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a place where people are concentrated and imprisoned without trial.

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The Nazi regime ordered the Jewish community to pay a 1 billion Reichsmark “atonement tax” and rapidly enacted many anti-Jewish laws and edicts.

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The Gestapo View This Term in the Glossary was Nazi Germany’s infamous political police force.

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The Gestapo’s mission was to “investigate and combat all attempts to threaten the state.

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Ghetto is a place where groups of people are separated from others.

Conditions in the concentration camps were extreme poor, and prisoners were often subjected to torture, hunger and disease.

Nazis forced people work for long hours but gave them less money in concentration camps , people don’t have available resources in here

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The shattered glass that littered the streets after the vandalism and destruction of Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues, and homes. The Germans persecuted the Jews and imprisoned them in concentration camps.This event came to be called Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass)

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https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/gestapo

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The name Gestapo is an abbreviation for its official German name " Ge heime Sta ats po lizei." The direct English translation is "Secret State Police."

The Gestapo was not the first political police force in German history. Germany, like many countries in Europe, had a long history of political policing.

Political policing is a specific type of police work. Its goal is to maintain the political status quo. Political police forces protect a state or government from subversion, sabotage, or coup. They use surveillance and intelligence gathering. These methods help them identify domestic threats against the government. Political police forces are sometimes referred to as "secret police." Authoritarian states, such as the Nazi regime, often rely on them to maintain and protect their power.

The Gestapo as a Symbol of Nazi Brutality

The Gestapo became infamous for its brutality. Today, the institution and its political policemen are symbols of authoritarian policing.

The word "Gestapo" is often mistakenly used as a catchall for multiple groups of Nazi and the uniformed perpetrators. In reality, the Gestapo was just one of many institutions that perpetrated Nazi crimes. Other German police forces were also perpetrators of the Order Police. Holocaust. This included the criminal police (Kripo)

The Gestapo earned its infamous reputation. Gestapo policemen used torture and violence in interrogations. They coordinated the deportation of Jews to their deaths. And they harshly repressed resistance movements in Germany and in German-occupied Europe.

Political Policing during the Weimar Republic

Before the Nazis came to power in 1933, Germany was a democracy called the Weimar Republic (1918-1933). The country was a federation made up of states. These states included Prussia, Bavaria, and Saxony. Most of these states had their own political police forces.

The Weimar Republic's constitution guaranteed individual rights and legal protections. These included: freedom of speech; freedom of the press; and equality before the law. Political police forces had to respect these rights. The constitution prevented them from conducting arbitrary police actions. Nevertheless, political policemen were active during the Weimar Republic.

In particular, the political police focused on containing political violence among the anti-democratic movements of the extreme right and left. This included policing the Nazi Party and the Communist Party. Both parties became increasingly popular in Germany beginning in 1930. Over the next three years, the Weimar-era political police struggled to respond to these often violent mass movements.

Nazifying the Political Police

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. Hitler and other Nazi leaders planned to establish a dictatorship. They also planned to eliminate all political opposition. The new Nazi regime intended to use Germany's political police to accomplish these goals. However, there were some obstacles to overcome.
Obstacles to Nazifying the Political Police
Initially, there were two main obstacles:

1. First, the Weimar Republic's constitution remained in effect. It contained legal protections against arbitrary police actions.

2. Second, Germany's political police forces were decentralized. They remained subordinate to various state and local governments. The police did not answer to Hitler as chancellor.

These two obstacles limited how Hitler and the Nazi regime could legally use the political police. For example, in the first weeks of the Nazi regime, the Nazis could not simply order the political police to arrest Communists without a legal basis. But this quickly changed.
Overcoming Legal Obstacles
Beginning in February 1933, the Nazi regime used emergency decrees to transform Germany. These decrees freed the political police from legal and constitutional limitations. The most important of these was the Reichstag Fire Decree. It was issued on February 28, 1933. This decree suspended individual rights and legal protections, such as the right to privacy. This made it easier for the police to investigate, interrogate, and arrest political opponents. Police could now read private mail, secretly listen to telephone calls, and search homes without warrants.

