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Their victims also included the unemployed, the disabled, homosexuals, religious leaders, and political opponents. They nearly drowned suspects in ice-cold water, gave them electric shocks, hung them by their wrists, or beat them savagely. We've created informative articles that you can come back to again and again when you have questions or want to learn more! The Abwehr was the German military intelligence organization from 1866 to 1944. [92], In September 1939, the SiPo and SD were merged into the newly created Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA; Reich Security Main Office). But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. [68] During the first five months of 1943, the Gestapo arrested thousands suspected of resistance activities and carried out numerous executions. The SA was formally declared not to be a criminal organization by the International Tribunal, and had officially ceased to exist in 1945. [109], Whether trained as police originally or not, Gestapo agents themselves were shaped by their socio-political environment. In 1931, the SA was handed over to Ernst Rhm, who headed it till his murder in 1934. [22] Once persuaded, Hitler acted by setting Himmler's SS into action, who then proceeded to murder over 100 of Hitler's identified antagonists. After his escape, he rejoined the army as a Hauptmann, with seniority dating from May 1st of 1934. . With Frick's support, Himmler (pushed on by his right-hand man, Reinhard Heydrich) took over the political police in state-after-state. Answer (1 of 3): The SS Schutz Staffel were originally Hitler's bodygaurd. As I understand it the SD was focused on intellectual crimes, Jewish Question and foreign espionage, while the Gestapo concentrated on domestic political crimes and arresting Jews. It became known as Amt (Dept) 4 of the RSHA and was considered a sister organisation to the Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Security Service). In 1929, Heinrich Himmler was appointed as the head of the SS. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene mixed up gazpacho and the Gestapo while criticizing Rep. Nancy Pelosi. Secret State Police), abbreviated Gestapo (German: [tapo]; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. As we continue to explore the differences between abfraction and abrasion, it can be helpful to see these terms used in context. [143] Correspondingly, Gestapo offices were established in a territory once occupied. These officials were helped and supported by a mysterious organization called the ODESSA, which helped provide them identification, passports, and visas to South American countries. He appointed General Ferdinand von Bredow, as head of Abwehr. Himmler was given command over Grings Gestapo in April 1934. Owing to its relatively small sizeapproximately 32,000 personnel at the end of 1944the Gestapo relied extensively on the use of denunciations from among the local German populace in order to conduct its investigations. When Church leaders (clergy) 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 SS was given the complete authority of all the concentration camps in Germany as well as the occupied regions after 1934. This page was last edited on 26 April 2023, at 18:29. The Abwehr summary report of 28 April 1939 ("Lagebericht I - Sabotagettigkeit Sowjetrussland," 12 pp. Both the Gestapo and Kripo became distinct departments within the RSHA. 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. [119] For information about what was happening in German society, the Gestapo continued to be mostly dependent upon denunciations. [113] In Germany proper, many towns and cities had fewer than 50 official Gestapo personnel. Some historians feel he was killed in the final days of the war, while others believe he escaped to South America and lived the rest of his life unidentified. [69] 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. "Secret State Police"), abbreviated Gestapo (/stpo/ g-STAH-poh, German: [tapo] (listen)),[3] was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. Those who were arrested were tried, and sent to prison or were executed, depending on their role in the Gestapo. However, these internal departments remained and the Gestapo continued to be a department under the RSHA umbrella. The gestapo were Nazi Germany's brutal secret-police. Thousands of leftists, intellectuals, Jews, trade unionists, political clergy, and homosexuals simply disappeared into concentration camps after being arrested by the Gestapo. [117] The Gestapoat timeswas overwhelmed with denunciations and most of its time was spent sorting out the credible from the less credible denunciations. For several leaders the punishment was death. [104][e] Some locals aided the Gestapo, whether as professional police auxiliaries or in other duties. Life in the Third Reich & Weimar Republic, Kriegsmarine surface ships and Kriegsmarine in general, Luftwaffe air units and Luftwaffe in