Gestapo vs. Ss - What's the difference? | Ask Difference [40], Polish agents also gathered detailed information about the morale of German soldiers in the East. The Abwehr was a German intelligence organization from 1921 to 1944. Instead of being exclusively a Prussian state agency, the Gestapo became a national one as a sub-office of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police). The simple answer is that Josef Jakobs, Karel Richter and all of the Operation LENA spies who landed on the green shores of England were agents of the Abwehr, the military intelligence arm of the German Army. [146] While in many countries the Nazis occupied in the East, the local domestic police forces supplemented German operations, noted Holocaust historian, Raul Hilberg, asserts that "those of Poland were least involved in anti-Jewish actions. They were subject to co-ordination by inspectors of the security police and SD on the staffs of the local higher SS and police leaders, however, and one of the principal functions of the local SD units was to serve as the intelligence agency for the local Gestapo units. Whereas the Gestapo agents, were mostly of police background. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Leading members of the most famous of these groups, the White Rose, were arrested by the police and turned over to the Gestapo. 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. [116], According to Canadian historian Robert Gellately's analysis of the local offices established, the Gestapo wasfor the most partmade up of bureaucrats and clerical workers who depended upon denunciations by citizens for their information. within the Reich as the Gestapo, in the occu-pied countries it was known as the Sipo-SD. The power of the Gestapo included the use of what was called, Schutzhaft"protective custody", a euphemism for the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings. Rhm had been one of the earliest supporters of Hitler and was a personal friend to him too. [67] However, resistance groups and those who were in moral or political opposition to the Nazis were stalled by the fear of reprisals from the Gestapo. [102], In 1933, there was no purge of the German police forces. The Gestapo was officially declared to be answerable only and only to Hitler, and could not be reviewed by the judiciary in any way. 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. The SD sleeve diamond (SD Raute) insignia was worn on the lower left sleeve, even by SiPo men who were not in the SD. [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. For the most part, members of the church did not offer political resistance but simply wanted to ensure that organizational doctrine remained intact. 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. [128], Of the political cases, 61 people were investigated for suspicion of belonging to the KPD, 44 for the SPD and 69 for other political parties. The stricter laws did not apply to lesbians as their behaviour was never officially criminalised, even though their behaviours were labelled "deviant". It is quite likely that you have come across the terms SS, SA, and Gestapo frequently when studying or reading world history, especially the history of Germany and other parts of Europe from the 1920s to the 1940s. [71] Most people quickly learned that open opposition was dangerous since Gestapo informants and agents were widespread. In April 1934, Himmler was named head of Germany's secret state police, the "Geheime Staatspolizei," more commonly known as the "Gestapo." The Gestapo, which had been established the previous. Arrested by the Gestapo in 1943, he was sent to. [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. While they may seem very similar, they actually differed in the roles they played. [12], Concerned that Diels was not ruthless enough to effectively counteract the power of the Sturmabteilung (SA), Gring handed over control of the Gestapo to Himmler on 20 April 1934. The Gestapo also cooperated extensively with the Ordnungspolizei for operations inside Germany and in the occupied territories. With its dramatic rise to power, the SA began to slowly assume themselves to be somewhat of a replacement to the German Army. [25], The Gestapo had the authority to investigate cases of treason, espionage, sabotage and criminal attacks on the Nazi Party and Germany. Three othersHans Fritzsche, Hjalmar Schacht, and Franz von Papenwere acquitted. 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. 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. [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. [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. 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. [39], In 1942, the Gestapo discovered a cache of Polish intelligence documents in Prague and were surprised to see that Polish agents and informants had been gathering detailed military information and smuggling it out to London, via Budapest and Istanbul. This represented a radical departure from German tradition, which held that law enforcement was (mostly) a Land (state) and local matter. This article was most recently revised and updated by, Gestapo - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). [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. by Walter Schellenberg 16 Aug 2002, 02:48, Post The Gestapo supplied the information which implicated the SA and ultimately enabled Himmler and Heydrich to emancipate themselves entirely from the organisation. Later, nurses, kindergarten teachers, and trained female commercial employees with an aptitude for police work were hired as female detectives after a two-year course as Kriminaloberassistentin and could promote to a Kriminalsekretrin. Already in early June, Himmler was given command over Grings Gestapo in April 1934. The Gestapo aided and supported the mobile killing units, and even provided its men for the same. 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Many of the SS officials had predicted defeat as the war came to a possible end, and escaped to South America with or without their families to avoid arrest, trial, and an almost guaranteed execution by the Allies. 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. "[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. [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. The infamous Night of Long Knives, in June 1934, saw the murder of Rhm and several important SA members. As the years progressed, the SA began to be overshadowed by the SS and the Gestapo. [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. To summarize the information above, we have provided the following short table. [68] During the first five months of 1943, the Gestapo arrested thousands suspected of resistance activities and carried out numerous executions. The force was created by Hermann Gring in 1933 by combining the various security police agencies of Prussia into one organisation. Post the Night of Long Knives, the SA had downsized in its power and value. The SA was formally declared not to be a criminal organization by the International Tribunal, and had officially ceased to exist in 1945. 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. 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). Denunciation was the exception, not the rule, as far as the behaviour of the vast majority of Germans was concerned. Hosted by Andrey. The Schutzstaffel has also been held responsible for planning, coordinating, and implementing the Final Solution, in which countless Jews and people of other seemingly undesirable ethnic groups were murdered. Corrections? 