The Hamburg State Police Headquarters was the central office of the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) in Hamburg during the National Socialist era. Its predecessor was the Hamburg State Police, which was officially called the Secret State Police from December 1935. The Hamburg Gestapo office was later elevated to control center and was ultimately the superior authority of various Gestapo branch offices in northern Germany. Members of the Hamburg Gestapo were significantly involved in the persecution and mistreatment of opponents of the Nazi regime, Jews and other Nazi victim groups. After the British Army marched into Hamburg in early May 1945, former members of the Hamburg Gestapo were for the most part interned and often had to answer for their actions in court. At the former Gestapo headquarters Hamburger Stadthaus, the victims of state police persecution are commemorated today by a memorial plaque and Stolpersteine. The City of Hamburg is planning to set up a documentation site for the memory of the victims of police violence there. There is currently no comprehensive academic study on the Hamburg Gestapo.
Forerunner of the Hamburg Gestapo: Hamburg State Police Immediately after the Reichstag election on 5 March 1933, the National Socialists took control of the police in Hamburg, among other things. The Hamburg State Police was now also under the control of the new police senator and police chief Alfred Richter, and was gleichschaltung when he took office on 6 March 1933. As the Political Police Hamburg's Political Police, it was known as the Secret State Police from December 1935. It had already expanded its significance on the basis of the Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February 1933, with which citizens could be deprived of their central civil liberties and alleged or actual opponents of the Nazi regime could be arbitrarily taken into protective custody.Arbeitsgemeinschaft ehemals verfolgter Sozialdemokraten: Wegweiser zu den Stätten von Verfolgung und sozialdemokratischem Widerstand in Hamburg. Teil I: Die innere Stadt. Hamburg 2005, p. 19 f.
Known Nazi opponents and "politically unreliable" officers of the Hamburg State Police were suspended and dismissed or assigned to less important police functions after the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service came into force in April 1933. The majority of Hamburg State Police personnel were replaced: National Socialist officers were transferred from other police stations to the Hamburg State Police and vacancies were filled in particular with unemployed SA and SS men.Hans-Joachim Heuer: Geheime Staatspolizei – über das Töten und die Tendenzen der Entzivilisierung. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1995, ISBN 3-11-014516-2, p. 54. However, a number of long-serving, experienced officers of the Hamburg State Police remained in their positions.Ludwig Eiber: Unter Führung des NSDAP-Gauleiters. Die Hamburger Staatspolizei (1933–1937). In: Gerhard Paul, Klaus-Michael Mallmann (Hrsg.): Die Gestapo. Mythos und Realität. Darmstadt 1995, p. 104.
By March 1933, the Hamburg State Police had 70 officers, a number that more than doubled to 151 officers by the beginning of 1934.Herbert Diercks: Dokumentation Stadthaus. Die Hamburger Polizei im Nationalsozialismus. Texte, Fotos, Dokumente. KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Hamburg 2012, p. 30. In March 1933, the head of the Hamburg State Police was a member of the local NSDAP Gauleitung Anatol Milewski-Schroeden, who was replaced on 15 May 1933 by Captain Walter Abraham of the Schutzpolizei. On 20 October 1933 the SS leader Bruno Streckenbach succeeded Abraham in office Abraham in office.Werner Jochmann: Die Errichtung der Nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft in Hamburg (1987). In: Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Hamburg (Hrsg.): Hamburg im Dritten Reich, sieben Beiträge. Hamburg 1998, 45 f.
On 6 October 1933 the Hamburg Senate separated the Hamburg State Police from the criminal investigation department and placed it under the command of Reichsführer SS on 24 November 1933 Heinrich Himmler.Ludwig Eiber: Unter Führung des NSDAP-Gauleiters. Die Hamburger Staatspolizei (1933–1937). In: Gerhard Paul und Klaus-Michael Mallmann (Hrsg.): Die Gestapo. Mythos und Realität. Darmstadt 1995, p. 105. This removed the influence on the Hamburg State Police from Senator of the Interior Richter and the newly appointed Police President Wilhelm Boltz, who succeeded Hans Nieland in this function after a vacancy.Herbert Diercks: Dokumentation Stadthaus. Die Hamburger Polizei im Nationalsozialismus. Texte, Fotos, Dokumente. KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Hamburg 2012, p. 22, 30.
