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 branches of the SS in the collective. Heydrich was assassinated in 1942; his successor, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials, sentenced to death and hanged in 1946.

History

Origins

The SD, one of the oldest security organizations of the SS, was first formed in 1931 as the ''Ic-Dienst'' (Intelligence Service) operating out of a single apartment and reporting directly to Heinrich Himmler. Himmler appointed a former junior naval officer, Reinhard Heydrich, to organise the small agency. The office was renamed ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD) in the summer of 1932. The SD became more powerful after the Nazi Party took control of Germany in 1933 and the SS started infiltrating all leading positions of the security apparatus of the Reich. Even before Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, the SD was a veritable "watchdog" over the SS and over members of the Nazi Party and played a critical role in consolidating political-police powers into the hands of Himmler and Heydrich.

Growth of SD and SS power

Once Hitler was appointed Chancellor by German President Paul von Hindenburg, he quickly made efforts to manipulate the aging president. On 28 February 1933, Hitler convinced Hindenburg to declare a state of emergency which suspended all civil liberties throughout Germany, due at least in part to the Reichstag fire on the previous night. Hitler assured Hindenburg throughout that he was attempting to stabilize the tumultuous political scene in Germany by taking a "defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the state". Wasting no time, Himmler set the SD in motion as they began creating an extensive card-index of the Nazi regime's political opponents, arresting labor organizers, socialists, Jewish leaders, journalists, and communists in the process, sending them to the newly established prison facility near Munich, Dachau. Himmler's SS and SD made their presence felt at once by helping rid the regime of its known political enemies and its perceived ones, as well. As far as Heydrich and Himmler were concerned, the SD left their mission somewhat vaguely defined so as to "remain an instrument for all eventualities". One such eventuality would soon arise.

For a while, the SS competed with the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA) for influence within Germany. Himmler distrusted the SA and came to deplore the "rabble-rousing" brownshirts (despite once having been a member) and what he saw as indecent sexual deviants amid its leadership. At least one pretext to secure additional influence for Himmler's SS and Heydrich's SD in "protecting" Hitler and securing his absolute trust in their intelligence collection abilities, involved thwarting a plot from Ernst Roehm's SA using subversive means.

On 20 April 1934 Hermann Göring handed over control of the ''Geheime Staatspolizei'' (Gestapo) to Himmler. Heydrich, named chief of the Gestapo by Himmler on 22 April 1934, also continued as head of the SD. These events further extended Himmler's control of the security mechanism of the Reich, which by proxy also strengthened the surveillance power of Heydrich's SD, as both entities methodically infiltrated every police agency in Germany. Subsequently, the SD was made the sole "party information service" on 9 June 1934.

Under pressure from the ''Reichswehr'' (German armed forces) leadership (whose members viewed the enormous armed forces of the SA as an existential threat) and with the collusion of Göring, Joseph Goebbels, the Gestapo and SD, Hitler was led to believe that Röhm's SA posed a serious conspiratorial threat requiring a drastic and immediate solution. For its part, the SD provided fictitious information that there was an assassination plot on Hitler's life and that an SA putsch to assume power was imminent since the SA were allegedly amassing weapons. Additionally, reports were coming into the SD and Gestapo that the vulgarity of the SA's behavior was damaging the party and was even making antisemitism less palatable. On 30 June 1934 the SS and Gestapo acted in coordinated mass arrests that continued for two days. The SS took one of its most decisive steps in eliminating its competition for command of security within Germany and established itself firmly in the Nazi hierarchy, making the SS and its intelligence organ, the SD, responsible only to the Führer. The purge became known as the Night of the Long Knives, with up to 200 people killed in the action. Moreover, the brutal crushing of the SA and its leadership sent a clear message to everyone that opposition to Hitler's regime could be fatal. It struck fear across the Nazi leadership as to the tangible concern of the reach and influence of Himmler's intelligence collection and policing powers.