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. Bonhoeffer was initially charged with conspiring to rescue Jews, using his foreign travels for non-intelligence matters, and misusing his intelligence position . by Walter Schellenberg 12 Aug 2002, 20:05, Post [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. [129] Most of the political investigations took place between 1933 and 1935 with the all-time high of 57 cases in 1935. Himmler was nominally subordinate to Frick as police chief, but as Reichsfhrer-SS, he answered only to Hitler. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Hitler initially refused to believe the claims against Rhm, even though his officials provided him with created evidence. During World War II, the Gestapo played a key role in the Holocaust. [103] By March 1937, the Gestapo employed an estimated 6,500 people in fifty-four regional offices across the Reich. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. The organisation of the security structures in the Nazi Germany was very complicated, often quite illogical, and the limit between different organisations like Gestapo or the SD or the Abwehr, is often difficult to draw. In an attempt to assassinate Hitler, Stauffenberg planted a bomb underneath a conference table inside the Wolf's Lair field headquarters. Under the leadership of Rhm, the number of employees in the SA increased dramatically. [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. 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. [34] Mller remained the Gestapo Chief. [22] Once persuaded, Hitler acted by setting Himmler's SS into action, who then proceeded to murder over 100 of Hitler's identified antagonists. [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. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. [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. With their trade union flags waving, Hitler gave a rousing speech to the 1.5 million people assembled on Berlin's Tempelhofer Feld that was nationally broadcast, during which he extolled the nation's revival and working class solidarity. [80] Known as the 20 July plot, this assassination attempt failed and Hitler was only slightly injured. Individuals in Austrian resistance groups led by Heinrich Maier also managed to pass along the plans and the location of production facilities for V-1, V-2 rockets, Tiger tanks, and aircraft (Messerschmitt Bf 109, Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, etc.) [56][b], In an effort to counter the strength and influence of spiritual resistance, Nazi records reveal that the Gestapo's Referat B1 monitored the activities of bishops very closelyinstructing that agents be set up in every diocese, that the bishops' reports to the Vatican should be obtained and that the bishops' areas of activity must be found out. Answer (1 of 3): There were three secret services/police in the Third Reich. Many others were beaten and tortured to death. [59] Over 2,700 Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox clergy were imprisoned at Dachau alone. While they may seem very similar, they actually differed in the roles they played. 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. [27] Heinrich Mller was at that time the Gestapo operations chief. [118] Many of the local offices were understaffed and overworked, struggling with the paper load caused by so many denunciations. It had the authority of preventive arrest, and its actions were not subject to judicial appeal. 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. It ransacked homes, tortured people, deported them to concentration camps, and also killed them for no apparent reason. [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. Gestapo | Holocaust Encyclopedia [6] This gave Gring command of the largest police force in Germany. [33] After Heydrich's 1942 assassination, Himmler assumed the leadership of the RSHA until January 1943, when Ernst Kaltenbrunner was appointed chief. Yet a significant number of them still worked against the National Socialist government. [111] This admixture certainly shaped the Gestapo's public image which they sought to maintain despite their increasing workload; an image which helped them identify and eliminate enemies of the Nazi state. When Rhm refused to commit suicide, he was shot by two SS officers. What Is The Difference Between The SD And The Gestapo? 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. There were reports that Mller ended up in the foreign secret service at Washington D.C., some allege he was in Moscow working for the Soviets, still others claimed he escaped to South Americabut none of the myths have ever been proven; all of which adds to the "mysterious power of the Gestapo". [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. History has indeed told us terrifying tales of the Holocaust and World War II, which claimed countless innocent lives. (Hitler felt he deserved the chance to kill himself rather than have someone else kill him.) The only thing distinguishing them was the black hat with a skull and bones on it. In this Historyplex write-up, we have distinguished the three organizations based on their formation, objectives, and responsibilities, to name a few factors. [129] The "administrative control" category concerned those who were breaking the law concerning residency in the city. The Gestapo was somewhat of a division of the SS, making SS the parent organization. [32] The Gestapo became Amt IV (Department IV) of RSHA and Mller became the Gestapo Chief, with Heydrich as his immediate superior. by Peter J. Hertel 16 Aug 2002, 05:52, Return to The Phil Nix SS & Polizei section. [96][97], In total, there were some fifty-four regional Gestapo offices across the German federal states. The SS officer Werner Best, one-time head of legal affairs in the Gestapo,[30] summed up this policy by saying, "As long as the police carries out the will of the leadership, it is acting legally".[31]. Discussions on all aspects of the SS and Polizei. The SS - Definition & Facts Given that all appointments to the Abwehr required vetting and approval by the Gestapo, his efforts in successfully recruiting foes of the regime throughout the years of . [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. [119] For information about what was happening in German society, the Gestapo continued to be mostly dependent upon denunciations. [38], The Polish government-in-exile in London during World War II received sensitive military information about Nazi Germany from agents and informants throughout Europe. However, it was an important part of the brutal attacks against Jews in Germany. 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. At that time, the SS consisted of approximately 300 members. 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. [92], In September 1939, the SiPo and SD were merged into the newly created Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA; Reich Security Main Office). [49] On the following day, the newly formed Gestapo officers, who had been shadowing some 58 trade union leaders, arrested them wherever they could find themmany in their homes. 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. This prompted Winston Churchill to ban any further contact with the German opposition. A similar co-ordination existed in the local offices. 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.

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