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RSHA
The Reich Security Main Office (german: Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA) was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as ''Chef der Deutschen Polizei'' (Chief of German Police) and ''Reichsführer-SS'', the head of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS). The organization's stated duty was to fight all "enemies of the Reich" inside and outside the borders of Nazi Germany. Formation and development Himmler established the RSHA on 27 September 1939. His assumption of control over all security and police forces in Germany was a significant factor in the growth in power of the Nazi state. With the formation of the RSHA, Himmler combined under one roof the Nazi Party's ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD; SS intelligence service) with the ''Sicherheitspolizei'' (SiPo; "Security Police"), which was nominally under the Interior Ministry. The SiPo was composed of two sub-departments, the ''Geheime Staatspolizei'' (Gestapo; "Secret State Police") and the ''Kriminalpolizei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bruno Streckenbach
Bruno Streckenbach (7 February 1902 – 28 October 1977) was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. He was the head of Administration and Personnel Department of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). Streckenbach was responsible for many thousands of murders committed by Nazi mobile killing squads known as ''Einsatzgruppen''. Early Years Bruno Streckenbach was born in Hamburg, Germany on 7 February 1902. His highest education was Gymnasium, which he left in April 1918 to voluntarily report to the German Army during World War I. Just like his close colleagues Erwin Schulz and Heinrich Himmler, he never served on the front lines of the battlefield due to the ceasefire that took place in November 1918. After the end of the First World War, he was an active member of the Freikorps Bahrenfeld, which took part in the 1920 Kapp-Putsch. He was employed as a wholesale merchant, tried his hand at advertising, being a radio editor and also trying to establish himself as the dir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organisation. On 20 April 1934, oversight of the Gestapo passed to the head of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS), Heinrich Himmler, who was also appointed Chief of German Police by Hitler in 1936. Instead of being exclusively a Prussian state agency, the Gestapo became a national one as a sub-office of the (SiPo; Security Police). From 27 September 1939, it was administered by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). It became known as (Dept) 4 of the RSHA and was considered a sister organisation to the (SD; Security Service). During World War II, the Gestapo played a key role in the Holocaust. After the war ended, the Gestapo was declared a criminal organisation by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the Nuremberg trials. History After Adol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernst Kaltenbrunner
Ernst Kaltenbrunner (4 October 190316 October 1946) was a high-ranking Austrian SS official during the Nazi era and a major perpetrator of the Holocaust. After the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, and a brief period under Heinrich Himmler, Kaltenbrunner was the third Chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), which included the offices of Gestapo, Kripo and SD, from January 1943 until the end of World War II in Europe. Kaltenbrunner joined the Nazi Party in 1930 and the SS in 1931, and by 1935 he was considered a leader of the Austrian SS. In 1938, he assisted in the ''Anschluss'' and was given command of the SS and police force in Austria. In January 1943, Kaltenbrunner was appointed chief of the RSHA, succeeding Reinhard Heydrich, who was assassinated in May 1942. A committed anti-Semite and fanatical Hitler loyalist, Kaltenbrunner oversaw a period in which the genocide of Jews intensified. He was the highest-ranking member of the SS to face trial (Himmle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sicherheitsdienst
' (, ''Security Service''), full title ' (Security Service of the ''Reichsführer-SS''), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization and the Gestapo (formed in 1933) was considered its sister organization through the integration of SS members and operational procedures. The SD was administered as an independent SS office between 1933 and 1939. That year, the SD was transferred over to the Reich Security Main Office (''Reichssicherheitshauptamt''; RSHA), as one of its seven departments. Its first director, Reinhard Heydrich, intended for the SD to bring every single individual within the Third Reich's reach under "continuous supervision". Following Germany's defeat in World War II, the tribunal at the Nuremberg trials officially declared that the SD was a criminal organisation, along with the rest of Heydrich's RSHA (including the Gestapo) both individually and as branch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schutzstaffel
The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. It began with a small guard unit known as the ''Saal-Schutz'' ("Hall Security") made up of party volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name. Under his direction (1929–1945) it grew from a small paramilitary formation during the Weimar Republic to one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. From the time of the Nazi Party's rise to power until the regime's collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, surveillance, and terror within Germany and German-occupied Europe. The two main constituent groups were the '' Allgemeine SS'' (General SS) and ''Waffen-SS'' (Armed SS). The ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Werner Best
Karl Rudolf Werner Best (10 July 1903 – 23 June 1989) was a German jurist, police chief, SS-''Obergruppenführer'', Nazi Party leader, and theoretician from Darmstadt. He was the first chief of Department 1 of the Gestapo, Nazi Germany's secret police, and initiated a registry of all Jews in Germany. As a deputy of SS-''Obergruppenführer'' Reinhard Heydrich, he organized the World War II SS-''Einsatzgruppen'', paramilitary death squads that carried out mass-murder in Nazi-occupied territories. Best served in the German military occupation administration of France (1940–1942), and then became the civilian administrator of occupied Denmark (1942–1945). Convicted of war crimes in Denmark, Best was released in 1951. He escaped further prosecution in West Germany in 1972 due to ill health and died in 1989, aged 85. Early life Werner Best was born on 10 July 1903 in Darmstadt, Hesse, but his parents moved to Dortmund when he was nine before settling in Mainz, where he complete ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heinrich Müller (Gestapo)
