Department C (Administration and Party Affairs), central administrative office of the Gestapo, responsible for card files of all personnel including all officials. But each Gestapo Within Germany and areas which were incorporated within the Reich for the purpose of civil administration, local offices of the Gestapo, criminal police, and SD were formally separate. Heydrich, named chief of the Gestapo by Himmler on 22 April 1934, also continued as head of the SS Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst; SD). The Nazi police state was initially so admired for its efficiency and order by the world powers of the day that J. Edgar Hoover, then-head of the FBI, actually sent one of his right-hand men, Edmund Patrick Coffey, to Berlin in January 1938 at the invitation of Germany’s secret police—the Gestapo. Göring promptly Both the Gestapo and Kripo became distinct departments within the RSHA. Employing biological metaphors, Best emphasised a doctrine which encouraged members of the Gestapo to view themselves as 'doctors' to the 'national body' in the struggle against "pathogens" and "diseases"; among the implied sicknesses were "communists, Freemasons, and the churches—and above and behind all these stood the Jews". Nevertheless, in practice there was jurisdictional overlap and operational conflict between the SD and Gestapo. [51], In Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945, Paul Berben wrote that clergy were watched closely, and frequently denounced, arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps: "One priest was imprisoned in Dachau for having stated that there were good folk in England too; another suffered the same fate for warning a girl who wanted to marry an S.S. man after abjuring the Catholic faith; yet another because he conducted a service for a deceased communist". He also encouraged Diels to maintain and expand the secret files [127] Brutality on the part of interrogators—often prompted by denunciations and followed with roundups—enabled the Gestapo to uncover numerous resistance networks; it also made them seem like they knew everything and could do anything they wanted. [124] The "administrative control" category concerned whose were breaking the law concerning residency in the city. [129] As historian Eric Johnson remarked, "The Nazi terror was selective terror", with its focus upon political opponents, ideological dissenters (clergy and religious organisations), career criminals, the Sinti and Roma population, handicapped persons, homosexuals and above all, upon the Jews. This page was last edited on 22 December 2020, at 17:32. took full advantage of Diels' knowledge on how to operate a political police [35], The Polish government in exile in London during World War II received sensitive military information about Nazi Germany from agents and informants throughout Europe. to his delight, Göring discovered that [58] If gay men or lesbians showed any signs of sympathy to the Nazis' identified racial enemies, they were considered an even greater danger. [22] This action effectively merged the police into the SS and removed it from Frick's control. lives of top Nazis, which he studied with delight. 5. For several leaders their punishment was death. There, Klaus was expected to eradicate the French Resistance. problem for the average citizen was that no one ever knew for sure just For example, in 1939 Stettin and Frankfurt am Main only had a total of 41 Gestapo men combined. Although not a member of the Freikorps, he was involved in the suppression of the communist risings in the early postwar years. Rudolf Diels as the first Gestapo chief. positive to say. the instructions nor the affairs of the Gestapo will be open to review Jails were soon overflowing with people taken into "protective Compare Japanese and German racial ideology. Triumph of Hitler Index On 26 April 1933, Göring merged the two units as the Geheime Staatspolizei, which was abbreviated by a post office clerk for a franking stamp and became known as the "Gestapo". However, certain Polish information about the movement of German police and SS units to the East during the German invasion of the Soviet Union in the autumn of 1941 was similar to information British intelligence secretly obtained through intercepting and decoding German police and SS messages sent by radio telegraphy. The efficiency of Stasi is what really impressed the Russians. Himmler also gained authority over all of Germany's uniformed law enforcement agencies, which were amalgamated into the new Ordnungspolizei (Orpo; Order Police), which became a national agency under SS general Kurt Daluege. [33], The power of the Gestapo included the use of what was called, Schutzhaft—"protective custody", a euphemism for the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings. a man's testicles in a special vice; securing a prisoner's wrists behind The East German infiltration of NATO, and especially West Germany, was epic. too similar to the GPU abbreviation used by the Soviet Political Police in Russia. It was viewed negatively by Hitler. In the occupied territories, the formal relationship between local units of the Gestapo, criminal police, and SD was slightly closer. [37], Polish agents also gathered detailed information about the morale of German soldiers in the East. His interest in police On 20 April 1934, oversight of the Gestapo passed to the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, who was also appointed