Gestapo ( German: Gestapo ; abbreviation from German. Ge heime Stats po lizei , "secret state police") - the political police of the Third Reich in 1933-1945. Organizationally, it was part of the Ministry of the Interior of Germany, and, moreover, from 1939 - to the General Directorate of Imperial Security (RSHA), controlled by the Nazi party and the SS .
The Gestapo led the persecution of dissidents, disgruntled and opponents of the authority of Adolf Hitler , was part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Germany. Possessing wide powers, it was the most important instrument for pursuing a punitive policy both in Germany itself and in the occupied territories. The Gestapo was investigating the activities of all forces hostile to the regime, while the activities of the Gestapo were withdrawn from the supervision of administrative courts, in which the actions of state bodies were usually appealed. At the same time, the Gestapo had the right of preventive arrest ( it. Schutzhaft ) - imprisonment or concentration camp without a court decision.
The verdict of the International Military Tribunal announced by the Gestapo, SS and SD organizations used for criminal purposes [K 1] , including the persecution and extermination of Jews , atrocities and murders in concentration camps , abuse of power in the occupied territories, the implementation of slave labor, ill-treatment and the killing of prisoners of war . The definition of the Gestapo in this conclusion included all the officials of the IV department of the General Directorate of Imperial Security , as well as in other departments, if they conducted the affairs assigned by the Gestapo; Border police officers also fell under this definition, but not customs officials and the secret field police, whose actions were considered on an individual basis. All members of the Gestapo who held the listed positions, knowing about the crimes committed, were declared criminals by the tribunal [К 2] .
Organizational Development
The Gestapo was created on April 26, 1933 by Hermann Goering , the Minister of the Interior of Prussia . Initially, the talk was about a relatively modest body - Section 1A (political crimes) of the Prussia police being reorganized, whose main task was to monitor and combat political opponents. Rudolf Diels was appointed head of the department. Soon the department receives the name of the secret state police . Rudolf Diels on the origin of the abbreviation "Gestapo" once said that it was an independent invention of the postal department, which shortened the supposedly long name and used the abbreviation in postmarks.
In addition to the Gestapo abbreviation, the Gestapa abbreviation is also found (possibly from Geheime Staatspolizeiamt - the administration of the state secret police in Berlin). Gestapo divisions, except for Berlin, are created throughout Prussia . At the same time, Heinrich Himmler , the Reichsführer SS and the head of the Bavarian police department, is working to unite the political divisions of different German states . Gradually, the entire political police of Germany, with the exception of the Prussian police, passed into submission to Himmler.
On November 30, 1933, Goering, as minister-chairman of the government of Prussia, issued a decree according to which the Gestapo was removed from the subordination of the Prussian Ministry of Internal Affairs and became an independent organization. [four]
In early 1934, during the strengthening of the inner-party struggle, as well as due to the fact that Goering is increasingly concentrating on the development of the Luftwaffe , an agreement is reached on the transfer of the Gestapo to Himmler's competence. April 1, 1934 Rudolf Diels is dismissed. Although formally the Gestapo is still subordinate to Göring, in fact it is headed by Reinhard Heydrich , the chief of security service (SD) . From this point on, the Gestapo begins to develop into a comprehensive organization for surveillance and fight against opponents of the regime, closely intertwining with the structures of the SS. The political divisions of all German states are subordinate to the Gestapo in Berlin.
On June 17, 1936, Heinrich Himmler became the head of the entire German police force. [5] From now on, all police forces are no longer under the control of the ministries of the interior of the lands, but centrally subordinated to the SS Reichsführer, Himmler. The criminal (criminal) and political (Gestapo) police units have been reorganized into a unified security police ( German: Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo) ); Heydrich appointed as head of the security police and the SD. Separate II (political police), whose leadership was entrusted to Heinrich Muller, took up the direct struggle against the opponents of the national socialist regime. Additionally, the Gestapo has now become an instrument of repression against Jews, and the so-called "asocial" and "lazy."
On September 27, 1939, the next step was taken to merge the repressive organs of the state and the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Criminal police, political police, other police services and SD services are united in the General Directorate of Imperial Security (RSHA, German RSHA ); the Gestapo is included in it as the IV Directorate called “Fighting the enemy - the Gestapo”, headed by Heinrich Muller.
In March 1941, a significant reorganization of the RSHA was carried out, affecting the Gestapo as well. Part IV of the Directorate, renamed “Investigation and Struggle against the Opponent — Directorate of the Secret State Police,” includes units that were previously part of the BD.
This situation existed almost until the end of the war, when the Gestapo was liquidated along with other institutions of the Third Reich . The fate of the Gestapo chief Heinrich Muller, who disappeared in early May 1945, is not known for certain. According to one version, on May 2, he committed suicide by swallowing a vial of cyanide .
Structure
The organizational structure of the Gestapo has changed several times. After the foundation, it was divided into 10 divisions: “common”; for arrests; the remaining 9 had the task of observing certain political movements. After the Gestapo was reassigned to Himmler and divided into 3 main divisions (administration, political police, defense police ( germ. Abwehrpolizei )), the actual political police continued to adhere to the organizational division according to the functional principle.
When in 1936 there was an association with the criminal police in the security police, from the relevant units was created a single Directorate for leadership and staff, regulating the interests of both police agencies.
During the reorganizations of 1939-1941, part of the Gestapo departments were incorporated into other departments; at the same time, divisions from other services were included in the IV department of the RSHA . After the reorganization of March 1941, the almost final Gestapo structure was formed, which was slightly modified in 1944.
Simultaneously with the change in the organizational structure of the Gestapo, the number of employees also changed. If in 1933 50 people served in the secret state police department, then in 1935, after the subdivision of the political police of the Lands Department in Berlin, the number of Gestapo employees was 4,200 in the central office and in the field. By the end of the war, the number of Gestapo employees exceeded 40,000.
In accordance with the organizational plan for March 1941, the IV directorate of the RSHA “Research and struggle against the enemy, the management of the secret state police” was headed by the SS brigadeführer and police major-general (and from November 9, 1941, the Gruppenführer SS and lieutenant-general of police) Heinrich Muller . His permanent deputy was the SS Oberführer and Police Colonel (later SS Brigadeführer and Major General of the Police) (better known as "Willy K."). Krikhbaum, concurrently with the post of First Deputy Head of Department IV of the RSHA (Gestapo), was also the permanent chief of GUF (the Secret Field Police, which was called “Gestapo Wehrmacht” in Army Slang ”(Gestapo der Wehrmacht), as well as“ Field Gestapo ”or“ Feldgest test ”. (Feldgestapo)). In addition, Krihbaum oversaw the work of the Reich Border Police (Grenz-polizei). The “new” Gestapo consisted of the office and five divisions:
- Office of Management . The Head of the Chancellery is SS Piper Sturmbannführer. In addition to clerical work, the department was in charge of information and personnel selection for management. The office was also in charge of the Gestapo inner prison.
