Security Police (National Socialism)

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The Security Police ( Sipo or SiPo for short ) comprised the Secret State Police (Gestapo) and the criminal police (Kripo) in the German Reich during the Nazi era . She was subordinate to Heinrich Himmler as " Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police". The management of the security police was incumbent on the chief of the security police and the SD . Reinhard Heydrich was the first to perform this function , and Ernst Kaltenbrunner from January 1943 . The security police were primarily responsible for the persecution of political opponents and the planning and implementation of the Holocaust and Porajmos . Together with the SD, they provided teams from the task forces in the occupied areas.

history

Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer SS, and Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the security service of the Reichsführer SS , began in 1933 and 1934 to take over the management of the offices and departments of the political police in the countries of the German Reich, mostly already taking over the political police to remove the designation "Secret State Police" (Gestapo) from the responsibility of the interior ministries. As a result of their closer ties to the SS, they were also withdrawn from the influence of the Sturmabteilung (SA), as the SA had often appointed police presidents in the federal states and municipalities of the German Reich after the Nazi takeover .

After his appointment on June 17, 1936 as "Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police" (although he had already figured under this title since 1934), Himmler ordered the amalgamation of the Political Police , that is, the police departments and offices that were already located before the The Nazi dictatorship had to take care of political and state-endangering crimes, and the criminal police became a unit very close to the Schutzstaffel (SS). Specifically, the newly formed Main Security Police Office was made up of the Secret State Police Office (Gestapa), or Gestapo for short , and the Prussian State Criminal Police Office (LKPA). One year later, on July 16, 1937, the LKPA was renamed the Reich Criminal Police Office (RKPA) .

After the merger, a total of four departments were housed in the main office of the security police: the so-called main office (S-HB) of the chief of the security police, the office of administration and law (V), which in addition to general administration also maintained areas such as passport management, immigration police and border security, the Office of the Criminal Police (S-Kr.) With all tasks related to the work of the criminal investigation department and the Office of Political Police (PP).

At the beginning of 1938 the Political Police Office was organized as follows:

Political Police Office (PP)
PP II A - Communism and other Marxist groups
PP II B - churches, sects, emigrants, Jews, lodges
PP II C - reaction, opposition, Austrian affairs
PP II D - protective custody, concentration camp
PP II E - economic, agricultural and socio-political affairs, associations
PP II G - radio surveillance
PP II H - Affairs of the party, its branches and affiliated associations
PP II J - Foreign Political Police
PP II Ber. - Situation reports
PP II P - press
PP II S - Combating homosexuality and abortion
PP III - Abwehr Police

In July 1939, Himmler assigned the SD to investigate opponents and the Gestapo to fight against them. In the course of the further centralization process, this division was canceled again in 1940, which continued the mixing of the Political Police and the Kripo with the SD and SS.

The entry of security police officers into the SS was encouraged and facilitated, but there was no compulsion or automatic takeover. There they received an SS rank corresponding to their police rank and were assigned to the SD.

With the creation of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) on September 27, 1939, the Security Police were merged with the Security Service (SD) and thus almost completely integrated into the SS.

The office was in Berlin-Kreuzberg . The site is now part of the Topography of Terror memorial .

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Decree of the RFSSuChdDtPol of June 26, 1936; Reichsministerialblatt der Innenverwaltung, RMBliV p. 940ff
  2. ↑ Hans Buchheim , The SS - the instrument of rule, command and obedience, Munich 1967, p. 56.
  3. ↑ Hans Buchheim, The SS - the instrument of rule, command and obedience, Munich 1967, p. 57f.
  4. ↑ Ulrich Herbert, Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason 1903–1989 . Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 189 ff.
  5. ^ Friedrich Wilhelm, The Police in the Nazi State. The history of the organization at a glance, Paderborn, 1999, p. 94d.