SD and Austria

During the autumn of 1937, Hitler secured Mussolini's support to annex Austria (Mussolini was originally apprehensive of the Nazi takeover of Austria) and informed his generals of his intentions to invade both Austria and Czechoslovakia. Getting Mussolini to approve political intrigue against Austria was a major accomplishment, as the Italian ''Duce'' had expressed great concern previously in the wake of an Austrian SS unit's attempt to stage a coup not more than three weeks after the Röhm affair, an episode that embarrassed the SS, enraged Hitler, and ended in the assassination of Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss on 25 July 1934. Nonetheless, to facilitate the incorporation of Austria into the greater Reich, the SD and Gestapo went to work arresting people immediately, using lists compiled by Heydrich. Heydrich's SD and Austrian SS members received financing from Berlin to harass Austrian Chancellor von Schuschnigg's government all throughout 1937. One section of the SD that was nothing more than a front for subversive activities against Austria ironically promoted "German-Austrian peace".

Throughout the events leading to the '' Anschluß'' and even after the Nazis marched into Austria on 12 March 1938, Heydrich – convinced that only his SD could pull off a peaceful union between the two German-speaking nations – organized demonstrations, conducted clandestine operations, ordered terror attacks, distributed propaganda materials, encouraged the intimidation of opponents, and had his SS and SD personnel round-up prominent anti-Nazis, most of whom ended up in Mauthausen concentration camp The coordinated efforts of the SiPo and Heydrich's SD during the first days of the ''Anschluß'' effectively eliminated all forms of possible political, military and economic resistance within Austria. Once the annexation became official, the Austrian police were immediately subordinated to Heydrich's SD, the SS and Gestapo. Machinations by the SD, the Gestapo, and the SS helped to bring Austria fully into Hitler's grasp and on 13 March 1938, he signed into law the union with Austria as tears streamed down his face.

"Case Green" and the Sudetenland

Concomitant to its machinations against Austria, the SD also became involved in subversive activities throughout Czechoslovakia. Focusing on the Sudetenland with its 3 million ethnic Germans and the disharmony there which the Czech government could not seem to remedy, Hitler set Heydrich's SD in motion in what came to be known as "Case Green". Passed off as a mission to liberate Sudeten Germans from alleged Czech persecution, Case Green was in fact a contingency plan to outright invade and destroy the country, as Hitler intended to "wipe Czechoslovakia off the map."

This operation was akin to earlier SD efforts in Austria; however, unlike Austria, the Czechs fielded their own Secret Service, against which Heydrich had to contend. Once "Case Green" began, Heydrich's SD spies began covertly gathering intelligence, even going so far as having SD agents use their spouses and children in the cover scheme. The operation covered every conceivable type of intelligence data, using a myriad of cameras and photographic equipment, focusing efforts on important strategic locations like government buildings, police stations, postal services, public utilities, logistical routes, and above all, airfields.

Hitler worked out a sophisticated plan to acquire the Sudetenland, including manipulating Slovak nationalists to vie for independence and the suppression of this movement by the Czech government. Under directions from Heydrich, SD operative Alfred Naujocks was re-activated to engage in sabotage activities designed to incite a response from the Slovaks and the Czechs, a mission that ultimately failed. In June 1938 a directive from the SD head office indicated that Hitler issued an order at Jueterbog to his generals to prepare for the invasion of Czechoslovakia. To hasten a presumed heavy response from the French, British, and Czechs, Hitler then upped the stakes and claimed that the Czechs were slaughtering Sudeten Germans. He demanded the unconditional and prompt cession of the Sudetenland to Germany in order to secure the safety of endangered ethnic Germans. Around this time, early plots by select members of the German General Staff emerged, plans which included ridding themselves of Hitler.

Eventually a diplomatic showdown pitting Hitler against the governments of Czechoslovakia, Great Britain, and France, whose tepid reaction to the Austrian Anschluss had precipitated this crisis to some degree, ensued. The Sudetenland Crisis came to an end when Neville Chamberlain and Hitler signed the Munich Agreement on 29 September 1938, effectively ceding the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. Involvement in international affairs by the SD certainly did not end there and the agency remained active in foreign operations to such a degree that the head of the Reich Foreign Ministry office, Joachim von Ribbentrop, complained of their meddling, since Hitler would apparently make decisions based on SD reports without consulting him. According to historian Richard Breitman, there was animosity between the SS leadership and Ribbentrop's Foreign Office atop their "jurisdictional disputes".

