Surveillance, Power and Order: Personnel and process card files as an instrument of rule of the Gestapo

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Christoph A. Rass
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2017 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 394480672

Barely any other institution of the Third Reich was as immediately responsible for implementing the Nazi policies of violence into society as the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo). The destruction of nearly all records and card files at the end of the Second World War is one of the main reasons, the academic investigation of the Gestapo in comparison to the research on other Nazi institutions stands back until today. Historic research is still working on deconstructing the image created by the Gestapo itself and, by doing so, advances towards an analysis of the mechanics of its power. The few subject- and personnel-files that have survived have been the main source for this research. So far, Gestapo-card files have been neglected.Personnel and process card files mark the rise of data retention as a central instrument of power during the modern age. This process, i.e. the development of the bureaucratic tool and the practices of its use, exemplifies in the activity of the Gestapo and can be disclosed by analyzing its card file system.As a process-generated serial source the historical value of the card files lies in the combination of stored information and its structure. Big Data-based analysis allows understanding it from a meso-perspective based on a broad empirical basis, which connects the understanding of the overall process with the visibility of the individual case. Understanding this information system leads to new ways of reconstructing the logic and the execution of surveillance and persecution as well as to observe its impact on society in a case study on the Osnabrück Gestapo card-file. The project is operationalized along four substantial fields of research. We will (1) track the evolution of the card file system of the Gestapo Osnabrück and moreover determine the knowledge structure its actions were based on. The building process and thus the usage of the card-file-data can be reconstructed meticulously in a longitudinal analysis. This provides a fundamentally new perspective on this kind of information system. Therefore we (2) gain insight into the production of knowledge within a Nazi-institution and thereby into practices of data storage, surveillance and repression by the Gestapo. The Gestapo-card files thus becomes a historical source that (3), by applying methods of the digital humanities, allows to visualize and analyze these practices across time, space and social structures and uncover their complex patterns. (4) On this basis we can address questions about the foundations of the Gestapos power in society. Understanding the idea of information-system-based control of society opens up a new perspective to the role of institutions like the Gestapo in supporting the formation of highly regulated societies.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants