Gestapo

Gestapo

1) Definition The Gestapo is the State Secret Police under Nazi Germany. It was formed in April of 1934 and placed under the administration of the SS leader, Heinrich Himmler. The Gestapo had the authority to investigate cases of treason, espionage, sabotage and criminal attacks on Hitler, the Nazi Party, and Nazi Germany. The Gestapo Law passed in 1936 allowed the Gestapo to operate outside of the restrictions of the law, exempting the Gestapo from any obligation to act according to the laws of the nation.

Gestapo was actually a rather small organization under the administration of the SS; a t its peak it employed about 40,000 individuals. Tt was in reality the ordinary German people who often spied and relayed information to the Gestapo and the pervasiveness of these actions that led to the notoriety of the German Secret Police; each Gestapo agent operated at the center of a large web of spies and informants (mostly normal citizens). This created a significant problem for the average citizen since no one ever knew for sure just who those informants were. As a result, fear and terror were quite persistent throughout Hitler's rule.

Gestapo interrogation methods included repeated near drownings of a prisoner in a bathtub filled with ice-cold water, electric shocks by attaching wires to hands, feet, ears and genitalia, securing a prisoner's wrists behind his back then hanging him by the arms causing shoulder dislocation, beatings and burning flesh.

During WWII, a section of the Gestapo, Section 4B, dealt exclusively with the "Jewish question" and was under the control of Adolf Eichmann. This section of the Gestapo would go on to make the relocation of Jews from all over Europe to Nazi death camps very efficient and organized, facilitating the operation of the Final Solution during WWII. The Gestapo followed Hitler's armies into every country during the conquest of Europe, pitting neighbor against neighbor to establish the same kind of terror mechanism in each occupied country that had worked so well back in Germany.

In 1942, the Gestapo took things a step further via Hitler's Night and Fog Decree. Suspected anti-Nazis would vanish without a trace during the night and never to be seen again. The desired effect as stated by Himmler himself was to "leave the family and the population uncertain as to the fate of the offender."

2) Significance The Gestapo outlines an important way in which Hitler maintained power in Nazi Germany - the use of fear and terror. The Gestapo, with no restraints from the law, could arrest any person, either based on real or false accusations, that may oppose or threaten the rule of the Nazi government. This became extremely useful in controlling and maintaining power in Nazi-occupied areas outside of Germany where there was already an underlying hatred towards the Nazis. The fear and terror kept a large part of the population subdued and afraid to rise against the Nazi government, even though they were discontent with its oppressive policies. Thus, there was very little opposition to Hitler's rule in the beginning; any opposition was taken out and silenced immediately.