[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. While they may seem very similar, they actually differed in the roles they played. to the Allies. Though all largely contributed to Hitlers rise to power and his abuse of that power, the three organizations differed slightly in their functions. Soon afterward, Gring detached the political and intelligence sections from the police and filled their ranks with Nazis. While they may seem very similar, they actually differed in the roles they played. [36] An oddity of the system was that the prisoner had to sign his own Schutzhaftbefehl, an order declaring that the person had requested imprisonmentpresumably out of fear of personal harm. Meaning Protective Echelon in German, the SS was made up of fervently anti-Semite Germans who possessed deep racial hatred. [142], 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. [58], In Dachau: The Official History 19331945, Paul Berben wrote that clergy were watched closely, and frequently denounced, arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps: "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". [72], 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. Schleicher and Bredow tried to control the activities of the National Socialist . Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Rhm himself was arrested, put into prison and given a chance to commit suicide. [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). The Gestapo was somewhat of a division of the SS, making SS the parent organization. Already in early June, "[141] Once the German armies advanced into enemy territory, they were accompanied by Einsatzgruppen staffed by officers from the Gestapo and Kripo, who usually operated in the rear areas to administer and police the occupied land. [121], 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. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. 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. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. However, certain Polish information about the movement of German police and SS units to the East during 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union was similar to information British intelligence secretly obtained through intercepting and decoding German police and SS messages sent by radio telegraphy. Hitler's rise to power and his rule in Nazi Germany has been attributed to the aid and support of several people, with three organizations playing a vital role - the SS, the SA, and the Gestapo. As the war progressed, however, the number of people working for the Gestapo increased to approximately 150,000 men. [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. [96][97], In total, there were some fifty-four regional Gestapo offices across the German federal states. 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. 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. Nevertheless, in practice there was jurisdictional overlap and operational conflict between the SD and Gestapo. [62] 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. [123] For example, of the 84 cases in Wrzburg of Rassenschande ("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 Gestapo's own "observations" of the people of Wrzburg. After the war ended, the Gestapo was declared a criminal organisation by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the Nuremberg trials, and several top Gestapo members were sentenced to death. [28] He answered to Heydrich, Heydrich answered only to Himmler, and Himmler answered only to Hitler. During World War II, the Gestapo played a key role in the Holocaust. [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. [131] Beyond that, sleep deprivation and various forms of harassment were used as investigative methods. After his escape, he rejoined the army as a Hauptmann, with seniority dating from May 1st of 1934. . by Walter Schellenberg 16 Aug 2002, 02:48, Post In 1939, the SA was largely used as a training center for the Army when the war started. [61] Homosexuals were correspondingly considered a threat to the Volksgemeinschaft (National Community). Abwehr. [74] 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. After the Gestapo uncovered the "Operation Seven" funds that had been sent abroad for the emigrants, Bonhoeffer and his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi were arrested in April 1943. This was partly because of the Venlo incident of 9 November 1939,[76] in which SD and Gestapo agents, posing as anti-Nazis in the Netherlands, kidnapped two British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) officers after having lured them to a meeting to discuss peace terms. 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. Bauz, Ingrid; Sigrid Brggemann; Roland Maier, eds. The SS initially had an all-black uniform specially designed for its men, which was replaced by uniforms in camouflaging colors during the war. We hope you enjoy this website. [34] Mller remained the Gestapo Chief. [104] Additional staff were added in March 1938 consequent the annexation of Austria and again in October 1938 with the acquisition of the Sudetenland. [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. What Is The Difference Between The SD And The Gestapo? 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. [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. [51] For their part, this was the first time the Gestapo operated under its new name since its 26 April 1933 founding in Prussia. 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. Heinrich Himmler [43] The Maier group informed very early about the mass murder of Jews. In 1938, he made efforts to hinder Hitler from attacking . (2013). These cookies do not store any personal information. Abwehr was the German military intelligence organization. [114] "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. In 1931, the SA was handed over to Ernst Rhm, who headed it till his murder in 1934. [106] In Wrzburg, 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. [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. ), 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 . 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. [158], The Gestapo was a secretive plainclothes agency and agents typically wore civilian suits. [68] During the first five months of 1943, the Gestapo arrested thousands suspected of resistance activities and carried out numerous executions. The Gestapo was the political police force of the Nazi state. 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. The killing units wiped out entire villages as a result. Student opposition leaders were executed in late February, and a major opposition organisation, the Oster Circle, was destroyed in April 1943. Together with the SS, the Gestapo managed the treatment of inferior races, such as Jews and Roma (Gypsies). [66] According to Gestapo case files, the majority of those arrested for homosexuality were males between eighteen and twenty-five years of age. [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. He hoped to merge the SA with the Army under his own leadership and continued to urge for a second Nazi revolution, one that was socialist in nature. The SS - Definition & Facts Files, card, indexes, information and administration (C1), Department D (Occupied Territories), administration for regions outside the, Protectorate affairs, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, regions of Yugoslavia, Greece (D1). 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. [11] Gring took over the Gestapo in 1934 and urged Hitler to extend the agency's authority throughout Germany. [121][122] Work done by social historians such as Detlev Peukert, Robert Gellately, Reinhard Mann, Inge Marssolek, Ren 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 "Big Brother" picture with the Gestapo having its eyes and ears everywhere. When the war started, the Gestapo basically had to identify and arrest any suspicious person and send him/her to a concentration camp, or kill him/her on the spot. [29] The Gestapo was specifically exempted from responsibility to administrative courts, where citizens normally could sue the state to conform to laws. [63], Between June 1942 and March 1943, student protests were calling for an end to the Nazi regime. [70], Between 1934 and 1938, opponents of the Nazi regime and their fellow travellers began to emerge. Frick did not have the political power to take on Gring by himself so he allied with Himmler. 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. Rhms leadership and not-so-secret desire of merging with the Army made many senior Nazi officials feel threatened. To ensure that history does NOT repeat itself, it is vital that we realize that humanity is above all, and not any one race or ethnic group. [154], The IMT subsequently convicted three of the groups: the Nazi leadership corps, the SS (including the SD) and the Gestapo. The Gestapo was established in 1933 by Hermann Gring, with the aim of consolidating Nazi . [5] Up to 30 April 1944, at least 6,639 persons were arrested under Nacht und Nebel orders. [26] The Gestapo became a national state agency. These were Waffen S. The SS Schutz Staffel were originally Hitler's bodygaurd. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 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. As the years progressed, the SA began to be overshadowed by the SS and the Gestapo.