The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy 1933-1945 (8 page)

SA violence and its role in 'co-ordination'

The terror inflicted by the Storm-troopers (the Sturmabeilung or SA, sometimes called the 'Brownshirts') and SS (Schutzstaffel), Himmler's elite blackshirted corps) in the early months of the Nazi regime served to intensify the atmosphere of fear which accompanied the emergence of the Gestapo. Disturbances were deliberately created and anxiety levels raised, and such orchestrated scenarios were used as pretexts by Nazi leaders to 're-establish' order. The climate was deliberately made more oppressive in the months immediately following Hitler's appointment and the burning of the Reichstag, as Germany was torn apart by violence inflicted particularly by the SA and to a lesser extent by the SS. These actions created both a massive number of new places of incarceration-the concentration camps-and, arguably, the condition for a general awareness of the unspeakable cruelties committed in them. After 30 January the SA acted as vigilantes as well. Not only was there an official crackdown on 'opponents' but patently illegal terror was meted out to enemies in large doses. The existing police stood idly by, and in some areas even played an active role in the early wave of repression.

Membership in the SA increased spectacularly after the (re)appointment of Ernst Rohm in January 1931, though this expansion was more a reflection of the worsening unemployment and sense of frustration than an indication of Rohm's organizational skills and leadership abilities. In the two key national elections in 1932, as well as in the daily struggles, the SA represented the violent side of the Nazis' efforts to obtain power. It was always on the verge of getting out of control, and even a few months after his appointment as head of the SA Rohm was faced with a mutiny of some of his north German followers.

Growth of the organization took off dramatically after Hitler's appointment.44
Some wanted to get in on the spoils-sometimes just a job-and many were simply determined to start reckoning with their old enemies, especially Communists and Socialists. Avenues for revenge opened when SA (and also SS) were turned into auxiliary police (so-called 'Hilfspolizei'). In Bavaria this occurred 'spontaneously' on the night of the take-over of power (9-1o March), but it was made official on the 14th. One writer suggests that in part the deputizing of the SA was to balance off local police, not all of whom were by any means favourably disposed to the Nazis
,41 but it is clear that the SA was also used in struggles among the Nazis in power. The March election had gone sufficiently well for it plausibly to be called a victory, and now the results were treated as a mandate from the people to continue the 'struggle against Marxism'; far from being 'superfluous', the revolution was 'legitimized'
.46 The decision to employ the auxiliary police in Bavaria seems to have been reached by Rohm, Himmler, and Party Gauleiter Adolf Wagner, primarily because, whatever their differences, they could support the radicalism of the SA and were convinced that the momentarily influential persons in Bavaria (head of government Von Epp, Justice Minister Frank, and Finance Minister Siebert) were slow to push forward with the revolution.41

The `revolution' which was to follow moved on two separate but not
unrelated levels: 'co-ordination' actions-wrapped in semi-legalities, and generally surreptitious-and openly terrorist ones carried out in the public eye, aimed at the Marxists and 'enemies of the state' and the wide variety of opposition covered by such terms.41

Nazi violence against 'enemies' was deliberately fanned by the regime's leaders. The SA was not only deputized but in some areas given the legal right to carry firearms.49
The demoralizing effect on old enemies was obvious; these were violent people, neither trained nor interested in the procedures of the law, so that when orders went out from Berlin on the night of 28 February to arrest leading Communists (with the help of SA/SS auxiliary police), to occupy strategically important positions, and so on, the resulting mistreatment of many was to be predicted. The first head of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels, much later wrote of the 'revolution' of the SA in March 1933

Unlike the Party, the SA was prepared for its seizure of power. There was no need for a unitary leadership; the Group Staff [Gruppenstab] set the example, but gave no orders. However, the SA formations [Sturme] had firm plans for the actions in the Communist quarters of the city. In those March days every SA man was 'on the heels of the enemy', each knew what he had to do. The formations cleaned up their districts. They knew not only where their enemies lived; long before they had also discovered their hideouts and meeting-places. Where the knowledge of the SA failed, it was supported by a flood of denunciations and an army of snoopers and tittle-tattlers (as thirteen years later, during the de-Nazification)."'
Not only the Communists, but anyone who had expressed himself against Hitler's movement was in danger. The police could only superficially keep up with the Revolution of the Berlin SA in March 1933.''

That such denunciations quickly became part of the social landscape can be seen in the provinces, in areas such as Bavaria as well. Of course, from the perspective of the Prussian Gestapo it seemed, as Diels put it, that 'the uprising of the Berlin SA electrified the most distant parts of the country. Revolutionary conditions prevailed in many big cities where the powers of the police were transferred to local SA leaders.'iz

Much SA work was done 'spontaneously', that is, by individual actions allegedly carried out from below by groups of SA acting on their own initiative. A Gestapo insider remarked that 'our contemporaries have often and justly smiled at the adverbs "spontaneously" and "voluntary", words which soon became cliches of all Nazi journalism'."
He added, however, that the SA acted in every way as if it could do whatever it wanted. It left the policemen
'behind at headquarters' and roamed the streets 'alone in search of "enemies of the state"'; it 'laughed at the administrative and judicial principles which dated from the days of the "system"', but 'the worst feature of all, so far as the helpless government authorities were concerned, was that the SA would not release its prey. Woe to the unfortunate who was caught in the clutches of the storm-troops.'S4
This insider does not, however, appreciate the usefulness of the violence of the SA and others in the auxiliary police, such as the SS.

The value of the SA to the Nazi state went well beyond what it might accomplish as part of the police force proper; its arbitrariness and brutality, word of which spread quickly, also helped consolidate power and carry through the 'co-ordination' process.55
The actions of the SA gave constant cause for complaint, and though the ways in which local government was more or less cowed into submission all over the country were significant as well, the SA played an important part in the 'seizure of power', at the level of simply facing down opponents in the streets.

For a time the SA managed to create a system of special commissioners to parallel the state administrative set-up-a situation which was ultimately terminated as part of the 'Night of the Long Knives', when the SA leaders were killed off at the end of June 1934.56
The 'auxiliary police' were disbanded in Prussia on 2 August 1933, a sign that the most violent stage of the revolution was over.57
In Bavaria the institution was brought to a close at about the same time.

Even as early as a Cabinet meeting of 7 April 1933, the way the SA was going about its business gave cause for concern in Munich's government circles. In the context of a discussion of the problems resulting from the use of the SA as 'auxiliary police', Minister of Justice Hans Frank noted that already some 5,000 people had been taken into custody and that the number was sure to rise. Under the circumstances he advised the introduction of more formalized proceedings. His view of what needed to be changed gives a good idea of the atmosphere in Bavaria at the time:

Arrests on the basis of simple denunciations and arbitrary arrests by subordinate organs must cease. The interrogation of those taken into custody must be completed at once. When the reasons for the arrest are not adequate, the person concerned must be set free. Normal proceedings must be introduced to regulate responsibility and offer those arrested certain securities and opportunities for complaint. The police commandant must procure exact information on all those arrested ... A committee
should be set up to examine complaints and occupied by higher police officials and one or two judges from the administrative court after reference to the SA.S"

Epp, the leading political figure in Bavaria, reiterated this demand on the very next day, and involved Hitler's name in support; nevertheless, local 'spontaneous' initiatives continued.

The Brownshirts showed their violent inclinations in Bavarian districts such as Middle Franconia. Nuremberg, administrative centre of the area, was known in this period because of Gauleiter Julius Streicher's radicalism, and especially his rabid anti-Semitism purveyed through the scandal-sheet Der Sturmer, and because Nazi Party rallies were held there. During those March days of 1933 the SA in Nuremberg was in its heyday. With the appointment there in September 1933 of the leader of the Franconian SA, Hans-Gunther von Obernitz, as police president (even if, to be sure, he was the third one inside six months to hold the job) it seemed that the organization was finally reaping the spoils for which it had fought."
Targets for Storm-trooper violence in Nuremberg, as elsewhere, were the Leftist parties and the Jews. 'With the knowledge and frequently in the presence of regular police, the SA arrested, intimidated, and on numerous occasions tortured real or alleged opponents of the new regime.'"')

4. HIMMLER, HEYDRICH, AND THE BAVARIAN POLITICAL POLICE

The actions in the streets prepared the ground for the emergence of a secret police in Bavaria, one which then linked up with the Prussian Gestapo. Bavaria too had had a political police before the First World War, albeit one very much centred on the Munich Metropolitan Police (the Polizeidirektion Munchen). In Imperial Germany Munich's political police, like the one in Hamburg described above, regularly kept track of the political goings-on in the capital. But while there was a tradition that could be built upon, by the standards of the Third Reich this surveillance was limited and tame.

The Munich Metropolitan Police, which had acted as an official central body for all of Bavaria in many 'political' matters, particularly from the 1920s, was reorganized at the end of 1932. Under the new scheme the political police became Department (Abteilung) VI, divided in turn into five specific bureaux (Dienststellen) from the earlier 'desks' (Referate) of Department VI. Structurally, not much changed. There was surveillance of statethreatening groups such as Nazis and Communists, as well as public gatherings, elections, the press, and so on, some counter-espionage activity, and a central political intelligence service. These operations were backed by a card-index system. There were trained specialists, with detailed knowledge of their subject.

(a) The structure of the political police

In March Heinrich Himmler became provisional Police President of Munich, and he had the able assistance of Reinhard Heydrich, who headed the political police (in Department VI). These changes were part of Epp's initial transformation of the political and administrative set-up in Bavaria. The statement containing the official announcement of the new Himmler-Heydrich team also emphasized that the responsibility of the police for the maintenance of public security and order-a defensive mission-would henceforth be supplemented by an offensive political mission, namely the assurance of 'loyal adherence to the Reich Government of National Revival under the leadership of Adolf Hitler'.61

Himmler was named 'Political Police Commander' of Bavaria as of i April 1933. Given a special position in the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior, he received enormous new powers. A new Bavarian Political Police (Bayerische Politische Polizei, BPP) was at once established and removed from the authority of police headquarters in Munich, that is, it was given the kind of independence attained (later) in Prussia. Himmler could count not only on the political police, but also on the special Emergency Police, the ordinary uniformed police (those in blue), and the rural gendarmerie, 'for enforcement purposes'. Thus, within a month of the 'seizure of power' not only had the Nazis acquired official control over the police, but through Himmler they had linked it to the SS-for the time being, in marked contrast to Prussia-and the concentration-camp system."

It was one thing to be officially awarded police powers, but quite another to exercise them, given the very real competition of the SA, particularly in Bavaria, which was to continue until the blood-bath of June 1934. In fact a peculiar situation existed in Bavaria, since at times the SS leader-acting as the commander of the (state) police apparatus-was in conflict with Rohm (SA head) and some of the latter's followers, while at other times the two would ally in order to cover up crimes (such as the murder of political opponents in the SS Dachau camp). A Gestapo insider commented later that 'right at the start of the Nazi regime an internal struggle raged over who was to exercise the chief police power', and this was especially the case in Bavaria; he added that of course 'there was no doubt that whoever eventually won would occupy a decisive position'.f
3

(b) Exercise of police powers in 'co-ordination'

In the proclaimed emergency situation after the Reichstag fire the political police were instructed in effect to treat the opponents of Nazism as the enemies of the German state. They were be to ruthlessly dealt with, a business made much easier for career specialists who had long wanted to do more but were held back by the law: those constraints now virtually disappeared. In Bavaria one group of opponents after another was systematically terrorized. The new Bavarian police system-backed by 'spontaneous' actions in the street and in the 'wild' concentration camps of the SA-made use of the double-edged sword of 'preventive arrest' and confinement in a concentration camp.64
In spite of local variations, at least in retrospect a pattern seems evident, although this should not be taken to mean that a carefully conceived plan was being followed.