| The SD was a branch of the SS. It conducted
intelligence and counterintelligence. There were over 100,000 informers
that examined all aspects of Germans’ private lives.
Reinhard Heydrich was in charge of the SD. By the outbreak of World
War II, Heydrich presided over all security services for the state in
an organization known as the Reichsicherheitshauptamt (RSHA; Reich Security
Central Office).
Before Hitler came to power in 1933, the SD was a small organization
with about 40 agents. Nevertheless, the historian Peter Padfield suggests
that Heydrich played a signficiant role in the Nazi rise to power:
| |
The importance of Heydrich and his Sicherheitsdienst achieved
inside six months is indicated by a summary list of addresses and
telephone numbers of Munich Party leaders to be alled in the event
of an ‘Alarm etc.’. The list is dated March 1932, and
contains thirty-five names in all; of these fourteen underlined
members were to be called first; Hitler, Rohm, Reiner and Graf
Du Moulin head this select group, after which the list continues
in alphabetical order with ten further names underlined, Heinrich
Himmler, Wasserburgerlandstrasse 109, Waldtrudering (telephone
029309) and Erbprinz zu Waldeck, Parsevalstrasse 19, among them;
Reinhard Heydrich was also underlined, Lochhausen 55, appears out
of alphabetical order, suggesting that his name had been inserted
later. That Himmler, his adjutant and his secret service chief
were in this select group is testimony to the importance of the
SS by this date and lends weight to the idea that Heydrich’s
SD had an important role in the master plans for the Machtergreifung
(rise to power). His extraordinarily rapid rise in the hierarchy
also suggests that he was picked out of the Navy deliberately to
deploy his service intelligence and explosives training in the
service of the party. |
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Peter Padfield, Himmler [Henry Holt and Company: New York, 1990),
p. 113. |
After Hitler came to power, however, the SD grew into a large organization,
seeking to provide security for the entire Reich. Heydrich was intent
on purging the Reich of members of the old aristocratic elites as well
as the Weimar politicians, whom he deemed “November criminals” for
surrendering to the demands of the Allied Powers at Versailles. Heydrich
realized that in a modern totalitarian state, state security could become
a mammoth, unstoppable power.
Heydrich’s hatred of the old aristocracy stemmed from his personal
experience as an officer in the German Navy. He had been dismissed due
to a complaint of a young lady, and he never forgave the aristocratic
leadership of the Navy for his humiliation. |
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