“The most effective preventive measure is without doubt the withdrawal of freedom, which is covered in the form of protective custody, if it is to be feared that the free activity of the persons in question might endanger the security of the State in any way. While protective arrest of short duration is carried out in police and court prisons, the concentration camps under the Secret State Police admit those taken into protective custody who have to be withdrawn from public life for a longer time.” (1956-PS)
The authority of the GESTAPO to administer the concentration camps was set forth in the decree to the basic law of 10 February 1936. (2108-PS)
Other methods used by the GESTAPO consisted of the dissolution of associations, prohibition and dissolution of assemblies and congregations, prohibition of publications of various kinds and so forth. (1956-PS)
(2) Tasks and Methods of the SD. The task of the SD, after it became the intelligence service for State and Party, was to obtain secret information concerning the actual and potential enemies of the Nazi leadership so that appropriate action could be taken to destroy or neutralize opposition. (1956-PS)
The duties of the SD were stated by the Nazi jurist, Dr. Werner Best, as follows:
“As the intelligence service of the German National Socialist Labor Party, the Security Service has first of all the task of investigating and keeping a watch over all forces, events and facts which are of importance for the domination of the National Socialist idea and movement in German territory. With this task follows that duty laid down by the Reich Minister of the Interior—the duty of supporting the Security Police—which is fulfilled, so far as it goes, under State orders. In support of the tasks of the Security Police in securing the ranks of the German people against interference and destruction of any kind, the Security Service has to watch over every sphere of life of the German people with regard to the activities of inimical forces and the result of state and political measures, and to inform continually the competent State authorities and offices about the facts which have come to light. Finally, it has to investigate politically and explore fundamentally the activities and connections of the great, ideological, arch-enemy of National Socialism and the German people, in order thereby to render possible a purposeful and effective fight against it.” (1852-PS)
To accomplish this task, the SD created an organization of agents and informants operating out of various SD regional offices established throughout the Reich, and later in conjunction with the GESTAPO and Criminal Police throughout the occupied territories. The organization consisted of several hundred full-time agents whose work was supplemented by several thousand part-time informants. Informants were located in schools, shops, churches, and all other spheres of German life, operating under cover, and reporting any utterances or actions against the Nazi Party, State or leadership. (2614-PS)
The SD had direct and powerful influence in the selection of Nazi leaders. It investigated the loyalty and reliability of State officials, evaluating them by their complete devotion to Nazi ideology and the Hitler leadership. It secretly marked ballots and thereby discovered the identity of persons who cast “No” votes and “invalid” votes in the referenda. (2614-PS; R-142)
The SD worked closely with the GESTAPO. An article in the “Voelkischer Beobachter” published in Das Archiv, January 1936, stated:
“As the Secret State Police can not carry out, in addition to its primary executive tasks, this observation of the enemies of the state, to the extent necessary, there steps alongside to supplement it the Security Service of the Reichsleader of the SS, set up by the Deputy Fuehrer as the political intelligence service of the movement, which puts a large part of the forces of the movement mobilized by it into the service of the security of the state.” (1956-PS)