The GESTAPO and SD rounded up hundreds of thousands of citizens of occupied countries and shipped them to Germany for forced labor, and sent slave laborers to labor reformatory camps and concentration camps for disciplining.
They executed captured commandos and paratroopers and protected civilians who lynched Allied flyers.
They took civilians of occupied countries to Germany for secret trial and punishment.
They arrested, tried, and punished citizens of occupied territories under special criminal procedures which did not accord them fair trials, and by summary methods.
They murdered or sent to concentration camps the relatives of persons who had allegedly committed crimes.
They ordered the murder of prisoners in SIPO and SD prisons to prevent their release by the Allied armies.
They participated in the seizure and spoliation of public and private property.
They were primary agencies for the persecution of the Jews and of the churches.
In carrying out these crimes the GESTAPO operated as an organization, closely centralized and controlled from Berlin headquarters. Reports were submitted to Berlin, and all important decisions emanated from Berlin. The regional offices had only limited power to commit persons to concentration camps. All cases, other than those of short duration, had to be submitted to Berlin for approval. From 1943 to the end of the war the defendant Kaltenbrunner was the Chief of the Security Police and SD in Berlin. The GESTAPO was organized on a functional basis. Its principal divisions dealt with the groups and institutions against which it committed the worst crimes—Jews, churches, communists, and political liberals. Thus, in perpetrating these crimes, the GESTAPO acted as an entity, each section performing its part in the general criminal enterprises ordered by Berlin. It must be held responsible as an entity.
The SD was at all times a department of the SS. Its criminality directly concerns and contributes to the criminality of the SS.