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.