Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Answer (1 of 4): It was of a piece with the Nazi governing policy: the Fhrerprinzip that created a a plethora of government agencies engaged in non-stop internecine bureaucratic turf wars. [133], While the total number of Gestapo officials was limited when contrasted against the represented populations, the average Volksgenosse (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. [46] Because the Gestapo seemed omniscient and omnipotent, 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. It successfully thwarted Operation Valkyrie, wherein an attempt to assassinate Hitler was made by some senior Nazi officials themselves. [155] These groupsthe Nazi Party and government leadership, the German General staff and High Command (OKW); the Sturmabteilung (SA); the Schutzstaffel (SS), including the Sicherheitsdienst (SD); and the Gestapohad an aggregate membership exceeding two million, making a large number of their members liable to trial when the organisations were convicted. The SS was given the complete authority of all the concentration camps in Germany as well as the occupied regions after 1934. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. 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. [143] Correspondingly, Gestapo offices were established in a territory once occupied. Arrests, torture, and executions were common. [131] Beyond that, sleep deprivation and various forms of harassment were used as investigative methods. [125] The Gestapo always showed a special interest in denunciations concerning sexual matters, especially cases concerning Rassenschande 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,[126] Jews, Catholics and homosexuals. [115] The Gestapo office in Saarbrcken had 50 full-term informers in 1939. [130], Normal methods of investigation included various forms of blackmail, threats and extortion to secure "confessions". 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. [20] Several Nazi chieftains, among them Gring, Joseph Goebbels, Rudolf Hess, and Himmler, began a concerted campaign to convince Hitler to take action against Rhm. [27] Heinrich Mller was at that time the Gestapo operations chief. Gestapo members Hermann Gring, Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Arthur Seyss-Inquart were individually convicted. [68] During the first five months of 1943, the Gestapo arrested thousands suspected of resistance activities and carried out numerous executions. [129] Most of the political investigations took place between 1933 and 1935 with the all-time high of 57 cases in 1935. [103] The vast majority of Gestapo officers came from the police forces of the Weimar Republic; members of the SS, the SA, and the Nazi Party also joined the Gestapo but were less numerous. The infamous Night of Long Knives, in June 1934, saw the murder of Rhm and several important SA members. 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. With Frick's support, Himmler (pushed on by his right-hand man, Reinhard Heydrich) took over the political police in state-after-state. Gestapo. 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. Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Gring along with some Army officials began plotting Rhms downfall. Updates? [80] Known as the 20 July plot, this assassination attempt failed and Hitler was only slightly injured. "[145] Nonetheless, German authorities ordered the mobilisation of reserve Polish police forces, known as the Blue Police, which strengthened the Nazi police presence and carried out numerous "police" functions; in some cases, its functionaries even identified and rounded up Jews or performed other unsavory duties on behalf of their German masters. 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. (Hitler felt he deserved the chance to kill himself rather than have someone else kill him.) [145] Many of the auxiliary police personnel operating on behalf of German Order Police, the SD, and Gestapo were members of the Schutzmannschaft, which included staffing by Ukrainians, Belorussians, Russians, Estonians, Lithuanians, and Latvians. The Gestapo had terrible methods of interrogating people who they deemed to be anti-Nazi or suspicious in any way. ), however, is missing: a security-classified withdrawal card remains in place, and the withdrawn item is listed among the contents of an envelope of withdrawn items subsequently declassified by the IWG, however that document was not in the . The SA, or the Sturmabteilung, were formed in Munich, Germany, in 1921 by Adolf Hitler himself. To join the SS, prospective members had to prove that none of them had any sort of Jewish roots in the ancestry traced back to over one hundred years. He had to count on his senior officials support for his rule, and he gave the go-ahead for the plan to put Rhm out of the picture once and for all. 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". Those who were arrested were tried, and sent to prison or were executed, depending on their role in the Gestapo. by Peter J. Hertel 16 Aug 2002, 05:52, Return to The Phil Nix SS & Polizei section. Denunciation was the exception, not the rule, as far as the behaviour of the vast majority of Germans was concerned. Abwehr. [34] The specific internal departments of Amt IV were as follows:[95], In 1941 Referat N, the central command office of the Gestapo was formed. [138], As an instrument of Nazi power, terror, and repression, the Gestapo operated throughout occupied Europe. [66] According to Gestapo case files, the majority of those arrested for homosexuality were males between eighteen and twenty-five years of age. [25] This action effectively merged the police into the SS and removed it from Frick's control. Under his leadership, the SS grew to a sizable organization of over 2,50,000 members. The Geheime Staatspolizei (German pronunciation: [ham tatspolitsa] (listen); transl. [75], Early efforts to resist the Nazis with aid from abroad were hindered when the opposition's peace feelers to the Western Allies did not meet with success. This article was most recently revised and updated by, Gestapo - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). 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. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. [104] Additional staff were added in March 1938 consequent the annexation of Austria and again in October 1938 with the acquisition of the Sudetenland. Heinrich Himmler [86] A year after the organisation's inception, Gring 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. Three othersHans Fritzsche, Hjalmar Schacht, and Franz von Papenwere acquitted. According to the trials that were held after Germanys defeat in the war, the SS was responsible for a majority of the crimes committed in Nazi Germany. Abfraction is a common dental problem caused by the flexing of teeth during biting and . Some pastors, like the Protestant clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer, paid for their opposition with their lives. Bonhoeffer was initially charged with conspiring to rescue Jews, using his foreign travels for non-intelligence matters, and misusing his intelligence position . 