January 30, 1933, a celebratory parade announced the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany. Chancellor is the head of the government, equivalent to Prime Minister in other countries. One of Hitler’s first official acts as Chancellor was to appoint Hermann Göring as Minister of the Interior for the German state of Prussia. Prussia was Germany’s biggest state Göring, a member of the Nazi political party and head of the SA Brownshirts relished the appointment. The Brownshirts were a group of primarily ex-soldiers organized to protect the Nazi party members from other political party members.
As Minister of the Interior, Göring had control of the police, and as such ordered that regular uniformed police could not interfere with any member of the Nazi Brownshirts. This cart blanch was the beginning of the Gestapo rule. Brownshirts could abuse Jews or anyone else at will without consequence.
Shortly after affording the SA this freedom of movement, Göring installed many members to the Berlin police department. Now the Brownshirts could terrorize and arrest. Jails became over crowed, requiring the use of outdoor jails. These outdoor jails were the beginning of the concentration camps.
On April 26, 1933 Göring created the secret police. He gave the name Geheime Staats Polizei (Secret State Police) to the group. The term acronym Gestapo is a derivative of Geheime Staats Polizei. Like the Brownshirts of the police department, the Gestapo instilled fear in anyone who opposed the Nazi party.
Gestapo leadership changed hands in April 1934. Heinrich Himmler took command on April 20, 1934. On February 10, 1936 the Gestapo Law was passed, placing the Gestapo fully above any branch of government or law enforcement. Any individual could be arrested, interrogated, and executed without any of the customary legal procedures.
Common citizens became informants to the Gestapo in order to save their own lives. One never knew if their neighbor might be a Gestapo informant. This placed neighbor against neighbor and instilled a constant state of distrust and fear. If one were foolish enough to speak out against the Nazi party or tell an anti-Nazi joke, he or she could expect to be arrested, interrogated and executed that very night.
Word spread of Gestapo’s interrogation techniques, the least of which included near drowning in a tub of ice water. Whether a German was a Nazi supporter or not in their private thoughts; all Germans became Nazi supporters in the public eye in order to save their life. The reign of terror was under way.