This book concerns the persecution of the Sinti and Roma in Germany during the Second Empire (1871–1918) and Weimar Republic (1919–1933). It traces the ways in which discriminatory treatment towards 'Gypsies' developed in a state ostensibly committed to individual liberty and equal treatment under the law, and how government policies in this period furthered their economic marginalisation and social exclusion.

It will provide much-needed detail on a crucial period, one which is ordinarily addressed only fleetingly, and by way of introduction, to studies of how the Sinti and Roma communities were treated by National Socialists.