To browse Academia. The Nazi drive for racial order led to the implementation of an authoritarian public health system which systematically subordinated the rights of the individual to the preventive protection of the Volksgemeinschaft. This article focuses on the example of Vienna in order to address the history of venereal disease control, public health politics towards prostitution and medical persecution of socially undesirable behavior under the influence of the biopolitical agenda of the Nazi regime.
On one hand, forced laborers were subjected to a strict segregation from the local population because they personified the threat of infectious transgression. The network of brothels set up for this purpose not only served to minimize the dangers of VD; they channelled uncontrolled sexual activities by providing men with outlets for their sexual needs and by subjugating prostitution to the control of the authorities. This indicates that the whole realm of illicit sex was subjected to the principles of economic rationality, hygiene, discipline and visibility, thereby adding the brothel to the classic set of disciplinary institutions.
Historical background Vienna, the Habsburg capital and a Catholic stronghold, has a long history of measures against prostitution which, apart from serving as a model for other regions of the Empire, were also strongly shaped by the imperial court and the clerical elite. The first systematic β though unsuccessful β attempts to eradicate prostitution date back to the late eighteenth century and the rule of Empress Maria Theresa.
Emperor Joseph II abolished a number of historic public punishments for prostitutes such as public shaming, wearing of chains and the cutting of hair, but the majority of the earlier laws forbidding prostitution remained in force. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, prostitution remained within the juristiction of criminal law. The ministerial decree of 30 December requested the police not only to take prostitution into consideration, but also to tackle public health concerns that were connected to it.
In , the first comprehensive regulatory legislation was introduced and, consequently, prostitution became the prerogative of the morality police Sittenpolizei. From that time onwards prostitutes were legally requested to register and undergo regular medical examinations.
