The role of the Gestapo

• The Gestapo (Secret Police) were set up by Hermann Goering in 1933 as a non-uniformed secret police force. By 1936, it was run by Himmler’s deputy, Reinhard Heydrich.
• The main aim of the Gestapo was to identify opponents of the Nazi government through spying, tapping phones and, most effectively, a network of informants.
• There were only about 30,000 Gestapo officers for a population of 80 million, so they relied on people’s fear of not knowing who was in the Gestapo.
• By 1939 the Gestapo were arresting 160,000 people a year for ‘political crimes’. It is estimated 80% of these were discovered through the informant network rather than the Gestapo officers themselves.