“* * * 4. There existed in the PW camps on the Eastern front small screening teams (Einsatzkommandos) headed by lower ranking members of the Secret Police (GESTAPO). These teams were assigned to the camp commanders and had the job to segregate the PWs who were candidates for execution, according to the orders that had been given, and to report them to the Office of the Secret Police (Geheimes Staatspolizeiamt). * * *” (2542-PS)
(3) The GESTAPO and SD sent recaptured prisoners of war to concentration camps where they were executed (“Bullet Decree”). In March 1944 the Chief of the Security Police and SD forwarded an OKW order to regional SIPO and SD offices in which the OKW ordered that, on recapture, every escaped officer and nonworking NCO prisoner of war, with the exception of British and American prisoners of war, were to be handed over to the SIPO and SD, with the words “Stufe III”. Whether escaped British and American officers and nonworking NCOs, upon recapture, should be handed over to the SIPO and SD was to be decided by the High Command of the Army. In connection with this order, the Chief of the Security Police and SD (RSHA) issued instructions that the GESTAPO Leitstellen should take over the escaped officers from the camp commandants and transport them in accordance with a procedure theretofore in force to the Mauthausen concentration camp. The camp commandant was to be informed that the prisoners were being handed over under the operation “Kugel”. On the journey the prisoners of war were to be placed in irons. The GESTAPO Leitstellen were to make half-yearly reports, giving numbers only, of the handing over of prisoners of war. Escaped officer and nonworking NCO prisoners of war, with the exception of British and Americans, recaptured by police stations were not to be handed back to the Stalag command. The Stalag was to be informed of the recapture and asked to surrender them with the words “Stufe III”. (1650-PS)
On 27 July 1944 an order from the 6th Corps Area Command was issued on the treatment of prisoners of war, which provided that prisoners of war were to be discharged from prisoner-of-war status and transferred to the GESTAPO if they were guilty of crimes, had escaped and been recaptured, or refused to work or encouraged other prisoners not to work, or were screened out by Einsatzkommandos of the SIPO and SD, or were guilty of sabotage. No reports on transfers were required (1514-PS). This decree was known as the “Kugel Erlass” (“Bullet Decree”). Prisoners of war sent to Mauthausen concentration camp under it were regarded as dead to the outside world and were executed. (2478-PS; 2285-PS.)
(4) The GESTAPO and SD were responsible for establishing and classifying concentration camps, and for committing racial and political undesirables to concentration and annihilation camps for slave labor and mass murder. The first concentration camps were established in 1933 at Dachau in Bavaria and at Oranienburg in Prussia. The GESTAPO was given by law the responsibility of administering the concentration camps. (2108-PS)
The GESTAPO had the sole authority to take persons into protective custody, and orders for protective custody were carried out in the State concentration camps. (1723-PS)
The GESTAPO issued the orders establishing concentration camps, transforming prisoner of war camps into concentration camps, designating concentration camps as internment camps, changing labor camps into concentration camps, setting up special sections for female prisoners, and so forth. (D-50; D-46.)
The Chief of the Security Police and SD ordered the classification of concentration camps according to the seriousness of the accusation and the chances for reforming the prisoners from the Nazi viewpoint. The concentration camps were classified as Classes I, II, or III. Class I was for the least serious prisoners, and Class III for the most serious prisoners. (1063-A-PS)
Regional offices of the GESTAPO had the authority to commit persons to concentration camps for short periods, at first 21 days and later 56 days, but all other orders for protective custody had to be approved by the GESTAPO headquarters in Berlin. Orders for protective custody issued by GESTAPO headquarters had to be signed by or on behalf of the Chief of the Security Police and SD, at first Heydrich, later Kaltenbrunner. (2477-PS)
The Chief of the Security Police and SD had authority to fix the length of the period of custody. During the war it was the policy not to permit the prisoners to know the period of custody and merely to announce the term as “until further notice”. (1531-PS)
The local GESTAPO offices which made the arrests maintained a register called the “Haftbuch.” In this register the names of all persons arrested were listed, together with personal data, grounds for the arrest, and disposition. When orders were received from the GESTAPO headquarters in Berlin to commit persons who had been arrested to concentration camps, an entry was made in the Haftbuch to that effect. The reason assigned for the arrest and commitment of persons to concentration camps usually was that, according to the GESTAPO, the person endangered by his attitude the existence and security of the people and the State. Further specifications of grounds included such offenses as that of “working against the Greater German Reich with an illegal resistance organization,” “being a Jew,” “suspected of working for the detriment of the Reich,” “being strongly suspected of aiding desertion,” “because as a relative of a deserter he is expected to take advantage of every occasion to harm the German Reich,” “refusal to work,” “sexual intercourse with a Pole,” “religious propaganda,” “working against the Reich,” “loafing on the job,” or “defeatist statements.” Sometimes specification of the grounds simply referred to an “action,” under which a large number of persons would be arrested and sent to concentration camps. (L-358; L-215.)