved—another reason for the lack of historical interest. Finally, German legal history after the war spread the myth that the legal administration had rejected or even resisted the Nazi regime. State penal institutions, if dealt with at all, were described as safe havens that had “nothing to do with the concentration camps.” Thus, until today, historians have largely ignored the state prison system and its inmates. This article will first describe the origins of the decision in 1942 for the extermination of certain state prisoners. Then the actual process of transfer will be investigated in detail, examining issues such as the background of the transferred inmates and the participation of prison officials. The article will also deal with the fate of the state prisoners after their transport to the Nazi concentration camps and the radicalization of policy against the prisoners remaining in the state penal institutions. Exploring these issues contributes to our knowledge of the treatment of deviants in the Third Reich. But this article will also address some wider issues concerning the nature of the Nazi dictatorship, such as the origins of extermination policies in the Third Reich. In recent years, a number of historians have argued that it was time to move beyond the “sterile debates” between so-called intentionalist historians, who focused on the murderous will and ideology of the Nazi leaders, above all Hitler, and so-called structuralist historians, who pointed to the dynamic and uncoordinated interactions between different agencies of the Nazi dictatorship that led to a “cumulative radicalization” (Hans Mommsen). Various historians have now put forward a synthesis of both positions, while ground-breaking empirical research into the “final solution” has posed new questions and provided new answers. Still, many of the more recent studies of Nazi genocide continue to explore central issues first raised in the debates between intentionalists and structuralists such as Hitler’s role in extermination policy, the interaction between regional officials and the decision makers in Berlin, and the role of racial ideology versus more material motives in Nazi mass murder. This study of the “annihilation through labor” of state prisoners addresses some of these general issues. It will also shed new light on the relation between the judiciary and the police in the Third Reich. The postwar portrait of a passive or even anti-Nazi judiciary has not gone unchallenged. Still, many historians continue to describe the judicial authorities and the police as having been in a constant state of conflict. They describe the Third Reich as a “dual state,” split between the “prerogative state” and the “normative state.” The latter was the traditional state apparatus, ensuring that normal life was ruled by legal norms. However, in matters that were thought to touch on the interest of the state, the “prerogative state” could override these legal norms, above all through the agency of the police, locking up all political, racial, and social suspects in SS concentration camps without trial. Thus, state attorneys and the police are seen as competing institutions of prosecution, while state penal institutions and concentration camps are described as competing institutions of confinement. A detailed investigation of the transfer of state prisoners can help to establish how far this picture of the “dual state” stands up to critical scrutiny

“She gloried in being a sailor’s wife”: A Postcolonial Reading of the Marriage Plot in Jane Austen’s Persuasion

The British Empire and imperialism are crucial parts of Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion. To investigate how the novel represents and purports imperialism, this paper combines a structuralist with a postcolonial approach and applies Said’s method of ‘contrapuntal reading.’ In addition, the approach of cultural materialism is relevant for the novel’s representation of class. My argumentation first consists of an analysis of the character constellation, in particular the opposition of gentry and naval characters, and narrative situation before turning to the novel’s marriage plot. I argue that Austen’s realist novel Persuasion legitimizes British imperialism due to its use of narrative techniques, plot, and character constellation. The narrative does not question the represented empire which functions as an opportunity for wealth and social mobility for the characters. The marriage plot, in which the female protagonist chooses a naval captain over her cousin from the landed gentry, further corroborates the novel’s support of the British Empire and demonstrates the increasing importance of the navy as well as the professional classes for England at the beginning of the nineteenth century

Book Review: No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood – Tragedy in the Time of Social Media

From chronically online to a baby born with “Elephant Man” syndrome – a woman’s life is turned upside down as she has to reconsider her priorities in life

The sociology of recording in Africa south of the Sahara

In recent years, at conferences on the welfare of folk music, much comment could be heard on the rapidity and thoroughness of the changes which affect society today. However, there was no witch-hunting; the mood was not to blame but to understand. Although there was a feeling that it was pointless to resist this kind of change, there was also some mental reservation that some good might be done if the disruption of continuity in folk music could be prevented, at least in some small measure, without interfering with its evolution. Needless to say, that at these congresses the tension between those who wished to promote stability in tradition and those who wholeheartedly wanted a new era of a new kind of folk music, could only be felt as an undercurrent. But the division has led to the formation of strange alliances. Those intent on a positive attitude to rapid change, moved perhaps by a social gospel promising a new and happier world, found themselves shoulder to shoulder with those who simply realised that popular entertainment in the garb of folk tradition sold well. On the other side, the supporters of continuity and authenticity found themselves agreeing with African nationalists and the scholars, united in a deep concern for the achievements of a tradition which both believed to have deep roots. From this common platform they opposed the extravagant claims of the ‘entertainment-first’ school. The African Music Society reflects this view when it speaks of music offered by the gramophone companies in Africa, “with a strongly exotic flavour . . . featuring for the most part selections of popular American and European origin.