- IV A (struggle with the enemy): Obersturmmbannführer SS and Oberregiruningsrat Friedrich Panzinger
- IV A 1 (Communists, Marxists, clandestine organizations, war crimes, illegal and enemy propaganda): SS Sturmbannführer and Criminal Director Josef Vogt, Hauptsturmführer SS Dr. (since August 1941)
- IV A 2 (anti-sabotage, counterintelligence, political falsification): Hauptsturmführer SS Commissioner of Criminal Police Horst Kopkov , Obersturmführer SS Bruno Zattler (since 1939), Sturmbannführer SS (since summer 1940)
- IV A 3 (reactionaries, oppositionists, monarchists, liberals, emigrants, traitors to the motherland): the SS Sturmbannführer and the criminal director Willy Litzenberg
- IV A 4 (Security service, assault prevention, surveillance, special missions, search and prosecution teams for criminals): SS navigator and criminals director Franz Schulz
- IV B : (sect): SS Sturmbannführer , SS Oberführer Achamer-Pyfrader (from February 1944)
- IV B 1 (political church leaders / Catholics): Sturmbannführer SS and Regingrad Erich Roth
- IV B 2 (political church leaders / Protestants): Sturmbannführer SS and Regunngsrat Erich Roth
- IV B 3 (other churches, Freemasons): Otto-Wilhelm Vandesleben (from December 1942)
- IV B 4 ( Jewish question - evacuation of Jews, protection of property (since 1943), deprivation of citizenship (since 1943)): SS navigator Adolf Eichmann
- IV C : (file): Obersturmmbannführer SS and Oberregirungsrat
- IV C 1 (information processing, main file, help desk, supervision of foreigners, central visa department): political police Paul Matzke
- IV C 2 (preventive conclusion): Sturmbannführer SS, regrungsrat and criminals Dr. Emil Berndorff
- IV C 3 (supervision of the press and publishing houses): Sturmbannführer SS, regrungsrat Dr. Ernst Yar
- IV C 4 (surveillance of members of the Nazi Party): the SS Sturmbannführer and the Kurt Stage Criminalists
- IV D (occupied territories): Obersturmmbannführer SS Dr. Erwin Weinmann
- IV D 1 (questions of the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ): Dr. , SS Sturmbannführer Dr. (from September 1942), Oberthurmbannführer SS Kurt Lishka (from November 1943)
- IV D 2 (questions of the Governor-General ): Regulungsrat Karl Timann, Obersturmmbannführer SS and Oberregrungsrat Dr. Joachim Doymling (since July 1941), Sturmbannführer SS and Regungsrat Harro Thomsen (since July 1943)
- IV D 3 (foreigners from hostile states): SS Hauptsturmführer and Erich Schröder’s criminals, SS Sturmbannführer Kurt Geisler (since summer 1941)
- IV D 4 (occupied territories: France , Luxembourg , Alsace and Lorraine , Belgium , the Netherlands , Norway , Denmark ): SS navigator and Regunngsath Bernhard Baatz
- IV E (counterintelligence): Sturmbannführer SS and Regunngsrat Walter Schellenberg ; Sturmbannführer SS (from July 1941)
- IV E 1 (general questions of counterintelligence, cases of treason and espionage, counterintelligence in industrial enterprises): from 1939 SS Hauptsturmführer Willy Lehman (Soviet agent Breitenbach), exposed and executed in 1942 [6] [7] ; SS Hauptsturmführer and Criminal Police Commissioner Kurt Lindov ; Sturmbannführer SS and Walter Renken, Ober Regrungsrat [6]
- IV E 2 (Counteracting Economic Spying): Sebastian Regrungsamtmann
- IV E 3 (counterintelligence service "West"): Hauptsturmführer SS and criminals Dr. Herbert Fisher
- IV E 4 (counterintelligence service North): crime Dr.
- IV E 5 (counter-intelligence service "Vostok"): Sturmbannführer SS and Criminal Director Walter Kubicki
- IV E 6 (Counterintelligence Service “South”): Hauptsturmführer SS and Criminal Scholar Dr. Schmitz
- IV N (collection of information): n / d.
- IV P (Foreign Police Issues): Alvin Wipper's Criminal Lines (since August 1941)
In 1944, the Customs and Border Guard and Border Inspectorate stand out as an independent department of IV G. In addition, an internal reorganization of divisions IV A and IV B takes place.
On the ground, the secret state police had controls ( Leitstelle ), which were divided into smaller units - departments ( Stelle ).
