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The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official
secret police Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic ...
of
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of
Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
into one organisation. On 20 April 1934, oversight of the Gestapo passed to the head of the ''
Schutzstaffel The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe ...
'' (SS), Heinrich Himmler, who was also appointed Chief of German Police by Hitler in 1936. Instead of being exclusively a Prussian state agency, the Gestapo became a national one as a sub-office of the (SiPo; Security Police). From 27 September 1939, it was administered by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). It became known as (Dept) 4 of the RSHA and was considered a sister organisation to the (SD; Security Service). During
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, the Gestapo played a key role in
the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europ ...
. After the war ended, the Gestapo was declared a criminal organisation by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the
Nuremberg trials The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies of World War II, Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945 ...
.


History

After
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
became Chancellor of Germany, Hermann Göring—future commander of the
Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...
and the number two man in the
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
—was named Interior Minister of
Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
. This gave Göring command of the largest police force in Germany. Soon afterward, Göring detached the political and intelligence sections from the police and filled their ranks with Nazis. On 26 April 1933, Göring merged the two units as the , which was abbreviated by a post office clerk for a franking stamp and became known as the "Gestapo". He originally wanted to name it the Secret Police Office (), but the German initials, "GPA", were too similar to those of the
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
State Political Directorate (, or GPU). The first commander of the Gestapo was Rudolf Diels, a protégé of Göring. Diels was appointed with the title of chief of (Department 1a) of the Prussian Secret Police. Diels was best known as the primary interrogator of Marinus van der Lubbe after the Reichstag fire. In late 1933, the Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick wanted to integrate all the police forces of the German states under his control. Göring outflanked him by removing the Prussian political and intelligence departments from the state interior ministry. Göring took over the Gestapo in 1934 and urged Hitler to extend the agency's authority throughout Germany. This represented a radical departure from German tradition, which held that law enforcement was (mostly) a (state) and local matter. In this, he ran into conflict with (SS) chief Heinrich Himmler who was police chief of the second most powerful German state,
Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...
. Frick did not have the political power to take on Göring by himself so he allied with Himmler. With Frick's support, Himmler (pushed on by his right-hand man, Reinhard Heydrich) took over the political police in state-after-state. Soon only Prussia was left. Concerned that Diels was not ruthless enough to effectively counteract the power of the (SA), Göring handed over control of the Gestapo to Himmler on 20 April 1934. Also on that date, Hitler appointed Himmler chief of all German police outside Prussia. Heydrich, named chief of the Gestapo by Himmler on 22 April 1934, also continued as head of the SS Security Service (; SD). 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 Heinrich Müller may refer to: * Heinrich Müller (cyclist) (born 1926), Swiss cyclist * Heinrich Müller (footballer, born 1888) (1888–1957), Swiss football player and manager * Heinrich Müller (footballer, born 1909) (1909–2000), Austrian ...
, Franz Josef Huber and
Josef Meisinger Josef Albert Meisinger (14 September 1899 – 7 March 1947), also known as the "Butcher of Warsaw", was an SS functionary in Nazi Germany. He held a position in the Gestapo and was a member of the Nazi Party. During the early phases of World War ...
. 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 Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
adherents, who were hard-working, efficient, and prepared to carry the Nazi state forward through the persecution of their political opponents. By the spring of 1934, Himmler's SS controlled the SD and the Gestapo, but for him, there was still a problem, as technically the SS (and the Gestapo by proxy) was subordinated to the SA, which was under the command of Ernst Röhm. Himmler wanted to free himself entirely from Röhm, whom he viewed as an obstacle. Röhm's position was menacing as more than 4.5 million men fell under his command once the
militia A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...
s and veterans organisations were absorbed by the SA, a fact which fuelled Röhm's aspirations; his dream of fusing the SA and ''Reichswehr'' together was undermining Hitler's relationships with the leadership of Germany's armed forces. Several Nazi chieftains, among them Göring, Joseph Goebbels, Rudolf Hess, and Himmler, began a concerted campaign to convince Hitler to take action against Röhm. Both the SD and Gestapo released information concerning an imminent putsch by the SA. Once persuaded, Hitler acted by setting Himmler's SS into action, who then proceeded to murder over 100 of Hitler's identified antagonists. The Gestapo supplied the information which implicated the SA and ultimately enabled Himmler and Heydrich to emancipate themselves entirely from the organisation. For the Gestapo, the next two years following the Night of the Long Knives, a term describing the putsch against Röhm and the SA, were characterised by "behind-the-scenes political wrangling over policing". On 17 June 1936, Hitler decreed the unification of all police forces in Germany and named Himmler as Chief of German Police. This action effectively merged the police into the SS and removed it from Frick's control. Himmler was nominally subordinate to Frick as police chief, but as , he answered only to Hitler. This move also gave Himmler operational control over Germany's entire detective force. The Gestapo became a national state agency. Himmler also gained authority over all of Germany's uniformed law enforcement agencies, which were amalgamated into the new (Orpo; Order Police), which became a national agency under SS general Kurt Daluege. Shortly thereafter, Himmler created the (Kripo; Criminal Police), merging it with the Gestapo into the (SiPo; Security Police), under Heydrich's command. Heinrich Müller was at that time the Gestapo operations chief. He answered to Heydrich; Heydrich answered only to Himmler and Himmler answered only to Hitler. The Gestapo had the authority to investigate cases of
treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
, espionage, sabotage and criminal attacks on the Nazi Party and Germany. The basic Gestapo law passed by the government in 1936 gave the Gestapo to operate without
judicial review Judicial review is a process under which executive, legislative and administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with authority for judicial review may invalidate laws, acts and governmental actions that are incomp ...
—in effect, putting it above the law. The Gestapo was specifically exempted from responsibility to administrative courts, where citizens normally could sue the state to conform to laws. As early as 1935, a Prussian administrative court had ruled that the Gestapo's actions were not subject to judicial review. The SS officer Werner Best, one-time head of legal affairs in the Gestapo, summed up this policy by saying, "As long as the police carries out the will of the leadership, it is acting legally". On 27 September 1939, the security and police agencies of Nazi Germany—with the exception of the Order Police—were consolidated into the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), headed by Heydrich. The Gestapo became (Department IV) of RSHA and Müller became the Gestapo Chief, with Heydrich as his immediate superior. After Heydrich's 1942 assassination, Himmler assumed the leadership of the RSHA until January 1943, when Ernst Kaltenbrunner was appointed chief. Müller remained the Gestapo Chief. His direct subordinate Adolf Eichmann headed the Gestapo's Office of Resettlement and then its Office of Jewish Affairs ( or Sub-Department IV, Section B4). During the
Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
, Eichmann's department within the Gestapo coordinated the mass deportation of European Jews to the Nazis' extermination camps. The power of the Gestapo included the use of what was called, —"protective custody", a euphemism for the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings. An oddity of the system was that the prisoner had to sign his own , an order declaring that the person had requested imprisonment—presumably out of fear of personal harm. In addition,
political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although nu ...
s throughout Germany—and from 1941, throughout the occupied territories under the Night and Fog Decree (german: Nacht und Nebel)—simply disappeared while in Gestapo custody. Up to 30 April 1944, at least 6,639 persons were arrested under orders. However, the total number of people who disappeared as a result of this decree is not known.


