Sicherheitsdienst/Related Articles

Parent topics

Schutzstaffel [r]: A Nazi German organization, the "SS". technically part of the National Socialist German Workers' Party but in many respects a "state within a state", its functions intermingled with government offices in a manner characteristic of Adolf Hitler's desire to keep final control. While it is best known for its security and genocidal operations, it also had major economic and regular military roles, a far growth from its original role as Hitler's personal bodyguard ^[e]
- RSHA [r]: Nazi Germany's Reich Main Security Organization, a division of the SS, first headed by Reinhard Heydrich and then Ernst Kaltenbrunner; included the Gestapo and SD ^[e]
Counterintelligence [r]: Countermeasures to foreign intelligence organizations collecting intelligence against one's own side. ^[e]
- Counterespionage [r]: Active measures, such as running double agents or provocateurs, intended to degrade and deceive the clandestine human-source intelligence capability of a foreign intelligence service ^[e]
Human-source intelligence [r]: (HUMINT); the practice of acquiring information through interactions with people who can disclose relevant information, including but not limited to espionage, interrogation, debriefing and elicitation ^[e]

Otto Ohlendorf [r]: SS-Gruppenfuehrer; head of domestic intelligence (Amt III) in the SD; Commanding Officer of Einsatzgruppe D; executed by verdict of the Einsatzgruppen Case (NMT) trial in the Nuremberg Military Tribunals ^[e]
Walter Schellenberg [r]: (1910-1952) SS-Brigadefuehrer, who headed the SD throughout WWII, which absorbed all other national foreign intelligence organizations of Nazi Germany; testified against major war criminals at the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg); later received a six-year sentence; commuted before his death from liver disease ^[e]

Ernst Biberstein [r]: SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer in the SD; Commanding Officer of Einsatzkommando 6 of Einsatzgruppe C; defendant in Einsatzgruppen Case (NMT) ^[e]
Paul Blobel [r]: SS-Standartenfuehrer in the SD; Commanding Officer of Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C, later headed Aktion 1005 (1942-1944) to destroy evidence in mass graves in the Soviet Union; hanged by verdict of the Einsatzgruppen Case (NMT) ^[e]
Walter Blune [r]: SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer]; member of the SD and Gestapo; Commanding Officer of Sonderkommando 7a of Einsatzgruppe B. ^[e]
Walter Haensch [r]: SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer; member of the SD; Commanding Officer of Sonderkommando 4b of Einsatzgruppe C ^[e]
Heinz Jost [r]: SS-Brigadefuehrer; member of the SD; Commanding Officer of Einsatzgruppe A ^[e]
Waldemar Klingelhoefer [r]: Former voice teacher and opera singer; SS-Sturmbannfuehrer; member of the SD; Sonderkommando 7b of Einsatzgruppe B; Commanding Officer of Vorkommando Moscow ^[e]
Alfred Naujocks [r]: Add brief definition or description
Heinz Schubert [r]: SS-Obersturmfuehrer; member of the SD; officer of Einsatzgruppe D; defendant in Einsatzgruppen Case (NMT) ^[e]
Franz Walter Stahlecker [r]: (1900-1942) Nazi police and intelligence officer; SS-Brigadefuehrer; SD officer; HSSPF of Bohemia and Moravia, then Norway; commanded Einsatzgruppe A; killed in action while HSSPF Ostland ^[e]

Max de Crinis [r]: German academic psychiatrist who took part in Nazi counterespionage operations and a possibly limited role in the Nazi euthanasia program ^[e]

Abwehr [r]: German military counterintelligence and external intelligence in World War II, eventually absorbed into the Nazi party security apparatus other than purely military support ^[e]
Einsatzgruppe [r]: Plural is Einsatzgruppen; Nazi mobile security, and then killing units, which accompanied Army units advancing into Austria, Poland and Russia; units on Russian Front carried out mass murder in Holocaust prior to the construction of extermination camps ^[e]
Gestapo [r]: The secret political police force of Nazi Germany, a state rather than party organization, reporting both to the SS (Party) and Ministry of the Interior (State) ^[e]
Tokubetsu Koto Keisatu [r]: Translated variously as "Special Higher Police" or "Thought Police", a civilian security organization of pre-1945 Japanese Naimusho (loosely translated "Home Ministry"), distinct from the military kempetai, Civilian Spy Service, or naval and military intelligence; focused on subversion, especially left-wing ^[e]