Chief of German Police by Hitler in 1936. [8] Göring took over the Gestapo in 1934 and urged Hitler to extend the agency's authority throughout Germany. However, these internal departments remained and the Gestapo continued to be a department under the RSHA umbrella. Letters were also sent This prompted Winston Churchill to ban any further contact with the German opposition. who wanted a name that would fit on a regulation-sized postal rubber stamp. [79] The Gestapo cracked down ruthlessly on dissidents in Germany, just as they did everywhere else. use. to take charge of a rejuvenated German Air Force. [146] Nineteen of the 22 were convicted, and twelve—Martin Bormann (in absentia), Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Hermann Göring, Alfred Jodl, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Alfred Rosenberg, Fritz Sauckel, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Julius Streicher—were given the death penalty. The first thing he did was to prohibit regular Diels was appointed with the title of chief of Abteilung Ia (Department 1a) of the Prussian Secret Police. [56], Between June 1942 and March 1943, student protests were calling for an end to the Nazi regime. who those informants were. the "Jewish question" and came under the permanent control of [22][23], The SiPo was placed under the direct command of Reinhard Heydrich who was already chief of the Nazi Party's intelligence service, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD). [12] Many of the Gestapo employees in the newly established offices were young and highly educated in a wide variety of academic fields and moreover, represented a new generation of National Socialist adherents, who were hard-working, efficient, and prepared to carry the Nazi state forward through the persecution of their political opponents. [32] During the Holocaust, Eichmann and his agency coordinated the mass deportation of European Jews to the Nazis' extermination camps. "[96], According to regulations issued by the Reich Main Security Office in 1940, women that had been trained in social work or having a similar education could be hired as female detectives. Terror against "state enemies" had become a way of life to such a degree that the Gestapo's presence and methods were eventually normalised in the minds of people living in Nazi Germany. "[140] Nonetheless, German authorities ordered the mobilization of reserve Polish police forces, known as the Blue Police, which strengthened the Nazi police presence and carried out numerous "police" functions; in some cases, its functionaries even identified and rounded up Jews or performed other unsavory duties on behalf of their German masters. [139], Throughout the Eastern territories, the Gestapo and other Nazi organizations co-opted the assistance of indigenous police units, nearly all of whom were uniformed and able to carry out drastic actions. As early as 1935, a Prussian administrative court had ruled that the Gestapo's actions were not subject to judicial review. [138] Correspondingly, Gestapo offices were established in a territory once occupied. agent operated at the center of a large web of spies and informants. This new organization had seven [122] As time went by, anonymous denunciations to the Gestapo caused trouble to various NSDAP officials, who often found themselves being investigated by the Gestapo. [143] Other Danish civilians, like in many places across Europe, acted as Gestapo informants but this should not be seen as wholehearted support for the Nazi program, as motives for cooperation varied. [110] The District Office in Nuremberg, which had the responsibility for all of northern Bavaria, employed a total of 80–100 full-term informers between 1943 and 1945. any outside legal procedure. had appointed Göring as Minister of the The efficiency of Stasi is what really impressed the Russians. Later, nurses, kindergarten teachers, and trained female commercial employees with an aptitude for police work were hired as female detectives after a two-year course as Kriminaloberassistentin and could promote to a Kriminalsekretärin. As Minister of the Interior, [116] 80% of all Gestapo investigations were started in response to information provided by denunciations by ordinary Germans; while 10% were started in response to information provided by other branches of the German government and another 10% started in response to information that the Gestapo itself unearthed. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. [26] The Gestapo was specifically exempted from responsibility to administrative courts, where citizens normally could sue the state to conform to laws. When a group or organisation was thus declared criminal, the competent national authority of any signatory had the right to bring persons to trial for membership in that organisation, with the criminal nature of the group or organisation assumed proved. [124] Most of the political investigations took place between 1933 and 1935 with the all-time high of 57 cases in 1935. Decentralization can affect the efficiency of a company detrimentaly and affected the railroad system, in a negative way. Naturally, that made me all the more eager to interview him. ambitious Nazi, SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Such reputations are tested against available evidence and the growing body of scholarship. Staats Polizei. The Poles identified and tracked German military trains to the Eastern front and