general, German Strategy & General German Military Discussion, NSDAP, other party organizations & Government, The Dieter Zinke Axis Biographical Research Section, The Ron Klages Panzer & other vehicles Section, Panzer & other vehicles - Photo threads, Axis Documents, Feldpost numbers, Postcards & Other Paper Items, The United Kingdom & its Empire and Commonwealth 1919-45, The Allies and the Neutral States in general, German Colonies and Overseas Expeditions, The end of the Ottoman Empire 1908-1923, Translation help: Breaking the Sound Barrier, Differences between SD & GESTAPO: practical point of vue, Re: Differences between SD & GESTAPO: practical point of. [43] The Maier group informed very early about the mass murder of Jews. History has indeed told us terrifying tales of the Holocaust and World War II, which claimed countless innocent lives. [27] Heinrich Mller was at that time the Gestapo operations chief. [124], An examination of 213 denunciations in Dsseldorf 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. [131] Beyond that, sleep deprivation and various forms of harassment were used as investigative methods. [91], As a result of its 1936 merger with the Kripo (National criminal police) to form sub-units of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police), the Gestapo was officially classified as a government agency. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Himmler was nominally subordinate to Frick as police chief, but as Reichsfhrer-SS, he answered only to Hitler. [104] In 1939, only 3,000 out of the total of 20,000 Gestapo men held SS ranks, and in most cases, these were honorary. [80] Known as the 20 July plot, this assassination attempt failed and Hitler was only slightly injured. After Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, Hermann Gringfuture commander of the Luftwaffe and the number two man in the Nazi Partywas named Interior Minister of Prussia. Though all largely contributed to Hitlers rise to power and his abuse of that power, the three organizations differed slightly in their functions. Under his leadership, the SS grew to a sizable organization of over 2,50,000 members. The Gestapo was responsible for keeping a close watch on Hitlers personal safety, as well as ensuring the safety of the most important Nazi officials. After initial successes, the organization was expanded during the Franco-Prussian . What is the name of the evil organization within the Third Reich? TL;DR: The Gestapo was the secret police that hunted down enemies of the Reich, while the SS were the brain-child of Himmler, a specially trained division of the military which participated in everything from invasions to crimes against humanity. [120], After 1939, when many Gestapo personnel were called up for war-related work such as service with the Einsatzgruppen, the level of overwork and understaffing at the local offices increased. Thereafter, there was a show trial overseen by Roland Freisler, followed by their execution. It had the authority of preventive arrest, and its actions were not subject to judicial appeal. 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. Sign up to receive the latest and greatest articles from our site automatically each week (give or take)right to your inbox. Although an agent in uniform wore the collar insignia of the equivalent SS rank, he was still addressed as, e.g., Operation Crossbow Preliminary missions for the Operation Overlord, https://english.radio.cz/petscheks-palace-once-headquarters-nazi-secret-police-8575365, USHMM, "Law and Justice in the Third Reich", US National Archives, "German Police Records Opened at the National Archives", Avalon Project, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, The National Socialist Document Center of Cologne, "From Nazi to Criminal to Post-War Spy: German Intelligence Hired Klaus Barbie as Agent (20 January 2011)", "Press Release nr00-52: German Police Records Opened at the National Archives", Festung Furulund magasinet Dagbladet.no, Collection of testimonies concerning Gestapo activity in occupied Poland during WWII in "Chronicles of Terror" database, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gestapo&oldid=1151862694, Reactionaries, liberals and opposition (A3). Most SiPo members joined the SS and held a rank in both organisations. Confidential office hostile foreigners, Occupied territories France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Denmark (D4), Department E (Security and counterintelligence), Viktor Harnischfeger (Dsseldorf Gestapo Criminal Commissar). by Starinov 12 Aug 2002, 21:51, Post Bauz, Ingrid; Sigrid Brggemann; Roland Maier, eds. Schutzstaffel Agency overview Type Paramilitary Jurisdiction Nazi Germany German-occupied Europe Headquarters Prinz-Albrecht-Strae . [25] Shortly thereafter, Himmler created the Kriminalpolizei (Kripo; Criminal Police), merging it with the Gestapo into the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police), under Heydrich's command. Gestapo members Hermann