Quotes from Robert Gellately

The Nazi effort to foster the relationship between the police and society took many forms, including a new public relations event, the 'Day of the German Police'. It was held for the first time just before Christmas in 1934, and every year across Germany thereafter around that time to show the gentler and social side of the police, who collected money for the charity 'Winter Help Works'.

Himmler encouraged Gestapo and Kripo to do their bit, and in 1936 a new 'Reich Central Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortion' was created to register all homosexuals investigated by police.

Alf Lüdtke's recent study shows on the basis of soldiers' letters sent to their families back home, that in fact most people in the country 'readily accepted' Hitler, and they widely cheered the goals of ' "restoring" the grandeur of the Reich and "cleaning out" alleged "aliens" in politics and society'.

She remembers how she 'wanted only to see the good' and the rest she 'simply shoved aside'.

According to the Himmler–Thierack agreements in 1942, the justice system was in the future mainly for Germans only.150 Their agreements went a long way in recognizing the validity of 'police justice'. Execution orders for Poles, usually carried out as soon as possible and beyond appeal, were formulated in such a way as to make clear that the decision was made by the police, not the courts.