identified four Order Police battalions sent to occupied areas of the Soviet Union in October 1941 that engaged in war crimes and mass murder. or a soldering iron. [30] After Heydrich's 1942 assassination, Himmler assumed the leadership of the RSHA until January 1943, when Ernst Kaltenbrunner was appointed chief. Three—Walther Funk, Rudolf Hess, Erich Raeder—received life terms; and the remaining four—Karl Dönitz, Konstantin von Neurath, Albert Speer, and Baldur von Schirach—received shorter prison sentences. This energetic and efficient organizer would keep the trains who took over as Gestapo chief two days later. Members of the three convicted groups were subject to apprehension by Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union and France. [66] From the mid-1930s into the early 1940s—various groups made up of communists, idealists, working-class people, and far-right conservative opposition organisations covertly fought against Hitler's government, and several of them fomented plots that included Hitler's assassination. [34] An oddity of the system was that the prisoner had to sign his own Schutzhaftbefehl, an order declaring that the person had requested imprisonment—presumably out of fear of personal harm. [78], Some Germans were convinced that it was their duty to apply all possible expedients to end the war as quickly as possible. The book begins to drag after a while but the point is made. The Gestapo files are extremely detailed. company might get a knock on the door in the middle of the night or a tap across the street, a quiet co-worker, even a schoolboy. The History Place Main Page. [65], During May 1935, the Gestapo broke up and arrested members of the "Markwitz Circle", a group of former socialists in contact with Otto Strasser, who sought Hitler's downfall. The FBI's Fourth Reich began as a result of German efficiency and has by now silently taken over all aspects of the FBI. by the administrative courts." [70] Later, the British and Americans did not want to deal with anti-Nazis because they were fearful that the Soviet Union would believe they were attempting to make deals behind their back. [98] By March 1937, the Gestapo employed an estimated 6,500 people in fifty-four regional offices across the Reich. [113] The information supplied by denunciations often led the Gestapo in determining who was arrested. As the SS organization rapidly The Gestapo were the secret police, whilst the Waffen-SS (Military SS) were an elite army unit. The efficiency of Stasi is what really impressed the Russians. These included the non-violent resistance of Hans and Sophie Scholl, two leaders of the White Rose student group. They were subject to co-ordination by inspectors of the security police and SD on the staffs of the local higher SS and police leaders, however, and one of the principal functions of the local SD units was to serve as the intelligence agency for the local Gestapo units. A chilling, meticulous record of state brutality that is more compelling than any novel. Upon becoming Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler a member of the Munich police, Müller "[131] The involvement of ordinary Germans in denunciations also needs to be put into perspective so as not to exonerate the Gestapo. Heinrich Müller (born 28 April 1900; date of death unknown, but evidence points to May 1945)12 was a German police official under both the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. [14] Himmler wanted to free himself entirely from Röhm, whom he viewed as an obstacle. Although the Gestapo is generally associated with uniformed police from interfering with Nazi Brownshirts out in the streets. At its peak it employed only about 40,000 individuals, including office personnel and the plain-clothes agents. Hitler vehemently rejected the centuries' old Habsburg pluralist principles of "live and let live" with regard to ethnic groups, peoples, minorities, religions, cultures and languages. Its leader – Reinhard Heydrich – was one of the most feared man in Nazi Germany. state, which controlled two thirds of the country, including the capital, The Gestapo came into existence in 1933 as Department 1A of the Prussian State Police. two man, proved to be something of a genius in creating a hugely efficient It should read credible rather then creditable. expanded in the late 1930s, the super-ambitious Heydrich acquired immense [148], These groups—the Nazi Party and government leadership, the German General staff and High Command (OKW); the Sturmabteilung (SA); the Schutzstaffel (SS), including the Sicherheitsdienst (SD); and the Gestapo—had an aggregate membership exceeding two million, making a large number of their members liable to trial when the organisations were convicted. FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A South Florida man is accused of receiving a package of fentanyl that was sent via UPS, authorities said. [88], The creation of the RSHA represented the formalisation, at the top level, of the relationship under which the SD served as the intelligence agency for the security police. Section B4 of the Gestapo dealt exclusively with political enemies, they began a campaign to purge hated "unGerman" running on time from all over Europe to Nazi death camps located in occupied German efficiency made all of the evil much more streamlined. [108] In Düsseldorf, the local Gestapo office of only 281 men were responsible for the entire Lower Rhine region, which comprised 