(acronym of Geheime Staatspoli - zei; Secret State Police), the Prussian, and later the Third Reich's, secret state police and the Nazis' main tool of oppression and destruction.
The Gestapo originated in the political department of the police headquarters in Berlin during the Weimar Republic. At that time, the department served the government of Prussia as a domestic intelligence agency. Later in the 1920s, the Prussian political police became a semi - official federal bureau of investigation, although a much less powerful one than the American FBI. When Adolf Hitler became the chancellor of Germany, Hermann goring was made the interior minister of Prussia, thereby taking over the Prussian political police. Goring appointed Rudolf Diels its first executive director in his bid to consolidate Nazi power in Prussia.
Diels, a Prussian civil servant and fellow traveler with the Nazis, served as the necessary tool for transforming an intelligence organization serving a democratic state of law into a separate and executive police - intelligence apparatus of a totalitarian dictatorship. He helped purge "politically unreliable elements" and Jewish officials. He also established a semi - independent headquarters, the Gestapo(Geheimes Staatspolizeiamt),comprised of low - level but experienced Prussian bureaucrats.
Gestapo Prison
The First Gestapo Law
The First Gestapo Law, of April 26, 1933, officially gave Diels the authority of an independent state political - police commissioner, although his field branches (Staatspolizeistellen) at first remained under the control of the Prussian provincial governors. The emergency regulations of February 28, 1933, gavethe Gestapo complete freedom to impose"protective custody" (Schutzhaft) upon anyone it wanted, to prevent undesirable political activities, and to wiretap political suspects and follow all their activities. The torture and execution of prisoners without regular legal proceedings remained illegal, but it nevertheless often took place in makeshift SA (Sturmabteilung; Storm Troopers) and SS bunkers and concentration camps already in existence. Diels tried to gain control over the concentration camps. However, he eventually had to come to terms with the SA and the growing power of the SS, and to be satisfied with playing a major role in the camp system without controlling it. During 1933, SA and SS intrigues drove Diels to flee abroad for a time, but he reassumed his position in November of that year, accepting an honorary SS officer's rank.
Gestapo "House Prison"
The Second Gestapo Law
The Second Gestapo Law, of November 30, 1933, made Goring head of the political police and Diels directly responsible to him. Thesecret police now became officially known as the Gestapo. It was free of legal or administrative lawsuits against its actions, and it assumed direct control over its field branches. Specially trained, ruthless bureaucrats produced regular intelligence reports on political and ideological "enemies of the Reich." In 1934, a Jewish Section was established in the Gestapo. Diels eventually managed to gain nominal control of the Prussian concentration camps; his efforts to gain such control, along with his efforts to centralize the political police, ultimately served the Nazis, who were the real masters of Germany.
Prisoners forced to dig their own graves before being executed by SS Haffen
The Gestapo under Himmler and Heydrich
Under Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, the Gestapo played an important role in the amalgamation of the SS and the police. First, Himmler established SS control over the political police and concentration camps in Bavaria in early 1933. Later he imposed the Bavarian model on all the German states, including Prussia, where as Goring's deputy he took over the Gestapo on April 20, 1934. He made Heydrich its director, and a group of low - ranking Bavarian political - police officials were made SS officers in allegiance to Himmler. Later in the year, Himmler was made the chief of all the political police in Germany.
Although throughout Germany the concentration camps came under the control of the SS, the Gestapo had the power to send its victims to them. Moreover, through a "political section" in the camps' headquarters, it could order that prisoners be released, tortured, or executed. Similar treatment awaited its victims in its own basements. To circumvent the criminal code that forbade torture and murder, the Gestapo adopted methods, tested in the Dachau concentration camp, of fabricating natural causes of death or serving the inmates' families notice that the prisoners had been "shot while trying to escape."
Heinrich Himmler(left), followed by Reinhard Heydrich
The Reorganization of the Police System
In June 1936 Himmler officially became the chief of all the German police, his title being Reichsfuhrer - SS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei (Reich Leader of the SS and Chief of the German Police). Now that he controlled both the concentration camps and the police, the amalgamation of the SS and police could be completed. Himmler set about reorganizing the police system. This whole process, which had Hitler's consent, helped him gain complete independence from the state and the Reich bureaucracy. Himmler set up two main branches of the police force, the ordnungspolizei (Order Police; Orpo) and the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police; Sipo). The Orpo was the "regular" police
and included the Schutzpolizei (Protection Police -- the uniformed officers), the Gendarmerie (rural police), the Feuerschutzpolizei (fire fighting police), and various technical and auxiliary services. Sipo was composed of the Gestapo and the kriminalpolizei (Criminal Police). The Gestapo and the field units (now renamed Staatspolizeileitstellen; state regional headquarters) took over all the German political police agencies. After Himmler's takeover, the Gestapo grew enormously with the recruitment of personnel lacking the traditional qualifications for public service.
Mass grave of dead Jews slaughtered by Gestapo
The Structure of the Gestapo Until 1939
From the time of Himmler's takeover until September 1939, when the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office; RSHA) was established, the structure of the Gestapo stayed the same. Division I was responsible for organization and finance, including legal matters. Its director between 1935 and 1939 was Dr. Werner best, the SS lawyer and SD (Sicherheitsdienst; Security Service) executive who perfected the legal side of the Gestapo's circumvention of the criminal code and its other activities. Division II, under Heydrich's direct control, was the main body of the Gestapo. Under Heinrich Muller, Section II 1 was charged with fighting the "enemies" of the regime, to which belonged the Communists, Social Democrats, the outlawed trade unions, monarchists, and anti - Nazi ultraconservatives. Special sections dealt with Austrian matters, Jews, other religious groups, freemasons, and immigrants. The Gestapo intensified the regime's policies of segregation and emigration until 1938, in competition with the SD's radical and aggressive treatment of the "Jewish question." Division III was the counterintelligence unit (Abwehrpolizei), under an SD agent, Gunther Palten, who had already penetrated the Gestapo in Diels's time. Between November 1937 and October 1938, special Gestapo - SDunits were trained to terrorize and Nazify foreign countries. Following Adolf Eichmann's initiative in driving many Jews from Austria later in 1938, Muller, with Eichmann as executive, assumed the overall control of the forced emigration of the Jews from all Nazi - controlled territories. After Kristallnacht (November 9 - 10, 1938), the Gestapo became the main instrument of the regime's anti-Jewish policies.
Gestapo Headquarters
***Thank you for visiting our site, hope you've become more knowledgeable because of it***
This site was created by Chris Nahorney w/ the aid of Sean Crowe. Both are students of Midland Secondary School (MSS)
