Sicherheitspolizei

The Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police), often abbreviated as SiPo, was a term used in Germany for security police. In the Nazi era, it referred to the state political and criminal investigation security agencies. It was made up by the combined forces of the Gestapo (secret state police) and the Kriminalpolizei (criminal police; Kripo) between 1936 and 1939. As a formal agency, the SiPo was incorporated into the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in 1939, but the term continued to be used informally until the end of World War II in Europe. Sicherheitspolizei (Weimar Republic) The term originated in August 1919 when the Reichswehr set up the Sicherheitswehr as a militarised police force to take action during times of riots or strikes. Owing to limitations in army numbers, it was renamed the Sicherheitspolizei to avoid attention. They wore a green uniform, and were sometimes called the "Green Police". It was a military body, recruiting largely from the Freikorps, with NCOs and officers from the old German Imperial Army. When the Nazis came to national power in 1933, Germany, as a federal state, had myriad local and centralized police agencies, which often were un-coordinated and had overlapping jurisdictions. Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich's plan was to fully absorb all the police and security apparatus into the structure of the Schutzstaffel (SS). To this end, Himmler took command first of the Gestapo (itself developed from the Prussian Secret Police). Then on 17 June 1936 all police forces throughout Germany were united, following Adolf Hitler's appointment of Himmler as Chef der Deutschen Polizei (Chief of German Police). As such he was nominally subordinate to Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, but in practice Himmler answered only to Hitler. Himmler immediately reorganised the police, with the state agencies statutorily divided into two groups: the Ordnungspolizei (Order Police; Orpo), consisting of both the national uniformed police and the municipal police, and the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police; SiPo), consisting of the Kripo and Gestapo.

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Related concepts (16)

Ordnungspolizei

The Ordnungspolizei (ˈɔʁdnʊŋspoliˌtsaɪ), abbreviated Orpo, meaning "Order Police", were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo organisation was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdiction was removed in favour of the central Nazi government ("Reich-ification", Verreichlichung, of the police). The Orpo was controlled nominally by the Interior Ministry, but its executive functions rested with the leadership of the SS until the end of World War II.

Niederkirchnerstraße

Niederkirchnerstraße (ˈniːdɐkɪʁçnɐˌʃtʁaːsə) is a street in Berlin, Germany and was named after Käthe Niederkirchner. The thoroughfare was known as Prinz-Albrecht-Straße until 1951 but the name was changed by the East German government. The street was the location of the SS Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), the headquarters of the Sicherheitspolizei, SD, Einsatzgruppen and Gestapo. The site is now marked by the Topography of Terror memorial and a museum, which includes a permanent exhibition showing the crimes of Nazism.

Kriminalpolizei

Kriminalpolizei (ˌkrɪmiˈnaːlpoliˌt͡saɪ̯, "criminal police") is the standard term for the criminal investigation agency within the police forces of Germany, Austria, and the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland. In Nazi Germany, the Kripo was the criminal police department for the entire Reich. Today, in the Federal Republic of Germany, the state police (Landespolizei) perform the majority of investigations. Its Criminal Investigation Department is known as the Kriminalpolizei or more colloquially, the Kripo.