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Sicherheitsdienst
' (, ''Security Service''), full title ' (Security Service of the '' Reichsführer-SS''), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization and the Gestapo (formed in 1933) was considered its sister organization through the integration of SS members and operational procedures. The SD was administered as an independent SS office between 1933 and 1939. That year, the SD was transferred over to the Reich Security Main Office (''Reichssicherheitshauptamt''; RSHA), as one of its seven departments. Its first director, Reinhard Heydrich, intended for the SD to bring every single individual within the Third Reich's reach under "continuous supervision". Following Germany's defeat in World War II, the tribunal at the Nuremberg trials officially declared that the SD was a criminal organisation, along with the rest of Heydrich's RSHA (including the Gestapo) both individually and as bra ...
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Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organisation. On 20 April 1934, oversight of the Gestapo passed to the head of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (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, the Gestapo played a key role in the Holocaust. After the war ended, the Gestapo was declared a criminal organisation by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the Nuremberg trials. History After A ...
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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 during World War II. It began with a small guard unit known as the ''Saal-Schutz'' ("Hall Security") made up of party volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name. Under his direction (1929–1945) it grew from a small paramilitary formation during the Weimar Republic to one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. From the time of the Nazi Party's rise to power until the regime's collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, surveillance, and terror within Germany and German-occupied Europe. The two main constituent groups were the ''Allgemeine SS'' (General SS) and ''Waffen-SS'' (Armed SS). The ''All ...
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Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( ; ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He was chief of the Reich Security Main Office (including the Gestapo, Kripo, and SD). He was also ''Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor'' (Deputy/Acting Reich-Protector) of Bohemia and Moravia. He served as president of the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC, now known as Interpol) and chaired the January 1942 Wannsee Conference which formalised plans for the " Final Solution to the Jewish question"—the deportation and genocide of all Jews in German-occupied Europe. Many historians regard Heydrich as the darkest figure within the Nazi regime; Adolf Hitler described him as "the man with the iron heart". He was the founding head of the ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (Security Service, SD), an intelligence organisation charged with seeking out and neutralising resistance to the Nazi Part ...
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Reich Security Main Office
The Reich Security Main Office (german: Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA) was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as ''Chef der Deutschen Polizei'' (Chief of German Police) and '' Reichsführer-SS'', the head of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS). The organization's stated duty was to fight all "enemies of the Reich" inside and outside the borders of Nazi Germany. Formation and development Himmler established the RSHA on 27 September 1939. His assumption of control over all security and police forces in Germany was a significant factor in the growth in power of the Nazi state. With the formation of the RSHA, Himmler combined under one roof the Nazi Party's '' Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD; SS intelligence service) with the '' Sicherheitspolizei'' (SiPo; "Security Police"), which was nominally under the Interior Ministry. The SiPo was composed of two sub-departments, the ''Geheime Staatspolizei'' (Gestapo; "Secret State Police") and the ''Kriminalpol ...
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Allgemeine SS
The ''Allgemeine SS'' (; "General SS") was a major branch of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany; it was managed by the SS Main Office (''SS-Hauptamt''). The ''Allgemeine SS'' was officially established in the autumn of 1934 to distinguish its members from the ''SS-Verfügungstruppe'' (SS Dispositional Troops or SS-VT), which later became the Waffen-SS, and the ''SS-Totenkopfverbände'' (SS Death's Head Units or SS-TV), which were in charge of the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps. SS formations committed many war crimes against civilians and allied servicemen. Starting in 1939, foreign units of the ''Allgemeine SS'' were raised in occupied countries. From 1940 they were consolidated into the Directorate of the Germanic-SS (''Leitstelle der germanischen SS''). When the war first began, the vast majority of SS members belonged to the ''Allgemeine SS'', but this proportion changed during the later years of the war after the Waffen-SS open ...
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Niederkirchnerstraße
Niederkirchnerstraße () is a street in Berlin, Germany and was named after Käthe Niederkirchner. The thoroughfare was known as Prinz-Albrecht-Straße until 1951 but the name was changed by the socialist German government. The street was the location of the SS Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), the headquarters of the '' Sicherheitspolizei'', SD, '' Einsatzgruppen'' and Gestapo. The site is now marked by the Topography of Terror memorial and a museum, which includes a permanent exhibition showing the crimes of Nazism.Potsdamer Platz Guide
Berlin City Getaway Guide