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 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. After the Supreme Leader (Hitler), came senior groups, lower groups, regiments, battalions, and troops, to name a few parts of the structure of the SA. Sabotage efforts were undertaken by members of the Abwehr (military intelligence) leadership, as they recruited people known to oppose the Nazi regime. The organization predates the emergence of Germany itself, and was founded to gather intelligence information for the Prussian government during a war with neighboring Austria. Rhm himself was arrested, put into prison and given a chance to commit suicide. 1938 Gestapo border inspection stamp applied when leaving Germany On 17 June 1936, Hitler decreed the unification of all police forces in Germany and named Himmler as Chief of German Police. [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. However, with the Abwehr and GFP being flooded with work, the situation changed and the SS shrewdly used the opportunity to gain a foothold in Belgium. There were plenty of intelligence agencies in Nazi Germany with overlapping portfolios. Post the successful execution of both the leader as well as several of his followers, the SS was granted independent entity by Hitler as a reward for their services and loyalty to the Nazi Party, and more importantly, to Hitler. In this Historyplex write-up, we have distinguished the three organizations based on their formation, objectives, and responsibilities, to name a few factors. [33] In January 1943, Himmler appointed Ernst Kaltenbrunner RSHA chief; almost seven months after Heydrich had been assassinated. Rhm had been one of the earliest supporters of Hitler and was a personal friend to him too. [142] 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. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. 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. [100] It was the Gestapo chief, SS-Brigadierfhrer Heinrich Mller, who kept Hitler abreast of the killing operations in the Soviet Union and who issued orders to the four Einsatzgruppen that their continual work in the east was to be "presented to the Fhrer. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. The Gestapo had its own system of arrests, judiciary, and execution. [92], In September 1939, the SiPo and SD were merged into the newly created Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA; Reich Security Main Office). [96][97], In total, there were some fifty-four regional Gestapo offices across the German federal states. 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. to the Allies. GESTAPO short for geheime Staatspolizei formed in Prussia by Goring . These units traveled to villages in the German-occupied regions and shot down civilians, men, women, and children included, and buried them in mass graves. 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. Night of Long Knives and the Downfall of Sturmabteilung. These included the non-violent resistance of Hans and Sophie Scholl, two leaders of the White Rose student group. [158], The Gestapo was a secretive plainclothes agency and agents typically wore civilian suits. Diels was appointed with the title of chief of Abteilung Ia (Department 1a) of the Prussian Secret Police. [5] Up to 30 April 1944, at least 6,639 persons were arrested under Nacht und Nebel orders. The Gestapo was somewhat of a division of the SS, making SS the parent organization. Answer (1 of 3): There were three secret services/police in the Third Reich. Thereafter, there was a show trial overseen by Roland Freisler, followed by their execution. [131] Failing that, torture and planting evidence were common methods of resolving a case, especially if the case concerned someone Jewish. Later on, the SS had its own special uniforms that distinguished it from other organizations such as the SA and the Gestapo. Meaning Protective Echelon in German, the SS was made up of fervently anti-Semite Germans who possessed deep racial hatred. The Abwehr ( German for resistance or defence, but the word usually means counterintelligence in a military context; pronounced [apve]) was the German military-intelligence service for the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht from 1920 to 1945. History has indeed told us terrifying tales of the Holocaust and World War II, which claimed countless innocent lives. [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. From 27 September 1939, it was administered by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). [157], After the war, U.S. Counterintelligence Corps employed the former Lyon Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie for his anti-communist efforts and also helped him escape to Bolivia. We hope the above sections have made the identification of all three organizations clearer. [44][45][a], 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. Rhms leadership and not-so-secret desire of merging with the Army made many senior Nazi officials feel threatened. Read on for the difference between the three ruthless organizations. [9], The first commander of the Gestapo was Rudolf Diels, a protg of Gring. [107] Over time, membership in the Gestapo included ideological training, particularly once Werner Best assumed a leading role for training in April 1936. [105] One man who served in the Prussian Gestapo in 1933 recalled that most of his co-workers "were by no means Nazis. The Jewish Question needed to be solved, and it was the SS who took up the job. Simultaneously, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, the Nazi paramilitary corps, together with his aide Reinhard Heydrich, similarly reorganized the police of Bavaria and the remaining German states. There was one other significant difference between the Heer and Waffen- SS: Each member of the latter was required to have his blood type tattooed on the underside of his left upper arm to make it easier for medics to treat him on the battlefield. [22] Once persuaded, Hitler acted by setting Himmler's SS into action, who then proceeded to murder over 100 of Hitler's identified antagonists. In the occupied territories, the formal relationship between local units of the Gestapo, criminal police, and SD was slightly closer. 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.