{"id":722,"date":"2023-07-20T08:50:17","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T06:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/klapperfeld.de\/?page_id=722"},"modified":"2023-07-20T08:50:18","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T06:50:18","slug":"the-frankfurt-police-under-national-socialism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/klapperfeld.de\/en\/permanent-exhibitions\/history-of-the-former-police-prison-and-its-use-during-national-socialism-1886-1945\/the-frankfurt-police-under-national-socialism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Frankfurt Police under National Socialism<\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After Hitler\u2018s appointment as Reich Chancellor, the German police was changed according to National Socialist ideology. As early as 22 February 1933, the Sturmabteilung (SA) was declared an auxiliary police force and thus the police were under the direct influence of the SA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Newspaper
Newspaper article from the Frankfurter Volksblatt of 12 February 1933:<\/strong> On 13 February, Hermann G\u00f6ring, in his capacity as Prussian Minister of the Interior, also had Ludwig Steinberg, who had been Frankfurt\u2018s police chief for many years, removed. The new police chief was retired Major General von Westrem zum Gutacker, who lived in Wiesbaden as a pensioner but had joined the NSDAP in 1931. After joining, he became SA-Standartenf\u00fchrer. The Frankfurter Volksblatt described Steinberg\u2018s \u201aleave of absence\u2018 as \u00bbliberation from a nightmare\u00ab. The appointment of Westrem was a \u00bbjoy for National Socialist Frankfurt\u00ab. (Source: Institut f\u00fcr Stadtgeschichte Frankfurt am Main<\/a>)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With the emergency decree of 28 February 1933, \u00bbDecree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and the State\u00ab (also known as the Reichstag Fire Decree), police powers were extended. Basic rights were suspended. From now on, the police could \u00bbtake all necessary measures (\u2026) in direct norm-free application of state power\u00ab. House searches and arrests could be carried out arbitrarily. Mass arrests were made against the SPD and KPD, and trade union buildings and newspaper editorial offices were occupied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the NSDAP\u2018s rise to power and the enactment of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service of 7 April 1933, all civil servants who did not agree with the National Socialist ideology were dismissed from their jobs without pension rights. The Frankfurt police were \u00bbbrought into line\u00ab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 17 June 1936, the police were reorganised in the Reich Ministry of the Interior and placed under the control of Heinrich Himmler. Heinrich Himmler, Reichsf\u00fchrer Schutzstaffel (SS) and Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior from now on held two Reich-central main offices: the Order Police and the Security Police, which consisted of the State Police Office and the Prussian State Criminal Police Office. The Schutzpolizei, Gendarmerie and Gemeindepolizei were gathered under the umbrella of the Ordnungspolizei under the leadership of Kurt Daluego, and the Sicherheitspolizei was composed of the Kriminalpolizei and the Secret State Police under the leadership of Reinhard Heydrich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A reorganisation and centralisation of the entire German police force was implemented. The police authorities were brought together under a Reich-wide central authority and an independence from the courts and the public prosecutor\u2018s office took place. The police were gradually removed from the authority of the general state administration by establishing their own personnel administration and introducing disciplinary and criminal jurisdiction for the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the decree of the Reich Ministry of the Interior on 14 December 1937 on \u00bbPreventive Crime Control by the Police\u00ab, the police could, in line with Nazi ideology, not only monitor all people classified as \u00bbalien to the community\u00ab but also immediately take them into custody or deport them to a concentration camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1939, the Security Police were merged with the Security Service (SD) to form the Reich Security Main Office. This merger made it almost impossible to distinguish between the activities of the Criminal Police and the Secret State Police (Gestapo). Both police departments investigated independently, only following the instructions of the police leadership and only submitting cases to the public prosecutor\u2018s office that had been released for disposal by the police leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The alleged crime prevention was radicalised in the sense of National Socialism. Allegedly \u00bbcriminal and socially harmful hereditary traits\u00ab were at the forefront of the persecution. To \u00bbprevent the transmission of a bad hereditary stream to the healthy body of the people\u00ab and the \u00bberadication of pests of the people\u00ab were grounds for imprisonment, forced labour and murder from 1933 onwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the establishment of a German police force authorised to issue directives, a comprehensive network for persecution was set up. To house prisoners, the police and the Gestapo had at their disposal, among others, the police prison in Klapperfeldstra\u00dfe, the remand prison in Hammelsgasse and various emergency prisons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After Hitler\u2018s appointment as Reich Chancellor, the German police was changed according to National Socialist ideology. As early as 22 February 1933, the Sturmabteilung (SA) was declared an auxiliary police force and thus the police were under the direct influence of the SA. With the emergency decree of 28 February 1933, \u00bbDecree of the Reich […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":121,"parent":670,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-722","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klapperfeld.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klapperfeld.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klapperfeld.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klapperfeld.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klapperfeld.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/klapperfeld.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":723,"href":"https:\/\/klapperfeld.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/722\/revisions\/723"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klapperfeld.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klapperfeld.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klapperfeld.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}