Document Analyst's Report

During November I analyzed the defense documents of the Security Service, known as the SD, which was charged as a criminal organization. The role of the SD was a matter of confusion in the trial and apparently also in the regime. Formally, one official document stated in 1943, the SD was “the information center for party and State.” An Allied book on the German intelligence services (1945) stated that the SD was supposed to provide the government “a complete and unbiased picture of German opinion and morale.” The SD’s position within the regime was less clear than that, however. It’s title was “The security service of the Reichsfueher-SS,” namely Himmler, and its chief was also the head of the SS security police (SIPO). From 1936 to 1942 that chief was Reinhard Heydrich. If the SD was supposed to monitor public opinion, its officers were also required to serve whatever roles Heydrich and Himmler assigned them to, and neither man was noted for restraint.

An identity problem: Wilhelm Keitel, the military commander, submitted an affidavit stating that he had always assumed that the SD was “an executive police agency,” and this belief was general within the regime. Documents describing police operations or military-police joint operations had routinely listed the SD as a participant based on that assumption, whether the SD was actually involved or not, so the documentary record was misleading. Another source of confusion was the fact the officers of the Gestapo, the security police, and the SD all wore the same uniform, so it was difficult to identify which organization was involved in an action.

What they did not do: A large share of the SD defense identified the operations that the SD did not control or participate in. These included the concentration camps, forced labor, the lynching of Allied airmen, and the confiscation of property. The “sharpest weapon” used against political opponents, placement in “protective custody” in a concentration camp, was a power of the Gestapo, not the SD. (The SD defense emphasized that it was an intelligence department, not a police force like the Gestapo; the Gestapo defense emphasized that it was a government department, not an SS and NSDAP department like the SD.)

Acting outside the mandate: Regarding participation of many SD officers in the execution of Jews and communists (including the Einsatzgruppen operation), one officer pointed out that this activity was “external to the duty of the SD,” so that the organization should not be implicated.

In the end, the tribunal agreed with the prosecution argument that the SD was closely connected to the “executive” forces and shared in their crimes, so it convicted the SD as a partner of the Gestapo.

Two defendants or one pair: Given the prosecution evidence against the Gestapo and SD as a linked pair, in the database field indicating which defendants a document refers to, I used “Gestapo and SD” as a single identification. But given the separate and sometimes conflicting defenses of the Gestapo and the SD, that aspect of the prosecution documents will have to be reviewed and sorted out with three options for that field: Gestapo, or SD, or Gestapo and SD.

Matt Seccombe, 3 December 2024