Critical Analysis of ’the Gypsy Nuisance’

Europe in the pre-World War II years was a continent that had recently undergone massive social and political upheaval. Germany, bought to its knees in the wake of the First World War, was rapidly regaining strength and emerging once again as a formidable threat to the former Entente Allies. This was due in part to the rise of the Nazi movement, whose leader Adolf Hitler was determined to reestablish Germany as one of the Great European Powers, and who had succeeded in uniting Germany under his totalitarian regime. Though Nazism had undoubtedly strengthened Germany’s national foundations, the party established heterophobia as an integral element of the political sphere, with documents such as �The Gypsy Nuisance’ published and incorporated into national policy . This was to be the precursor for unprecedented acts of genocide, culminating in the murder of tens of millions of people across Europe, all in the name of science and national progress.

The rise of Nazism in Germany would serve to legitimize