The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy 1933-1945 (9 page)

The campaign of repression began with the Communists. This was a politically wise choice for any number of reasons, not least because they were allegedly responsible for torching the Reichstag in Berlin. Moreover, actions against KPD functionaries could play upon widespread anti-Communism
.61 The police pursued Communists in the working-class districts of the larger centres across Bavaria, often with the help of the SA drafted as 'auxiliary police'. But even in a small provincial city like Wurzburg (with a total population of about 100,000) there were io8 house-searches conducted between 9 and 20 March, with 51 arrests. While exact figures for all of Bavaria are not available, it has been suggested on the basis of semi-official data that already by i 3 April as many as 3,000 Communists had been placed in 'protective custody', with a grand total of 5,400 such arrests."
The immediate impact on the KPD was catastrophic: the Bavarian Political Police proudly reported on 25 May that the party and its affiliations 'had ceased to exist'.67
The police underestimated the resilience of the party, and only by constantly snooping, planting agents, and carrying out arrests could the KPD's activities be eliminated over the next few years.

To some extent other political opponents were also placed in 'protective custody', and sent for a time to a concentration camp, though none of these experienced the same range of persecution. The SPD, and particularly its paramilitary organization-the Reichsbanner-and the associated free trade unions, as Marxist-oriented Leftists, were certainly forbidden to exist, and some of their members were arrested. A quantitative analysis of the case-files of the Wurzburg Gestapo indicates that as few as 126 of the thousand or so SPD members in the city personally experienced the wrath of the police and
justice system-whether this involved dismissal from employment, formal warnings, fines, court hearings, 'protective custody', or some other sort of confinement."
The Gestapo did not have to deal with more than 13 per cent of all the Socialists in order to provide a sufficiently efficacious demonstration and that was probably also the case elsewhere.

The major 'bourgeois' or non-working-class party in Bavaria was the Bavarian People's Party (the BVP). Its leading representatives in federal, state, and even local politics were all placed in 'protective custody'; those who had been conspicuous in their support for the party were included in the round- up.69
The 'spiritual' opponents of Nazism also came in for attention, although it proved more difficult to dispatch the clergy, which continued to be something of a counter-authority throughout the course of the Third Reich.")

The Jews were targeted very early: they were to be fought as a group rather than as individuals who might escape the net."
Nation-wide orders were issued to the police on 12 May 1933 to respond to the 'oppositional attitude' of the Jews by searching the headquarters of all Jewish organizations for 'treasonous material'. This 'preventive' measure was carried out in Bavaria, coupled with arrests and interrogations (as in Nuremberg, where 200 individuals were brought in with the help of the local SA). While nothing turned up, records were seized
7' and the action had the effect of intimidating and isolating the Jewish population. One historian says that at least in the early days of the regime the Bavarian Political Police were not the 'absolute master' when it came to dealing with the Jews-for any number of party and state organizations were interested in the persecution.'
3

By the beginning of August 1933 'protective custody' orders and internment for a time in a concentration camp were a frequently used weapon of the new dictatorship. By then some 4,15 2 persons were still interned in Bavaria (probably half of them were functionaries in the Bavarian People's Party).74
The object of the exercise was to influence public opinion in Bavaria. In the absence of enthusiasm, silence, compliance, or apathetic accommodation was to be preferred to opposition or dissent. The arrests were orchestrated in such a way that 'in each village and each city at least several people were touched by them'. These 'disappeared' into custody and were usually 'depressed and terrified' upon their release; their reappearance con
tributed to the intimidation and climate of fear.75

It has been estimated for Germany as a whole that by the end of summer 1933 some 100,ooo people, mainly party-political opponents, had been robbed of their freedom at one time or another, with between 50o and 6oo killed."
The wave of 'arrests'-which at times can only be called simple kidnapping by unauthorized persons-led the victims to a police gaol or, even worse, to one of the thirty or so 'wild' concentration camps which sprang up across the country to deal with putative 'enemies'. The main proponents of these measures were local SA units, who were keen to place people in 'protective custody'. These camps were a characteristic feature of the Nazi 'revolution', and even though from early 1934 they gradually came under the control of Himmler and the SS, or were eliminated, their significance for the introduction of the terror needs to be recalled, all the more in a study of the relationship between German society and the police. These brutal institutions represented the enforcement powers of the new regime, and were a place-holder for the Gestapo and SS, which soon established command. Frequently these camps served as internment sites for those more or less systematically harassed by the police, SS, or SA."

It is clear from official complaints across the country that by the end of 1933 and beginning of 1934 misuse of police authority, even given the new standards, was rampant. Diels himself said in a communication in midJanuary 1934 to local officials that the days when 'quick measures' could be tolerated were over; henceforth, proper procedures should be followed. At about the same time Minister of the Interior Frick demanded that denunciations even by the Nazi Party itself should henceforth be checked more closely before making an arrest; only if someone were suspected of committing a crime should proceedings be instituted. The police should not employ 'protective custody' simply at the urging of some local Party type. That defence lawyers could be taken into custody merely for representing the interests of their clients could not continue.78

5. NATIONALIZATION OF THE GESTAPO

The 'Night of the Long Knives' is the name given to the events surrounding the murders on 30 June 1934 of the leaders of the SA, such as Ernst Rohm,
and other rivals.79
That Himmler's SS was involved makes those events appear in retrospect as part of the inexorable rise of Himmler, the Gestapo, and eventually the SS state. The actions were carried out-including the execution of an indeterminate number of people (it is usually put in the hundreds)-by the SS with the knowledge of the Gestapo and the armed forces. Apart from settling old scores, this pre-emptive strike at the leadership of the SA paid dividends in terms of public opinion. Described as an attempted 'Rohm revolt', it offered the Nazi leadership an opportunity to present a new face to the German public.'(
'The rowdiness and disorder associated with the SA, which had once been useful, was now declared out of fashion. The 'Night of the Long Knives' opened the door to the 'cooler' variety of Gestapo social control and appealed to Germans' sense of law and order."

