Protective custody (Nazi Germany)

Schutzhaft (Protective custody) was a measure of arbitrary detention used in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. Although the term had appeared in earlier German administrative and police practice, under the Nazi regime it was redefined and expanded into a central instrument of repression. In Nazi usage, Schutzhaft meant the arrest and detention—without judicial review, formal charge, or fixed sentence—of persons considered actual or potential enemies of the state. In practice, it allowed the Gestapo and other police authorities to bypass the ordinary courts and imprison political opponents and other persecuted groups in prisons and, increasingly, in concentration camps.