Glossary

Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo)
A branch of the police in Nazi Germany with a political dimension. Its initial role was to surveil political opponents of the Nazis in order to consolidate their power. To do this, the Gestapo was given extensive powers. It could arrest, torture and murder people at will and intern them indefinitely in concentration camps. The Gestapo was also responsible for punishing forced labourers from Poland and the Soviet Union, whom it interned in work education camps or concentration camps if its Gestapo officers accused them of resistance, sabotage or looting. If a so-called forbidden contact was discovered, Soviet and Polish forced labourers were also handed over to the Gestapo for “special treatment”, a euphemism for execution.