Counterintelligence

The Polish government in exile in London during World War II received sensitive military information about Nazi Germany from agents and informants throughout Europe. After Germany conquered Poland (in the autumn of 1939), Gestapo officials believed that they had neutralised Polish intelligence activities. However, certain Polish information about the movement of German police and SS units to the East during 1941 German invasion of the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
was similar to information British intelligence secretly obtained through intercepting and decoding German police and SS messages sent by radio telegraphy. In 1942, the Gestapo discovered a cache of Polish intelligence documents in
Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
and were surprised to see that Polish agents and informants had been gathering detailed military information and smuggling it out to London, via
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population o ...
and
Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...
. 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. Polish agents also gathered detailed information about the morale of German soldiers in the East. After uncovering a sample of the information the Poles had reported, Gestapo officials concluded that Polish intelligence activity represented a very serious danger to Germany. As late as 6 June 1944, Heinrich Müller—concerned about the leakage of information to the Allies—set up a special unit called that was meant to root out the Polish intelligence network in western and southwestern Europe. In Austria, there were groups still loyal to the Habsburgs, who unlike most across the Greater German Reich, remained determined to resist the Nazis. These groups became a special focus of the Gestapo because of their insurrectionist goals—the overthrow of the Nazi regime, the re-establishment of an independent Austria under Habsburg leadership—and Hitler's hatred of the Habsburg family. 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. Habsburg loyalist Karl Burian's (who was later executed) plan to blow up the Gestapo headquarters in Vienna represented a unique attempt to act aggressively against the Gestapo. Burian's group had also set up a secret courier service to Otto von Habsburg in Belgium. Individuals in Austrian resistance groups led by Heinrich Maier also managed to pass along the plans and the location of production facilities for V-1, V-2 rockets, Tiger tanks, and aircraft ( Messerschmitt Bf 109, Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, etc.) to the Allies. The Maier group informed very early about the mass murder of Jews. The resistance group, later discovered by the Gestapo because of a double agent of the Abwehr, was in contact with Allen Dulles, the head of the US Office of Strategic Services in Switzerland. Although Maier and the other group members were severely tortured, the Gestapo did not uncover the essential involvement of the resistance group in Operation Crossbow and Operation Hydra.


Suppression of resistance and persecution

Early in the regime's existence, harsh measures were meted out to political opponents and those who resisted Nazi doctrine, such as members of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD); a role originally performed by the SA until the SD and Gestapo undermined their influence and took control of Reich security. Because the Gestapo seemed omniscient and
omnipotent Omnipotence is the quality of having unlimited power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence only to the deity of their faith. In the monotheistic religious philosophy of Abrahamic religions, omnipotence is often listed as one ...
, the atmosphere of fear they created led to an overestimation of their reach and strength; a faulty assessment which hampered the operational effectiveness of underground resistance organisations.


