The History Channel

Gestapo: The Sword is Shattered


In the final part of the series, we look at the end of the Second World War and the activities of the Gestapo during the desperate final months of the Nazi regime. By mid 1944, the tide had turned against Germany. The success of the D-Day landings in June was followed swiftly by the liberation of Paris. Italy had surrendered in September 1943; Allied forces had now fought their way through southern Italy as far as Rome. In the east, the Red Army stood poised to drive German forces back through Poland. 


As the territory occupied by the Reich rapidly withered, the Gestapo assumed an enlarged, and even more frightening, role. In spite of the limited resources possessed by the doomed Nazi regime, the Secret State Police remained a key facet of Hitler?s policy of ?total war?. In the chaotic imbroglio of the final stages of World War Two, the decline in military fortunes gave way to a resurgence in internal opposition. Correspondingly, the Gestapo?s activities became increasingly arbitrary and sadistic. 

 
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