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Abstract

After Hitler’s takeover of power, Himmler became police president of Munich and acquired control over the political police in Bavaria soon thereafter. In 1934, Prussian Minister President Hermann Göring appointed him deputy chief and “Inspector of the Prussian Political Police” (also known as the Gestapo). The following decree, issued by Hitler on June 17, 1936, was intended to complete the process of centralizing the police (or of making it an arm of the Reich) and to thereby end the persistent conflict of interest between Himmler and Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick (1877–1946). In his capacity as the new Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police, Himmler remained subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior in formal terms. In reality, however, he was able to exercise his police functions more or less autonomously. The institutional foundation for the development of the SS had thus been laid.

The Führer’s Decree on the Institution of a Chief of the German Police and Heinrich Himmler’s Appointment to the Post (June 17, 1936)

  • Adolf Hitler

Source

I. To unify the control of police duties in the Reich, a chief of the German Police shall be appointed within the Reich Ministry of the Interior, to whom is assigned the direction and executive authority for all police matters within the jurisdiction of the Reich and Prussian Ministries of the Interior.

II. 1. The Deputy Chief of the Prussian Gestapo, Reichsführer SS Himmler, is hereby nominated Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior.

2. He is personally and directly subordinate to the Reich and Prussian Ministers of the Interior.

3. For matters within his jurisdiction, he represents the Reich and Prussian Ministers of the Interior in the absence of the latter.

4. He carries the service title: Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police within the Reich Ministry of the Interior.

III. The Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior will take part in the meetings of the Reich Cabinet in so far as matters within his jurisdiction are concerned.

IV. I hereby charge the Reich and the Prussian Ministers of the Interior with the execution of this decree.

Source of English translation: Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, eds., Nazism, 1919–1945, vol. 2: State, Economy and Society 1933–1939. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000, p. 320. Reproduced with permission of the Licensor through PLSclear.

Source of original German text: Reichsgesetzblatt I, 1936, p. 487; reprinted in Paul Meier-Benneckenstein, ed., Dokumente der deutschen Politik, volume 4, Deutschlands Aufstieg zur Großmacht 1936, edited by Axel Friedrichs. Berlin, 1937, pp. 37–38.