Twenty-four criminal investigators and one criminal investigator assistant from the ‘Reich Central Office for Combating the Gypsy Nuisance’ in Berlin, Germany, around 1942. This group portrait, taken alongside a railing decorated with swastikas, shows those responsible for the central authority of the National Socialist persecution of Sinti and Roma. It was taken in a stairwell of the building at Werderscher Markt 5-6 in Berlin, which was put into operation by the Reich Criminal Police Office in August 1939.
On the back is an inscription (‘In memory of the restructuring of the Reich Central Office for Combating the Gypsy Nuisance / 26 May 1941 – 28 May 1942. Berlin, 28 May 1942’), followed by 23 signatures.
The marking of individuals with crosses was carried out by former Detective Sergeant Karl Brändlein (1888–after 1966) on 12 April 1966 during a public prosecutor’s interrogation at the Court of Appeal in West Berlin. The original photograph arrived in Hamburg in 1985; when the investigation files were returned from there, only a black-and-white print was included. Brändlein identified Detective Chief Superintendent Heinrich Böhlhoff (xxxxx), the head of Department VA2b, to which the Reich Central Office belonged, his deputy Detective Chief Superintendent Johannes Otto (x), as well as the head of the specialist department, Detective Superintendent Wilhelm Supp (xx) and his deputy Detective Inspector Josef Eichberger (xxx). The responsibilities and identity of Detective Sergeant Dörge (xxxx) have not yet been clarified.
Eight other individuals, including Böhlhoff’s predecessor, Detective Chief Superintendent Dr Richard Zaucke, seen in the foreground on the left, were identified in 2025 by Verena Meier and Frank Reuter (cf. Fotogeschichte, vol. 45, issue 177, pp. 66–73).