Trade unions

Shortly after the Nazis came to power, they decided to dissolve the 28 federations of the General German Trade Union Confederation, because Hitler—after noting their success in the works council elections—intended to consolidate all German workers under the Nazi government's administration, a decision he made on 7 April 1933. As a preface to this action, Hitler decreed May 1 as National Labor Day to celebrate German workers, a move the trade union leaders welcomed. With their trade union flags waving, Hitler gave a rousing speech to the 1.5 million people assembled on Berlin's that was nationally broadcast, during which he extolled the nation's revival and working class solidarity. On the following day, the newly formed Gestapo officers, who had been shadowing some 58 trade union leaders, arrested them wherever they could find them—many in their homes. Meanwhile, the SA and police occupied trade union headquarters, arrested functionaries, confiscated their property and assets; all by design so as to be replaced on 12 May by the
German Labour Front The German Labour Front (german: Deutsche Arbeitsfront, ; DAF) was the labour organisation under the Nazi Party which replaced the various independent trade unions in Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power. History As early as March 1933, t ...
(DAF), a Nazi organisation placed under the leadership of Robert Ley. For their part, this was the first time the Gestapo operated under its new name since its 26 April 1933 founding in Prussia.


Religious dissent

Many parts of Germany (where religious dissent existed upon the Nazi seizure of power) saw a rapid transformation; a change as noted by the Gestapo in conservative towns such as Würzburg, where people acquiesced to the regime either through accommodation, collaboration, or simple compliance. Increasing religious objections to Nazi policies led the Gestapo to carefully monitor church organisations. For the most part, members of the church did not offer political resistance but simply wanted to ensure that organizational doctrine remained intact. 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 . When Church leaders (
clergy Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
) voiced their misgiving about the euthanasia program and Nazi racial policies, Hitler intimated that he considered them "traitors to the people" and went so far as to call them "the destroyers of Germany". The extreme anti-semitism and neo-pagan heresies of the Nazis caused some Christians to outright resist, and Pope Pius XI to issue the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge denouncing Nazism and warning Catholics against joining or supporting the Party. Some pastors, like the Protestant clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer, paid for their opposition with their lives. In an effort to counter the strength and influence of spiritual resistance, Nazi records reveal that the Gestapo's monitored the activities of bishops very closely—instructing that agents be set up in every diocese, that the bishops' reports to the Vatican should be obtained and that the bishops' areas of activity must be found out. Deans were to be targeted as the "eyes and ears of the bishops" and a "vast network" established to monitor the activities of ordinary clergy: "The importance of this enemy is such that inspectors of security police and of the security service will make this group of people and the questions discussed by them their special concern". 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 From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as con ...
: "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". Others were arrested simply on the basis of being "suspected of activities hostile to the State" or that there was reason to "suppose that his dealings might harm society". Over 2,700
Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
,
Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
, and Orthodox clergy were imprisoned at Dachau alone. After Heydrich (who was staunchly anti-Catholic and anti-Christian) was assassinated in Prague, his successor, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, relaxed some of the policies and then disbanded Department IVB (religious opponents) of the Gestapo.


Homosexuality

Violence and arrest were not confined to that opposing political parties, membership in trade unions, or those with dissenting religious opinions, but also homosexuality. It was viewed negatively by Hitler. Homosexuals were correspondingly considered a threat to the (National Community). From the Nazis rise to national power in 1933, the number of court verdicts against homosexuals steadily increased and only declined once the Second World War started. In 1934, a special Gestapo office was set up in Berlin to deal with homosexuality. Despite male homosexuality being considered a greater danger to "national survival", lesbianism was likewise viewed as unacceptable—deemed gender nonconformity—and a number of individual reports on lesbians can be found in Gestapo files. Between 1933 and 1935, some 4,000 men were arrested; between 1936 and 1939, another 30,000 men were convicted. If homosexuals showed any signs of sympathy to the Nazis' identified racial enemies, they were considered an even greater danger. According to Gestapo case files, the majority of those arrested for homosexuality were males between eighteen and twenty-five years of age.


Student opposition

Between June 1942 and March 1943, student protests were calling for an end to the Nazi regime. These included the non-violent resistance of
Hans Hans may refer to: __NOTOC__ People * Hans (name), a masculine given name * Hans Raj Hans, Indian singer and politician ** Navraj Hans, Indian singer, actor, entrepreneur, cricket player and performer, son of Hans Raj Hans ** Yuvraj Hans, Punjab ...
and Sophie Scholl, two leaders of the White Rose student group. However, resistance groups and those who were in moral or political opposition to the Nazis were stalled by the fear of reprisals from the Gestapo. Fearful of an internal overthrow, the forces of the Gestapo were unleashed on the opposition. Groups like the White Rose and others, such as the Edelweiss Pirates, and the
Swing Youth The Swing Youth (german: Swingjugend) were a group of jazz and swing lovers in Germany formed in Hamburg in 1939. Primarily active in Hamburg and Berlin, they were composed of 14- to 21-year-old Germans, mostly middle or upper-class students ...
, were placed under close Gestapo observation. Some participants were sent to concentration camps. Leading members of the most famous of these groups, the White Rose, were arrested by the police and turned over to the Gestapo. For several leaders the punishment was death. During the first five months of 1943, the Gestapo arrested thousands suspected of resistance activities and carried out numerous executions. Student opposition leaders were executed in late February, and a major opposition organisation, the Oster Circle, was destroyed in April 1943. Efforts to resist the Nazi regime amounted to very little and had only minor chances of success, particularly since a broad percentage of the German people did not support such actions.


