The antigypsyist stereotype of the ‘fortune teller’ has shaped Christian European art and cultural history since the late Middle Ages. During National Socialism, a decree was issued providing for women suspected of ‘fortune telling’ to be sent to concentration camps. Women who were labelled as ‘Gypsy’ were particularly affected by this persecution measure. At least three women identified as such were sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp on the basis of this decree. A further five applications for ‘preventive custody’ were prepared by criminal police offices but not implemented.
The Stereotype of the ‘Fortune Teller’
Although magical practices came to be attributed mainly to people labelled as ‘Gypsies’, they had also been widespread in mainstream society since the Middle Ages. The character of the stereotype as a cultural projection is particularly evident in its transformation and adaptability over the centuries: in the late Middle Ages, ‘fortune telling’ was discredited as superstition and thus as a practice deviating from Christianity. In the early modern period, during the witch hunts, ‘fortune telling’ was located in the female sphere and classified as fraud. In the 18th century, with the rise of bourgeois modernity, ‘fortune telling’ was considered dishonest work, and this fitted in with the prevailing antigypsyist image of the time.
Prosecution also reflected this development. In the late Middle Ages, ‘fortune telling’ was persecuted as a departure from the Christian faith. At the end of the 18th century, it was re-evaluated and henceforth prosecuted as fraud. There were no explicitly antigypsyist legal texts at that time, but criminal law discourse at the beginning of the 20th century was characterised by antigypsyist assumptions. With the mass movement of occultism from the end of the 19th century onwards, ‘fortune telling’ finally became part of everyday culture.
During National Socialism
Under the Nazi regime, laws against ‘fortune telling’ were first tightened in many local jurisdictions in 1934. Violations were punished with fines or short prison sentences. Although this tightening of the law was not explicitly and solely directed against Sinti and Roma women, it was accompanied by antigypsyist reporting in the press. An evaluation of the German Criminal Police Gazette shows that a disproportionate number of people stigmatised as ‘Gypsies’, almost exclusively women, were affected by the measures. Criminal police investigations were mostly based on denunciations from the majority society.
The Decree
On 20 November 1939, a few weeks after the beginning of World War II, a decree was published by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) that was explicitly antigypsyist and sought to punish ‘fortune telling’ with preventive custody by the police.1RSHA V (RKPA.) No. 60(01) /474.39, 20 November 1939, Vorbeugende Verbrechensbekämpfung durch die Polizei, in RSHA,Vorbeugende Verbrechensbekämpfung, 162. On the basis of the ‘Fundamental Decree on the Preventive Fight Against Crime‘, so-called ‘Gypsy women’ who were accused or suspected of ‘fortune telling’ or had already been punished for it were to be sent to concentration camps as ‘asocial’ elements.
The decree had been drafted by the Reich Central Office for Combating the Gypsy Nuisance. It was in all likelihood a direct response to a situation report by the Security Service (SD) on the same day, which stated: ‘Rumour-mongering by fortune tellers, clairvoyants, gypsies, etc. has recently become more prevalent again, especially in rural areas.’2Boberach, Meldungen aus dem Reich 1938–1945, 475; Karola Fings and Frank Sparing refer to an arrest in Cologne, which they consider a possible precedent for the decree, Fings and Sparing, Rassismus – Lager – Völkermord, 106 f. The alleged influence of ‘fortune tellers’ was also discussed at secret ministerial conferences in the Reich Ministry of Propaganda in early November 1939. In wartime, the Nazi regime was apparently keen to counteract any negative sentiment among the population with repressive measures from the outset, in order to prevent the kind of unrest on the home front that had developed in 1917/18.
The Decree in Practice
The implementation of the decree varied from region to region. The poor state of the sources—the vast majority of the personal files that the criminal police offices kept on Sinti and Roma were destroyed after 1945—means that information is only available on the procedures in the cities of Berlin, Cologne and Magdeburg. We can only assume that, beyond the recorded cases, other women were sent to concentration camps on the basis of the decree. The SD report mentioned above, for example, refers to ‘fortune telling’ in Bayreuth, Königsberg, Salzburg, and the vicinity of Reichenberg.3Boberach, Meldungen aus dem Reich 1938–1945, 475.
In the case of the Berlin criminal police office, one request for ‘preventive custody’ based on the decree of 20 November 1939 is documented. This was rejected by the Reich Criminal Police Office (RKPA) on the grounds that four sons of the person concerned were serving as soldiers in the Wehrmacht. In Cologne, there is a recorded case in which a Sinti woman was deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp as a ‘fortune teller’. In another case, the criminal police office applied for the committal of a woman, but this was rejected by the RKPA.
At least two women from Magdeburg were sent to Ravensbrück as alleged ‘fortune tellers’. One of the two was selected there as part of Operation 14f13 and murdered in the Bernburg killing centre. The Magdeburg criminal police prepared three further applications for preventive custody, but these were rejected by the RKPA—due to an existing pregnancy or the advanced age of those affected—or not even forwarded to Berlin in the first place.
The accused women defended themselves against the decree and the criminal police in various ways—by going into hiding, seeking legal assistance or even fleeing. In the Berlin case mentioned above, it is known that the woman concerned fled to Romania with two of her children in 1943 and thus survived the genocide of the Sinti and Roma. After the war, she emigrated to the United States of America.
The decree of 20 November 1939 marked a new level of severity and, above all, radicalism in the persecution of women labelled as ‘fortune tellers’. Until then, ‘fortune telling’ had been punished with short prison sentences or fines, as it had been before the Nazi regime. The decree now gave the criminal police offices a targeted instrument of repression against women stigmatised as ‘Gypsy’, and this meant that they could be deported to a concentration camp at any time for minor offences, as had been the case for men since the ‘Aktion Arbeitsscheu Reich’ [‘Operation Work Shy’] of June 1938. The catastrophic conditions in Ravensbrück and the targeted killings made the persecution of women as ‘fortune tellers’ part of the Nazi genocide of the Sinti and Roma.
