Gestapo
)
Nazi leader Hermann Goering. Creator of the Luftwaffe and founder of concentration camps and the Gestapo, Goering was found guilty of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials but committed suicide rather than face execution.
(Contraction of Geheime Staatspolizei) Nazi Germany's secret police, formed in 1933, and under the direction of Heinrich Himmler from 1934.
The Gestapo was created by Field Marshal Hermann Goering to replace the political police and was transferred to the control of Himmler's SS in 1934, under the command of Reinhard Heydrich. There was no appeal against Gestapo authority and it had sweeping powers to deal with acts or individuals it considered against the national interest. It was one of the most feared and brutal elements of the Nazi regime, using torture and terrorism to stamp out anti-Nazi resistance. It was declared a criminal organization at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946.
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