Gestapo Methods of Torture

The Prussian Minister of the Interior, Hermann Goring, formed the Gestapo by purging the Berlin police department of politically unreliable cops and had storm troopers sworn in as special police. Under the control of Goring, the storm troopers relished their new found power of arresting people and soon the jails were overflowing with people. This overflow resulted in the need to build larger .

The Gestapo was the police appointed by Hitler during the Holocaust. Led by Hitler, they were authorized administer different methods of torture to the prisoners. The Gestapo devised many forms of cruel and painful punishments. There were no set rules for these various practices, and oftentimes the torture was carried out for nothing other than the 'entertainment' of the Gestapo. There were no set rules as far as the methods used were concerned.Nobody was exempt from being tortured, nobody spared. It did not matter if the victim was male, female or a child; nor did the age or health of the prisoner matter. In the beginning of the Nazi occupation, the torture seemed relatively mild compared to what eventually began occurring on a more frequent basis. As time wore on, the torture became more violent.Prisoners heads would be held underwater, brought up to breath, then submerged again. People were tied up by their wrists or ankles and viciously whipped with leather straps. Prisoners head were repeatedly dunked underwater until drowning or near drowning occurred.Electrical shocking was a common practice. A vice placed on the testicles and tightened was not unusual. Prisoners were forced to stand in freezing water, naked and poked with red-hot sticks. Salt water was poured into eyes that were held open. Live rats were forced into mouths and the jaws pushed shut, causing decapitation of the rodent in the mouth.In addition to verbal abuse, women and girls were repeatedly raped and sodomized by men and instruments like guns and knives, oftentimes while other prisoners were forced to watch. Balls spiked with metal spikes hurled against bare bodies, rock salt pushed into gaping wounds; the mind was the only limit when it came to the methods used. The Gestapo was never held accountable for any of this.