The Gestapo had the power of arrest, interrogation and incarceration. Stories were allowed to circulate as to what happened in the cellars at Prinz Albrechtstrasse.
There was a great deal of truth in these stories and they served to keep the public under the thumb of the authorities such was the fear these rumours engendered. In parts of Occupied Europe, they used nationals sympathetic to Hitler and the Nazi Party to do their job. This was especially so in occupied Norway and France. In France the Milice worked with the Gestapo to hunt out resistance groups.
In Eastern Europe, the Gestapo played its part in the Holocaust. Gestapo agents hunted for Jews who may have escaped a general round up. At the Nuremberg Trials , the Gestapo was declared a criminal organisation. Thus, they reasoned with me, etc. But the approach proved unsuccessful.
Was then brutally assaulted and in the process had four teeth knocked out of my jaw. This proved unsuccessful too. By way of a third act they tried hypnosis which. But the actual high point of this drama was the final act. They ordered me to take off my pants and then two men grabbed me by the back of the neck and placed me across a footstool.
A uniformed Gestapo officer with a whip of hippopotamus hide in his hand then beat my buttocks with measured strokes, Driven wild with pain I repeatedly screamed at the top of my voice.
Then they held my mouth shut for a while and hit me in the face, and with a whip across chest and back. I then collapsed, rolled on the floor, always keeping face down and no longer replied to any of their questions.
I received a few kicks yet here and there, covered my face, but was already so exhausted and my heart so strained, it nearly took my breath away. There must be no interference. However, arrangements should be made, in consultation with the General Police, to prevent looting and other excesses.
In particular, affluent Jews are to be selected. Further directives will be forthcoming during the course of the night. SS Verfuegungstruppen and general SS may be called in for the overall operations. The State Police must under all circumstances maintain control of the operations by taking appropriate measures.
We all made the discovery that a man can endure far more pain that he would have deemed possible. Those of us who had never learned to pray did so now, and found that prayer, and only prayer, can bring comfort in such terrible straits, and that it gives a more than human endurance.
We learned also that the prayers of our friends and relatives could transmit currents and strength to us. Between the end of October and April , we made three attacks on Gestapo headquarters in Denmark. In each instance the primary object was to destroy Gestapo records and evidence against patriots who were under arrest or about to be arrested for their activities against the Germans, with the secondary object of trying to release the prisoners held in the headquarters and killing as many Gestapo men as possible.
The first raid was directed against the Gestapo headquarters for Jutland, which was in a building in Aarhus University. The second raid was against the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen. The Gestapo had occupied the offices of the Shell Oil Company in the centre of the town, and the building was known as the Shell House.
As usual we had the target and the approaches to it modelled, and planned the operation with the greatest care because the slightest error in navigation or bombing would cause heavy casualties among the Danes. The Reich Government authorised the use of torture when interviewing suspects.
This added a new level of fear to the Gestapo unmatched by other agencies. It became increasingly difficult for the German people to tell them apart from other citizens. The Gestapo would imprison with trial and send those accused to concentration camps. Fear spread further through the use of early morning arrests and rumours of conditions in concentration camps.
In reality the fear of Nazi security forces was exaggerated with such small numbers of officers being employed. However, they provided the illusion of control over a population terrified of being found out and arrested.
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