4 million people. Goering, by 1936 he was the: Director of the 4-Year Plan Chief of the Prussian Gestapo Commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe Reich Forestry Minister Reich Hunting Minister President of the Reichstag Why was multiple office-holding a source of inefficiency in the Nazi state? Why did Hitler attempt to eliminate all the Jews of the world? They would go on for days and days interviewing people, recording what they did and taking photographs. in Berlin (the Columbia-Haus) became notorious as a place where pedestrians [98] The vast majority of Gestapo officers came from the police forces of the Weimar Republic; members of the SS, the SA, and the NSDAP also joined the Gestapo but were less numerous. [97], In 1933, there was no purge of the German police forces. Nearly all of them, including: the Römer Group, Robby Group, Solf Circle, Schwarze Reichswehr, the Party of the Radical Middle Class, Jungdeutscher Orden, Schwarze Front and Stahlhelm were either discovered or infiltrated by the Gestapo. The Nazi police state was initially so admired for its efficiency and order by the world powers of the day that J. Edgar Hoover, then-head of the FBI, actually sent one of his right-hand men, Edmund Patrick Coffey, to Berlin in January 1938 at the invitation of Germany’s secret police—the Gestapo. [62] Efforts to resist the Nazi regime amounted to very little and had only minor chances of success, particularly since the broad percentage of the German people did not support such actions. Containing profiles of key figures and chilling tales of its death squads' sadistic efficiency - from the torture of Resistance members to mass murder in collaboration with the Einsatzgruppen - Gestapo shows how the organization thrived on Hitler's insecurity until, as the Allies triumphed, its members were eventually rounded up and, as far as possible, brought to justice. For the wider use of "Secret Police", see, General opposition and military conspiracy, Population ratios, methods and effectiveness, Bonhoeffer was an active opponent of Nazism in the German resistance movement. At the end of the Cold War one in 90 East Germans was working as an informer for … powers and responsibilities. explains, in brief, how the Gestapo was able to find the footing to gain power. [11] Himmler and Heydrich both immediately began installing their own personnel in select positions, several of whom were directly from the Bavarian Political Police, such as Heinrich Müller, Franz Josef Huber and Josef Meisinger. But even before that many West … shocks by attaching wires to hands, feet, ears and genitalia; crushing But each Gestapo agent operated at the center of a large web of spies and informants. [9], Concerned that Diels was not ruthless enough to effectively counteract the power of the Sturmabteilung (SA), Göring handed over control of the Gestapo to Himmler on 20 April 1934. [112] The Gestapo—at times—was overwhelmed with denunciations and most of its time was spent sorting out the credible from the less credible denunciations. [31] Müller remained the Gestapo Chief. le Mérite medal fancied himself as a military leader. [114] For information about what was happening in German society, the Gestapo continued to be mostly dependent upon denunciations. Frick did not have the political power to take on Göring by himself so he allied with Himmler. [133] Lastly, the Gestapo's effectiveness, while aided by denunciations and the watchful eye of ordinary Germans, was more the result of the co-ordination and co-operation amid the various police organs within Germany, the assistance of the SS, and the support provided by the various Nazi Party organisations; all of them together forming an organised persecution network. [53], Violence and arrest was not confined to that of opposing political parties, membership in trade unions, or those with dissenting religious opinions, but also homosexuality. Thousands were arrested and executed, and all dissent was crushed.The History of the Gestapo provides an authoritative overview of this sinister instrument of repression. Copyright © 2001 [94] Personnel assigned to these auxiliary duties were often removed from the Gestapo chain of command and fell under the authority of branches of the SS. [4][5] He originally wanted to name it the Secret Police Office (Geheimes Polizeiamt), but the German initials, "GPA", were too similar to those of the Soviet State Political Directorate (Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravlenie, or GPU). Under the SS, the Gestapo grew in power, and was given the job of investigating and combatting 'all tendencies dangerous to the state'. [44] For their part, this was the first time the Gestapo operated under its new name since its 26 April 1933 founding in Prussia. For the most part, members of the church did not offer political resistance but simply wanted to ensure that organizational doctrine remained intact. It marked the first time that Holocaust victims could talk in a French court about the horrors they witnessed 42 years prior. [151], In 1997, Cologne transformed the former regional Gestapo headquarters in Cologne—the EL-DE Haus—into a museum to document the Gestapo's actions. Further promotions to Kriminalkommissarin and Kriminalrätin were also possible. had invented one of the most notorious names in history. [123], Of the political cases, 61 people were investigated for suspicion of belonging to the KPD, 44 for the SPD and 69 