Editing Gestapo (section)

==Suppression of resistance and persecution==
Early in the regime's existence, harsh measures were meted out to political opponents and those who resisted [[Nazism#Ideology and programme|Nazi doctrine]], such as members of the [[Communist Party of Germany]] (KPD); a role originally performed by the SA until the SD and Gestapo undermined their influence and took control of Reich security.{{sfn|Delarue|2008|pp=126–140}} Because the Gestapo seemed [[Omniscience|omniscient]] and [[Omnipotence|omnipotent]], the atmosphere of fear they created led to an overestimation of their reach and strength; a faulty assessment which hampered the operational effectiveness of underground resistance organisations.{{sfn|Merson|1985|p=50}}

===Trade unions===
Shortly after the Nazis came to power, they decided to dissolve the 28 federations of the General German Trade Union Confederation, because Hitler—after noting their success in the works council elections—intended to consolidate all German workers under the Nazi government's administration, a decision he made on 7 April 1933.{{sfn|Longerich|2019|pp=311–312}} As a preface to this action, Hitler decreed May 1 as National Labor Day to celebrate German workers, a move the trade union leaders welcomed. With their trade union flags waving, Hitler gave a rousing speech to the 1.5 million people assembled on Berlin's {{lang|de|[[Tempelhofer Feld]]}} that was nationally broadcast, during which he extolled the nation's revival and working class solidarity.{{sfn|Longerich|2019|p=312}} On the following day, the newly formed Gestapo officers, who had been shadowing some 58 trade union leaders, arrested them wherever they could find them—many in their homes.{{sfn|Delarue|2008|p=21}} Meanwhile, the SA and police occupied trade union headquarters, arrested functionaries, confiscated their property and assets; all by design so as to be replaced on 12 May by the [[German Labour Front]] (DAF), a Nazi organisation placed under the leadership of [[Robert Ley]].{{sfn|Longerich|2019|pp=312–313}} For their part, this was the first time the Gestapo operated under its new name since its 26 April 1933 founding in Prussia.{{sfn|Delarue|2008|p=21}}

===Religious dissent===
Many parts of Germany (where religious dissent existed upon the Nazi seizure of power) saw a rapid transformation; a change as noted by the Gestapo in conservative towns such as Würzburg, where people acquiesced to the regime either through accommodation, collaboration, or simple compliance.{{sfn|Gellately|1992|pp=94–100}} Increasing religious objections to Nazi policies led the Gestapo to carefully monitor church organisations. For the most part, members of the church did not offer political resistance but simply wanted to ensure that organizational doctrine remained intact.{{sfn|McDonough|2005|pp=30–40}}

However, the Nazi regime sought to suppress any source of ideology other than its own, and set out to muzzle or crush the churches in the so-called {{lang|de|[[Kirchenkampf]]}}. When Church leaders ([[clergy]]) voiced their misgiving about the [[Action T4|euthanasia]] program and Nazi racial policies, Hitler intimated that he considered them "traitors to the people" and went so far as to call them "the destroyers of Germany".{{sfn|Schmid|1947|pp=61–63}} The extreme [[Antisemitism|anti-semitism]] and [[Modern paganism|neo-pagan]] heresies of the Nazis caused some Christians to outright resist,{{sfn|Benz|2007|pp=42–47}} and [[Pope Pius XI]] to issue the encyclical [[Mit brennender Sorge]] denouncing Nazism and warning Catholics against joining or supporting the Party. Some pastors, like the Protestant clergyman [[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]], paid for their opposition with their lives.{{sfn|McDonough|2005|pp=32–33}}{{Efn|Bonhoeffer was an active opponent of Nazism in the German resistance movement. Arrested by the Gestapo in 1943, he was sent to [[Buchenwald]] and later to Flossenbürg concentration camp where he was executed.{{sfn|Burleigh|2000|p=727}} }}

In an effort to counter the strength and influence of spiritual resistance, Nazi records reveal that the Gestapo's {{lang|de|Referat B1}} monitored the activities of bishops very closely—instructing that agents be set up in every diocese, that the bishops' reports to the [[Vatican City|Vatican]] should be obtained and that the bishops' areas of activity must be found out. Deans were to be targeted as the "eyes and ears of the bishops" and a "vast network" established to monitor the activities of ordinary clergy: "The importance of this enemy is such that inspectors of security police and of the security service will make this group of people and the questions discussed by them their special concern".{{sfn|Berben|1975|pp=141–142}}

