RSHA Reich Security Main Office : Organisation, Activities, Personnel

Scholars, historians, and general readers occasionally share a misconception about their knowledge of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany and where it fitted in the regime. This extends to other parts of the German intelligence agencies. This book uses Allied Intelligence reports to extend our understanding of how these Nazi agencies operated and worked.

During the Nazi regime in Germany, all police forces were centralised under the command of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. The political police (Gestapo), the criminal police (Kripo), and the security service (SD) were all brought together under the RSHA umbrella in 1939, commanded by SS-General Reinhard Heydrich. Using RSHA in Berlin as the centre, the web of Heydrich’s control extended into every corner of Nazi-occupied Europe. British and American intelligence agencies tried to get to grips with RSHA departments at the end of the war, knowing who was who and what they did, relying on what captured RSHA personnel told them along with intercepted documentation. To provide Allied intelligence officers in the field with accurate knowledge, the Counter Intelligence War Room (CIWR) was established to provide this information and list further Gestapo, Kripo, SD, and Abwehr officials to be arrested and interrogated. The informative CIWR reports used here give a precise examination of the RSHA by department, some detailing how Nazi jealousies and rivalries were more helpful to the Allied war effort than the Nazi cause - a portrayal of how Nazi Intelligence agencies went wrong.