Gestapo: Difference between revisions

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The force was created by [[Hermann Göring]] in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of [[Free State of Prussia|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 {{lang|de|[[Sicherheitspolizei]]}} (SiPo; Security Police). From 27 September 1939, it was administered by the [[Reich Security Main Office]] (RSHA). It became known as {{lang|de|Amt}} (Dept) 4 of the RSHA and was considered a sister organisation to the {{lang|de|[[Sicherheitsdienst]]}} (SD; Security Service).

==History==

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-K0108-0501-003, Rudolf Diels.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Rudolf Diels]], first Commander of the Gestapo; 1933–1934]]

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R96954, Berlin, Hermann Göring ernennt Himmler zum Leiter der Gestapo.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Heinrich Himmler]] and [[Hermann Göring]] at the meeting to formally hand over control of the Gestapo (Berlin, 1934)]]

Concerned that Diels was not ruthless enough to effectively counteract the power of the {{lang|de|[[Sturmabteilung]]}} (SA), Göring handed over control of the Gestapo to Himmler on 20 April 1934.{{sfn|Evans|2005|p=54}} 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 ({{lang|de|[[Sicherheitsdienst]]}}, SD).{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=61}} 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 (Gestapo)|Heinrich Müller]], [[Franz Josef Huber]], and [[Josef Meisinger]].{{sfn|Tuchel|Schattenfroh|1987|p=80}} Many of the Gestapo employees in the newly established offices were young and highly educated in a wide variety of academic fields and moreover, represented a new generation of National Socialist adherents, who were hard-working, efficient, and prepared to carry the Nazi state forward through the persecution of their political opponents.{{sfn|Tuchel|Schattenfroh|1987|pp=82–83}}

[[File:Gestapo border inspection stamp - 1938.jpg|thumb|upright|1938 Gestapo border inspection stamp applied when leaving Germany]]

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.{{sfn|Longerich|2012|pp=469, 470}}  The Gestapo became {{lang|de|Amt IV}} (Department IV) of RSHA and Müller became the Gestapo Chief, with Heydrich as his immediate superior.{{sfn|Weale|2010|p=131}} After Heydrich's 1942 assassination, Himmler assumed the leadership of the RSHA until January 1943, when [[Ernst Kaltenbrunner]] was appointed chief.{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=661}} Müller remained the Gestapo Chief. His direct subordinate [[Adolf Eichmann]] headed the Gestapo's Office of Resettlement and then its Office of Jewish Affairs ({{lang|de|Referat IV B4}} or Sub-Department IV, Section B4).{{sfn|Weale|2010|p=145}} During the Holocaust, Eichmann's department within the Gestapo coordinated the mass deportation of European Jews to the Nazis' [[extermination camps]].

==Counterintelligence==

===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.{{sfn|Longerich|2019|pp=311–312}} 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 {{lang|de|[[Tempelhofer Feld]]}} that was nationally broadcast, during which he extolled the nation's revival and working class solidarity.{{sfn|Longerich|2019|p=312}} 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.{{sfn|Delarue|2008|p=21}} 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]] (DAF), a Nazi organisation placed under the leadership of [[Robert Ley]].{{sfn|Longerich|2019|pp=312–313}} For their part, this was the first time the Gestapo operated under its new name since its 26 April 1933 founding in Prussia.{{sfn|Delarue|2008|p=21}}

===Religious dissent===

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.{{sfn|Rees|1997|p=64}}{{sfn|Mallmann|Paul|1994|pp=168–169}} Work done by [[social history|social historians]] such as [[Detlev Peukert]], Robert Gellately, Reinhard Mann, Inge Marssolek, René Otto, [[Klaus-Michael Mallmann]] and Paul Gerhard, which by focusing on what the local offices were doing has shown the Gestapo{{'}}s almost total dependence on denunciations from ordinary Germans, and very much discredited the older "[[Authoritarian personality|Big Brother]]" picture with the Gestapo having its eyes and ears everywhere.{{sfn|Mallmann|Paul|1994|pp=172–173}} For example, of the 84 cases in [[Würzburg]] of {{lang|de|[[Rassenschande]]}} ("race defilement"—sexual relations with non-[[Aryan]]s), 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 Gestapo{{'}}s own "observations" of the people of Würzburg.{{sfn|Gellately|1992|p=162}}

While the total number of Gestapo officials was limited when contrasted against the represented populations, the average {{lang|de|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.{{sfn|Dams|Stolle|2014|p=35}} 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 [[Romani people|Roma]] population, [[Disability|handicapped persons]], homosexuals and above all, upon the Jews.{{sfn|Johnson|1999|pp=483–485}} "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]] was the exception, not the rule, as far as the behaviour of the vast majority of Germans was concerned."{{sfn|Evans|2006|p=114}} 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."{{sfn|Evans|2006|p=115}} 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.{{sfn|Delarue|2008|pp=83–140}} 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.{{sfn|Dams|Stolle|2014|p=82}}

==Nuremberg trials==

{{Main|Nuremberg trials|the Holocaust}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-S85918, Berlin, Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, zerstörtes Gestapo-Gebäude.jpg|thumb|250px|Gestapo building at Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 8, after the 1945 bombing]]

{{Officeholder table

| order2            = {{white|2}}

| officeholder      = [[Reinhard Heydrich]]

| officeholder_sort = Heydrich, Reinhard

{{Officeholder table

| order2            = {{white|3}}

| officeholder      = [[Heinrich Müller (Gestapo)|Heinrich Müller]]

| officeholder_sort = Müller, Heinrich

==Ranks and uniforms==

The Gestapo maintained police detective ranks which were used for all officers, both those who were and who were not concurrently SS members.{{Efn|Although an agent in uniform wore the collar insignia of the equivalent SS rank, he was still addressed as, e.g., {{lang|de|Herr Kriminalrat}}, not {{lang|de|Sturmbannführer}}. The stock character of the "Gestapo Major", usually dressed in the prewar black SS uniform, is a figment of Hollywood's imagination.}}