On June 17, 1936, Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler was named chief of police for all German states. The appointment created a centralised police command, entrusted de facto to the SS; until then, the police had been subordinate to the individual state governments. The effect was to give the SS an autonomous status and to erase the line that separated a party from a government institution. This is a clear example of one of the principal ways in which the Nazis sought to Nazify German society. Upon his appointment, Himmler reorganised the police by drawing a clear distinction between the Ordnungspolizei ("Order Police") and the Sicherheitspolizei ("Security Police"). The Order Police were tasked with ordinary police affairs; the Security Police imposed ideological control in the name of the central regime.