Course

The street runs east-west from Wilhelmstraße to Stresemannstraße near

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Ernst Kaltenbrunner
Ernst Kaltenbrunner (4 October 190316 October 1946) was a high-ranking Austrian SS official during the Nazi era and a major perpetrator of the Holocaust. After the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, and a brief period under Heinrich Himmler, Kaltenbrunner was the third Chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), which included the offices of Gestapo, Kriminalpolizei (Nazi Germany), Kripo and Sicherheitsdienst, SD, from January 1943 until the end of World War II in Europe. Kaltenbrunner joined the Nazi Party in 1930 and the SS in 1931, and by 1935 he was considered a leader of the Austrian SS. In 1938, he assisted in the ''Anschluss'' and was given command of the SS and police force in Austria. In January 1943, Kaltenbrunner was appointed chief of the RSHA, succeeding Reinhard Heydrich, who was assassinated in May 1942. A committed anti-Semite and fanatical Hitler loyalist, Kaltenbrunner oversaw a period in which the genocide of Jews intensified. He was the highest ...
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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 the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany quickly became a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", alluded to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which Hitler and the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945 after just 12 years when the Allies defeated Germany, ending World War II in Europe. On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, the head of gove ...
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Sister Organization
A sister organization is an agency or body which is nearly or completely dependent upon another organization to exist. Sister organizations may exist in several different fields from business, government, law enforcement, and within the military. Historically, the secret police agencies of Nazi Germany were considered sister organizations to each other, in that the Gestapo and ''Sicherheitsdienst'' were almost entirely integrated with each other. In many cases, SS officers would hold dual posts in both organizations simultaneously especially at the higher levels. Within government legislation, law-making bodies with an "upper" and "lower" house are considered to be sister organizations. Such is the case with the United States Senate and House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corres ...
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Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg trials were held by the 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, Nazi Germany invaded many countries across Europe, inflicting 27 million deaths in the Soviet Union alone. Proposals for how to punish the defeated Nazi leaders ranged from a show trial (the Soviet Union) to summary executions (the United Kingdom). In mid-1945, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States agreed to convene a joint tribunal in Nuremberg, with the Nuremberg Charter as its legal instrument. Between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946, the International Military Tribunal (IMT) tried 21 of the most important surviving leaders of Nazi Germany in the political, military, and economic spheres, as well as six German organizations. The purpose of the trial was not just to convict the defendants but also to assemble irrefutable evid ...
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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 the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers' Party (; DAP), existed from 1919 to 1920. The Nazi Party emerged from the extremist German nationalist, racist and populist paramilitary culture, which fought against the communist uprisings in post– World War I Germany. The party was created to draw workers away from communism and into nationalism. Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti– big business, anti- bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric. This was later downplayed to gain the support of business leaders, and in the 1930s, the party's main focus shifted to antisemitic and anti-Marxist themes. The party had little popular support until the Great Depression. Pseudoscientific racist theories were ...
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Reichsführer-SS
(, ) was a special title and rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945 for the commander of the (SS). ''Reichsführer-SS'' was a title from 1925 to 1933, and from 1934 to 1945 it was the highest rank of the SS. The longest-serving and most noteworthy office holder was Heinrich Himmler. Definition was both a title and a rank. The title of was first created in 1926 by the second commander of the SS, Joseph Berchtold. Julius Schreck, founder of the SS and Berchtold's predecessor, never referred to himself as . Yet, the title was retroactively applied to him in later years. In 1929, Heinrich Himmler became and referred to himself by his title instead of his regular SS rank of . This set the precedent for the commander of the SS to be called . Prior to the Night of the Long Knives, the SS was an elite corps of the (SA or storm troopers), and the was subordinate to the SA's operating head, the . On 20 July 1934, as part of the purge of the SA, the SS was made a ...
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