Main offices of the Gestapo in the Third Reich
- Berlin - Grünnershtrasse 12; chiefs: Wilhelm Jeppe (from August 9 to November 1933), Ewald Hastert (from June to October 1934), Wilhelm Harster (from October 1934 to March 31, 1938), Paul Kanstein (from March 31, 1938 to December 9, 1939), Rudolf Lange (from December 17, 1939 to June 5, 1940), Walter Blume (from June 5, 1940 to March 29, 1941), Otto Bovensiepen (from March 29, 1941 to May 15, 1943), Wilhelm Bock (from May 15, 1943 to May 1945)
- Munich - Ditlindenstrasse 32-43; chiefs: Jacob Beck (from April 1934 to February 1935), Walter Shtepp (from February 1935 to December 1937), Lothar Beutel (from 1938 to 1939), Erich Isselhorst (from December 1939 to November 1942), Oswald Schäfer (from 1942 to 1945)
- Vienna - Morcinplants 4, the main department was subordinate to the Gestapo offices in Linz, Klagenfurt, Graz and Innsbruck; chiefs: Humbert Achamer-Pifrader (from March 1938 to March 1939), Franz Josef Huber (from March 1939 to December 1944)
- Stuttgart - Wilhelm-Murrstraße 10; chiefs: Rudolf Lange (from June to July 24, 1939), Joachim Bez (from July 24, 1939 to July 1941), Friedrich Musgay (from July 1941 to 1945)
- Magdeburg - Klosterkirhoff 1; chiefs: Otto Bovensiepen (from June 1934 to February 7, 1935), Heinrich Witzdamm (February 7, 1935 to February 15, 1936), Albert Leiterer (from February 15, 1936 to September 20, 1941), Helmut Bischoff (from September 20 to March 4, 1944) , Robert Mohr (from March 4, 1944 to February 1945)
- Königsberg - Lindenstrasse 7-15, the main office was subordinate to the offices in Tilsit and Tsikhenau; chiefs: Wilhelm Casper (1933) Heinrich Witzdamm (from February 15, 1936 to June 1, 1940), Walter Albat (1941), Konstantin Canaris (from October 29, 1941 to October 31, 1942), Horst Freitag (from October 31, 1942 to August 17, 1944 )
- Münster - Gutenbergstrasse 17, chiefs: Hans Fischer (1936) Karl Eberhard Schöngarth (1938-1939), Josef Kreuzer (from June 1940 to September 1942), Aleksnad Landgraf (from October 1942 to March 1945)
- Hamburg - Dammtorstraße 25, the head office subordinated to the Gestapo department in Kiel; Chiefs Bruno Shtrekkenbach (from 1933 to 1936), Josef Kreuzer (from September 12, 1942 to June 24, 1944)
- Stettin-Augustustrasse 47; chiefs: Fritz Herrmann (from 1934 to 1939), Kurt Hafke (from January 11, 1939 to June 1, 1940 and from May 3 to December 20, 1941), Max Nedved (from July 12, 1941 to September 12, 1942), Bruno Muller (1941) , Fritz Liphardt (from November 6, 1943 to 1945)
- Düsseldorf-Mühlheimstrasse 47, the headquarters subordinate to the departments of the Gestapo in Koblenz and Cologne; chiefs: Franz Sommer (from October 1934 to July 1939), Kurt Venter (November 16, 1940 to October 11, 1941), Walter Albat (from October 11, 1941 to September 15, 1943) Gustav Adolf Nossk (from 1943 to 1944), Hans Henschke ( from October 1, 1944 to January 6, 1945), Hans Kolitz (from January 6 to April 1945)
- Hannover - Ryumkorffstrasse 20; commanders: Paul Kanstein (from June 1935 to 1937), Walter Blume (from 1938 to January 31, 1940), Rudolf Batz (from June 1, 1940 to September 18, 1943), Johannes Rentsch (from September 18, 1943 to February 1945)
- Kiel - Duppelstraße 23; chiefs: Hans Henschke (from September 8, 1941 to 1944), Fritz Schmidt (from February 1944 until the end of the war)
- Danzig - Neugarten 27; chiefs: Rudolf Trehger , Helmut Tanzmann (from November 1939 to May 1940), Hans Helmut Wolff , Günther Venediger (from August 15, 1941 until the end of the war)