Creating the Gestapo

The Nazi regime wanted to establish a centralized political police force that would answer directly to Nazi leadership. To create this, they had to reform the existing decentralized police system. This process took several years. It included Nazifying the entire police system.

In the early 1930s, political policing remained tied to local governments. Thus, it was subject to local power struggles. By the end of 1936, however, the Nazi regime had created a strong, centralized political police force under SS leader Heinrich Himmler. This political police force was the Gestapo.

The position of the Gestapo was further strengthened in the summer of 1936. At that time, it was combined with the criminal police (Kripo). Together they formed a new organization called the Security Police (SiPo). Himmler's deputy Reinhard Heydrich led the Security Police. Heydrich also led the SS intelligence service ( Sicherheitsdienst or Security Service). This office was referred to by its German abbreviation "SD."

In September 1939, the Security Police was officially united with the SS intelligence service (SD). Together, they became a new office called the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). The Gestapo became Office IV of the RSHA. It was still referred to as the Gestapo.

Who worked for the Gestapo?

The Gestapo was staffed by plainclothes policemen, often called Gestapo agents. Most of these men were professionally trained. They often had worked as detectives or political policemen during the Weimar Republic. For instance, Heinrich Müller had worked for the police in Munich since 1919. He went on to become the head of the Gestapo in 1939. Professionally trained policemen like Müller brought experience, knowledge, and skill to the Gestapo.

But not all Gestapo agents were longtime policemen. Some came to the Gestapo through the SS intelligence service (SD). These SD men were Nazi ideologues with little or no police training. They were hired as part of SS leader Heinrich Himmler's plan to transform the police system into an ideologically-driven institution.

The Gestapo united the knowledge of professional policemen with the zeal of Nazi ideologues.

What was the Gestapo's Mission?

The Gestapo's mission was to "investigate and combat all attempts to threaten the state." In the Nazi view, threats to the state encompassed a wide variety of behaviors. These behaviors included everything from organized political opposition to individual critical remarks about the Nazis. The government even defined belonging to certain categories or groups of people as threatening. To combat this wide array of potential threats, the Nazi dictatorship gave the Gestapo enormous power.

One way in which the Gestapo carried out its mission was by enforcing new Nazi laws. Some of these laws broadly defined criticism of the regime as a security threat. For example, a December 1934 law made it illegal to criticize the Nazi Party or the Nazi regime. Telling a joke about Hitler could be categorized as a "malicious attack against the state or the Party." It could then result in an arrest by the Gestapo, trial before a special court, and even imprisonment in a concentration camp.

But the Gestapo went much further than monitoring individual behaviors. They implemented Nazi ideology, which defined entire groups of people as racial or political enemies. Membership in the Communist Party or a Jewish background was enough to make someone a threat to the state and subject to Gestapo attention.

During the 1930s, the vast majority of Aryan Germans did not encounter or even expect to encounter the Gestapo. But the Gestapo was a constant threat for political opponents, religious dissenters (including Jehovah's Witnesses), homosexuals, and Jews.

Empowering the Gestapo with Protective Custody

The Nazi regime gave Gestapo agents a great deal of power to decide the fate of the people they arrested.

Most notably, the Gestapo had the power to send people directly to a concentration camp. This was called "protective custody" ( Schutzhaft). Protective custody allowed the Gestapo to bypass the court system. Those placed in protective custody could not consult a lawyer, appeal their sentence, or defend themselves in court. The Gestapo even used protective custody to override court decisions in some cases. Typically they did so when they considered the court's sentence too lenient.

As an institution, the Gestapo was not subject to legal or administrative oversight. This meant that no other institution (including the courts) could overrule the Gestapo's decisions. The Gestapo had the final word.

How did the Gestapo Work?