General opposition and military conspiracy

Between 1934 and 1938, opponents of the Nazi regime and their fellow travellers began to emerge. Among the first to speak out were religious dissenters but following in their wake were educators, aristocratic businessmen, office workers, teachers, and others from nearly every walk of life. Most people quickly learned that open opposition was dangerous since Gestapo informants and agents were widespread. Yet a significant number of them still worked against the National Socialist government. In 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. 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. Nearly all of them, including: the Römer Group, Robby Group, Solf Circle, , the Party of the Radical Middle Class, , and were either discovered or infiltrated by the Gestapo. This led to corresponding arrests, being sent to concentration camps and execution. One of the methods employed by the Gestapo to contend with these resistance factions was 'protective detention' which facilitated the process in expediting dissenters to concentration camps and against which there was no
legal defence In a civil proceeding or criminal prosecution under the common law or under statute, a defendant may raise a defense (or defence) in an effort to avert civil liability or criminal conviction. A defense is put forward by a party to defeat a s ...
. Early efforts to resist the Nazis with aid from abroad were hindered when the opposition's peace feelers to the Western
Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
did not meet with success. This was partly because of the Venlo incident of 9 November 1939, in which SD and Gestapo agents, posing as anti-Nazis in the
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, kidnapped two British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) officers after having lured them to a meeting to discuss peace terms. This prompted
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
to ban any further contact with the German opposition. 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. The German opposition was in an unenviable position by the late spring and early summer of 1943. On one hand, it was next to impossible for them to overthrow Hitler and the party; on the other, the Allied demand for an unconditional surrender meant no opportunity for a compromise peace, which left the military and conservative aristocrats who opposed the regime no option (in their eyes) other than continuing the military struggle. Despite the fear of the Gestapo after mass arrests and executions in the spring, the opposition still plotted and planned. One of the more famous schemes, Operation Valkyrie, involved a number of senior German officers and was carried out by Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. In an attempt to assassinate Hitler, Stauffenberg planted a bomb underneath a conference table inside the Wolf's Lair field headquarters. Known as the 20 July plot, this assassination attempt failed and Hitler was only slightly injured. Reports indicate that the Gestapo was caught unaware of this plot as they did not have sufficient protections in place at the appropriate locations nor did they take any preventative steps. Stauffenberg and his group were shot on 21 July 1944; meanwhile, his fellow conspirators were rounded up by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp. Thereafter, there was a show trial overseen by Roland Freisler, followed by their execution. Some Germans were convinced that it was their duty to apply all possible expedients to end the war as quickly as possible. Sabotage efforts were undertaken by members of the (military intelligence) leadership, as they recruited people known to oppose the Nazi regime. The Gestapo cracked down ruthlessly on dissidents in Germany, just as they did everywhere else. Opposition became more difficult. Arrests, torture, and executions were common. 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.


Organisation

In January 1933, Hermann Göring, Hitler's minister without portfolio, was appointed the head of the Prussian Police and began filling the political and intelligence units of the Prussian Secret Police with
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
members. A year after the organisation's 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 Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
. Describing the activities of the organisation, Göring boasted about the utter ruthlessness required for Germany's recovery, the establishment of concentration camps for that purpose, and even went on to claim that excesses were committed in the beginning, recounting how beatings took place here and there. On 26 April 1933, he reorganised the force's as the (better-known by the " sobriquet" Gestapo), a secret state police intended to serve the Nazi cause. Less than two weeks later in early May 1933, the Gestapo moved into their Berlin headquarters at Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 8. As a result of its 1936 merger with the Kripo (National criminal police) to form sub-units of the (SiPo; Security Police), the Gestapo was officially classified as a government agency. Himmler's subsequent appointment to (Chief of German Police) and status as made him independent of Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick's nominal control. The SiPo was placed under the direct command of Reinhard Heydrich who was already chief of the Nazi Party's intelligence service, the (SD). The idea was to fully identify and integrate the party agency (SD) with the state agency (SiPo). Most SiPo members joined the SS and held a rank in both organisations. Nevertheless, in practice there was jurisdictional overlap and operational conflict between the SD and Gestapo. In September 1939, the SiPo and SD were merged into the newly created (RSHA; Reich Security Main Office). Both the Gestapo and Kripo became distinct departments within the RSHA. Although the was officially disbanded, the term SiPo was figuratively used to describe any RSHA personnel throughout the remainder of the war. In lieu of naming convention changes, the original construct of the SiPo, Gestapo, and Kripo cannot be fully comprehended as "discrete entities", since they ultimately formed "a conglomerate in which each was wedded to each other and the SS through its Security Service, the SD". 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. A similar co-ordination existed in the local offices. 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. 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. In the occupied territories, the formal relationship between local units of the Gestapo, criminal police, and SD was slightly closer. The Gestapo became known as RSHA ("Department or Office IV") with Heinrich Müller as its chief. In January 1943, Himmler appointed Ernst Kaltenbrunner RSHA chief; almost seven months after Heydrich had been assassinated. The specific internal departments of were as follows: *Department A (Political Opponents) **Communists (A1) **Counter-sabotage (A2) **Reactionaries, liberals and opposition (A3) **Protective services (A4) *Department B (Sects and Churches) **Catholicism (B1) **Protestantism (B2) ** Freemasons and other churches (B3) **Jewish affairs (B4) *Department C (Administration and Party Affairs), central administrative office of the Gestapo, responsible for card files of all personnel including all officials. **Files, card, indexes, information and administration (C1) **Protective custody (C2) **Press office (C3) **NSDAP matters (C4) *Department D (Occupied Territories), administration for regions outside the . **Protectorate affairs, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, regions of Yugoslavia, Greece (D1) *** 1st Belgrade Special Combat detachment **General Government(D2) **Confidential office – hostile foreigners,
emigrants Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...
(D3) **Occupied territories – France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Denmark (D4) **Occupied Eastern territories (D5) *Department E (Security and counterintelligence) **In the (E1) **Policy and economic formation (E2) **West (E3) **Scandinavia (North)(E4) **East (E5) **South (E6) In 1941 , the central command office of the Gestapo was formed. However, these internal departments remained and the Gestapo continued to be a department under the RSHA umbrella. The local offices of the Gestapo, known as Gestapo and , answered to a local commander known as the ("Inspector of the Security Police and Security Service") who, in turn, was under the dual command of of the Gestapo and also his local SS and Police Leader. In total, there were some fifty-four regional Gestapo offices across the German federal states. The Gestapo also maintained offices at all Nazi concentration camps, held an office on the staff of the SS and Police Leaders, and supplied personnel as needed to formations such as the . 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. 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 that their continual work in the east was to be "presented to the Führer."