Gestapo offices in the occupied territories
France
- Lyon - Chief: SS Hauptsturmführer Klaus Barbie
- Strasbourg - Head: SS Sturmbannführer Helmut Schlierbach
- Metz - Chief: SS Sturmbannführer Hans-Georg Schmidt [8] [9]
- Toulouse - Chief: Obersturmführer SS Karl-Heinz Muller [10]
- Marcel - Head: SS Hauptsturmführer Gunter Hellving
Yugoslavia
- Belgrade - Chiefs: Obersturmmbannführer SS Karl Kraus ; Sturmbannführer SS Bruno Sattler
- Maribor - Chief: SS Sturmbannführer Walter Mahule
- Jesenice - Head: Obersturmführer SS Clement Druška [11]
Czechoslovakia
- Prague - chiefs: Oberführer SS Hans-Ulrich Geschke , obershurtmbannführer SS Ernst Gerke
- Jicin - Head: SS Hauptsturmführer Edward Fisher
- Tabor - Chief: Obersturmführer SS Arthur Albrecht
- Brno - Head: Obershturmbannführer SS Wilhelm Nelle
- Karlovy Vary - Head: Obershturmbannführer SS Joseph Gmeiner
Denmark
Norway
- Oslo - Chiefs: SS Sturmbannführer Helmut Reinhard
Belgium
Occupied USSR territories
- Kiev - Head: SS Sturmbannführer Hans Schumacher
- Minsk - Head: Obersturmführer SS Georg Hoyzer
- Vilnius - Head: SS Hauptsturmführer Heinrich Erlen
- Riga - Head: SS Hauptsturmführer Walter Yagush
Service titles (ranks)
The Gestapo used a system of ranks similar to the criminal police. Since the Gestapo was basically a government body, not a party one and was not part of the SS structure, there were employees in the Gestapo who were not members of the Nazi Party or the SS, and therefore only had police ranks. At the same time, a number of units of the Gestapo were subdivisions of the BD and, accordingly, the officers of such units were SS titles, without having special police ranks. In addition, instead of a special police rank, police officers could have a rank common to the German state service.
- Criminal Assistance Candidate for Internship (Untersharführer SS)
- Criminal Assistant Candidate (Scarführer SS)
- Criminal Assistance (Obersharführer SS)
- Crime Squad (Haupsharfuhrer SS)
- Criminal Investigator (Untersturmführer SS)
- Criminalbercss secretary [12] (Untersturmführer SS)
- Criminal Inspector (Untersturmführer SS)
- Criminal Commissioner service life up to 15 years (Obersturmführer SS)
- Criminal life experience of service up to 15 years (Obersturmführer SS)
- Criminal Commissioner service life over 15 years (Hauptsturmführer SS)
- Criminal activity [13] service life over 15 years (Sturmbannführer SS)
- Criminal Director (Sturmbannführer SS)
- Regirunds und crime [14] (Sturmbannführer SS)
- Oberregirungs-und criminalerat (obershurtmbannführer SS)
- Regirunds und Criminal Director (Standartenführer SS)
- Reich criminal director (Standartenführer SS)
Corresponding SS titles are given in parentheses as a comparison. Complicated titles (regunngs and criminals) in everyday life and in documents were often referred to by the first and last part (regurngsrat), which corresponded to common official ranks, and only if necessary emphasize belonging to the police service was used the full name.
See also
- " Topography of Terror " - informational exhibition center and open-air museum on the site of the destroyed buildings of the Gestapo in Berlin
- Campaitai
- Siguranza
Comments
- ↑ The terms “crimes against peace”, “war crimes”, “crimes against humanity” and “criminal organization” appearing in the text of the sentence are defined by the Statute of the International Military Tribunal (§ II, Art. 6, 10) appended to the Agreement on its institution of 8 August 1945 [1] [2] .