Although the SA was not dissolved, it had been reined in and was no longer a serious rival to Himmler, who thereafter moved towards further centralizing police power and the concentration-camp system. Throughout 1933 and 1934 he succeeded in having himself appointed to the position of head of the political police in some twelve other German states. The pattern was generally to incorporate already existing 'political' departments of local forces, more or less along the lines already seen in Prussia and Bavaria. Some of these new bodies carried the title 'Gestapo', as in Prussia, but others became police forces concerned with 'politics', as with the Bavarian Political Police. This series of conquests was crowned on 20 April 1934, when Himmler took charge of the Prussian Gestapo. By that date he held the leadership of all regional political police forces (still, each rested on local, not federal, law). There were efforts by the older established state authorities to retain some control over the political police, but once the ambition of the SA was curtailed it was only a matter of time before the decisions went completely in favour of Himmler and the Gestapo.

Hitler named Heinrich Himmler Chief of the German Police on 17 June 1936, and as Reichsfi hrer at the head of the SS he also remained one of the most important of Germany's leaders. He had the ability to issue orders while wearing either hat, which among other things gave him an enormous advantage in dealing with rivals. Within a week of his promotion he was able to formalize his control as Germany's new police chief by creating national headquarters for the various branches of the police: the most important of these in the context of the present study was the creation under Heydrich of
a unified Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei, or Sipo), which combined both the Political Police and the Criminal Police (the Kripo).82

Himmler's appointment inaugurated a new era, although it was also the culmination of developments that began in January 1933. The significance of the organizational changes beginning in 1936 was that for the first time in its history the German police, including the political branches, was centralized. As late as August 1936 there were seventeen different names for the Gestapo and/or political police forces across Germany, an apparent chaos which was ended when on 20 September all were formally brought under Gestapo headquarters in Berlin.83
Continuing efforts to centralize the police (or Verreichlichung) ended most, though certainly not all, of the disarray.84

The Gestapo was not just another institution of the state; to a great extent it was able to act independently of the administrative set-up in Germany. It 'operated upon an entirely different principle from that of the civil administration', and (beginning in 1936) did not base its actions merely on 'regularly legalized rules' but also on 'special principles and requirements', which 'is tantamount to saying that it operated as the instrument of the Fiihrer's authority' and 'had no need of further legitimation in law'.85
Despite some appearance to the contrary, the Gestapo could very nearly decide for itself what the law was, act accordingly, and ignore objections.

A further reshuffling of the police took place on 27 September 1939, through the creation of a more systematic scheme setting out clearly the division of labour of all those concerned with `security'. The establishment of the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, RSHA) had little impact on the powers of the Gestapo. Although the new apparatus had the advantage of being systematic, with its fourteen or so separate branches the RSHA was too compartmentalized, all the more since secrecy was the rule not only towards outsiders, but even within the organization. By no means were all jurisdictional disputes settled.86

6. CONCLUSION

Any account of the introduction of the terror system must bear witness to the violent behaviour of the Party bullies, the SA, the use of 'protective custody', the chaotic first concentration camps and beatings, all of which quickly became public knowledge. They were designed in part to have a 'demonstration effect', which was not lost on the family, friends, and neighbours of victims. The Gestapo's work was not to be hindered by concerns about either personal freedoms or the rule of law. While terror and brutality were never far below the surface whenever anyone contemplated deviation from the letter or even spirit of the law, the use or threat of violence alone does not convey an adequate picture of the routine operation of the 'police state' and the Gestapo. At the same time as the Gestapo emerged to do old jobs 'better' than ever, there also developed a vast new body of law to be enforced, new spheres of behaviour which were to be supervised and regulated. There was in fact a veritable avalanche of laws, regulations, and edicts-in the area of race alone-of such scope that effective policing would never have been possible without also attaining some degree of co-operation from the general population. No police can be entirely dependent upon fear engendered by brutal methods, and certainly not the Gestapo, whose job it became to play a 'positive' role in the formation of the 'new order'."

The Gestapo built upon the tradition of political police in Germany, but went well beyond it. Not only was it centralized as never before, but it claimed to stand outside the law, justice system, and traditional administrative and police discipline. Hans Buchheim insists that the 'perversion' of the Gestapo did not derive from the creation of a political police as such, but that factors external to the police were ultimately to blame. It is not clear what one is to make of such an effort to distinguish internal and external factors. In any event, it was relatively easy to transform the already existing political police, and many of its professional personnel, into the dictatorship's trusty enforcer. Young Hans Bernd Gisevius, a trained (non-Nazi) civil servant, was 'very glad' to be assigned to the Gestapo in the summer of 1933 because he 'hoped to contribute to the re-establishment of a proper executive organization which would provide for law, decency, and order'. His happiness 'was doomed to be short-lived', and the opposite of what he had hoped for resulted."