Nazi Germany, like any other country, had its own intelligence services, engaged in intelligence, counterintelligence, tracking the level of reliability of the population, revealing subversive elements.Under the rule of fascist ideology were added to these problems and others, hitherto unusual.So, it was necessary to find not only the leaders and members of the hostile parties and underground organizations, but also to look for hiding Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals.Since 1933, questions of national security supervised a special structure - the Gestapo.This unit is required and special training, and specific methods.
Limbo political investigation service
service name arose by chance.The long German name «Geheime Staatspolizei» («Secret State Police") reduced post office workers for convenience.In the spring of 1933, shortly after the arrival of the National Socialist Workers Party to power in Prussia at the initiative of Hermann Goering Division was established 1A.The objectives of the party organ consisted of conducting secret work against political opponents in the country which at that time there were many.The first chief became R. Diss.Heinrich Himmler at that time led by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Bavaria and had no relation to the future of the Gestapo.This did not prevent the Reichsfuhrer SS gradually concentrate in their hands the bodies of political investigation.Goering's role in the organs of the Nazi rule of law within a year became over-fasting, his more concerned questions of the German Air Force.He handed the reins to Heydrich, chief of the service CD.Over time, all of the disparate units established in the lands of Germany, are moving under the centralized management from Berlin.
Historical data since 1936, the German police and other services responsible for the internal security of the Reich, moving into submission by Heinrich Himmler.Criminal and political departments to form a single structure.The second part, which is headed by Heinrich Müller, is engaged in exposing the enemies of the regime, among which are now part of the racial inferiority of citizens, homosexuals, anti-social types, and even the most ordinary lazy to be a labor re-education.This structure was maintained until 1939, until shortly after the war began, there was no decision on the formation of the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office).His fourth department just became the Gestapo.This division led all the same Mueller.History of the organization ended in 1945.Chief of the German intelligence services were looking for the victorious armies, but was never found.According to the official version, he died during the storming of Berlin by the Soviet Army.
misconceptions about appearance
in Soviet and foreign cinema images of the Nazis, the Gestapo are common.They usually appear in the form of animal-like humanoids dressed in black uniforms with the sleeves rolled up, a sophisticated sadist armed with surgical instruments of torture.They are turning to each other using the title adopted by the SS.This is partly true.SS officers sometimes (for amplification) were transferred to work in the Gestapo.Photo Himmler and Mueller in dress uniform could also indicate the appearance of ordinary employees, but in reality things were not quite so.The bulk of the Gestapo men were civilians, they were dressed in civilian clothes, in the usual costumes, and preferred to behave as unobtrusively as possible.Service is still a secret.Only on special occasions SS officers dressed black front or (more often) mouse-gray uniform.The Gestapo did not supply their own uniforms.
who fought with the partisans in the occupied territories?
Another mistake often allow directors, or rather, their advisors, it is in the name of the service involved in the fight against the forces of national resistance.It was easier to collectively call them all equally "Gestapo."This word is known to the mass audience, as opposed to "feldzhandarmery" HFP, and even SD (Sicherheitsdienst), actually works in the occupied territories of the USSR and other countries.In the so-called Transnistria temporarily seized Romania acted sigurantsa (by the way, unlike the royal army, quite effective).All German service, carry out punitive action and fighting the guerrilla movement, obeyed the Abwehr, the Wehrmacht and the SS leadership.To the main RSHA in Berlin, they have no relationship.
Cinema, the Gestapo and the SS
Historically, movies about the Gestapo is not quite correct.Sometimes very experienced counterintelligence in Germany really was sent to the regions most active resistance forces.But as the occupied territories of the Reich were not included (even for their special print money), coverage was limited to secret state police the borders of Germany as of 1939.Ranks employees of this structure correspond to the police system adopted by the Gestapo.SS had its own "table of ranks" distinct from the army.
working methods
It is known that if the average person long and painful beating, he confesses.Another question is, how valuable and truthful information will be issued to them.Recognition, extracted by torture, could be self-incriminating, and from an operational point of view, it makes no sense.The main task set before the state secret police, was to neutralize intelligence efforts of intelligence services of the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the United States and all other countries hostile to the Nazi regime, established in Germany in 1933.How did it to employees of the service, is difficult to judge many aspects of the invisible war is still a state secret.The practice of counter-intelligence work world experience shows, however, that the true and valuable data can be obtained using different methods, the most important of which are belief in the need for voluntary cooperation.It manifests itself in a variety of methods, and the Gestapo.Photography torture chambers, equipped with the most sophisticated devices to suppress the will and the provision of all kinds of effects on the suspects (both physical and psychological) account for a large share of the Nuremberg Trial, recognized by the majority of the executive institutions of the Third Reich crime (including, and the Gestapo).
Served Does the organization have a woman?Every intelligence agency
strong their staff.The higher the qualification, the better the training, the more effective operation.But any number of employees, no matter how well they did not know, and applied psychology techniques of underground work, not enough to control the mood and loyalty of the population, numbering in the tens of millions of people.Regular workers are forced to recruit freelance informants, which provide them with the necessary information.Most of the male population of Nazi Germany fought on the front."Snitch" were mostly women, the Gestapo used their natural curiosity and ideas about patriotism instilled Goebbels propaganda.Of course, there were freelancers male and recruitment methods are not always assumed voluntary cooperation.But how can judge the published documents, including full-time employees of the Gestapo women almost was not.
routine office
So in the end we can conclude that the sinister image created by means of post-war art, not entirely consistent with the historical realities.German Nazi counterintelligence did not burst in the captured villages, burning their residents, not guarded concentration camps, not spying on the partisans in the occupied city of Kharkov to Paris.In fact, according to German streets went unremarkable men in gray coats or suits, start dating, recruiting informants, sometimes using special machines with direction finders to determine the location of the transmitter residencies anti-Hitler coalition.They were not spectacular and ominous uniforms tulyah with skulls on their caps, and, most likely, the majority did not have the charisma of the actor Leonid armor, whose talent was created by famous throughout the Soviet Union hero of anecdotes Mueller.Gestapo, like any other intelligence agency, was a rustling reports and memoranda bureaucratic organization.After the collapse of Nazi Germany Analysis survivors card indexes and archives has taken a lot of time.It was time well spent.These documents were evidence of the inhuman and criminal nature as Hitler's Nazism and all its state structures, including the Gestapo.
