I didn’t see much on this, but if I missed it, and it has been discussed at length, please delete the following. I got stumped the other night. I was trying to explain the difference between the S.S. and the Gestapo to a friend of mine, and specifically, the S.D. and the Gestapo. I know about the general formation of both, with Goering handing the Gestapo over to Himmler, and the start of the S.D. from a small underfunded office into a major espionage department under Heydrich. I could list to my friend of differences in regard to basic responsibilities and jurisdictions of each, especially when they were incorporated in that RSHA. I took the easy way out and stated to my friend that like much of the Nazi state, which seemed to be an over bloated collection of chiefdoms, the two organizations had more in common than different. I told him that I thought people like Eichmann or Muller announced themselves as being SS-Gestapo. Am I giving my friend bad information? Help!
You might enjoy looking through this site on the subject of the two organizations. See: Holocaust: The Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) and Sicherheitsdienst (3 of 9) The Gestapo had (I believe) the exclusive right to arrest and imprision non-military people without trial (protective custody), while the SD was the information gathering arm of the SS which led to arrests. Betwen the Abwehr, the SD, and the Gestapo there were Secret Police just about everywhere although the Gestapo was really much smaller than people thought.
Hey, thanks very much for the link brndirt1!!! This clears it a up a little. If I lived back then, and a a Gestapo agent was going to come arrest me, how would he be dressed? Would he be dressed in a suit or overcoat? Or would he have the SS tunic and skull cap on? Or could it be either one depending on the situation?
Swedish Red Cross Buses in Germany during the end of World War II, picture possibly taken near the Friedrichsruh castle where they had their field headquarter during the operation [White Buses]. Most of the men on the picture are Gestapo that the German authorities ordered to follow the transports. The picture is courtesy of the Swedish Red Cross Grey SS service uniform. RSHA personnel did not wear the "SS" collar runes depicted on this Picture. From June 1936 a concerted effort was made to recruit policemen of the SiPo into the SS, and SS personnel into the Kripo and especially the Gestapo. With the formation of RSHA in September 1939, Gestapo officers who were also SS members began to wear the wartime grey SS uniform when on duty in the Hauptamt or regional headquarters (Abschnitten). Hollywood notwithstanding, after 1939 the sinister black uniform was only worn by Allgemeine-SS reservists; it was abolished in 1942. Outside the main offices Gestapo agents continued to wear civilian suits in keeping with the secret, plainclothes nature of their work. There were in fact very strict protocols protecting the identity of Gestapo field personnel. In most cases, when asked for identification, an operative was only required to present his warrant disc. This identified the operative as Gestapo without revealing personal identity and agents, except when ordered to do so by an authorized official, were not required to show picture identification, something all non-Gestapo people were expected to do. Beginning in 1940 the grey SS uniform was worn by Gestapo in occupied countries, even those who were not actually SS members, because agents in civilian clothes had been shot by members of the Wehrmacht thinking that they were partisans. Unlike the rest of the SS, the right-side collar patch of the RSHA was plain black without insignia, as was the uniform cuffband. Gestapo agents in uniform did not wear SS shoulderboards, but rather police-pattern shoulderboards piped or underlaid in "poison green." A diamond-shaped black patch with "SD" in white was worn on the lower left sleeve even by SiPo men who were not actually in the SD. Sometimes this Raute was piped in white; there is some debate over whether this may or may not have indicated Gestapo personnel. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Gestapomen_following_the_white_buses.jpg
Thanks Spaniard, that some great info! So, you could be an SS member and not a Gestapo member, or a Gestapo member and not an SS member, or you could be both, and wear relatively the same uniform (give or take shoulder and collar insignia) under the right circumstances? Kind of flies in the face of the idea of German precision, but I digress. Did the S.D. field agents dress in normal clothing like the Gestapo agents? And, if they got some vital information, did they contact the Gestapo agents in the field themselves or did it go back to headquarters?