Squash Center Operation Analysis

Import 04/07/2011Tato bakalářská práce analyzuje provoz squash centra. Práce je rozdělena na tři části. První kapitola je věnována teoretické části, ve které jsou vymezeny základní pojmy jako organizační struktura sportu v České republice, marketing, management, získávání finančních prostředků ve sportu a historie squashe. Další kapitola obsahuje výzkumné šetření ve squash centru z hlediska ekonomiky provozu. Zde jsem popsal základní charakteristiku squash centra BSO a jeho hospodaření. Dále jsem provedl rozhovor s majitelem centra a vypracoval STEP a SWOT analýzu. V poslední kapitole jsem provedl shrnutí výzkumného šetření a vypracoval návrhy a doporučení.This thesis analyzes the operation of the Squash Centre. The work is divided into three parts. The first chapter is devoted to the theoretical part, which are basic concepts such as organizational structure of sport in the Czech Republic, marketing, management, fund-raising in sport and the history of squash. Another chapter contains the research of squash center in terms of economy of operation. Here I describe the basic characteristics Squash Centre BSO and its economy. Next, I conducted an interview with the owner of the center and developed the STEP and SWOT analysis. In the last chapter I made a summary of the research and draw up proposals and recommendations.Prezenční115 - Katedra managementudobř

Landscape, war trauma, explosion: re-membering the moment before

This practice-led PhD focuses on the role of the trauma of war. It argues that trauma circulates, takes shapes and forms, manifesting itself as a landscape which is both dynamic and emergent. War trauma can be seen, felt and expressed as a particular set of scars shaped by memory, fear, identity and politics. A re-positioning and materialising of these scars through a practice of corresponding moving image not only reveals how their intensity operates in discourse but also sheds light on the mechanisms of power that help shape knowledge, identity and meaning. The practice is composed of three ‘moving-image-correspondences’, each with its own protagonist: the cactus (sabra), the human, and the tank; all of these are haunted by explosion in some way or another. The research shows how the effect of trauma requires a different approach to linear time: of moving through different times, territories, and traumas that materialise in the moment of correspondence, whereby the past is projected into the future and comes back to create the present. This temporal redistribution establishes the role of correspondence as linkage, a feedback loop which perpetuates the feeling of fear of the moment before (the explosion). This moment before is understood as a collective trauma, responsible for the interwoven socio-political structures that allow for different shapes of trauma to emerge and circulate. Thus, the creation of repetition and patterning forms the ways in which a site/reality is both established and conceived. The notion of correspondence is developed both as material method and theory in its broader sense: not only in words, but as video collages. These collages embody the collective materialisation of seemingly disparate elements, through a process of rubbing matter, images, rhythm, colours, sounds and theory against each other, trying to understand their ability to create emergence, to re-member, re-materialise, re-reproduce and circulate. This research therefore allows for a plurality of narratives to exist at any given moment – an affectual zone where memory, silence and trauma are embodied, preserved and circulated as landscape. The battle is always over the narrative that constantly reshapes the landscape and its history. The sabra (cactus), used to demarcate the borders of Palestinian villages, is transformed into a living testament of lives lived there before 1948. The war of 1948 and its aftermath marked a dramatic change in the social and cultural role of the cactus, appropriated by Israel as a symbol of its people and ultimately leading to the popularisation of the term ‘Tzabar’ (sabra) to refer to an Israeli-born Jew. In 2005, the term morphed once again, and also began to refer to a tank, continuing its transformation from a border marker/symbol of defence to an attacker and occupier. This thesis therefore thinks of the sabra/tzabar as an event that unfolds in multiple directions, taking on different shapes, narratives, histories and time periods. Importantly, the circulation that emerges as landscape (the landscape's ability to shape-shift) also allows for undecidability as a crucial part of the equation of the moment before, through which curiosity, hope and change can also emerge