Crushing the workers' resistance In the first years after the National Socialist seizure of power, the primary goal of the Hamburg state police was to crush the workers' resistance. On the evening of 5 March 1933 the Hamburg Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann commissioned the National Socialist police officer Peter Kraus to head a Hamburg State Police search unit, which was to smash communist and socialist groups operating illegally in particular.Herbert Diercks: Dokumentation Stadthaus. Die Hamburger Polizei im Nationalsozialismus. Texte, Fotos, Dokumente. KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Hamburg 2012, p. 32. From 24 March 1933 to January 1934, the 36-member "Kommando zur besonderen Verwendung" (KzbV) of the Ordnungspolizei, which cooperated closely with the "Fahndungskommando Kraus", existed under the leadership of Lieutenant Franz Kosa. Within a few months, numerous political opponents of the Nazi regime were tracked down and arrested. Members of the Red Front Fighters' League and the KPD district leadership were initially at the center of state police persecution.Ludwig Eiber: Unter Führung des NSDAP-Gauleiters. Die Hamburger Staatspolizei (1933–1937). In: Gerhard Paul und Klaus-Michael Mallmann (Ed.): Die Gestapo. Mythos und Realität. Darmstadt 1995, p. 113. The opponents of National Socialism who were taken into protective custody were often severely abused during their arrest and during "aggravated interrogation|aggravated interrogation".Ludwig Eiber: Unter Führung des NSDAP-Gauleiters. Die Hamburger Staatspolizei (1933–1937). In: Gerhard Paul und Klaus-Michael Mallmann (Ed.): Die Gestapo. Mythos und Realität. Darmstadt 1995, p. 104 f. From March 1933 to October 1934, members of the Hamburg State Police arrested over 5,000 Communists. Preliminary investigations by the state police led to around 600 trials before the Hamburg Higher Regional Court and 100 trials before the People's Court on charges of preparation for high treason by 1939. As a result of the penetration of the illegal KPD with V-Leuten and informers, the illegal Hamburg party leadership initially discontinued the continuation of organized resistance in the spring of 1936.Ludwig Eiber: Unter Führung des NSDAP-Gauleiters. Die Hamburger Staatspolizei (1933–1937). In: Gerhard Paul und Klaus-Michael Mallmann (Ed.): Die Gestapo. Mythos und Realität. Darmstadt 1995, p. 114 f.
Although leading Social Democrats had already been arrested in June 1933 and were temporarily detained, the Hamburg state police did not step up their action against the Social Democratic resistance until October 1934. The social democratic resistance organized by members of the Reichsbanner and the SPD was crushed by 1937.Ludwig Eiber: Unter Führung des NSDAP-Gauleiters. Die Hamburger Staatspolizei (1933–1937). In: Gerhard Paul und Klaus-Michael Mallmann (Ed.): Die Gestapo. Mythos und Realität. Darmstadt 1995, p. 115 f.
Gestapo office - The town hall as a "place of terror"
The Hamburg police authority had been using the Hamburger Stadthaus as its central office since 1814.Herbert Diercks: Dokumentation Stadthaus. Die Hamburger Polizei im Nationalsozialismus. Texte, Fotos, Dokumente. KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Hamburg 2012, p. 7. During the Weimar Republic and the National Socialist regime, the Hamburg State Police and subsequently the Gestapo were also housed in the extension to the Stadthaus at Stadthausbrücke 8 until 24/25 July 1943, alongside other police departments.Herbert Diercks: Dokumentation Stadthaus. Die Hamburger Polizei im Nationalsozialismus. Texte, Fotos, Dokumente. KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Hamburg 2012, p. 11. After the town hall was destroyed by bombing during Operation Gomorrah following air raids by the Royal Air Force, the office of the State Police Headquarters was temporarily relocated to rooms in the school administration at Dammtorstraße 25. After several weeks, premises in the Civil Justice Building on Sievekingsplatz finally became the headquarters of the State Police Headquarters until the end of the war.Herbert Diercks: Dokumentation Stadthaus. Die Hamburger Polizei im Nationalsozialismus. Texte, Fotos, Dokumente. KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Hamburg 2012, p. 14.
In the town house, prisoners were severely abused by Gestapo employees during interrogations in order to extort confessions. The cellars were used as detention rooms where prisoners were temporarily detained and tortured under inhumane conditions.Herbert Diercks: Dokumentation Stadthaus. Die Hamburger Polizei im Nationalsozialismus. Texte, Fotos, Dokumente. KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Hamburg 2012, p. 15.
The interrogation of the Hamburg KPD functionary, Bürgerschaftsabgeordneten and former leader of the local Red Front fighters' association Etkar André, who was executed in 1936, is documented. It took place on 26 March 1933 in the presence of five other prisoners and the Gauleiter Kaufmann in the Hamburg town hall:Detlef Garbe: Institutionen des Terrors und der Widerstand der Wenigen. In: Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg (Hrsg.): Hamburg im Dritten Reich. Göttingen 2005, p. 521.
Places of detention From March 1933, protective custody prisoners were initially housed in the Hamburg remand prison and in an unused part of the Fuhlsbüttel prison. As the number of people taken into protective custody increased rapidly (1750 protective custody prisoners by May 1933), the newly established Wittmoor concentration camp was filled with prisoners in April 1933. After the closure of this camp in October 1933, the prisoners held there were transferred to the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp, which was officially designated a concentration camp in September 1933.Willy Klawe: Hamburg-Wittmor. In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (Hrsg.): Der Ort des Terrors. Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Band 2: Frühe Lager, Dachau, Emslandlager. C.H. Beck, München 2005, ISBN 3-406-52962-3, p. 119 f.
From December 1933, the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp was under the control of the police and was regularly referred to as the Fuhlsbüttel police prison from 1936. The prison staff consisted of Gestapo officers. Prisoners were also tortured there to force confessions.Herbert Diercks: Dokumentation Stadthaus. Die Hamburger Polizei im Nationalsozialismus. Texte, Fotos, Dokumente. KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Hamburg 2012, p. 26.
Organization