Female Criminal Investigation Career

According to regulations issued by the Reich Security Main Office in 1940, women who had been trained in social work or having a similar education could be hired as female detectives. Female youth leaders, lawyers, business administrators with experience in social work, female leaders in the and personnel administrators in the Bund Deutscher Mädel were hired as detectives after a one-year course, if they had several years professional experience. 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 and could promote to a . After another two or three years in that grade, the female detective could advance to . Further promotions to and were also possible.


Membership

In 1933, there was no purge of the German police forces. 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. By March 1937, the Gestapo employed an estimated 6,500 people in fifty-four regional offices across the Reich. Additional staff were added in March 1938 consequent the annexation of Austria and again in October 1938 with the acquisition of the Sudetenland. In 1939, only 3,000 out of the total of 20,000 Gestapo men held SS ranks, and in most cases, these were honorary. One man who served in the Prussian Gestapo in 1933 recalled that most of his co-workers "were by no means Nazis. For the most part they were young professional civil service officers..." The Nazis valued police competence more than politics, so in general in 1933, almost all of the men who served in the various state police forces under the
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a Constitutional republic, constitutional federal republic for the first time in ...
stayed on in their jobs. In Würzburg, which is one of the few places in Germany where most of the Gestapo records survived, every member of the Gestapo was a career policeman or had a police background. 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. Over time, membership in the Gestapo included ideological training, particularly once Werner Best assumed a leading role for training in April 1936. 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". Heydrich thought along similar lines and advocated both defensive and offensive measures on the part of the Gestapo, so as to prevent any subversion or destruction of the National Socialist body. Whether trained as police originally or not, Gestapo agents themselves were shaped by their socio-political environment. Historian
George C. Browder George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd Presiden ...
contends that there was a four-part process (
authorisation Authorization or authorisation (see spelling differences) is the function of specifying access rights/privileges to resources, which is related to general information security and computer security, and to access control in particular. More for ...
, bolstering, routinisation, and dehumanisation) in effect which legitimised the psycho-social atmosphere conditioning members of the Gestapo to radicalised violence. Browder also describes a sandwich effect, where from above; Gestapo agents were subjected to ideologically oriented
racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagoni ...
and criminal biological theories; and from below, the Gestapo was transformed by SS personnel who did not have the proper police training, which showed in their propensity for unrestrained violence. 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.