Here's a pretty good breakdown of the units: Under Himmler's leadership the SS was divided into three sections: The Security Section The SD (Sicherheitsdienst) Formed in 1931, this section of the SS was placed under the control of Himmler's right-hand man, Reinhard Heydrich. In its early years the SD was responsible for the security of the Nazi Party. After Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, the SD was also responsible for seeking out and dealing with those who opposed and were a threat to the leading members of the Nazi Party. The SD played a key role in discovering evidence against Ernst Rohm that ultimately lead to the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. The Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) When Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Hermann Goering became Minister of the Interior for Prussia. This role gave Goering control of the Prussian Police force. Almost immediately he set about separating the various branches of the Police force. The political and intelligence sections were filled with Nazi Party members and merged to form a secret police force known as Geheime Staatspolizei , the Gestapo. In April 1934 Heinrich Himmler took over as Head of the Gestapo. Under Himmler's leadership the Gestapo was responsible for seeking out and eliminating opposition to the Nazi Party. They frequently used torture to extract confessions. In 1935 the Gestapo was given the task of establishing concentration camps for the incarceration of 'undesirables', Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, Communists, unemployed, disabled etc. After the outbreak of war in 1939 members of the Gestapo made up some of the membership of the Einsatzgruppen, mobile death squads that followed the army into Poland and Russia to rid those countries of Jews and other 'inferior' people. The Military Section - Waffen SS Leibstandarte SS After Hitler became Chancellor of Germany he ordered the creation of an armed force which would protect both himself and leading members of the Nazi Party from attack. The first recruits, 117 men, were given the name SS-Stabswache Berlin. This was changed to SS-Sonderkommando Berlin shortly afterwards and on 3rd September Hitler re-named the group Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. Entry requirements for the elitist Leibstandarte included: Proof of pure Aryan ancestry for at least 150 years Minimum height of 5 feet 11 inches Being physically fit and in excellent health In 1934 the Leibstandarte played a prominent role in the Night of the Long Knives which saw the murder of leading members of the SA. By 1935 membership of the Leibstandarte had increased significantly to more than 2,000. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939 the Leibstandarte played a key role. Initially attached to both infantry and panzer divisions, the Leibstandarte became an independent force, the SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler in 1941. From 1941 to 1944 the Leibstandarte was engaged fighting on the Eastern Front before being moved to the Ardennes in late 1944. Pushed back by the advancing allied forces, the Leibstandarte ended its days fighting in the Battle of Berlin in 1945. SS Verfügungstruppe (Special Purpose Troops) Formed in 1934 the SS Verfügungstruppe, known as SS-VT, was the armed force of the Nazi Party. It was separate from the main German army, the Wehrmacht. Members of the SS-VT were often men who failed to meet the strict criteria for entry to the Leibstandarte SS. SS-VT regiments played a pre-war role in the Anschluss with Austria, the occupation of the Sudetenland and the invasion of Czechoslovakia. In 1941, at the same time as the Leibstandarte SS were made an independent force, the SS-VT were re-named the Waffen SS. The Waffen SS played key roles fighting in the European and African theatres of war. The Concentration Camp Section SS Totenkopfverbände (Death's Head Units) In 1934 Heinrich Himmler ordered Theodor Eicke, a fervent anti-semitic, anti-Bolshevik, to organise and manage the first concentration camp which had been established at Dachau (below). Eicke set about streamlining the organisation of the camp. Many of those who had been trained by Eicke at Dachau went on to staff the camp at Sachenhausen. In 1936 staff working in the camps were given the title SS Totenkopfverbände, known as SS-TK. The SS-TK had a reputation of being harsh masters, meting out tough punishments on those who did not show loyalty to the Nazi ideals. When war broke out in 1939 the SS-TK was expanded to provide staff for all camps established in Germany, Austria and Poland. In 1942 the SS-TK became members of the Waffen SS. Nazi Germany - SchutzStaffel SS
Do you see how similar these statements are? I guess I'm a dummkopf, because I get a little confused by sentences like this. Thanks for responding and being patient with me guys! So, is it safe to say that the S.D. was not involved with the torture in regards to intellegence? It was just the Gestapo?
