On this day in 1933, the Nazis established the Geheime Staatspolizei, or Gestapo. These secret forces became the political police within Nazi Germany. While many people use the term “Gestapo” as a catch-all term for Nazi criminals, this is incorrect. The Gestapo was just one of the many institutions that carried out Nazi crimes.Before the rise of the Nazis, Germany was a democracy called the Weimar Republic, which protected the individual rights of citizens, including freedom of speech and equality before the law. This constitution put limits on Hitler’s power in the early days of his rule, but all of this changed after the Reichstag Fire Decree, which stripped citizens of their rights and gave Hitler absolute power during the indefinite state of emergency and thus came about the Gestapo.No institution within the Reich could overturn the Gestapo’s decisions. Its targets included not just those who opposed Nazi politics, but also Jews, LGBTQ+, and other people they labeled as ‘asocials’, as all of these people were automatically considered enemies of the state. After the passage of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, the Gestapo created a Jewish department within their ranks to increase transportation to concentration camps and facilitate the Final Solution. The Gestapo ultimately decided the fate of everyone it arrested. Their activities included organizing deportations, policing forced labor, and assisting the Einsatzgruppen in mass shootings. The Gestapo came to include thousands of employees who were either directly responsible or complicit in the deaths of millions of people. At the 1946 International Military Tribunals in Nuremberg, Germany, the Gestapo was declared a criminal organization. Only 22 men were tried, with 19 being sentenced. Heinrich Müller, the chief of the Gestapo, disappeared after the War and was never tried.