The Politische Abteilung ("Political Department"), also called the "concentration camp Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

", was one of the five departments of a Nazi concentration camp set up by the Concentration Camps Inspectorate

Concentration Camps Inspectorate

The Concentration Camps Inspectorate was the central SS administrative and managerial authority for the concentration camps of the Third Reich. Created by Theodor Eicke, it was originally known as the "General Inspection of the Enhanced SS-Totenkopfstandarten, after Eicke's position in the SS...

 to operate the camps. An outpost of both the Gestapo and the criminal police

Kriminalpolizei

is the standard term for the criminal investigation agency within the police forces of Germany, Austria and the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland. In Nazi Germany during 1936, the Kripo became the Criminal Police Department for the entire Reich...

, the political department evolved into the most important of the five.

Background

Theodor Eicke

Theodor Eicke

Theodor Eicke was a SS Obergruppenführer , commander of the SS-Division Totenkopf of the Waffen-SS and one of the key figures in the establishment of concentration camps in Nazi Germany. His Nazi Party number was 114,901 and his SS number was 2,921...

, was assigned by Reichsführer-SS

Reichsführer-SS

was a special SS rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945. Reichsführer-SS was a title from 1925 to 1933 and, after 1934, the highest rank of the German Schutzstaffel .-Definition:...

 Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...

 to establish a system to run the concentration camps. Eicke drew up regulations for guards

Postenpflicht

The Postenpflicht was part of a written order for SS guards in Nazi concentration camps regarding the use of firearms. It required SS guards to shoot prisoners who tried to escape or engage in resistance and to do so without verbal warning or a warning shot. The order stated that failure to shoot...

 and for prisoners

Lagerordnung

The Lagerordnung was the "Disciplinary and Penal Code", first written for Dachau concentration camp, which became the uniform code at all SS concentration camps in the Third Reich on January 1, 1934. Also known as the Strafkatalog , it detailed the regulations for prisoners...

 and set up five departments to oversee the camp.

The five departments were:

Abteilung I: Command headquarters

Abteilung II: Political department

Abteilung III: Preventive dentention camp

Abteilung IV: General administration

Abteilung V: Medical unit

As of summer 1936, the Politische Abteilung was a compulsory part of the concentration camp command structure. Unlike the other departments, it was under not the Concentration Camps Inspectorate, but rather the local Gestapo or Amt IV of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA). The department head and deputy were usually officers of the Gestapo or criminal police, or were members of the Sicherheitsdienst

Sicherheitsdienst

Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...

-SS

Schutzstaffel

The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...

. The other employees of the department were members of the Waffen-SS

Waffen-SS

The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...

, technically also Gestapo officers, but as SS members, belonged to the Stabskompanie, the company attached to the command headquarters and thus to the disciplinary authority of the commandant and adjutant.

Responsibilities

The Politische Abteilung was sub-divided into other five or six departments, which handled specific tasks. At Auschwitz, for example, the Politische Abteilung consisted of:

• identification documentation
• investigations
• interrogations
• intelligence service
• surveillance
• camp registrar (sometimes in conjunction with supervision of the crematorium)

The camp registrar handled the registration of prisoners when they were admitted and when they left, whether by release, transfer, escape or death. Inmate files were created, portrait photos made, physical description noted, brief details about the prisoner's life and fingerprints were filed.

The Politische Abteilung also handled the police work of the camps, again dividing up this work into specific subdivisions. The monitoring service prepared prisoner identification papers, another handled investigations and interrogations and a third handled prisoner surveillance. This included the fight against clandestine camp resistance groups, the prevention of escape. The department was known for its harsh interrogations, torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

 and executions and SS members of this department were feared by prisoners.

The department also handled correspondence with the Gestapo, the criminal police and the RSHA. For a prisoner, the political department could mean, within the grim world of a concentration camp, a relatively pleasant place to work, or it could mean torture and execution.

Sources

• Karin Orth, Die Konzentrationslager-SS. dtv, München 2004, ISBN 3-423-34085-1
• Wolfgang Kirsten, Das Konzentrationslager als Institution totalen Terrors. Centaurus, Pfaffenweiler 1992, ISBN 3-89085-649-7
• Eugen Kogon
  Eugen Kogon
  Eugen Kogon was a historian and a survivor of the Holocaust. A well-known Christian opponent of the Nazi Party, he was arrested more than once and spent six years at Buchenwald concentration camp. Kogon was known in Germany as a journalist, sociologist, political scientist, author and politician...
  
  , Der SS-Staat. Das System der deutschen Konzentrationslager, first published by Alber, Munich (1946); republished by Heyne, Munich (1995) ISBN 3-453-02978-X