Carsten Dams

While the other review posted regarding this book is accurate enough in terms of content, I think rather better of this monograph. I'd argue that it's useful to have a nuts-and-bolts account of the evolution of the Gestapo from being a police force as concerned with, say, right-wing extremism as with political threats from the Far Left, to being, well, the Gestapo. I also think that it's helpful that the authors come from a background concerned with police training and professionalism in general, as much of their argument relates to how the Gestapo became, if not an alibi for a nation, then an alibi for the activities of the German police as a whole during the Nazi period.

In conclusion, the authors believe that much of what made the Gestapo so dangerous was that it unified police and intelligence functions in one organization, and was then granted arbitrary executive power. That this lesson has been lost in the wake of 9/11 the authors find rather depressing, as they note that the "national comrades" of the German general public were fine with the activities of the Gestapo, until the methods honed on the declared enemies of the Reich were turned on said general public to keep Germany fighting until the final collapse.… (mehr)

Unlike most Oxford University Press books I’ve read, this one doesn’t repeat itself from chapter to chapter. That probably explains its short length.

I read it hoping for some information on the Gestapo’s counter-intelligence operations. That is mentioned, in passing, like a lot of things are mentioned just in passing here. We really get only a paragraph on the Soviet Red Orchestra spy ring, and you even have to hunt for that since, oddly, this book comes with no index.

My starting level of knowledge about the Gestapo was practically zero, so I did learn a few things.

The term “Gestapo” is, in fact, an acronym in German for the Geheime Staatspolizei (secret state police).

Gestapo members were generally not sadistic thugs. They were former policeman, ambitious party men, and, at one point in its history, many were unemployed lawyers in their twenties.

On paper, the staffing levels and organizational chart of the Gestapo make it look rather inefficient. And it was inefficient at times and missed major acts of resistance including the attempted assassination of Hitler. But it was good enough to kill and imprison millions. Mostly that was due to sort of a fluid and informal appropriation of army personnel, civilians, and regular policeman to help with the work. Want to do a mass shooting? Get some local cops to close off the area for the execution. Looking to put a few thousand people on the train to the death camp when you empty a ghetto? Get some local police to help. Need to root out some Jews in hiding? Get yourself some informants – by blackmail or threats to their family or promise of better treatment – to help you penetrate disguises. The book’s most important point is that a lot of people who were not Gestapo on paper helped with their odious deeds and for a variety of motives ranging from self-preservation and blackmail to political ambition and ideology.

There was a deliberate policy of rotating Gestapo men from Germany out to Poland and Eastern European countries where extermination work was mostly conducted. One reason was for improved morale so no aspersions could be cast on office members in Germany and their non-contributions to the effort.

There were, for reasons not explained, actual formal policies on how many blows a beating could inflict on a suspect. Unfortunately, this is just one more area where a question is raised and not answered. Was this policy actually enforced? For how long?

Peculiarities in German denazification laws allowed a lot of Gestapo members to avoid convictions on war crimes.

A great deal of Gestapo effort was directed toward keeping foreign workers in the Reich in line and, in the case of Polish workers especially, making sure they didn’t have sex with German women.

There are two interesting case studies. One follows the investigation of a German truck driver, a World War One veteran, investigated for making anti-war remarks on his delivery rounds. The second is about two “Graspers”, Stella Kübler and Rolf Isaakson, Jews recruited by the Gestapo to find Jews hiding in Berlin. Given all the effort directed against them, a surprising number of Jews survived the war in Berlin.

However, this is all covered in arid prose only an academic, one wanting to answer a question about approximate operational details in a particular time and place, would turn to. And, needless to say, the bibliography references almost exclusively German language sources. A helpful glossary of terms and equivalent table of Gestapo and Allied military ranks are included.

The three star rating is for academics only. For the layman, I’d give this two stars.… (mehr)