Gring, Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Arthur Seyss-Inquart were individually convicted. Gring outflanked him by removing the Prussian political and intelligence departments from the state interior ministry. [131] Failing that, torture and planting evidence were common methods of resolving a case, especially if the case concerned someone Jewish. Whereas the Gestapo agents, were mostly of police background. This move also gave Himmler operational control over Germany's entire detective force. The leader of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, along with a few other senior Nazi officials carefully plotted and planned the murder of the leader of the SA. Together, they began convincing Hitler of Rhm being a threat to the Nazi regime, his hunger for more power, and his supposed plans to overthrow Hitler. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. [7][8] 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). [25] The idea was to fully identify and integrate the party agency (SD) with the state agency (SiPo). Founded in 1999. The name Gestapo is an abbreviation for its official German name "Geheime Staatspolizei." The direct English translation is "Secret State Police." The Gestapo was not the first political police force in German history. Before establishing the SA as a paramilitary wing, it was known as a sports division in the party to avoid suspicion. Department C (Administration and Party Affairs), central administrative office of the Gestapo, responsible for card files of all personnel including all officials. On 26 April 1933, Gring 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". There were plenty of intelligence agencies in Nazi Germany with overlapping portfolios. Arrested by the Gestapo in 1943, he was sent to. Many others were beaten and tortured to death. [93], 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. [4] "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. [83], Some Germans were convinced that it was their duty to apply all possible expedients to end the war as quickly as possible. by Walter Schellenberg 16 Aug 2002, 02:48, Post While they may seem very similar, they actually differed in the roles they played. These three organizations always rivaled each other and their competences often overlapped. 6789 Quail Hill Pkwy, Suite 211 Irvine CA 92603. SIPO was the security police involved in protecting the security of the country it was state funded. [115] The District Office in Nuremberg, which had the responsibility for all of northern Bavaria, employed a total of 80100 full-term informers between 1943 and 1945. However, this fact was cashed upon to invite empathy from the public as well as to add shock value. The power of the Gestapo was used to focus upon political opponents, ideological dissenters (clergy and religious organisations), career criminals, the Sinti and Roma population, handicapped persons, homosexuals, and above all, the Jews. Before 1929, the SS wore uniforms similar to the SA. They were taught that the SS was not only an elite group in the Nazi regime, but also in all of humanity. [77] 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. Also known as the Storm Troopers or the Brownshirts (they were called the Brownshirts because of their brown uniforms), it was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, whose violent tactics played a huge role in Hitlers rise to power in Germany. [54] The extreme anti-semitism and neo-pagan heresies of the Nazis caused some Christians to outright resist,[55] and Pope Pius XI to issue the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge denouncing Nazism and warning Catholics against joining or supporting the Party. [148] 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. 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. The Gestapo was officially declared to be answerable only and only to Hitler, and could not be reviewed by the judiciary in any way. Post the Night of Long Knives, the SA had downsized in its power and value. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. [130], Normal methods of investigation included various forms of blackmail, threats and extortion to secure "confessions". Leading members of the most famous of these groups, the White Rose, were arrested by the police and turned over to the Gestapo. [26] The Gestapo became a national state agency. [33] In January 1943, Himmler appointed Ernst Kaltenbrunner RSHA chief; almost seven months after Heydrich had been assassinated. [50], 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 Wrzburg, where people acquiesced to the regime either through accommodation, collaboration, or simple compliance. [107], 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. It ransacked homes, tortured people, deported them to concentration camps, and also killed them for no apparent reason. [42] 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. The difference between SS and the Gestapo The Gestapo is an organization of the police that existed only around 1934-1939 while the SS exited longer for about sixteen years between 1929 and 1945, before being abolished. Corrections? 