Kennliniengestützte Durchführung von Logistiksimulationen

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Trusted and Privacy-preserving Embedded Systems: Advances in Design, Analysis and Application of Lightweight Privacy-preserving Authentication and Physical Security Primitives

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) enables RFID readers to perform fully automatic wireless identification of objects labeled with RFID tags and is widely deployed to many applications, such as access control, electronic tickets and payment as well as electronic passports. This prevalence of RFID technology introduces various risks, in particular concerning the privacy of its users and holders. Despite the privacy risk, classical threats to authentication and identification systems must be considered to prevent the adversary from impersonating or copying (cloning) a tag. This thesis summarizes the state of the art in secure and privacy-preserving authentication for RFID tags with a particular focus on solutions based on Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs). It presents advancements in the design, analysis and evaluation of secure and privacy-preserving authentication protocols for RFID systems and PUFs. Formalizing the security and privacy requirements on RFID systems is essential for the design of provably secure and privacy-preserving RFID protocols. However, existing RFID security and privacy models in the literature are often incomparable and in part do not reflect the capabilities of real-world adversaries. We investigate subtle issues such as tag corruption aspects that lead to the impossibility of achieving both mutual authentication and any reasonable notion of privacy in one of the most comprehensive security and privacy models, which is the basis of many subsequent works. Our results led to the refinement of this privacy model and were considered in subsequent works on privacy-preserving RFID systems. A promising approach to enhance the privacy in RFID systems without lifting the computational requirements on the tags are anonymizers. These are special devices that take off the computational workload from the tags. While existing anonymizer-based protocols are subject to impersonation and denial-of-service attacks, existing RFID security and privacy models do not include anonymizers. We present the first security and privacy framework for anonymizer-enabled RFID systems and two privacy-preserving RFID authentication schemes using anonymizers. Both schemes achieve several appealing features that were not simultaneously achieved by any previous proposal. The first protocol is very efficient for all involved entities, achieves privacy under tag corruption. It is secure against impersonation attacks and forgeries even if the adversary can corrupt the anonymizers. The second scheme provides for the first time anonymity and untraceability of tags against readers as well as secure tag authentication against collisions of malicious readers and anonymizers using tags that cannot perform public-key cryptography (i.e., modular exponentiations). The RFID tags commonly used in practice are cost-efficient tokens without expensive hardware protection mechanisms. Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) promise to provide an effective security mechanism for RFID tags to protect against basic hardware attacks. However, existing PUF-based RFID authentication schemes are not scalable, allow only for a limited number of authentications and are subject to replay, denial-of-service and emulation attacks. We present two scalable PUF-based authentication schemes that overcome these problems. The first protocol supports tag and reader authentication, is resistant to emulation attacks and highly scalable. The second protocol uses a PUF-based key storage and addresses an open question on the feasibility of destructive privacy, i.e., the privacy of tags that are destroyed during tag corruption. The security of PUFs relies on assumptions on physical properties and is still under investigation. PUF evaluation results in the literature are difficult to compare due to varying test conditions and different analysis methods. We present the first large-scale security analysis of ASIC implementations of the five most popular electronic PUF types, including Arbiter, Ring Oscillator, SRAM, Flip-Flop and Latch PUFs. We present a new PUF evaluation methodology that allows a more precise assessment of the unpredictability properties than previous approaches and we quantify the most important properties of PUFs for their use in cryptographic schemes. PUFs have been proposed for various applications, including anti-counterfeiting and authentication schemes. However, only rudimentary PUF security models exist, limiting the confidence in the security claims of PUF-based security mechanisms. We present a formal security framework for PUF-based primitives, which has been used in subsequent works to capture the properties of image-based PUFs and in the design of anti-counterfeiting mechanisms and physical hash functions

Lived experience and the Holocaust: spaces, senses and emotions in Auschwitz

This article examines lived experience during the Holocaust, focusing on Auschwitz, the most lethal Nazi concentration camp. It draws on spatial history, as well as the history of senses and emotions, to explore subjective being in Auschwitz. The article suggests that a more explicit engagement with individual spaces—prisoner bunks, barracks, latrines, crematoria, construction sites, SS offices—and their emotional and sensory dimension, can reveal elements of lived experience that have remained peripheral on the edges of historical visibility. Such an approach can deepen understanding of Auschwitz, by making the camp more recognisable and by contributing to wider historiographical debates about the nature of Nazi terro