Volksschädling

Volksschädling (German: human pests) is a derogatory term that gained use during the Nazi era, characterising people as "harmful organisms" due to their non-conformist behavior, with the intention of dehumanizing and degrading them as vermin.

From 1939, the designation became a legal term through its use in the Ordinance against ‘Pests harmful to the Common Good of the Country’ of 5 September 1939.

According to § 4 of this ordinance, a person who "intentionally commits a criminal offence by exploiting the extraordinary circumstances caused by the state of war" was regarded as a Pest harmful to the Common Good of the Country.

In the ordinance of 1939, the following type of crimes were enumerated: Roland Freisler, then Prussian State Secretary for Justice, wrote in the legal journal Deutsche Justiz, 1939, p. 1450: "The ordinance puts four offences at the top, they are more than offences, they are plastic images of criminals: The content of the term Volksschädling, which was not conclusively defined in the ordinance, expanded increasingly during the course of National Socialist legal practice and, shortly before the end of the war, was used primarily to refer to deserters.

In March 1945 Victor Klemperer reports of a group of field police officers wearing an armband with the inscription "Volksschädlingsbekämpfer”.