Population ratios, methods and effectiveness

Contrary to popular belief, the Gestapo was not the all-pervasive, omnipotent agency in German society. In Germany proper, many towns and cities had fewer than 50 official Gestapo personnel. For example, in 1939 Stettin and Frankfurt am Main only had a total of 41 Gestapo men combined. In
Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in ...
, the local Gestapo office of only 281 men were responsible for the entire Lower Rhine region, which comprised 4 million people. "V-men", as undercover Gestapo agents were known, were used to infiltrate Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and Communist opposition groups, but this was more the exception than the rule. The Gestapo office in Saarbrücken had 50 full-term informers in 1939. The District Office in
Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
, which had the responsibility for all of northern
Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...
, employed a total of 80–100 full-term informers between 1943 and 1945. The majority of Gestapo informers were not full-term employees working undercover, but were rather ordinary citizens who chose to denounce other people to the Gestapo. According to Canadian historian Robert Gellately's analysis of the local offices established, the Gestapo was—for the most part—made up of bureaucrats and clerical workers who depended upon denunciations by citizens for their information. Gellately argued that it was because of the widespread willingness of Germans to inform on each other to the Gestapo that Germany between 1933 and 1945 was a prime example of panopticism. The Gestapo—at times—was overwhelmed with denunciations and most of its time was spent sorting out the credible from the less credible denunciations. Many of the local offices were understaffed and overworked, struggling with the paper load caused by so many denunciations. Gellately has also suggested that the Gestapo was "a reactive organisation...constructed within German society and whose functioning was structurally dependent on the continuing co-operation of German citizens". After 1939, when many Gestapo personnel were called up for war-related work such as service with the , the level of overwork and understaffing at the local offices increased. For information about what was happening in German society, the Gestapo continued to be mostly dependent upon denunciations. 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. The information supplied by denunciations often led the Gestapo in determining who was arrested. The popular picture of the Gestapo with its spies everywhere terrorising German society has been rejected by many historians as a myth invented after the war as a cover for German society's widespread complicity in allowing the Gestapo to work. Work done by social historians such as Detlev Peukert, Robert Gellately, Reinhard Mann, Inge Marssolek, René Otto,
Klaus-Michael Mallmann Klaus-Michael Mallmann (born 3 November 1948, in Kaiserslautern) is a German historian at the University of Stuttgart. Scientific career Mallmann studied history, Sociology, Politics and German studies at the Saarland University. In 1979 he was aw ...
and Paul Gerhard, which by focusing on what the local offices were doing has shown the Gestapos almost total dependence on denunciations from ordinary Germans, and very much discredited the older " Big Brother" picture with the Gestapo having its eyes and ears everywhere. For example, of the 84 cases in Würzburg of ("race defilement"—sexual relations with non- Aryans), 45 (54%) were started in response to denunciations by ordinary people, two (2%) by information provided by other branches of the government, 20 (24%) via information gained during interrogations of people relating to other matters, four (5%) from information from (Nazi) NSDAP organisations, two (2%) during "political evaluations" and 11 (13%) have no source listed while none were started by Gestapos own "observations" of the people of Würzburg. An examination of 213 denunciations in
Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in ...
showed that 37% were motivated by personal conflicts, no motive could be established in 39%, and 24% were motivated by support for the Nazi regime. The Gestapo always showed a special interest in denunciations concerning sexual matters, especially cases concerning with Jews or between Germans and foreigners, in particular Polish slave workers; the Gestapo applied even harsher methods to the foreign workers in the country, especially those from Poland, Jews, Catholics and homosexuals. As time went by, anonymous denunciations to the Gestapo caused trouble to various
NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
officials, who often found themselves being investigated by the Gestapo. 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. Most of the political investigations took place between 1933 and 1935 with the all-time high of 57 cases in 1935. 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. The "other" category associated with non-conformity included everything from a man who drew a caricature of Hitler to a Catholic teacher suspected of being lukewarm about teaching National Socialism in his classroom. The "administrative control" category concerned those who were breaking the law concerning residency in the city. The "conventional criminality" category concerned economic crimes such as money laundering, smuggling and homosexuality. Normal methods of investigation included various forms of blackmail, threats and
extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...
to secure "confessions". Beyond that, sleep deprivation and various forms of harassment were used as investigative methods. Failing that,
torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts ...
and
planting evidence False evidence, fabricated evidence, forged evidence, fake evidence or tainted evidence is information created or obtained illegally in order to sway the verdict in a court case. Falsified evidence could be created by either side in a case (inc ...
were common methods of resolving a case, especially if the case concerned someone Jewish. 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. While the total number of Gestapo officials was limited when contrasted against the represented populations, the average (Nazi term for the "member of the German people") was typically not under observation, so the statistical ratio between Gestapo officials and inhabitants is "largely worthless and of little significance" according to some recent scholars. 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 Roma or ROMA may refer to: Places Australia * Roma, Queensland, a town ** Roma Airport ** Roma Courthouse ** Electoral district of Roma, defunct ** Town of Roma, defunct town, now part of the Maranoa Regional Council * Roma Street, Brisbane, a ...
population, handicapped persons, homosexuals and above all, upon the Jews. "Selective terror" by the Gestapo, as mentioned by Johnson, is also supported by historian Richard Evans who states that, "Violence and intimidation rarely touched the lives of most ordinary Germans.
Denunciation Denunciation (from Latin ''denuntiare'', "to denounce") is the act of publicly assigning to a person the blame for a perceived wrongdoing, with the hope of bringing attention to it. Notably, centralized social control in authoritarian states re ...
was the exception, not the rule, as far as the behaviour of the vast majority of Germans was concerned." The involvement of ordinary Germans in denunciations also needs to be put into perspective so as not to exonerate the Gestapo. As Evans makes clear, "...it was not the ordinary German people who engaged in surveillance, it was the Gestapo; nothing happened until the Gestapo received a denunciation, and it was the Gestapo's active pursuit of deviance and dissent that was the only thing that gave denunciations meaning." The Gestapo's effectiveness remained in the ability to "project" omnipotence...they co-opted the assistance of the German population by using denunciations to their advantage; proving in the end a powerful, ruthless and effective organ of terror under the Nazi regime that was seemingly everywhere. 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.


