Prussian Secret Police
The Prussian secret police or political police was responsible for the monitoring of political life and the pursuit of political offenses in Prussia since the mid-19th century until the time of the authority of the Secret State Police ( Gestapo ) of the National Socialist German Reich.
Formation background
After several previous approaches, the reaction led policy after the revolution of 1848 to a restructuring of the political police organization in Prussia. The driving force here was the appointed by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV on 18 November 1848, police chief of Berlin Karl Ludwig Friedrich von Hinckeldey. In 1854 this was finally appointed General Superintendent. This position corresponded to that of a de facto Minister of Police and made Hinckeldey relatively independent of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior.
Beyond the scope of Prussia addition Hinckeldey also played an important role in the cooperation between the police forces of the states of the German Confederation in the so-called police club.
Activity during the monarchy
In Prussia itself initially a political (secret ) police was in Berlin for monitoring and gathering information on oppositional individuals and organizations. This included the monitoring of the press. Especially in the first decades extended this to their room to maneuver abroad. So for the Cologne Communist trial evidence procured as in Paris or in London with partially legal methods.
As part of the new era since 1858 to monitor the bourgeois opposition became less important. During the Kulturkampf then came increasingly Catholic priests, lay people and organization in the eyes of the political police. In the period of socialist law (1878-1890), but also in the following decades, the political police focused on the fight against social democracy.
As of 1890, the Division V of the Berlin police " Prussian secret political police " was called. Reach the responsibility of the Division V from 1 December 1898, however, limited as " a center for the evaluation and information activities " on anarchist aspirations.
The political police during the Republic
1918, the Division V of the Berlin police was disbanded by the " People's Commissar of Public Security " ( Berlin Police President ) Emil Eichhorn and replaced them with workers 'and soldiers' councils. Although he recognized the need for a political police, but had significant concerns about the employment of royal police officer in this function. He was succeeded in January 1919 Eugen Ernst. He was convinced to have to lead the fight against the continuation of the revolution with police agents of the need. The constitutional struggles forced continuity. The political police was rebuilt under the name, state police Centrale ' ( C.ST. ) as a subordinate office of the Division I with former imperial officials. With the adoption of 20 May 1925, the department was IA (AIA ) of the Police Headquarters. With the adoption of 12 December 1928, the Prussian police was uniformly divided into an administrative, police and crime investigation. The political affairs were carried out by the Division I of the Administrative Police. The highest supervisory led the interior minister, whose department II for police matters, inter alia, a "political group " with three presentations entertained.
In the course of republicanization the structures of the Prussian administration ( " bulwark Prussia ") during the Weimar Republic also changed the role of the political police. At that time possessed the political police over about 1,000 officers, making it the largest organ of state security throughout Germany. Of the servants were at least three-quarters of the field service.
The political police fought now anti-democratic and anti- republican people and organizations. To this end, the extreme left belonged as well as the rights. For this, the police served the usual methods of observation exercise and resolution of events, intelligence methods such as the use of undercover agents. Especially at the end of the Republic was fighting the Nazi Party became an important task of the authority. However, such a mass movement with police agents did not stop.
There was jurisdiction overlaps with the State Criminal Police Office, founded in Prussia in 1925, on imperial level with the 1920 introduced Reich Commissioner for monitoring of public policy, later called news collection at the Reich Ministry of the Interior.
Transition to the Gestapo
As on 30 January 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor, Hermann Göring was appointed Reich Commissioner for the Prussian Ministry of the Interior. This in turn appoints the head of the political police force of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior Rudolf Diels as head of the Division I A. On 3 March 1933 the Prussian ministerial decree abolished the existing conflicting competence limitations of the police. This represents a first step towards the release of the Gestapo was completed from binding to the laws. On 11 April, Göring was also Prime Minister of Prussia. With its adoption on 26 April 1933, the Prussian secret police, the Secret State Police Office ( Gestapo ) was spun off from the police force and formed, which was the Prussian Minister of the Interior ( Goering ) reports directly and had the status of a national police force. The second Gestapo Act of 30 November 1933, the Gestapo was a completely independent branch of internal administration, which was directly subordinated to the Prime Minister ( Goering ). Then was the secret police from her.
July 20, 1932 ( Prussian coup ) marks the " end of the republican police." She was slowly infiltrated into the sequence of Nazis. In the political police, most of the higher civil service was used only under Diels and more than half of the newcomers left more or less to him again the Gestapo, while the old-timers were up into the war.