Heinrich Müller (28 April 1900; date of death unknown, but evidence points to May 1945) was a high-ranking German ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) and police official during the Nazi era. For the majority of World War II in Europe, he was the chief of the Gestapo, the secret state police of Nazi Germany. Müller was central in the planning and execution of The Holocaust and attended the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, which formalised plans for deportation and genocide of all Jews in German-occupied Europe—The "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". He was known as "Gestapo Müller" to distinguish him from another SS general named Heinrich Müller. He was last seen in the ''Führerbunker'' in Berlin on 1 May 1945 and remains the most senior figure of the Nazi regime who was never captured or confirmed to have died. Early life and career Müller was born in Munich on 28 April 1900 to Catholic parents. His father had been a rural police official. Müller attended a ''Volksschule'' and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sicherheitspolizei
The ''Sicherheitspolizei'' ( en, Security Police), often abbreviated as SiPo, was a term used in Germany for security police. In the Nazi era, it referred to the state political and criminal investigation security agencies. It was made up by the combined forces of the Gestapo (secret state police) and the ''Kriminalpolizei'' (criminal police; Kripo) between 1936 and 1939. As a formal agency, the SiPo was incorporated into the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in 1939, but the term continued to be used informally until the end of World War II in Europe. Origins The term originated in August 1919 when the ''Reichswehr'' set up the ''Sicherheitswehr'' as a militarised police force to take action during times of riots or strikes. Owing to limitations in army numbers, it was renamed the ''Sicherheitspolizei'' to avoid attention. They wore a green uniform, and were sometimes called the "Green Police". It was a military body, recruiting largely from the ''Freikorps'', with NCOs and offi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( ; ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He was chief of the Reich Security Main Office (including the Gestapo, Kripo, and SD). He was also ''Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor'' (Deputy/Acting Reich-Protector) of Bohemia and Moravia. He served as president of the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC, now known as Interpol) and chaired the January 1942 Wannsee Conference which formalised plans for the " Final Solution to the Jewish question"—the deportation and genocide of all Jews in German-occupied Europe. Many historians regard Heydrich as the darkest figure within the Nazi regime; Adolf Hitler described him as "the man with the iron heart". He was the founding head of the ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (Security Service, SD), an intelligence organisation charged with seeking out and neutralising resistance to the Nazi Part ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kriminalpolizei (Nazi Germany)
''Kriminalpolizei'' (English: Criminal Police), often abbreviated as Kripo, is the German name for a criminal investigation department. This article deals with the agency during the Nazi era. In Nazi Germany, the Kripo consisted of the Reich Criminal Police Department (RKPA), which in 1939 became Department V of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). There were criminal investigation centers directly subordinated to RKPA as well as criminal investigation divisions of the local state and municipal police departments. In 1943 both the latter became directly subordinated to the criminal investigation centers. The personnel consisted of detectives in the junior, executive, and female careers, as well as criminal investigation employees. Organization After Adolf Hitler took office in January 1933, the Nazis began a programme of " coordination" of all aspects of German life, in order to consolidate the Nazi Party's hold on power. In July 1936, the Prussian central criminal invest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otto Ohlendorf
Otto Ohlendorf (; 4 February 1907 – 7 June 1951) was a German SS functionary and Holocaust perpetrator during the Nazi era. An economist by education, he was head of the (SD) Inland, responsible for intelligence and security within Germany. In 1941, Ohlendorf was appointed the commander of D, which perpetrated mass murder in Moldova, south Ukraine, the Crimea and, during 1942, the North Caucasus. He was tried at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, sentenced to death, and executed by hanging in 1951. Life and education Born in Hoheneggelsen (today part of Söhlde; then in the Kingdom of Prussia), Otto Ohlendorf came into the world as part of "a farming family". He joined the Nazi Party in 1925 and the SS in 1926. Ohlendorf studied economics and law at the University of Leipzig and the University of Göttingen, and by 1930 was already giving lectures at several economic institutions. He studied at the University of Pavia, where he gained his doctor's degree in jurisprudence; a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allgemeine SS
The ''Allgemeine SS'' (; "General SS") was a major branch of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany; it was managed by the SS Main Office (''SS-Hauptamt''). The ''Allgemeine SS'' was officially established in the autumn of 1934 to distinguish its members from the '' SS-Verfügungstruppe'' (SS Dispositional Troops or SS-VT), which later became the Waffen-SS, and the '' SS-Totenkopfverbände'' (SS Death's Head Units or SS-TV), which were in charge of the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps. SS formations committed many war crimes against civilians and allied servicemen. Starting in 1939, foreign units of the ''Allgemeine SS'' were raised in occupied countries. From 1940 they were consolidated into the Directorate of the Germanic-SS (''Leitstelle der germanischen SS''). When the war first began, the vast majority of SS members belonged to the ''Allgemeine SS'', but this proportion changed during the later years of the war after the Waffen-SS o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_(2).jpg "Click for more on -> Werner Best")
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