Intrigue against Poland

Aside from its participation in diminishing the power of the SA and its scheme to kill Ernst Roehm, the SD took part in international intrigue, first by activities in Austria, again in Czechoslovakia, and then by helping provoke the "reactive" war against Poland. Code-named "Operation Himmler" and part of Hitler's plan to justify an attack upon Poland, the SD's clandestine activity for this mission included faking a Polish attack against "innocent Germans" at a German radio station in Gleiwitz. The SD took concentration-camp inmates condemned to die, and fitted them with Polish Army uniforms which Heinz Jost had acquired from Admiral Wilhelm Canaris' '' Abwehr'' (military intelligence). Leading this mission and personally selected by Heydrich was SS veteran Alfred Naujocks, who later reported during a War Criminal proceeding that he brought a Polish-speaking German along so he could broadcast a message in Polish from the German radio station "under siege" to the effect that it was time for an all out confrontation between Germans and Poles. To add documented proof of this attack, the SD operatives placed the fictitious Polish troops (killed by lethal injection, then shot for appearance) around the "attacked" radio station with the intention of taking members of the press to the site of the incident. Immediately in the wake of the staged incidents on 1 September 1939, Hitler proclaimed from the Reichstag in a famous radio address that German soldiers had been "returning" fire since 5:45 in the morning, setting the Second World War in Europe into motion.

Tasks and general structure

The SD was tasked with the detection of actual or potential enemies of the Nazi leadership and the neutralization of such opposition, whether internal or external. To fulfill this task, the SD developed an organization of agents and informants throughout the Reich and later throughout the occupied territories, all part of the development of an extensive SS state and a totalitarian regime without parallel. The organization consisted of a few hundred full-time agents and several thousand informants. Historian George C. Browder writes that SD regiments were comparable to SS regiments, in that:

SD districts (''Bezirke'') emerged covering several Party circuits (''Kreis'') or an entire district (''Gau''). Below this level, SD sub-districts (''Unterbezirke'') slowly developed. They were originally to cover a single ''Kreis'', and, in turn, to be composed of wards (''Revier''), but such an ambitious network never emerged. Eventually, the SD-sub-districts acquired the simple designation of 'outposts' (''Aussenstellen'') as the lowest level-office in the field structure.

The SD was mainly an information-gathering agency, while the Gestapo—and to a degree the Criminal Police (''Kriminalpolizei'' or Kripo)—was the executive agency of the political-police system. The SD and Gestapo did have integration through SS members holding dual positions in each branch. Nevertheless, there was some jurisdictional overlap and operational conflict between the SD and Gestapo. In addition, the Criminal Police kept a level of independence since its structure had been longer-established.

As part and parcel of its intelligence operations, the SD carefully tracked foreign opinion and criticism of Nazi policies, censoring when necessary and likewise publishing hostile political cartoons in the SS weekly magazine, ''Das Schwarze Korps''. An additional task assigned to the SD and the Gestapo involved keeping tabs on the morale of the German population at large, which meant they were charged to "carefully supervise the political health of the German ethnic body" and once any symptoms of "disease and germs" appeared, it was their job to "remove them by every appropriate means". Regular reports—including opinion polls, press dispatches, and information bulletins were established. These were monitored and reviewed by the head of the Inland-SD, Otto Ohlendorf (responsible for intelligence and security within Germany) and by the former Heidelberg professor and SD member . This activity aimed to control and assess the "life domain" or ''Lebensgebiet'' of the German population. Gathered information was then distributed by the SD through secret internal political reports entitled ''Meldungen aus dem Reich'' (reports from the Reich) to the upper echelons of the Nazi Party, enabling Hitler's régime to evaluate the general morale and attitude of the German people so they could be manipulated by the Nazi propaganda machine in timely fashion. When the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935, the SD reported that the measures against the Jews were well received by the German populace.

In 1936, the police were divided into the ''Ordnungspolizei'' (Orpo or Order Police) and the '' Sicherheitspolizei'' (SiPo or Security Police). The Orpo consisted mainly of the ''Schutzpolizei'' (urban police), the ''Gendarmerie'' (rural police) and the '' Gemeindepolizei'' (municipal police). The SiPo was composed of the Kripo and the Gestapo. Heydrich became Chief of the SiPo and continued as Chief of the SD.

Continued escalation of antisemitic policies in the spring of 1937 from the SD's Department of Jewish Affairs (german: Abteilung II/112: Juden) – staffed by members like Adolf Eichmann