For twelve years, Hitler's secret state police--the Geheime Staats Polizei, better known as the Gestapo--spread a reign of fear and terror over Europe. Spoken of in whispers, a law unto themselves, the Gestapo was the power behind the power. Torture, betrayal, execution, utter ruthlessness, were the stepping stones by which the Gestapo under Göring, Himmler, and Heydrich climbed to the top of the Nazi bureaucratic pile. As Nazi power spread, so did the evil reputation of the Gestapo, spying into every compartment of the individual's life, backed by concentration camps and the state-sanctioned right to extract confessions under torture. As the war ended, the Gestapo tried to eradicate all trace of its crimes. In this, it failed. It left photographs; it left witnesses; it left records. From these it is possible for us to be eyewitnesses to the Gestapo in its grisly heyday.--From publisher description.