What was the effect of characterizing Jews gypsies and gay men as subhuman?

Answer 1

In Nazi Germany, the effect was to justify the murder of them by the government and the recruitment of Germans to do the killing. In addition to Jews & gypsies, the Nazis declared Slavs in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans as sub-human deserving to die.

A myth is that homosexuals were targeted as a group. This is not true. The vast majority of homosexuals kept this part of their lives secret in Germany in the 1930's. In fact the Nazi Party secretly had members that were homosexuals. Homosexuals were not declared to be sub-human by Nazis, but deviants or lacking moral character. The Nazis, on occasion, would accuse people of being homosexual as a means to discredit them. Sometimes this was done to purge them from the Nazi Party, or from their government positions. If these people were political opponents then they were put in concentration camps and often killed. Also, not all that were accused were actual homosexuals. In the vast majority of cases, homosexuals in concentration camps were there because they were Jews, Slavs, political opponents or considered a threat to the Nazi regime.

From a practical matter it was much easier to single-out Jews & gypsies from society because all citizens & visitors in Germany were identified in-detail by all the local governments. In affect all Germans (& Europeans) were "registered". Their ancestory was known (blood lines, not DNA). Gypsies were families. Homosexuality was difficult to prove, and the German public understood that, compared to proving Jewish parents & grandparents. This government registration is difficult for most Americans to understand, unless they have emigrated from overseas.