DR. MERKEL: Do you know anything about the personnel of the Gestapo, which on the whole, was a new institution and consequently not constituted merely by a transfer of personnel already in existence?
OHLENDORF: When I became acquainted with the State Police it was certainly true that the nucleus of expert personnel had been taken from the Criminal Police and the majority of the leading men in the State Police offices, that is, in the regional offices of the State Police, had risen from the ranks of the civil administration, possibly also from the Police administrations of the various Länder (Länderpolizeiverwaltungen), and that they had, in part, even been detailed from the civil administration. The same was also true for the experts within Amt IV—the Gestapo.
DR. MERKEL: You say the majority of the officials were detailed?
OHLENDORF: I did not say the majority were detailed, but I said “in part.”
DR. MERKEL: Detailed in part? Was it possible for any of these members of the Gestapo to resist being taken over into the Gestapo if they did not wish it, or was it not?
OHLENDORF: I would not affirm that a definite resistance was possible. Some of them might have succeeded, by cunning, in avoiding it had they not wanted to go. But if one was detailed to such an office from the civil administration, then, as an official, one simply had to obey. As an official one had to.
DR. MERKEL: The members of the Gestapo evidently consisted almost exclusively, or exclusively, of civil service officials? Do you know anything about that?
OHLENDORF: That probably was no longer the case during the war. But as a rule it should be assumed that they were officials insofar as the specialists were concerned. Some of them, of course, while in training, were not yet officials and others again were engaged merely as employees or, especially, as assistants.
DR. MERKEL: Can you tell me the approximate number of the members of the Gestapo towards the end of the war?
OHLENDORF: I estimate the total organization of the Gestapo, including the regional offices and the occupied territories, at about 30,000.