In ''Dachau: The Official History 1933–1945'', Paul Berben wrote that clergy were watched closely, and frequently denounced, arrested and sent to [[Nazi concentration camps]]: "One priest was imprisoned in Dachau for having stated that there were good folk in England too; another suffered the same fate for warning a girl who wanted to marry an S.S. man after abjuring the Catholic faith; yet another because he conducted a service for a deceased communist". Others were arrested simply on the basis of being "suspected of activities hostile to the State" or that there was reason to "suppose that his dealings might harm society".{{sfn|Berben|1975|p=142}} Over 2,700 [[Catholic Church|Catholic]], [[Protestantism|Protestant]], and [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Orthodox]] clergy were imprisoned at Dachau alone. After Heydrich (who was staunchly anti-Catholic and anti-Christian) was assassinated in Prague, his successor, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, relaxed some of the policies and then disbanded Department IVB (religious opponents) of the Gestapo.{{sfn|Steigmann-Gall|2003|pp=251–252}}

===Homosexuality===
Violence and arrest were not confined to that opposing political parties, membership in trade unions, or those with dissenting religious opinions, but also homosexuality. It was viewed negatively by Hitler.{{sfn|Gellately|2020|p=176}} Homosexuals were correspondingly considered a threat to the {{lang|de|Volksgemeinschaft}} (National Community).{{sfn|McDonough|2017|p=160}} From the Nazis rise to national power in 1933, the number of court verdicts against homosexuals steadily increased and only declined once the Second World War started.{{sfn|Gellately|2020|p=176}} In 1934, a special Gestapo office was set up in Berlin to deal with homosexuality.{{sfn|McDonough|2017|p=181}}

Despite male homosexuality being considered a greater danger to "national survival", lesbianism was likewise viewed as unacceptable—deemed gender nonconformity—and a number of individual reports on lesbians can be found in Gestapo files.{{sfn|Gellately|2020|pp=176–177}}{{efn|The stricter laws did not apply to lesbians as their behaviour was never officially criminalised, even though their behaviours were labelled "deviant".{{sfn|McDonough|2017|p=180}}}} Between 1933 and 1935, some 4,000 men were arrested; between 1936 and 1939, another 30,000 men were convicted.{{sfn|McDonough|2017|p=180}} If homosexuals showed any signs of sympathy to the Nazis' identified racial enemies, they were considered an even greater danger.{{sfn|Gellately|2020|p=177}} According to Gestapo case files, the majority of those arrested for homosexuality were males between eighteen and twenty-five years of age.{{sfn|McDonough|2017|p=181}}

===Student opposition===
Between June 1942 and March 1943, student protests were calling for an end to the Nazi regime. These included the non-violent resistance of [[Hans Scholl|Hans]] and [[Sophie Scholl]], two leaders of the [[White Rose]] student group.{{sfn|McDonough|2005|pp=21–29}} However, resistance groups and those who were in moral or political opposition to the Nazis were stalled by the fear of reprisals from the Gestapo. Fearful of an internal overthrow, the forces of the Gestapo were unleashed on the opposition. Groups like the [[White Rose]] and others, such as the [[Edelweiss Pirates]], and the [[Swing Youth]], were placed under close Gestapo observation. Some participants were sent to concentration camps. Leading members of the most famous of these groups, the White Rose, were arrested by the police and turned over to the Gestapo. For several leaders the punishment was death.{{sfn|Williamson|2002|pp=118–119}} During the first five months of 1943, the Gestapo arrested thousands suspected of resistance activities and carried out numerous executions. Student opposition leaders were executed in late February, and a major opposition organisation, the [[Hans Oster|Oster Circle]], was destroyed in April 1943.{{sfn|Delarue|2008|p=318}} Efforts to resist the Nazi regime amounted to very little and had only minor chances of success, particularly since a broad percentage of the German people did not support such actions.{{sfn|Johnson|1999|p=306}}

===General opposition and military conspiracy===
Between 1934 and 1938, opponents of the Nazi regime and their fellow travellers began to emerge. Among the first to speak out were religious dissenters but following in their wake were educators, [[aristocratic]] businessmen, office workers, teachers, and others from nearly every walk of life.{{sfn|Hoffmann|1977|p=28}} Most people quickly learned that open opposition was dangerous since Gestapo informants and agents were widespread. However, a significant number of them still worked against the National Socialist government.{{sfn|Hoffmann|1977|pp=29–30}}