Operations in Nazi-occupied territories

As an instrument of Nazi power, terror, and repression, the Gestapo operated throughout occupied Europe. Much like their affiliated organisations, the SS and the SD, the Gestapo "played a leading part" in enslaving and deporting workers from occupied territory, torturing and executing civilians, singling out and murdering Jews, and subjecting Allied prisoners of war to terrible treatment. To this end, the Gestapo was "a vital component both in Nazi repression and the Holocaust." Once the German armies advanced into enemy territory, they were accompanied by staffed by officers from the Gestapo and Kripo, who usually operated in the rear areas to administer and police the occupied land. 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. Occupation meant administration and policing, a duty assigned to the SS, the SD, and the Gestapo even before hostilities began, as was the case for Czechoslovakia. Correspondingly, Gestapo offices were established in a territory once occupied. Some locals aided the Gestapo, whether as professional police auxiliaries or in other duties. Nonetheless, operations performed either by German members of the Gestapo or auxiliaries from willing collaborators of other nationalities were inconsistent in both disposition and effectiveness. Varying degrees of pacification and police enforcement measures were necessary in each place, dependent on how cooperative or resistant the locals were to Nazi mandates and racial policies. Throughout the Eastern territories, the Gestapo and other Nazi organisations co-opted the assistance of indigenous police units, nearly all of whom were uniformed and able to carry out drastic actions. Many of the auxiliary police personnel operating on behalf of German Order Police, the SD, and Gestapo were members of the , which included staffing by Ukrainians, Belorussians, Russians, Estonians, Lithuanians, and Latvians. While in many countries the Nazis occupied in the East, the local domestic police forces supplemented German operations, noted Holocaust historian, Raul Hilberg, asserts that "those of Poland were least involved in anti-Jewish actions." Nonetheless, German authorities ordered the mobilisation of reserve Polish police forces, known as the
Blue Police The Blue Police ( pl, Granatowa policja, Navy-blue police), was the police during the Second World War in German-occupied Poland (the General Government). The entity's official German name was ''Polnische Polizei im Generalgouvernement'' (Polish ...
, 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. In places like Denmark, there were some 550 uniformed Danes in Copenhagen working with the Gestapo, patrolling and terrorising the local population at the behest of their German overseers, many of whom were arrested after the war. 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. Whereas in France, the number of members in the (French Gestapo) who worked on behalf of the Nazis was upwards of 30,000 to 32,000; they conducted operations nearly indistinguishable from their German equivalents.


Nuremberg trials

Between 14 November 1945 and 3 October 1946, the Allies established an
International Military Tribunal International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...
(IMT) to try 22 major Nazi war criminals and six groups for crimes against peace, war crimes and
crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
. 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. 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. Three others—Hans Fritzsche, Hjalmar Schacht, and Franz von Papen—were acquitted. At that time, the Gestapo was condemned as a criminal organisation, along with the SS. However, Gestapo leader
Heinrich Müller Heinrich Müller may refer to: * Heinrich Müller (cyclist) (born 1926), Swiss cyclist * Heinrich Müller (footballer, born 1888) (1888–1957), Swiss football player and manager * Heinrich Müller (footballer, born 1909) (1909–2000), Austrian ...
was never tried, as he disappeared at the end of the war. Leaders, organisers, investigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit the crimes specified were declared responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan. The official positions of defendants as heads of state or holders of high government offices were not to free them from responsibility or mitigate their punishment; nor was the fact that a defendant acted pursuant to an order of a superior to excuse him from responsibility, although it might be considered by the IMT in mitigation of punishment. 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. 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. The IMT subsequently convicted three of the groups: the Nazi leadership corps, the SS (including the SD) and the Gestapo. Gestapo members Hermann Göring, Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Arthur Seyss-Inquart were individually convicted. While three groups were acquitted of collective war crimes charges, this did not relieve individual members of those groups from conviction and punishment under the denazification programme. Members of the three convicted groups, however, were subject to apprehension by Britain, the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
, the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
and
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
.These groups—the Nazi Party and government leadership, the German General staff and High Command (OKW); the (SA); the (SS), including the (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.


Aftermath

In 1997,
Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
transformed the former regional Gestapo headquarters in Cologne—the
EL-DE Haus EL-DE Haus, officially the NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne, located in Cologne, is the former headquarters of the Gestapo and now a museum documenting the Third Reich. The building was at first the business premises of jewel ...
—into a museum to document the Gestapo's actions. After the war, U.S.
Counterintelligence Corps The Counter Intelligence Corps (Army CIC) was a World War II and early Cold War intelligence agency within the United States Army consisting of highly trained special agents. Its role was taken over by the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps in 1961 and ...
employed the former Lyon Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie for his anti-communist efforts and also helped him escape to
Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
.


