The Gestapo and German Society

Policing Right-Wing Dictatorships: Some preliminary comparisons of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Franco’s Spain

“…Robert Gellately argues that there was a high carry-over of personnel to the Gestapo from the Weimar political police. A gradual infiltration of Party, SA or SS members into the Gestapo also took place but where political appointees did not meet the professional requirements of the job, more qualified personnel would take their place 80 .…”

Germany, International Justice and the Twentieth Century

“…(By contrast, the Gestapo employed no more than 3,000 regular officers, and perhaps as many as 10,000 total informants.) 87 Further complicating things was the question of responsibility. For if the worst abuses occurred during the early Stalinist years when the GDR was most directly under the thumb of the Soviet Union, then who was actually responsible for abuses?…”

Denunciation and the construction of norms in group conflict: Examples from an Al‐Qaeda‐supporting group

“…Institutionalized forms of denunciation are part of law enforcement and other forms of social regulation in established democracies, while ‘police, revolutionary, and theocratic states and communities – as well as twentieth‐century totalitarian states – have been particularly likely to encourage their citizens or members to write denunciations against each other for purposes of maintaining social control, ideological purity, virtue, and so on’ (Fitzpatrick & Gellately, , p. 761). Although the phenomenon of individual denunciations made by citizens to the authorities and the press has been the subject of historical research (e.g., Bytwerk, ; Gellately, ), denunciation can take many forms and can serve many functions (Lucas, ). In situations of group conflict and in authoritarian regimes, it is used to suppress criticism and dissent, acting both as a form of social sanction and a warning to others (e.g., Dittmer, ; see also Levine & Moreland, , for a discussion of reactions to disloyalty).…”