Nazi SS consolidation of all state power, 1936

From the earliest days of Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship, the Gestapo had the power to impose “protective custody” on anyone, to prevent “undesirable” political activities, to monitor the activities of suspects, and to wiretap their conversations without accountability to any court or other government authority. Regular police, however, retained their traditional role subject to law as regulated by the courts. Reich Leader Heinrich Himmler of the elite Nazi SS had taken control of the Gestapo and all the concentration camps in 1934. In June 1936, he became chief of all the German police, thus subordinating all state power to the Nazi apparatus and to the party’s political imperatives.