1938-1945: Persecution of “Asocial” People

Until the end of the war, there was no generally accepted definition of “asociality”. However, Nazi decrees and guidelines set criteria that allowed the authorities to stigmatise people as “asocial”. These included insufficient work ethic, repeated conflicts with authorities, neglect, dependency on public support, alcoholism, and sexual behavior deviating from bourgeois norms. In particular, female adolescents and women were persecuted for their supposed “dissolute lifestyle”. The Nazis understood “asociality” as an inherited or inheritable trait and thus, as a threat to the “collective body of the nation” (“Volkskörper”).

The Gaue (administrative districts) of Vienna and Lower Danube stood out especially in their persecution of people stigmatised as “asocial”. The employment office, welfare services, criminal police, Gestapo and public administration worked closely together in “asocial commissions”. Youth, women and men were admitted to psychiatric institutions (e.g. Am Steinhof or Znojmo for women) or labour education camps (e.g. Oberlanzendorf for men) or deported to concentration camps.

Amesberger/Halbmayr/Rajal (2019): „Arbeitsscheu und moralisch verkommen“ – Stigmatisierung und Verfolgung von Frauen als „Asoziale“ in der Ostmark und Fortschreibungen nach 1945, Wien: Mandelbaum.