The Gestapo fulfilled their mission in a radical way. In Nazi Germany, they used common police investigation methods. However, they did so without legal limits. They pursued denunciations from the public. They carried out arbitrary searches. And they conducted brutal interrogations. In the end, Gestapo agents held the fate of the people they arrested in their hands.
Denunciations
Sometimes, the Gestapo initiated investigations themselves. At other times, the Gestapo received tips from the public. A neighbor, acquaintance, colleague, friend, or family member could inform the Gestapo that a person was behaving illegally or suspiciously. Other police forces and Nazi organizations could also inform the Gestapo of a potential crime or threat.

In Nazi Germany, these types of tips were referred to as denunciations. They were often motivated by ideology, politics, or personal gain. The consequences for those people who were denounced could be severe.
Arbitrary Searches and Surveillance
During the course of an investigation, Gestapo officers interviewed witnesses, searched homes and apartments, and conducted surveillance. In Nazi Germany, there were no limits to these activities. The Gestapo did not need a warrant to read a suspect's mail, enter a home, or listen to telephone conversations.

Many people feared Gestapo surveillance. In reality, the Gestapo had limited personnel and only used these methods in specific cases. There was no widespread surveillance of the German population. This was why denunciations were so important.
Interrogations
The Gestapo was infamous for the ruthless ways it carried out interrogations. Gestapo officers regularly used intimidation, and psychological and physical torture. It was common for Gestapo officers to beat detainees in custody. Despite the Gestapo's brutal interrogation methods, they did not often personally kill those whom they arrested. However, some people did die during interrogations or in Gestapo custody.
Deciding the Fate of Those Arrested
Gestapo agents had the power to determine people's fates. Individual agents could choose to be lenient. They could let people go, dismiss cases, or issue warnings and fines.

But Gestapo agents could also choose to be ruthless. They could detain someone in prison indefinitely or condemn someone to a concentration camp. The only monitoring of these decisions came from within the Gestapo itself.

The Gestapo and the Jews Before the War

The Nazis considered Germany's Jews a racial threat to the German people and the Nazi regime. Therefore, the Gestapo was responsible for policing Jews as part of its mission to defend the state. This became increasingly important in the second half of the 1930s.

In the first two years of the Nazi regime, the Gestapo did not focus on policing Germany's Jewish population. At that time, the Gestapo's priority was policing political opponents. The Gestapo did arrest some Jews in 1933 and 1934. However, these Jews were typically detained because they were Communists or Social Democrats. The Gestapo considered them political opponents.
The Nuremberg Laws and Race Defilement
The Gestapo's involvement in anti-Jewish measures began to change with the passage of the Nuremberg Laws in fall 1935. These laws banned future marriages between Jews and non-Jewish Germans (meaning those that the Nazis considered "people of German blood"). They also criminalized extramarital sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jewish Germans. The Nazis called this crime "race defilement" ( Rassenschande ).

In response to the new laws, Gestapo offices throughout Germany established specialized Jewish Departments ( Judenreferate ). One of their responsibilities was investigating cases of race defilement.
Emigration and the "Jewish Question"
The Gestapo's Jewish Departments also kept track of Jewish emigration. In the 1930s, the Nazi state considered Jewish emigration to be the best way to solve Germany's "Jewish question." The Gestapo worked to help coordinate and speed up many aspects of the emigration process. This was their way of dealing with the supposed Jewish threat to the Nazi regime. In particular, the Gestapo's Jewish Departments worked to ensure that Jews' financial assets remained behind and were transferred to the Nazi state.

The Gestapo at War

The most notorious and deadly Gestapo crimes took place from 1939-1945 during World War II.

During this time, the Gestapo carried out a variety of tasks at home in Nazi Germany and abroad in German-occupied territories. These tasks were supposed to guarantee the security of the Nazi regime. The war radicalized the role of the Gestapo. When Gestapo agents deployed to German-occupied territories, they behaved brutally and with impunity against the local populations.

During the war, the Gestapo:

Investigated and harshly punished civilians who undermined the war effort or challenged the regime

Joined the Einsatzgruppen and perpetrated mass shootings of Jews and others

Policed foreign forced laborers in Germany and in German-occupied territories

Repressed resistance movements in Germany and in German occupied-territories

Organized deportations of Jews from across Europe to ghettos, concentration camps, killing sites, and killing centers.