Leadership


Principal agents and officers

*
Heinrich Baab Heinrich Baab (27 July 1908 - 23 May 2001) was a secretary and Gestapo chief of Frankfurt at the Lindenstraße station. The Gestapo (Secret State Police) was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe. After the war in Eur ...
(SiPo-SD Frankfurt) * Klaus Barbie (SiPo-SD Lyon) * Werner Best (SiPo-SD Copenhagen) * Karl Bömelburg (Head of Gestapo, Southern France) *
Theodor Dannecker Theodor Denecke (also spelled Dannecker) (27 March 1913 – 10 December 1945) was a German SS-captain (), a key aide to Adolf Eichmann in the deportation of Jews during World War II. A trained lawyer Denecke first served at the Reich Security ...
(SiPo-SD Paris) * Rudolf Diels (Gestapo Chief 1933–1934) * Adolf Eichmann (RSHA Berlin) * Gerhard Flesch * Hermann Göring (Founder of the Gestapo) *Viktor Harnischfeger (Düsseldorf Gestapo Criminal Commissar) * Reinhard Heydrich (SD, SiPo, Gestapo Chief 1934–1939, RSHA Chief 1939–1942) * Heinrich Himmler () * Ernst Kaltenbrunner (RSHA Chief 1943–1945) * Herbert Kappler (SD Chief Rome) *
Werner Knab Werner Knab (1908–1945) was a German SS-''Sturmbannführer'' (major). He served at the German legation in Norway from 1939, and then as head of Gestapo in Norway from 1940 to 1942, during the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany. Among others, he ...
*
Helmut Knochen Helmut Herbert Christian Heinrich Knochen (March 14, 1910 – April 4, 2003) was the senior commander of the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police) and Sicherheitsdienst in Paris during the Nazi occupation of France during World War II. He was s ...
(Paris) *
Kurt Lischka Kurt Werner Lischka (16 August 1909 in Breslau (now Wrocław) – 16 May 1989 in Brühl) was an SS official, Gestapo chief and commandant of the Security police (''Sicherheitspolizei''; SiPo) and Security Service (''Sicherheitsdienst''; SD) in ...
(Paris) *
Ernst Misselwitz Ernst Misselwitz (31 August 1909 –?) was an SS-''Hauptscharführer'' who worked for the Gestapo (Secret State Police). He became head of the unit IV E of the RSHA - Reich Security Main Office of the Paris Gestapo. In 1952 he was found guil ...
( SiPo-SD Paris) *
Heinrich Müller Heinrich Müller may refer to: * Heinrich Müller (cyclist) (born 1926), Swiss cyclist * Heinrich Müller (footballer, born 1888) (1888–1957), Swiss football player and manager * Heinrich Müller (footballer, born 1909) (1909–2000), Austrian ...
(Gestapo Chief 1939–1945) * Karl Oberg (Paris) * Pierre Paoli (Head of Gestapo, Central France) *
Oswald Poche Oswald Poche (born 28 January 1908 in Brandenburg an der Havel – 22 September 1962 in Dannenberg) was chief of the Gestapo, (secret state police) of Nazi Germany, for Frankfurt at the Lindenstrasse station. Oswald Poche was a member of the SS ( ...
(Chief of Frankfurt Lindenstrasse station) *
Henry Rinnan Henry Oliver Rinnan (14 May 1915 – 1 February 1947) was a notorious Norwegian Gestapo agent in the area around Trondheim, Norway during World War II. Rinnan led a group called '' Sonderabteilung Lola''. This group, known as ''Rinnanbanden'' amo ...
(Norwegian agent) *
Karl Eberhard Schöngarth Karl Eberhard Schöngarth (22 April 1903 – 16 May 1946) was a German SS officer during the Nazi era. He was a war criminal who perpetrated mass murder and genocide in German-occupied Poland during the Holocaust. After the war, Schöngarth and s ...
*
Max Wielen Max Ernst Gustav Friedrich Wielen (born 3 March 1883) was the Kripo and Gestapo police chief at Breslau. He held the rank of ''Obergruppenführer''. After the war, he was sentenced to life imprisonment by a British military court for his complicity ...


Ranks and uniforms

The Gestapo was a secretive plainclothes agency and agents typically wore civilian suits. There were strict protocols protecting the identity of Gestapo field personnel. When asked for identification, an operative was required only to present his warrant disc and not a picture identification. This disc identified the operative as a member of the Gestapo without revealing personal information, except when ordered to do so by an authorised official. Leitstellung (district office) staff did wear the grey SS service uniform, but with police-pattern shoulderboards, and SS rank insignia on the left collar patch. The right collar patch was black without the
sig rune Sig used as a name may refer to: *Sig (given name) *Sig, Algeria, a city on the banks of the Sig River * Sig Alert, an alert for traffic congestion in California, named after Loyd Sigmon *Sig River, a river of Algeria also known as Mekerra sig (l ...
s. The SD sleeve diamond (SD ) insignia was worn on the lower left sleeve, even by SiPo men who were not in the SD. Uniforms worn by Gestapo men assigned to the in occupied territories, were at first indistinguishable from the Waffen-SS field uniform. Complaints from the Waffen-SS led to a change of rank insignia shoulder boards from those of the Waffen-SS to those of the . The Gestapo maintained police detective ranks which were used for all officers, both those who were and who were not concurrently SS members. *Junior career = . *Senior career = . Sources: ;Rank insignia


See also

* Geheime Feldpolizei


Informational notes


Citations


Bibliography

* * * * * Bauz, Ingrid; Sigrid Brüggemann; Roland Maier, eds. (2013). ''Die Geheime Staatspolizei in Württemberg und Hohenzollern''. Stuttgart: Schmetterling. . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Krausnick, Helmut, et al. (1968). ''Anatomy of the SS State''. New York; Walker and Company. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


External links


Festung Furulund – magasinet – Dagbladet.no

Collection of testimonies concerning Gestapo activity in occupied Poland during WWII in "Chronicles of Terror" database
{{Authority control 1933 establishments in Germany 1945 disestablishments in Germany Heinrich Himmler Hermann Göring The Holocaust Nazi SS Reich Security Main Office Reinhard Heydrich Secret police