- ↑ “The Gestapo and SD were used for purposes that were <...> criminal and included the persecution and extermination of Jews, atrocities and murders in concentration camps, excesses in the occupied territories, conducting a slave labor program, cruel treatment of prisoners of war and killing them. <...> In reviewing the Gestapo case, the Tribunal is referring to all operational and administrative officials of the IV Division of the Imperial General Directorate of Security or those concerned with Gestapo issues in other departments of the Imperial Security Directorate General and all local Gestapo officials who served both inside Germany and abroad, including border police officers, but not including customs officers of the border guard or secret field police <...>. At the suggestion of the Prosecution, the Tribunal does not include persons who were in the service of the Gestapo to perform purely clerical, stenographic, economic, or similar technical daily work. <...> The Tribunal recognizes as criminal, according to the Charter, a group consisting of those members of the Gestapo and the SD <...> who joined or remained in the organization, knowing that it was used to carry out criminal acts <...>, or as members of the organization personally participated in the commission of such crimes. The basis for this verdict is whether the organization participated in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity <...> " [3] .
Notes
- ↑ The Nuremberg Trials, 1954–1955 , Vol. 2, p. 895.
- ↑ The Nuremberg Trials, 1954–1955 , Vol. 2, p. 1022.
- ↑ The Nuremberg Trials, 1954–1955 , Vol. 2, p. 1033.
- ↑ Michael Wildt: Polizei der Volksgemeinschaft. NS-Regime und Polizei 1933–1945. In: Konferenz „Polizei und NS-Verbrechen“ - Aufarbeitung und Dokumentation im NS-Dokumentationszentrum Köln 2. – 5. November 2000. Köln November 2000.
- ↑ Alfred Schweder: Politische Polizei. Heymannverlag, Berlin 1937, S. 15.8.
- ↑ 1 2 Zalessky, 2009 .
- ↑ Gladkov T. "The King of Illegals". - M. , 2000.
- ↑ Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel. Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen . - München: CH Beck Verlag, 2009. - Vol. 9. - p. 537. - 630 p. - ISBN 978 3 406 57 238 8 .
- ↑ Claudia Moisel. Frankreich und dietschen Kriegsverbrecher: Politik und Praxis der Strafverfolgung nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg . - Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2004. - p. 202. - 284 p. - ISBN 3-89244-749-7 .
- ↑ Jean Estèbe. Les Juifs à Toulouse et en midi toulousain au temps de Vichy . - Touluse: Presses Universitaires du Mirali, 1996. - p. 173. - 349 p. - ISBN 2-85816-263-8 .
- ↑ Ex-nazi Tracked Down in W. Germany (English) . jta.org . Jewish Telgraphic Agency (10-02-1977). The appeal date is March 5, 2019.
- ↑ him. Bezirk - district
- ↑ him. Rat - Advisor
- ↑ him. Regierung - government
Literature
- in Russian
- Gestapo / Vishlev O. V. // Hermaphrodite - Grigoriev. - M .: The Great Russian Encyclopedia, 2007. - P. 32. - (The Great Russian Encyclopedia : [in 35 t.] / Ed. Yu. S. Osipov ; 2004–2017, t. 7). - ISBN 978-5-85270-337-8 .
- Delarue J. History of the Gestapo. - Smolensk: Rusich, 1993. - ISBN 5-88590-077-9 .
- Julius Fucik Report with a noose around his neck - Ynatstva, 1987.
- Rupert Butler Gestapo 1933-1945. The history of the secret police of Hitler - Eksmo, 2006
- Zalessky, KA. Security detachments of Nazism. Full Encyclopedia of the SS. - M. , 2009.
- The verdict of the International Military Tribunal // Nuremberg trials: Collected materials: In 2 t. / Ch. ed. K.P. Gorshenin . Editors R. A. Rudenko , I. T. Nikitchenko . - 2nd ed., Corr. and additional .. - M .: Gosurizdat , 1954-1955.
- in other languages
- Musmanno, Michael A. Criminal Organizations . - USNR, Military Tribunal II, Case 9: Opinion and Judgment of the Tribunal. Nuremberg: Palace of Justice. 8 April 1948. pp. 109-111. The date of circulation is February 2, 2013. Archived February 11, 2013.