Last Edited: Mar 10, 2021

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The name Gestapo is an abbreviation for its official German name " Ge heime Sta ats po lizei." The direct English translation is "Secret State Police." The Gestapo was not the first political police force in German history. Germany, like many countries in Europe, had a long history of political policing.

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On November 9–10, 1938, the Nazi regime coordinated a wave of antisemitic violence. This became known as Kristallnacht or the “Night of Broken Glass.” Learn more

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https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-camps/ss-concentration-camp-system/

http://70.auschwitz.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=85&Itemid=173&lang=en

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In addition to forced labour, the Nazis used prisoners incarcerated in camps as live test subjects for medical experiments. These experiments were usually extremely painful, debilitating , and in many cases, lethal.

The experiments had various purposes: experiments attempting to prove the supposed superiority of the ' Aryan ' race, experiments to try and find solutions to military or common war related injuries, and or experiments to further individual doctors' research interests.
Experiments attempting to prove the superiority of the 'Aryan' race
Just six months after Hitler was appointed Chancellor, on 14 July 1933 the Nazis passed their first sterilisation law, which forced people with certain hereditary conditions to be sterilised by law.

Following the mass imprisonments after the start of the Second World War, the Nazis escalated this sterilisation policy and also targeted other racial enemies such as Jews. The Nazis conducted a number of experiments on concentration camp prisoners in an effort to discover a method for mass sterilisation. These experiments primarily took place on women prisoners at Auschwitz and Ravensbrück.
Experiments to find solutions to military or common war related injuries
The start of the Second World War also led to a number of medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners in attempts to discover new, cheaper and quicker treatments for common military injuries. Some examples of these experiments include hypothermia experiments at Dachau, which attempted to discover ways to quickly reverse the effects of hypothermia . This set of experiments forced inmates to be submerged in cold water. Out of the 300 inmates involved, between 80-90 died - typically of heart failure. Other experiments at Dachau involved attempts to make seawater drinkable, in case troops were marooned with no running water, attempts to find a similar drug to penicillin , which involved infecting prisoners with sepsis , and attempts to find a cure for malaria . Almost all of these experiments resulted in a significant number of deaths or physical and mental deformities among the prisoners tested on. Prisoners were typically given little to no pain relief during experiments, and the Nazis saw their deaths as inconsequential due to their inferior status.

Dachau was not the only site of war-related medical experiments on prisoners. Experiments to find a cure for typhus also took place at Natzweiler and Buchenwald (where 154 inmates out of the 729 used died, in addition to 120 carrier patients who died whilst being used to keep the infection alive so it could be further tested). Hepatitis experiments took place at Sachsenhausen and Natzweiler, and bone, muscle and nerve regeneration experiments took place at Ravensbrück.
Experiments to further individual doctors' research interests
Concentration camp inmates were also used as live test subjects in individual doctors research experiments. Perhaps the most infamous example of this was the experiments performed by Dr. Joseph Mengele on inmates of Auschwitz. Mengele was particularly interested in twins, people with different colored eyes, and people with physical impairments. Mengele did not spare any thought for the wellbeing or health of the inmates subject to his experiments, and many of them died or were purposefully killed so that their corpses could be examined.

Another example of medical experiments on inmates driven by personal interest was the Tuberculosis experiments carried out by Dr. Kurt Heissmeyer in June 1944 in Nuengamme. Heissmeyer hoped that his experiments would find a cure for tuberculosis . All of Heissmeyer's experiments failed. Despite the lack of positive results, Heissmeyer continued his experiments, and started new rounds on children in 1945. All of the inmates involved in the experiments either died as a result of them, or were murdered on Heissmeyer's orders directly afterwards.

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In addition to forced labour, the Nazis used prisoners incarcerated in camps as live test subjects for medical experiments. These experiments were usually extremely painful, debilitating , and in many cases, lethal.

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Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands Poles Soviets and prisoners of war

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The watchtower at Dachau. Dachau was created in 1933 and was one of the first Nazi concentration camps.

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people are concentrated and imprisoned without trial.

