Achim Gercke (3 August 1902 – 27 October 1997) was a German politician. Born in

Greifswald Greifswald (), officially the University and Hanseatic City of Greifswald (, Low German: ''Griepswoold'') is the fourth-largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rostock, Schwerin and Neubrandenburg. In 2021 it surpa ...

, Gercke was the son of the classical philologist Alfred Gercke. After pursuing an academic career, he became a department head of the

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers ...

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

on 1 January 1932. In April 1933 he was appointed to the

Ministry of the Interior An interior ministry or ministry of the interior (also called ministry of home affairs or ministry of internal affairs) is a government department that is responsible for domestic policy, public security and law enforcement. In some states, the ...

, where he served as an expert on racial matters. Gercke devised the system of "racial prophylaxis", forbidding the intermarriage between

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

and

Aryans ''Aryan'' (), or ''Arya'' (borrowed from Sanskrit ''ārya''),Oxford English Dictionary Online 2024, s.v. ''Aryan'' (adj. & n.); ''Arya'' (n.)''.'' is a term originating from the ethno-cultural self-designation of the Indo-Iranians. It stood i ...

. As a student, he had attempted to develop a card index listing all Jews in Germany. His articles outlined Nazi policy on what to do to the Jews during the early phase of the

Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

, which included expulsion from Germany. He described the just-enacted

Nuremberg Laws The Nuremberg Laws (, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. The two laws were the Law ...

restricting Jews as provisional measures, which indicated the direction future measures would take. Gercke argued for defining "Jew" as including any person with one-sixteenth Jewish blood. Later in 1942, the Wannsee Conference ultimately defined "Jew" quite differently: Persons having one Jewish grandparent were mostly excluded and even certain persons with two Jewish grandparents might be excluded, if they followed the Christian faith. In 1932, Nazi Gauleiter Rudolf Jordan claimed that SS Security Chief

Reinhard Heydrich Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( , ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a German high-ranking SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He held the rank of SS-. Many historians regard Heydrich ...

was not a pure "Aryan". Within the Nazi organisation such innuendo could be damning, even for the head of the Reich's counterintelligence service. Gregor Strasser passed the allegations on to Achim Gercke who investigated Heydrich's genealogy. Gercke reported that Heydrich was "... of German origin and free from any coloured and Jewish blood". He insisted that the rumours were baseless. Even with this report, Heydrich privately engaged SD member Ernst Hoffman to further investigate and deny the rumours. In 1935, Gercke was dismissed following allegations of

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or Human sexual activity, sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexu ...

. After the war, he worked as an archivist and town clerk.German version of this page

References

Bibliography

* * * *''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 Schull

*''The Nazi Ancestral Proof: Genealogy, Racial Science, and the Final Solution'', by Eric Ehrenreich 1902 births 1997 deaths Nazi Party officials Members of the Reichstag 1933–1936 People from Greifswald University of Freiburg alumni German genealogists {{Germany-Nazi-politician-stub