CRUSHING OPPOSITION - NAZI POLICE STATE

• The Gestapo

  Secret State Police, commanded by Reinhard Heydrich

  Gestapo agents had sweeping powers, could arrest citizens and send them to concentration camps without trial or explanation

  Believed to have a network of ‘informers’ listening on people’s conversations

  Most feared by citizens, recent research shows that Germans believed that the Gestapo was more powerful than it actually was

  Resulted in ordinary Germans informing on each other because they thought the Gestapo would find out anyways
• The SS

  After virtually destroying the SA in 1934, the SS grew into a huge organisation with many different responsibilities

  1 million staff in 1944, led by Heinrich Himmler

  SS men were Aryans, very highly trained and totally loyal to Hitler

  Under Himmler the SS had the main responsibility to crush opposition and carry out Nazi racial policies
• The SD

  SS’s own internal security service

  Investigate potential disloyalty within the armed forces or politically sensitive cases (crime committed by a senior Nazi)
• The Death’s Head Units


  Responsible for concentration camps and the transportation and murder of Jews
• The Waffen SS

  Armoured regiments that fought alongside the regular army
• As its power grew the SS set up its own courts

  ~200,000 Germans were sent to concentration camps by these courts
• Concentration camps were the Nazis' ultimate sanction against their own people
• The first camps were set up in 1933, as soon as Hitler took power
• Initially, makeshift prisons were used in disused factories and warehouses
• Purpose-built camps were later constructed, usually in isolated rural areas
• Various groups such as Jews, socialists, communists, trade unionists, churchmen, and critics of the Nazis were sent to these camps
• Historians estimate that 1.3 million Germans spent time in a concentration camp between 1933 and 1939
• The camps were managed by SS Death's Head units
• Prisoners in the camps were subjected to forced hard labor
• Food was scarce, and prisoners faced harsh discipline, beatings, and random executions
• The aim of the camps was to suppress opposition, but by the late 1930s, deaths in the camps became more common and few prisoners survived
• The Police and the Courts


  Top jobs in local police forces were given to high ranking Nazis reporting to Himmler

  Resulted in the police added political ‘snooping’ to their normal law and order role

  Under strict instructions to ignore crimes committed by Nazi agents

  Similarly the Nazis controlled magistrates, judges and the courts

  Appointed all judges and sacked those they disapproved of

  Led to self-imposed control - magistrates knew what they were expected to do and did it

  Knew they would not last long if they did not

  Meant that opponents of Nazism rarely received a fair trial