Gestapo

Gestapo
/geuh stah"poh/; Ger. /geuh shtah"poh/, n.
1. the German state secret police during the Nazi regime, organized in 1933 and notorious for its brutal methods and operations.
adj.
2. (sometimes l.c.) of or resembling the Nazi Gestapo, esp. in the brutal suppression of opposition: The new regime is using gestapo tactics.
[ < G Ge(heime) Sta(ats)po(lizei)]

* * *

in full Geheime Staatspolizei

(German: "Secret State Police") Political police of Nazi Germany.

It was created by Hermann Goring in 1933 from the political and espionage units of the Prussian police and by Heinrich Himmler from the police of the remaining German states. Himmler was given command in 1934. The Gestapo operated without civil restraints, and its actions were not subject to judicial appeal. Thousands of Jews, leftists, intellectuals, trade unionists, political clergy, and homosexuals disappeared into concentration camps after being arrested by the Gestapo. In World War II the Gestapo suppressed partisan activities in the occupied territories, and a section of the Gestapo under Adolf Eichmann organized the deportation of Jews to the extermination camps in Poland.

* * *

▪ Nazi political police
abbreviation of  Geheime Staatspolizei (German: “Secret State Police”) 

      the political police of Nazi (Nazi Party) Germany. The Gestapo ruthlessly eliminated opposition to the Nazis within Germany and its occupied territories and was responsible for the roundup of Jews (Jew) throughout Europe for deportation to extermination camps (extermination camp).

      When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Hermann Göring (Göring, Hermann), then Prussian minister of the interior, detached the political and espionage units from the regular Prussian police, filled their ranks with thousands of Nazis, and, on April 26, 1933, reorganized them under his personal command as the Gestapo. Simultaneously, Heinrich Himmler (Himmler, Heinrich), head of the SS, the Nazi paramilitary corps, together with his aide Reinhard Heydrich (Heydrich, Reinhard), similarly reorganized the police of Bavaria and the remaining German states. Himmler was given command over Göring's Gestapo in April 1934 and on June 17, 1936, was made German chief of police with the title of Reichsführer. Nominally under the Ministry of the Interior, Germany's police forces now were unified under Himmler as head of both the SS and the Gestapo.

      In 1936 the Gestapo—led by Himmler's subordinate, Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller—was joined with the Kriminalpolizei (German: “Criminal Police”) under the umbrella of a new organization, the Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo; “Security Police”). Under a 1939 SS reorganization, the Sipo was joined with the Sicherheitsdienst (“Security Service”), an SS intelligence department, to form the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (“Reich Security Central Office”) under Heydrich. In this bureaucratic maze, the functions of the Gestapo often overlapped with those of other security departments, with which the Gestapo had both to cooperate and compete.

      The Gestapo operated without civil restraints. It had the authority of “preventative arrest,” and its actions were not subject to judicial appeal. Thousands of leftists, intellectuals, Jews, trade unionists, political clergy, and homosexuals simply disappeared into concentration camps (concentration camp) after being arrested by the Gestapo. The political section could order prisoners to be murdered, tortured, or released. Together with the SS, the Gestapo managed the treatment of “inferior races,” such as Jews and Roma (Gypsies). During World War II the Gestapo suppressed partisan activities in the occupied territories and carried out reprisals against civilians. Gestapo members were included in the Einsatzgruppen (“deployment groups”), which were mobile death squads that followed the German regular army into Poland and Russia to kill Jews and other “undesirables.” Bureau IV B4 of the Gestapo, under Adolf Eichmann (Eichmann, Adolf), organized the deportation of millions of Jews from other occupied countries to the extermination camps in Poland.

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Gestapo — Geheime Staatspolizei Plainclothes Gestapo agents during the White Buses operations in 1945 …   Wikipedia

  • GESTAPO — Le siège de la Gestapo, Prinz Albrecht Straße à Berlin …   Wikipédia en Français

  • GESTAPO — (abb. Geheime Staats Polizei; Secret State Police ), the secret police of Nazi Germany, their main tool of oppression and destruction, which persecuted Germans, opponents of the regime, as well as Jews at the outset of the Nazi regime and later… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • GESTAPO — (Geheime Staatspolizei) Police secrète de l’État nazi, contraction du mot allemand Geheime Staatspolizei. Ce nom générique de Gestapo a été utilisé par les Français occupés pour désigner à tort des organismes aussi différents que l’Abwehr… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • gestapo — GESTAPÓ s.n. Poliţia secretă politică din Germania nazistă. [pr.: ghe – var.: gestapóu s.n.] – Din germ. Gestapo. Trimis de gall, 13.09.2007. Sursa: DEX 98  gestapó s. n. [pron. germ. ghe sta ] …   Dicționar Român

  • gestapo — {{/stl 13}}{{stl 8}}rz. n ndm (rzadko N. lp gestapopem) {{/stl 8}}{{stl 7}} tajna policja polityczna w hitlerowskich Niemczech, działająca też w krajach okupowanych, stosująca terror : {{/stl 7}}{{stl 10}}Zabrało go gestapo. Był przesłuchiwany… …   Langenscheidt Polski wyjaśnień

  • Gestapo SS — is an American National Socialist black metal band, formed in 1997 in Tucson/Phoenix, Arizona. The bands sound can be described as a black metal/RAC hybrid, although originally it was meant to be RAC and has returned to those roots. Current… …   Wikipedia

  • Gestapo — Nazi secret state police, 1934, from Ger. Gestapo, contracted from Geheime Staats polizei, lit. secret state police, set up by Hermann Göring in Prussia in 1933, extended to all Germany in January 1934 …   Etymology dictionary

  • Gestapo — Gèstapo (Gestȁpo) m DEFINICIJA pov. politička tajna policija nacističkog režima u Njemačkoj (1933 1945) ETIMOLOGIJA krat., njem. Geheime Staats polizei …   Hrvatski jezični portal

  • Gèstapo — (Gestȁpo) m pov. politička tajna policija nacističkog režima u Njemačkoj (1933–1945) ✧ {{001f}}njem …   Veliki rječnik hrvatskoga jezika

  • Gestapo — acron. ES ted. Geheime Staatspolizei, polizia segreta di stato, nella Germania nazista …   Dizionario italiano

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”