Talk:Gestapo

I think Northwest may have Gestapo confused with Waffen SS. While both were under Himmler and there was some overlap in its command structure with the regular SS, fundamentally it was a police investigatory body and not a fighting unit.

In a Gau, for instance, which had only a party operative as Gauleiter, the party was forced to have the presence of Himmler's Gestapo which may have been staffed with some SS officers; in other Gau's where a Gauleiter may have held dual positions in the SS and party ranks, the Gestapo may have been heavily staffed with SS.

The question of Waffen SS serving in the Gestapo, which could have occurred very late in the war, is something that would have to be looked into. If it did occurr, it certainly wasn't widespread and didn't last long. It may have happened as fronts were collapsing in Poland and France. But the Gestapo itself was never issued any tanks or other military hardware, AFAIK. It simply would have been a dual use of personal brought about by a state of emergency, and the heavy weapons belonged to Waffen SS. RobS^{CIA vs Trump. Who's gonna win?}

May be he does have it confused with the Waffen-SS which was a "defacto" part of the German Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) in World War II. The Gestapo did not have a military component; it was always a "Secret State Police Force"; first in Prussia and then for Germany. After Hitler unified all police forces for Germany and named Himmler Chief of the German Police in June 1936, Himmler had national operational control of all uniformed, detective, secret police and security police. The Gestapo became a state agency; folded into the SiPo with the Kripo in 1936 as sub-branch offices. Then in Sept. 1939, the SiPo (Gestapo & Kripo) were folded into the RSHA as departments under Heydrich.

The Gestapo did not have Waffen-SS officers "per se" in it; but, as you may know, general SS officers could belong to different braches of the SS at the same time. They could even have one rank in the Allgemeine SS (general SS) and a different rank in the Waffen-SS; Hermann Fegelein is an example of that or they could have rank in the general SS and Gestapo like Heinrich Müller. Müller was first chief of operations of the Gestapo under Gestapo chief Heydrich (who Himmler made the first director/chief after he obtained control of it in April 1934) and later Müller was the Gestapo chief (1939-1945). The Gestapo did not wear German Army uniforms but in the east at times wore SS uniforms with the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) diamond id. on the sleeve. The Gestapo also used police detective ranks and generally did not wear uniforms (especially in the West and in Germany itself). -- JohnJustice (talk) 16:59, 22 February 2017 (EST)