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The Holocaust (Shoah) is the term for the murder of around six million Jews by the Nazi regime and their collaborators during the Second World War.

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The Nazi concentration camp system was a network of concentration camps controlled by the SS to incarcerate and kill millions of Jews and other groups.

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The Nazi concentration camp system was a network of concentration camps controlled by the SS to incarcerate and kill millions of Jews and other groups.

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https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/anti-semitism/nazi-antisemitism/

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In the interwar period, when the Nazis rose to power, Germany was politically unstable. The trauma caused by the First World War and the loss of the war left people disheartened and susceptible to new ideas.

The Nazi Party seemingly offered hope and solutions. The Party condemned the unpopular Treaty of Versailles and offered an explanation for Germany's problems - the Jews. Although this was not a new idea in Germany, where antisemitism had been growing since the start of the century, the political situation allowed it to flourish.

The Nazi Party was antisemitic from the start. Anton Drexler , who founded the party, and Adolf Hitler, who would become its leader, were both highly antisemitic. Key party speeches and documents, such as the early party policy, were also antisemitic. This spread their views to their followers and beyond.

When combined with political instability in Germany at the time, and the other factors causing modern antisemitism such as nationalism and social Darwinism, the Nazis ideology appealed to German citizens and slowly gained a following.

After the Nazis gained power, antisemitism was at the forefront of their policies. Exactly how the Nazis gained power, and the antisemitic actions they then implemented, is explored in more depth in the next sections.

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In the interwar period, when the Nazis rose to power, Germany was politically unstable. The trauma caused by the First World War and the loss of the war left people disheartened and susceptible to new ideas. The Nazi Party seemingly offered hope and solutions.

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Germany's defeat in World War I left the people disheartened. The Nazi Party became the hope of the people, and one of the main policy of the Nazi Party was anti-Semitism

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https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-camps/ghettos-an-overview/

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To most people, the symbol represents tyranny, racial discrimination, terror and violence, and has become a symbol of war and robbery.

Nazi symbols have brought fear, oppression and suffering to people's lives, causing many people to be persecuted, killed or treated unfairly.

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https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/what-was-the-holocaust/

https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/how-and-why/

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The Holocaust (Shoah) is the term for the murder of around six million Jews by the Nazi regime and their collaborators during the Second World War.

Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis sought to eliminate the entire Jewish community of Europe. Jews were murdered by death squads called or transported to extermination camps. Six million of the eleven million European Jews perished. The Holocaust mainly occurred in Eastern Europe, in places such as Poland and Ukraine.

The term 'Holocaust' can also refer to the orchestrated murder of Roma . Other groups were also targeted by the Nazi regime: disabled people, Soviet Prisoners of War and civilians, Polish civilians, homosexuals, socialists, communists and trades unionists, Freemasons and Jehovah's Witnesses.

The Nazis did not act alone. Countries which were occupied by the Nazis during the Second World War, such as Lithuania and the Ukraine, assisted the perpetrators .

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The Holocaust (Shoah) is the term for the murder of around six million Jews by the Nazi regime and their collaborators during the Second World War. Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis sought to eliminate the entire Jewish community of Europe. Jews were murdered by death squads called or transported to extermination camps.

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https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-camps/types-of-camps/

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The Nazis used a variety of camps throughout their time in power to persecute, control and, eventually, murder their opponents.

This section will explain the different types of camps used at different points by the Nazis.

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The Nazis used a variety of camps throughout their time in power to persecute, control and, eventually, murder their opponents. This section will explain the different types of camps used at different points by the Nazis.

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People who hate Jews.

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Historic antisemitism , the rise of eugenics and nationalism , the aftermath of the First World War, the rise of the Nazis, the role of Adolf Hitler, the internal operation of the Nazi state, the Second World War and collaboration all played key roles in the timing and scale of the final catastrophe.

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Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands Poles Soviets and prisoners of war

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The Jewish star is used as a symbol of racial or religious alienation.

The use of Jewish stars has deepened the social exclusion and mental trauma of Jews, restricted their life, work and educational opportunities, and had a serious impact on their physical and mental health.