for other political parties. Uniforms worn by Gestapo men assigned to the Einsatzgruppen in occupied territories, were at first undistinguishable from the Waffen-SS field uniform. [137] Whenever a region came fully under German military occupational jurisdiction, the Gestapo administered all executive actions under the military commander's authority, albeit operating relatively independent of it. This meant that innocent German citizens had no one to turn to as they Gestapo interrogation methods included: repeated With the country in lock down, hundreds of Czechoslovakians were arrested and tortured as the Gestapo amped up their manhunt to find Kubiš and Gabčík. Elke Fröhlich discovered Middle Franconia, between the years 1943-44, “there were some 80-100 people regularly informing the Gestapo but not formally members of it” (Gellately 62). [95] It was the Gestapo chief, SS-Brigadierführer Heinrich Müller, who kept Hitler abreast of the killing operations in the Soviet Union and who issued orders to the four Einsatzgruppen that their continual work in the east was to be "presented to the Führer. There, Klaus was expected to eradicate the French Resistance. Having compromised the uniformed divisions, Göring out demanding an appearance at No. This represented a radical departure from German tradition, which held that law enforcement was (mostly) a Land (state) and local matter. of the night and whisked off to far away prisons for torture-interrogation, [19] Once persuaded, Hitler acted by setting Himmler's SS into action, who then proceeded to murder over 100 of Hitler's identified antagonists. decided to cede the Gestapo to Himmler and his associate, Reinhard Heydrich, In 1942, 29-year-old Klaus Barbie received orders to become the newly-appointed head of the ruthless Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, in Lyon, France. [106] This admixture certainly shaped the Gestapo's public image which they sought to maintain despite their increasing workload; an image which helped them identify and eliminate enemies of the Nazi state. After the war in Europe ended, the Gestapo was declared a criminal organization by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the Nuremberg trials. Three groups were acquitted of collective war crimes charges, but this did not relieve individual members of those groups from conviction and punishment under the denazification programme. [30] In January 1943, Himmler appointed Ernst Kaltenbrunner RSHA chief; almost seven months after Heydrich had been assassinated. [102], The Canadian historian Robert Gellately wrote that most Gestapo men were not Nazis, but at the same time were not opposed to the Nazi regime, which they were willing to serve, in whatever task they were called upon to perform. Start studying A2 [#5] - The Popularity and Efficiency of the Nazi regime, 1933-39. [99][d] Some locals aided the Gestapo, whether as professional police auxiliaries or in other duties. The actual term 'Gestapo' was supposedly created by a Berlin postal official The History of the Gestapo provides an authoritative overview of this sinister instrument of repression. Opposition became more difficult. Complaints from the Waffen-SS led to change of rank insignia shoulder boards from those of the Waffen-SS to those of the Ordnungspolizei. It was entirely possible for someone to be arrested, interrogated and sent [89], At the trial of any individual member of any group or organisation, the IMT was authorised to declare (in connection with any act of which the individual was convicted) that the group or organisation to which he belonged was a criminal organisation. [81] A year after the organisations inception, Göring wrote in a British publication about having created the organisation on his own initiative and how he was "chiefly responsible" for the elimination of the Marxist and Communist threat to Germany and Prussia. Hitler immediately ordered his Gestapo and SS “to wade through blood” to find the attackers. [155], The Gestapo maintained police detective ranks which were used for all officers, both those who were and who were not concurrently SS members. Denunciation was the exception, not the rule, as far as the behaviour of the vast majority of Germans was concerned. The stricter laws did not apply to lesbians as their behavior was never officially criminalized, even though their behaviors were labeled "deviant". [124] After that year, political investigations declined with only 18 investigations in 1938, 13 in 1939, two in 1941, seven in 1942, four in 1943 and one in 1944. On February 10, 1936, the Nazi Reichstag passed Both men ran their respective branches with ruthless efficiency. strolling outside the building could hear screaming coming from inside. Now the storm troopers had actual power of arrest and they relished its [6], The first commander of the Gestapo was Rudolf Diels, a protégé of Göring. At the end of the Cold War one in 90 East Germans was working as an informer for … [46], However, the Nazi regime sought to suppress any source of ideology other than its own, and set out to muzzle or crush the churches in the so-called Kirchenkampf. Office (RSHA). The city was also known as the “capital of the French Resistance.” His trial began on May 11 and would last nearly two months. At the end of the Cold War one in 90 East Germans was working as an informer for Stasi, which had files on most adult East Germans. 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