Jan Zumr

The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, Prague, Czech Republic
e‑mail: jan.zumr[at]ustrcr.cz

Jan Zumr - The merging of the German and the SS on the example of the secret state police in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
Abstract

The merging of the police and the SS on the example of the secret state police in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia The study analyses the process of the merging of the SS and the police using the example of the Gestapo serving in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the aim of which was to create a “state protection force” fully committed to the Nazi regime. In order to understand the overall context, the most important decrees and orders that regulated the process of recruiting officials and employees of the secret state police into the ranks of the SS and straightening their ranks are presented. Their application in practice is then traced through the Gestapo’s Prague and Brno control offices. The study not only seeks to answer the question of the extent to which the Gestapo and the SS were merged in the Protectorate and how many SS officers served in the two offices mentioned, but also whether either office went further in the process of merging than the other.

Jan Vajskebr, Jan Zumr, Petr Kaňák - Heinrich Reiser – War Criminal in the Whirl of the Cold War
Abstract

After the Nazis seized power in Germany, Heinrich Reiser (1899–1978) became an official of the secret police (Gestapo), and participated in the occupation of the Czech hinterland in March 1939. In the summer of 1940 he was ordered to France, where he specialised in the suppression of the left-wing resistance and the Soviet espionage network that came to be known as the Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle). At the end of the war, he took part in the repressions against the foreign workers under forced labour in Germany. When the war ended, he spent some time in hiding and was briefly imprisoned by the French army. After the war alliance between the victorious powers broke up, Reiser’s knowledge and abilities were used by the Gehlen Organisation, on the foundations of which the West German security service (BND) was later established. As part of the denazification process in the security services in the late 1950s, agents with a Nazi past were fired, or sent into retirement, which was also the case with Reiser. The justice of the Federal Republic of Germany was only ever interested in him as a witness in investigating other members of the Nazi repressive apparatus, and he was never punished for his crimes.

Jan Zumr - The Gestapo‘s personnel policy with a focus on the composition of the Prague headquarters
Abstract

The study analyses the staffing of the Gestapo headquarters in Prague, which was the largest office of the Nazi secret police in Hitler’s Germany, by both the number of allocated positions and the actual number of employees. To understand the overall context, the general personnel policy applied to the Gestapo is presented, including a description of the individual career paths. The differences between official and non-official staff are explained, as well as the categories of official (executive and administrative service) and non-official (clerical and criminal) staff. The development of the number of employees during the Second World War, the lack of qualified personnel and the reasons for the negligible number of Czech Germans in important positions in the Prague Gestapo are analysed. The study also tries to find an answer to the question of how effectively the Prague headquarters was able to combat the domestic resistance movement with the assigned number of employees.