Blackwell Reference Online

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Acronym from the German term Geheimestaatspolizei (Secret State Police). This instrument of Nazi oppression (see nazism ) was established under goering in 1933. It was transferred to the control of himmler as leader of the schutzstaffel (SS) in 1934, and within that context was merged into Reinhard Heydrich's sicherheitsdienst (SD) in 1939. By 1943 the Gestapo had some 45,000 members, alongside a host of informers. Its main function was to identify and eliminate opponents of hitler's regime, by brutal methods freed from any conventional legal checks. Its operations (e.g. in regard to the Nazi slave-labor program and to the administration of concentration camps ) became increasingly indistinguishable from those of the SS at large. At the nuremberg trials the Gestapo was successfully prosecuted as a criminal organization. ... log in or subscribe to read full text