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. This is an apolitical forum for discussions on the Axis nations and related topics hosted by the Axis History Factbook in cooperation with Christian Ankerstjernes Panzerworld and Christoph Awender's WW2 day by day. The Nazi Party was well aware of homosexual preferences of Rhm and some other SA members. [32] The Gestapo became Amt IV (Department IV) of RSHA and Mller became the Gestapo Chief, with Heydrich as his immediate superior. This represented a radical departure from German tradition, which held that law enforcement was (mostly) a Land (state) and local matter. As late as 6 June 1944, Heinrich Mllerconcerned about the leakage of information to the Alliesset up a special unit called Sonderkommando Jerzy that was meant to root out the Polish intelligence network in western and southwestern Europe. [88] On 26 April 1933, he reorganised the force's Amt III as the Gestapa (better-known by the "sobriquet" Gestapo),[89] a secret state police intended to serve the Nazi cause. [63], Despite male homosexuality being considered a greater danger to "national survival", lesbianism was likewise viewed as unacceptabledeemed gender nonconformityand a number of individual reports on lesbians can be found in Gestapo files. Members of the three convicted groups, however, were subject to apprehension by Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and France. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Hermann Gring, then Prussian minister of the interior, detached the political and espionage units from the regular Prussian police, filled their ranks with thousands of Nazis, and, on April 26, 1933, reorganized them under his personal command as the Gestapo. [81][82] 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. Gestapo members were included in the Einsatzgruppen (deployment groups), which were mobile death squads that followed the German regular army into Poland and Russia to kill Jews and other undesirables. Bureau IV B4 of the Gestapo, under Adolf Eichmann, organized the deportation of millions of Jews from other occupied countries to the extermination camps in Poland. At that time, the Gestapo was condemned as a criminal organisation, along with the SS. [25] This action effectively merged the police into the SS and removed it from Frick's control. [99] 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. In December, 1932, Schleicher became chancellor. Wilhelm Canaris, born January 1, 1887, in Aplerbeck, Germany, was celebrated as a war hero during the First World War for his exploits as a submarine captain, and he later became a top military spy for Germany. [147], 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. [16], 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 Rhm. At that time, the SS consisted of approximately 300 members. [149] Whereas in France, the number of members in the Carlingue (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. Hitler initially refused to believe the claims against Rhm, even though his officials provided him with created evidence. The SD was mainly an information-gathering agency, while the Gestapoand to a degree the Criminal Police (Kriminalpolizei or Kripo)was the executive agency of the political police system. [119] Gellately has also suggested that the Gestapo was "a reactive organisationconstructed within German society and whose functioning was structurally dependent on the continuing co-operation of German citizens". [151][152] Nineteen of the 22 were convicted, and twelveMartin Bormann (in absentia), Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Hermann Gring, Alfred Jodl, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Alfred Rosenberg, Fritz Sauckel, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Julius Streicherwere given the death penalty. The SD sleeve diamond (SD Raute) insignia was worn on the lower left sleeve, even by SiPo men who were not in the SD. Abfraction is a common dental problem caused by the flexing of teeth during biting and . Answer (1 of 3): There were three secret services/police in the Third Reich. Heinrich Himmler The Gestapo aided and supported the mobile killing units, and even provided its men for the same. Complaints from the Waffen-SS led to a change of rank insignia shoulder boards from those of the Waffen-SS to those of the Ordnungspolizei. The Gestapo had its own system of arrests, judiciary, and execution. The ordinary uniformed ones doing office jobs were called Algemeine SS or ordinary SS The size of the SS increased dramatically and eventually had 38 Divisions of which half were not German. to the Allies. [5] Up to 30 April 1944, at least 6,639 persons were arrested under Nacht und Nebel orders. Discussions on all aspects of the SS and Polizei. The SS also identified and arrested Jews in the German-occupied territories.