The SD was more involved in the military side of finding and supplying information on anti-Nazis, where the Gestapo was more slanted toward the civilian side. They (Gestapo) were also the ones responsible for the original KZ camps, which held political prisoners and civilian dissenters. The Gestapo also ended up in charge of allied POWs who were captured in civilian clothing if they didn't retain any identification as to their being military. A great many allied flyers ended up in Gestapo camps rather than Luftwaffe POW camps because of this. As they were not considered "POWs" the Geneva conventions didn't apply, and there the torture and murder was purely legal under Nazi law. They weren't enemy prisoners, they were spies and/or people involved in the overthrow of the government.
Ok, so the Gestapo would seek out the civilian resistance movements and such, and had control over allied prisoners with no military identification. The S.D. I guess would be battleing M16, OSS, NKVD and such, correct? If a member of the 8th air force was shot down, and he had rank and insignia on his clothes, would he also be interigated and handeled by the SD since he was a military threat?
The whole Secret Police business was very muddled, but if an allied airman was shot down and captured he would (generally) be turned over to the Luftwaffe for incarceration if he was in uniform. The Luftwaffe observed the Geneva Conventions completely and mostly with honor. The SD and Gestapo wouldn't get to have the "honor" of investigating the airman, whether British or American. An Abwehr officer might be called in for the questioning period in some circumstances, but not highly likely; generally. While it isn’t ever "cast in stone" when dealing with the overlapping secret services of Nazi Germany, the Gestapo was mostly involved on the civilian side of arrest, torture and imprisonment. They could be both normal policemen who worked for the Gestapo on the side, or the other way ‘round. The SD was the intelligence gathering office which catered to the SS and Nazi (non Heer) military using things like wire-tapping, and letter reading and less "personal" interrogation to obtain the information they desired. This is not to say the SD couldn’t pick you up and "interrogate" you by means of torture if you were a German citizen, it just wasn’t their normal approach. If I’m not mistaken, they would turn over their "information" to the Gestapo, and then let those thugs do the dirty work after the arrest while they monitored the outcome. The other branch would be the Abwehr which was a recognized by the allies post Versailles, an intelligence-gathering agency the branch of the Heer which was established as the Abwehr in that capacity until February 4th, 1938 when its name became; Foreign Affairs/Defense Office of the Armed Forces High Command (Amt Ausland/Abwehr im Oberkommando der Wehrmacht). Officially it should have been the Abwehr which dealt with the OSS, SOE, and other foreign intelligence efforts, not the SD. Although the 1939 Venlo Incident was purely an SD/Gestapo operation, and the Abwehr was out of the loop. The Abwehr were, during their life-time (under both names) dealing almost exclusively with human intelligence, ciphers, sabotage, reconnaissance, and counter-intelligence as it pertained to military matters. I believe that the Abwehr in the years under Canaris was especially focused toward evaluating the raw intelligence reports from field agents and other sources like double agents dealing with military secrets. But none of these "limits" were definite. The Abwehr tapped the phones and bugged the offices of the SD, the SD tapped the phones and bugged the offices of the Abwehr, the Gestapo bugged the homes and home phones of; and interrogated the neighbors of both SD and Abwehr operatives. That is because in 1936 the Gestapo was merged with the Kriminalpolizei (or "Kripo," German for Criminal Police). The newly integrated unit was the called the Sicherheitspolizei, or Sipo. Then in 1939 during the reorganization of the German armies, the Sipo was joined with another intelligence branch of the military known as the Sicherheitsdienst ("SD," meaning Security Service). After this merger, the Sipo became known as the Reichssicherheitshauptamt ("RSHA," meaning Reich Security Central Office), and was headed by Reinhard Heydrich. Because of these frequent changes, the functions of the Gestapo became blurred, and often overlapped with those of the other branches of the German forces. See: The Gestapo Good plan in Nazi Germany when looking for who was coming to arrest you? Anybody could if somebody suspected or "reported" they suspected you. They didn't have to be in uniform, they didn't have to be in leather trench coats, they might be in normal police uniforms. Or not.