In May 1935, the Gestapo broke up and arrested members of the "Markwitz Circle", a group of former socialists in contact with [[Otto Strasser]], who sought Hitler's downfall.{{sfn|Hoffmann|1977|p=30}} From the mid-1930s into the early 1940s—various groups made up of communists, idealists, working-class people, and far-right conservative opposition organisations covertly fought against Hitler's government, and several of them fomented plots that included Hitler's assassination. Nearly all of them, including: the Römer Group, Robby Group, [[Solf Circle]], {{lang|de|[[Schwarze Reichswehr]]}}, the Party of the Radical Middle Class, {{lang|de|[[Jungdeutscher Orden]]}}, {{lang|de|[[Schwarze Front]]}} and {{lang|de|Stahlhelm}} were either discovered or infiltrated by the Gestapo. This led to corresponding arrests, being sent to concentration camps and execution.{{sfn|Hoffmann|1977|pp=30–32}} One of the methods employed by the Gestapo to contend with these resistance factions was 'protective detention' which facilitated the process in expediting dissenters to concentration camps and against which there was no [[legal defence]].{{sfn|Dams|Stolle|2014|p=58}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R98680, Besprechung Himmler mit Müller, Heydrich, Nebe, Huber2.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|left|Photograph from 1939: shown from left to right are [[Franz Josef Huber]], [[Arthur Nebe]], [[Heinrich Himmler]], [[Reinhard Heydrich]] and [[Heinrich Müller (Gestapo)|Heinrich Müller]] planning the investigation of the bomb assassination attempt on [[Adolf Hitler]] on 8 November 1939 in [[Munich]].]]

Early efforts to resist the Nazis with aid from abroad were hindered when the opposition's peace feelers to the Western [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] did not meet with success. This was partly because of the [[Venlo incident]] of 9 November 1939,{{sfn|Hoffmann|1977|p=121}} in which SD and Gestapo agents, posing as anti-Nazis in the [[Netherlands]], kidnapped two British [[Secret Intelligence Service]] (SIS) officers after having lured them to a meeting to discuss peace terms. This prompted [[Winston Churchill]] to ban any further contact with the German opposition.{{sfn|Reitlinger|1989|p=144}} Later, the British and Americans did not want to deal with anti-Nazis because they were fearful that the Soviet Union would believe they were attempting to make deals behind their back.{{Efn|More than that, the Anglo-American common language and capital interests kept Stalin at a distance since he felt the other Allied powers were hoping the fascists and Communists would destroy one another.{{sfn|Overy|1997|pp=245–281}} }}

The German opposition was in an unenviable position by the late spring and early summer of 1943. On one hand, it was next to impossible for them to overthrow Hitler and the party; on the other, the Allied demand for an unconditional surrender meant no opportunity for a compromise peace, which left the military and conservative aristocrats who opposed the regime no option (in their eyes) other than continuing the military struggle.{{sfn|Hildebrand|1984|pp=86–87}} Despite the fear of the Gestapo after mass arrests and executions in the spring, the opposition still plotted and planned. One of the more famous schemes, [[Operation Valkyrie]], involved a number of senior German officers and was carried out by Colonel [[Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg]]. In an attempt to assassinate Hitler, Stauffenberg planted a bomb underneath a conference table inside the [[Wolf's Lair]] field headquarters.{{sfn|Benz|2007|pp=245–249}} Known as the [[20 July plot]], this assassination attempt failed and Hitler was only slightly injured. Reports indicate that the Gestapo was caught unaware of this plot as they did not have sufficient protections in place at the appropriate locations nor did they take any preventative steps.{{sfn|Reitlinger|1989|p=323}}{{sfn|Höhne|2001|p=532}} Stauffenberg and his group were shot on 21 July 1944; meanwhile, his fellow conspirators were rounded up by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp. Thereafter, there was a show trial overseen by [[Roland Freisler]], followed by their execution.{{sfn|Höhne|2001|p=537}}

Some Germans were convinced that it was their duty to apply all possible expedients to end the war as quickly as possible. [[Sabotage]] efforts were undertaken by members of the {{lang|de|[[Abwehr]]}} (military intelligence) leadership, as they recruited people known to oppose the Nazi regime.{{sfn|Spielvogel|1992|p=256}} The Gestapo cracked down ruthlessly on dissidents in Germany, just as they did everywhere else. Opposition became more difficult. Arrests, torture, and executions were common. Terror against "state enemies" had become a way of life to such a degree that the Gestapo's presence and methods were eventually normalised in the minds of people living in Nazi Germany.{{sfn|Peukert|1989|pp=198–199}}