Many people were persecuted under Nazi rule because of their race, political conviction, religious belief or social behaviour. Among them were: Jews, Jews of mixed descent; so-called "Jew-friends", gentiles who stood up for the rescue of Jews; communists, anti-fascists and other resistance fighters; rebellious juveniles, "anti-social individuals", Gypsies, criminals, homosexuals; the physically and mentally handicapped, forced labourers and prisoners of war.

Gypsy children, victims of medical experiments at Auschwitz

The open and direct terrorising of all these "enemies of the people and the nation" rebounded indirectly on the rest of the population. The Nazis intended that the whole society, both in Germany and in the territories it occupied, would see by their treatment of these "aliens" what would happen to anyone not approved by the system. This terror increased people's accommodation, submission and acceptance of Nazi power.

The Disabled
In September 1939 Hitler authorised a "euthanasia" program to rid Germany of all those people classified as "unworthy to live". This classification initially covered disabled children, but was ultimately extended to Jews and non-Jews who were "cripples", alcoholics, epileptics, pyschopaths, "vagabonds" and sufferers of tuberculosis and cancer. As early as 1933 a "Law for the Avoidance of Genetically Diseased Offspring" had led to the sterilisation of some 360 000 German people, but the 1939 euthanasia program was an actual mandate for murder. The program was named T-4, after the address of its headquarters at Tiergarten 4, Berlin. It was authorised by Hitler on his private letterhead, signed in at the end of October 1939 but predated to September 1 to make it appear a 'wartime measure'.

The first victims of the T-4 program were babies and children suffering from Down Syndrome, hydrocephalus and various physical deformities. 5000 of them were murdered in cold blood by German doctors, many of whom went on to run the killing centres at death camps. The network of euthanasia spanned doctors' surgeries, hospitals, special schools, asylums, health departments, registry offices, universities, research centres and private homes. By 1940 six killing centres stood in readiness, all within Germany and Austria: Grafenak, Brandenburg, Bernburg, Hartheim, Sonnenstein and Hadamar. In these six institutions between 1940 and August 1941, it is documented that 70 273 people were killed. The relatives of victims received officially-forged death certificates, together with letters of 'condolence' and queries regarding instructions for disposal of their ashes. These sparked off mistrust, unrest, enquiries and protests.

Surprised by the level of protest it had provoked, Hitler ended the T-4 program in August 1941, by which time it is believed that some 200 000 people had been killed. For the Nazis the program was a success, as it provided practice killing for their mass murder of the Jews. Experienced staff and tested methods and equipment were simply transferred from the T-4 program to the concentration and extermination camps. When it came to killing Jews, however, there was no significant protest from the German people.

Homosexuals
The Nazis' persecution of homosexuals met with wide approval from the German population. Homosexuality had been classified as a criminal act in Germany for hundreds of years and the Nazis took ruthless action against those found 'guilty' of it. They saw homosexuality as a threat to German morality, military strength and the purity and procreation of the Aryan race.

Friedrich Althoff, arrested for alleged
homosexuality in Dusseldorf, Germany, 1939

In 1934 Nazis shot dead their own leader, Ernst Roehm, who was openly gay. A special criminal police force was created to fight homosexuality and in 1943 Himmler issued a secret order to execute all SS and police found to be gay or even guilty of "homosexual intent". From 1935 onwards the slightest sign of homosexual tendencies was punished. Waves of arrests and trials followed and between 1936 and 1939, 42 919 men were sentenced. Between 1941 and 1944 there were another 12 000 indictments and the military police convicted 7000 homosexual soldiers. In total, the number of males convicted of homosexuality is estimated to be 60 000.

As early as 1933 German homosexuals had been offered the alternatives of castration or being sent to a concentration camp. In the camps they were identified by pink triangles and condemned to hard labour. The policy was to separate and try to 're-educate' them, and if this failed, then to kill them. In attempts to 'cure them of their disease', many homosexuals were subjected to horrible pseudo-medical experiments, including chemical injections and operations. It has been estimated that the death rate of homosexuals in the camps was as high as 60%. Homosexual survivors were not compensated after the war, as their behaviour was still largely regarded by German society as perverted and illegal and their suffering therefore 'justified'.

Jehovah's Witnesses
"Poor idiots who were quite happy in their own way" is how Auschwitz camp commander Rudolf Hess described the Jehovah's Witnesses. Their doctrines excluded the recognition of Adolf Hitler's "Fuhrer-State" and allowed only the recognition of the Kingdom of Jehovah. Jehovah's Witnesses saw in Hitler the reincarnation of Satan or the Anti-Christ. Unlike Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses were given the option to avoid persecution by renouncing their faith.

But most did not, and their refusal provoked sanctions. In April 1933 19 268 Jehovah's Witnesses were living in Germany. Some 10 000 were arrested and of these, 4-5000 were murdered. Their organisation was outlawed, despite the fact that it endorsed a traditional religiously-motivated antisemitism. Families were broken up; children removed from their parents and handed into the custody of the State. From 1937 adult Jehovah's Witnesses were sent to concentration camps, where they were identified by purple triangles. In their suffering the Jehovah's Witnesses saw a sign from God; they saw their fate as unmistakable proof of their future salvation. They followed the guards' orders willingly and for this they earned the distrust and condemnation of fellow inmates. More than 1500 Jehovah's Witnesses died in the camps.

Roma/Gypsies
Like the Jews, the Roma or Gypsy peoples of Europe had for many centuries experienced the fate of being a hated minority. They were a people without a land, dispersed and almost universally subjected to discrimination and outright rejection. In the initial years of the Nazi regime, Gypsies were herded into fenced camps. In 1936 they were classified as "asocials" and a central German office for "Combatting the Gypsy Menace" was established. The registration of full Gypsies, three-quarter Gypsies, half Gypsies and quarter Gypsies began, with all being photographed and fingerprinted. In 1937 the plan for the extermination of the Gypsies was made clear in this statement by Heinrich Kranz, head of the Institute for the Preservation of Race, Heredity and Health at the University of Giessen: "In the long run, the German people will only be freed from this public nuisance when (the Gypsies') fertility is completely eliminated."

When the Nazis entered Poland in 1939 they began deporting Gypsies "to the East". Thousands were killed by the Einsatzgruppen and 20 000 from 11 countries were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Some were killed there immediately and others placed in a special Gypsy camp. Gypsy children were subjected to the horrific pseudo-medical experiments of Dr Josef Mengele. Thousands of Gypsies were incarcerated in the camps of Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Mathausen and the women's camp of Ravensbruck. 5000 were sent to Chelmno, where they were gassed. On July 31 1944 the Gypsy camp at Birkenau was liquidated and all its inmates sent to the gas chambers. The exact number of Gypsy victims of the Nazis will never be known, but it is estimated that between 20 and 50% of all European Gypsies were killed.

Soviet Prisoners of War
With Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, their acquisition of Lebensraum ("living space") for Germans began. Inextricably linked with this was their determination to exterminate the "Jewish-Bolshevik" worldview and any proponents of it. Directives were issued authorising the liquidation of all Red Army (and therefore "bolshevik") Commissars. Commissars discovered in the prisoner-of-war camps were removed from the juristiction of the German Army and handed over to the SS to be killed, together with all Soviet soldiers of Jewish origin. Of the 5.7 million Soviet P.O.W.s, only 2.4 million survived the war. An estimated 3.3 million died as a result of mass executions, brutal mistreatment, deliberate starvation and endemic diseases.