Nazi Germany, like any other country, had its own intelligence services involved in intelligence, counterintelligence, tracking the level of trustworthiness of the population, and identifying subversive elements. Under the dominance of fascist ideology, others, hitherto unusual, were added to these tasks. So, it was required to find not only leaders and members of hostile parties and underground organizations, but also to search for hiding Jews, gypsies and homosexuals. Since 1933, the state security was supervised by a special structure - the Gestapo. This unit required both special personnel and specific methods.
The origin of the political investigation service
The name of the service arose by chance. The long German name "Geheime Staatspolizei" ("Secret State Police") has been abbreviated by postal workers for convenience. In the spring of 1933, shortly after the National Socialist Workers' Party came to power, department 1A was created in Prussia at the initiative of Hermann Goering. The goals of the party body were to conduct secret work to combat political opponents, who were many in the country at that time. The first boss was R. Diss. Heinrich Himmler at that time headed the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior and had nothing to do with the future Gestapo. This did not prevent the Reichsfuhrer SS from gradually concentrating in its hands the organs of political investigation. Goering's role in the organs of the Nazi law and order a year later became more than laconic, he was more concerned about issues of the German Air Force. He handed over the reins to Heydrich, the chief of the SD service. Over time, all disparate units created in the lands of Germany, come under centralized control from Berlin.
Historical facts
Beginning in 1936, the German police and other services responsible for the internal security of the Reich became subordinate to Heinrich Himmler. The criminal and political departments form a single structure. The second branch, led by Heinrich Müller, exposes the enemies of the regime, which now include racially inferior citizens, homosexuals, asocial types, and even the most ordinary lazy people who are subject to labor re-education. This structure remained until 1939, until, shortly after the outbreak of war, a decision was made to form the RSHA (General Directorate of Imperial Security). His fourth division was precisely the Gestapo. This unit was headed by the same Mueller. The history of the organization ended in 1945. The chief of the German special services was looking for the troops of the victorious countries, but was never found. According to the official version, he died during the assault on Berlin by the Soviet Army.
Misconceptions regarding appearance
In both Soviet and foreign cinema, the images of fascist Gestapo people are often found. As a rule, they appear in the guise of animal-like humanoid creatures, dressed in black uniforms with their sleeves rolled up, or sophisticated sadists armed with surgical torture instruments. They turn to each other, using the ranks adopted in the SS. This is partly true. SS officers were sometimes (to strengthen) transferred to work in the Gestapo. A full-dress photo of Himmler and Muller could also indicate the appearance of ordinary employees, but in fact, this was not quite so. The bulk of the Gestapo was civilians, they dressed in civilian clothes, in ordinary costumes, and preferred to behave as unobtrusively as possible. The service is still secret. Only in especially solemn occasions did SS officers wear a formal black or (more often) mouse-gray uniform. The Gestapo was not supplied with its own uniforms.
Who fought the partisans in the occupied lands?
Another mistake often made by directors, or rather, their consultants, lies in the name of the services involved in the struggle against the forces of popular resistance. It was easier to summarize them all in the same way: "Gestapo." This word is known to the mass audience, in contrast to the “feljandarmerii”, HFP and even SD (Sicherheitsdienst), which actually worked in the occupied territories of the USSR and other countries. In the so-called Transnistria, temporarily captured by Romania, a siguranza acted (by the way, unlike the royal army, quite effectively). All German services that carried out punitive actions and fought against the partisan movement were subordinate to Abwehr, the Wehrmacht, or the leadership of the SS. They had nothing to do with the RSHA headquarters in Berlin.
Cinema, the Gestapo and the SS
In historical terms, films about the Gestapo are not entirely correct. Sometimes especially experienced counterintelligence officers from Germany were indeed sent to the areas of greatest activity of the resistance forces. But since the occupied territories were not part of the Reich (even special money was printed for them), the coverage of the secret state police was limited to the borders of Germany as of 1939. The ranks of the staff of this structure were consistent with the Gestapo police system. The SS had its own "ranking card", different from the army.
Working methods
As you know, if an ordinary person is beaten painfully for a long time, he confesses. Another question is how valuable and truthful the information they provide will turn out to be. A confession obtained through torture may well be self-incriminating, and from an operational point of view, it makes no sense. The main task assigned to the state secret police was to neutralize the intelligence efforts of the special services of the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the USA and all other countries hostile to the fascist regime established in Germany in 1933. It is difficult to judge how much the employees of this service managed, many aspects of an invisible war are still a state secret. The practice of world experience in counterintelligence shows, however, that truthful and valuable data can be obtained using various methods, the main of which is the conviction of the need for voluntary cooperation. He showed diversity in methods and the Gestapo. Photos of torture chambers equipped with the most sophisticated devices to suppress the will and exert all kinds of influence on the detainees (both physical and psychological) constitute a significant proportion of the materials of the Nuremberg trials, which recognized the majority of executive institutions of the Third Reich as criminal (including the Gestapo).
Have women served in the organization?
Each intelligence agency is strong with its staff. The higher his qualifications, the better the training, the more effective the activity. But no number of employees, no matter how well they know applied psychology and methods of underground work, is not enough to control the mood and trustworthiness of the population, of tens of millions of people. Staff members are forced to recruit freelance informants who supply them with the necessary information. Most of the male population of fascist Germany fought on the fronts. Most of the "snitches" were women, the Gestapo used their natural curiosity and ideas about patriotism, inspired by Goebbels propaganda. Of course, there were male freelancers, and recruitment methods did not always involve voluntary cooperation. But, as far as the published documents allow to judge, there were practically no women among the Gestapo full-time employees.
Routine office
So, in the end, we can conclude that the sinister image created by the means of post-war art does not fully correspond to historical realities. German Nazi counterintelligence did not break into the captured villages, burning their inhabitants, did not guard concentration camps, did not spy on partisans in the occupied cities from Kharkov to Paris. In fact, unremarkable men in gray cloaks or suits walked the German streets, made acquaintances, recruited informants, sometimes used special machines with direction finders to locate the transmitters of the residency countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. They did not wear spectacular and sinister uniforms with skulls on the caps of their caps, and most likely did not for the most part possess the charm of actor Leonid Bronevoy, whose talent was created for the entire Soviet Union hero of the anecdotes Muller. The Gestapo, like any other special service, was a bureaucratic organization rustling with reports and memos . After the collapse of fascist Germany, the analysis of surviving file cabinets and archives took a long time. It was not spent in vain. These documents became evidence of the inhuman and criminal nature of both Nazi Nazism and all its state structures, including the Gestapo.