The ‘Racial Hygiene Research Center’, under the direction of Robert Ritter, was set up at the Reich Ministry of Health in Berlin in 1936 so that Sinti and Roma could be recognized and defined uniformly as ‘Gypsies’. Ritter, who had obtained a doctorate in educational theory and medicine, had previously worked as a resident at the psychiatric hospital at the University of Tübingen and also carried out genetic studies on Sinti and Roma there as part of his habilitation, in which he sought to prove the heritability of crime. He advocated the theory that the “Gypsy problem” was primarily a “half-breed problem” and implied that “Gypsy half-breeds” have “inherited criminality”. He suggested forced sterilization and regular surveillance as a solution. All ‘Gypsies’ were now to be recorded and their supposed inferiority scientifically proven.
The importance of the ‘Ritter Center’ increased with the decree on the ‘regulation of the Gypsy question’ of 1938, as all Sinti and Roma over 6 years of age were now to be classified according to ‘racial biological aspects’. The research center worked closely with the police, especially the ’Reich Headquarters for the Fight Against the Gypsy Nuisance (Reichszentrale zur Bekämpfung des Zigeunerunwesens) in the Reich Criminal Investigation Department, and other state and church institutions.
The scientists produced family trees, took photos and created a ‘Gypsy clan archive’. Head models, among other things, were produced to illustrate the supposed ‘racial features’. The research center also served as an information point for authorities and gave recommendations for forced sterilizations and forced abortions. It divided the Sinti and Roma into no fewer than 34 groups according to ancestry. People who had at least two grandparents who were each one quarter descended from ‘Gypsies’ were already considered ‘half-breeds’. In expert practice, a simplified tripartite division of the ‘Gypsy half-breeds’ prevailed, dividing them into the following categories - ‘with predominantly Gypsy blood’ (ZM+), ‘with equal parts German and Gypsy blood’ (ZM) and ‘with predominantly German blood’ (ZM-). By 1944, almost 24,000 ‘race reports’ had been recorded. These formed an important basis for further persecution measures against the Sinti and Roma, which resulted in the deportation and murder of a large part of this ethnic minority.
In addition to the research center, Robert Ritter also took on the leadership of the Criminology Biology Institute in the Reich Criminal Investigation Department in 1942; in 1943, he was also Director of the Reich Ministry of Health.
After the end of the war he remained unchallenged. From 1947 to 1950, he was a doctor in the municipal health center in Frankfurt am Main. A public prosecutor’s investigation initiated against him on the initiative of survivors was dropped.
