[104] Additional staff were added in March 1938 consequent the annexation of Austria and again in October 1938 with the acquisition of the Sudetenland. These included the non-violent resistance of Hans and Sophie Scholl, two leaders of the White Rose student group. by Schmauser 13 Aug 2002, 13:44, Post It was also largely responsible for planning and carrying out the Holocaust. The Geheime Staatspolizei (transl. There were strict protocols protecting the identity of Gestapo field personnel. The leader of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, along with a few other senior Nazi officials carefully plotted and planned the murder of the leader of the SA. [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. (2013). [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. Marjorie Taylor Greene Confuses 'Gazpacho' and 'Gestapo' "[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. to the Allies. [13] Also on that date, Hitler appointed Himmler chief of all German police outside Prussia. The Jewish Question needed to be solved, and it was the SS who took up the job. Schutzstaffel Agency overview Type Paramilitary Jurisdiction Nazi Germany German-occupied Europe Headquarters Prinz-Albrecht-Strae . [115] The majority of Gestapo informers were not full-term employees working undercover, but were rather ordinary citizens who chose to denounce other people to the Gestapo. Dietrich Bonhoeffer | Holocaust Encyclopedia [24], On 17 June 1936, Hitler decreed the unification of all police forces in Germany and named Himmler as Chief of German Police. [113] In Germany proper, many towns and cities had fewer than 50 official Gestapo personnel. 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. [115] The Gestapo office in Saarbrcken had 50 full-term informers in 1939. When Rhm refused to commit suicide, he was shot by two SS officers. Hitler wanted an organization not similar but somewhat linked to the SA that would personally guard Hitler and other important Nazi officials. As Evans makes clear, "it was not the ordinary German people who engaged in surveillance, it was the Gestapo; nothing happened until the Gestapo received a denunciation, and it was the Gestapo's active pursuit of deviance and dissent that was the only thing that gave denunciations meaning.
