Achim Gercke
Encyclopedia
Achim Gercke was a German politician.
Born in Greifswald
, Gercke had been a Nazi official before 1933 and became a department head of the NSDAP in Munich
on January 1, 1932. In April 1933, he was appointed to the Ministry of the Interior, where he served as an expert on racial matters. In that year in a speech to a general audience, he stated that beside the task of maintaining one's own blood pure, there was the task of "extinction", which would obey the great law of Nature to eliminate the bad and so be truly humane.
Gercke devised the system of "racial prophylaxis" forbidding the intermarriage between Jews
and Aryans
. As a student, he had attempted to develop a card index listing all Jews in Germany and his articles outlined Nazi public thinking on what to do about the Jews at the beginning of the Third Reich, which includes expelling them all from Germany. It notes that the just-issued Nazi laws restricting Jewish laws were provisional measures that indicated the direction future measures would take. He argued for a Jew being any person with one-sixteenth Jewish blood.
When Gauleiter
Rudolf Jordan
claimed Reinhard Heydrich
wasn't Aryan, it was Gercke who investigated the issue and concluded that Heydrich was a pure Aryan.
Gercke later served as an official in the post war government of Adenauer.
Born in Greifswald
Greifswald
Greifswald , officially, the University and Hanseatic City of Greifswald is a town in northeastern Germany. It is situated in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, at an equal distance of about from Germany's two largest cities, Berlin and Hamburg. The town borders the Baltic Sea, and is crossed...
, Gercke had been a Nazi official before 1933 and became a department head of the NSDAP in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
on January 1, 1932. In April 1933, he was appointed to the Ministry of the Interior, where he served as an expert on racial matters. In that year in a speech to a general audience, he stated that beside the task of maintaining one's own blood pure, there was the task of "extinction", which would obey the great law of Nature to eliminate the bad and so be truly humane.
Gercke devised the system of "racial prophylaxis" forbidding the intermarriage between Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
and Aryans
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
. As a student, he had attempted to develop a card index listing all Jews in Germany and his articles outlined Nazi public thinking on what to do about the Jews at the beginning of the Third Reich, which includes expelling them all from Germany. It notes that the just-issued Nazi laws restricting Jewish laws were provisional measures that indicated the direction future measures would take. He argued for a Jew being any person with one-sixteenth Jewish blood.
When Gauleiter
Gauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...
Rudolf Jordan
Rudolf Jordan
Rudolf Jordan was a Nazi Gauleiter in Halle-Merseburg and Magdeburg-Anhalt in the time of the Third Reich....
claimed Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich , also known as The Hangman, was a high-ranking German Nazi official.He was SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
wasn't Aryan, it was Gercke who investigated the issue and concluded that Heydrich was a pure Aryan.
Gercke later served as an official in the post war government of Adenauer.
Literature
- The Order of the Death's Head, by Heinz Hoehne, pg. 161-162
- The Course of Modern Jewish History, by Howard M. Sachar pg. 517
- Das Reichssippenamt. Eine Institution nationalsozialistischer Rassenpolitik, by Diana Schulle http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/type=rezbuecher&id=727&verlage=1028
- The Nazi Ancestral Proof: Geneaology, Racial Science, and the Final Solution, by Eric Ehrenreich