The Secret State Police (Gestapo), the Security Service (SD), and the traditional police formations had been fused into one gigantic terror apparatus under Reich SS Leader Heinrich Himmler. The brutal methods of the Gestapo in particular – torture, murder, concentration camp internments – had turned them into the embodiment of National Socialist terror. The Gestapo’s tremendous effectiveness was enabled in no small part through the participation of numerous »party- and national comrades,« who were eager informers. The chief of the Viennese Gestapo, Franz Josef Huber, was also in command of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna, an organization in charge of the expulsion, looting, and deportation of Austria's Jews. The criminal police (Kripo) was responsible for the persecution of the allegedly »asocial Gypsies« (Roma and Sinti) and operated the »Gypsy camp« in Lackenbach. The (uniformed) Ordnungspolizei (regular police) – divided into Schutzpolizei (municipal police) and Gendarmerie (rural police) – provided support for Gestapo and Kripo, such as deportations to concentration camps.
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Among the thousands arrested by the Gestapo in March 1938 was Karl Seitz, who was Mayor of Vienna and Chairman of the Social Democratic party until February 1934.
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