Nazi police letter inaccurate

To the Editor:

In a recent letter to the editor (“Is history repeating itself?” on 8/26/20), the author stated one of the first things Hitler did was to order Hermann Goering to defund the police. This is not accurate.

When Hitler became chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933, Wilhelm Frick, a fellow Nazi, was appointed Minister of the Interior. At the time, the police were agencies of the individual German states, so Frick had no authority over them.

Hermann Goering was appointed Minister of the Interior of Prussia, and as such was head of the Prussian police. He immediately replaced hundreds of officials with Nazis, mostly from the SS and SA.

However, there was no defunding of the Prussian police, quite the opposite. On Feb. 22, 1933, Goering formed an auxiliary police force of 50,000, most of whom were recruited from the SA and other right-wing organizations. This was crucial since Prussia covered about two-thirds of Germany.

On June 16, 1936, Hitler consolidated all the state police forces into a unified police of the Reich under Hermann Himmler.

Nicholas Weiss

Crest Hill