Assess The Significance Of The Gestapo In Nazi Germany

Assess the significance of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany

The Gestapo was the Nazi Secret police founded by Hermann Göring, on the 26th of April 1933. This coursework focuses on the significance of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany. To assess the significance of this organisation on Nazi Germany, I will consider the number of lives affected by it and the socioeconomic changes in the life of the German people from the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich. In particular, I will consider the following aspects of the Gestapo: the persecution of the Jews, who were seen at the time as the main reason for Germany’s defeat in World War I and the economic depression Germany subsequently suffered, the oppression against the homosexuals, viewed as “Un-German” in

It enforced the discriminatory laws passed in 1933 (and annulled in 1945 with the end of the war) such as those preventing Jews from engaging in businesses and prohibiting them from associating with Gentiles (non-Jews). Violations of these restrictions resulted in ‘protective custody’ and confinement in concentration camps. It was the primary organisation in charge of enforcing this, and began by imposing restrictions on Jews, then by seizing and spoiling their property, and then it escalated to deportation to concentration camps, torture and mass murder. Even though in 1933 the German population consisted just 1% of Jews, they were the main target for Nazi hatred and fear mongering: they were defined as ‘an inferior race’ and the Gestapo published anti-semitic propaganda that blamed the Jews for the loss of World war I and for the subsequent economic depression. The spread of these ideas and deeply racist way of

Since 1933 (after the reinterpretation of the concept of ‘protective custody’), the Gestapo had the power to arrest, interrogate and incarcerate people without any valid reason. The Gestapo also allowed stories to circulate about the torture methods they used in Prinz Albrechtasse 8 (the Gestapo’s Berlin headquarters): pedestrians passing outside the building could hear screams and shouts from the torture victims inside. Many of the stories that circulated about Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8 (commonly known as the “house prison”) were true: the brutal torture methods included psychologically torturing the victims, electric shocks by attaching electrodes to hands, feet, ears and genitalia, crushing a man's testicles and securing a prisoner's wrists behind his back then hanging him by the arms causing shoulder dislocation. Over 15,000 people were held prisoners in the ‘house prison’ between 1933 and 1945, mainly consisting of Communists, Social Democrats and members of smaller resistance organisations. Surprisingly, the Gestapo was never a very big organisation: at its peak it employed only 40,000 individuals. Therefore, it was physically impossible for the Gestapo to be everywhere all the time: it had to use terror to maintain control. It is now accepted that in some places within Germany, the Gestapo was thinly spread at best. However, the perception of the Gestapo was more important: