Office of Racial Policy of the Nazi Party

The Office of Racial Policy was founded in 1934 and was part of the Reich Administration of the Nazi party. Its main functions were to spread and enforce Nazi racial ideology through propaganda, training and publications such as the magazine it published entitled Neues Volk. The Berlin-based organization was headed by medical doctor Walter Groß (1904-1945), and it ran its own speakers’ school in Babelsberg from 1936 onwards. The Office of Racial Policy became particularly important in the early phase of the Nazi regime, when it succeeded in enforcing a uniform language regime in addressing the subject of ‘race’ and influencing the relevant legislation.

Subdivisions existed at the regional (Gau) and district (Kreis) level. The Racial Policy Office under the Regional Leadership Munich-Upper Bavaria was based at the university polyclinic at Pettenkofer Straße 8a. From 1934 onwards it was directed by the head of the clinic Heinz Kürten, who held a professorship in internal medicine, ‘human heredity studies’ and ‘racial hygiene’ at Ludwig Maximilian University.