Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 17:56:57 -0800 From: jessea@uclink2.berkeley.edu (Jessea NR Greenman) Subject: History Action Alert: Destruction of Nazi Records [ The P.E.R.S.O.N. Project notes: we were sent this action alert by a "history activist" and we share it because we believe the preservation and dissemination of incontrovertible information about Nazi treatment of LGBT people is essential in its own right AND to our efforts to get LGBT matters included in history textbooks for k-12 public education.] -------------- "Prof. Norbert Finzsch of Hamburg University sent me the following letter regarding impending destruction of Nazi judicial records. I believe that media coverage of this issue would be timely and significant. For more information on the situation in Hamburg, reply to Prof. Finzsch at the email addresses he gives. Please feel free to contact me, as well. Regards, Gerard Koskovich, DAlembert@aol.com (Independent Scholar - San Francisco)" ____________________ Prof. Dr. Norbert Finzsch Historisches Seminar Universitaet Hamburg 20148 Hamburg tel. (04940) - 4123-4838 E-Mail: 100600.1124@Compuserve.Com; NFinzsch@AOL.Com RE: Annihilation of judicial files of the Nazi period by the State Archive of the City of Hamburg, Germany Dear colleagues, At the closing of the 1980s the Department of Justice of the City State of Hamburg has offered a large collection of files pertaining to criminal cases during the Nazi period to the State Archives of Hamburg. A group of individuals working under the scholarly authority of the State Archives was commissioned to select both those files worthy of being put into the records of the archives and those to be destroyed. This process is about to be terminated. Several scholars, having had access to the files in recent times, had to detect to their great dismay, that substantial parts of files which could have been used to get information on the so-called forgotten victims of the Nazi-state, had been destroyed. The Hamburg files were one of the very few collections of data on the administration of justice under Hitler that had remained intact. It would have been of utmost importance to keep this information accessible for researchers, the surviving victims and their relatives. Contrary to the demands of several scholars and institutions, files containing information on the application of the law under the Nazis and on the fate of victims i.e. gays, gypsies, prostitutes, people convicted of sexual relations with Jews, deserters, people convicted of insubordination, swing fans, disabled persons, forcefully sterilized persons, "asocial" or "professional criminals", "Bible scholars" and the like, have been at least partially destroyed. At the same time files have been annihilated, that could be used to support the demands of victims for indemnity and compensation. One can assume that the work done by this group was conducted so unprofessionally that we have no information on the quality and the quantity of the files destroyed thus far. This means that a scholarly categorization in terms of delicts, degrees of punishment, gender and class of the indicted/convicted persons is impossible. Protests by several scholars from Hamburg, institutions and especially gay groups against this scandalous destruction of the files have remained without success. It is safe to assume that not all of the files have been destroyed so far, but the State Archives have made it clear that they do not reconsider their initial determination to destroy the remaining files. Please support our protest against the destruction of further files in order to enable historians and other scholars to work with these sources. Additionally demand that the files of the Department of Justice stemming from the years 1930 to 1935 and after 1945 will be treated in a scholarly manner, thus avoiding the policy to destroy information on the minorities and marginal groups mentioned above. Point out to the city officials that the State Archive has to provide for financial means and personnel in order to preserve the files at least on modern media as microforms and CD-ROM. Write to the following address: An den Ersten Buergermeister der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg Herrn Dr. Henning Voscherau Rathausmarkt 1 D- 20095 Hamburg Federal Republic of Germany Please send a copy of your letter to me (see letterhead for address). Thank you for your cooperation! Sincerely yours Norbert Finzsch E-Mail: 100600.1124@Compuserve.Com; NFinzsch@AOL.Com *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ YOU MAY RE-POST. Jessea Greenman The P.E.R.S.O.N. 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