Well... the Gestapo had a large SS component in it. They were created from the local, county, and state level police forces and merged into one centralized National police force by Hermann Goering, before he was bumped up to Luftwaffe chief. Heinrich Himmler took over after that, and he had Reinhardt Heydrich as his second in command (until the Czech Resistance blew him away).
Gestapo was acronym for “Geheime Staats Polizei” - Secret State Police. They were divided into criminal police (for ordinary criminals) and political police (for supporession and elimination of “enemies of the state” (their mission description, not mine.)
Many Gestapo WERE SS, as they were an integral part of the system; they kept watch over the local police chiefs, sheriff equivalents, and others for political reliability.
The SS - Schutzstaffeln, or Protective Staff - started out as Hitler’s personal bodyguards, after he got nervous about the Nazi SA brownshirts (SturmAbteilungen - Storm Battalions) and their lunacy (they were the ones who brought Hitler to power originally). He used the SA to squash street level demonstrations; and when they wanted a bigger piece of the power pie, he had the SS and Gestapo murder their leadership (Night of the Long Knives) and neutralize them. Many of them became SS as well after that... better to be the guard than the guarded...
It was insidious. Read that book.
Yep.
And don’t forget Mao & Pot, either.
I’ve said it a few times on here: Germany should have been nuked just like Japan.
This stuff gets depressing. I’ll check out that book. I’ve seen the Olivier show...yep.