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On June 17,
1936, Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler was named chief of police
for all German states. The appointment created a centralized police
command, entrusted de facto to the SS; until then, the police had
been subordinate to the individual state governments. The effect was
to give the SS an autonomous status and to erase the line that
separated a party from a government institution. This is a clear
example of one of the principal ways in which the Nazis sought to
Nazify German society. Upon his appointment, Himmler reorganized the
police by drawing a clear distinction between the Ordnungspolizei
("Order Police") and the Sicherheitspolizei ("Security
Police"). The Order Police were tasked with ordinary police
affairs; the Security Police imposed ideological control in the name
of the central regime.
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