The SD (Sicherheitsdienst) was the Secret Service of the Main office of Reich Security (RHSA) under Himmler. The RHSA consisted of the Sipo (the Security police), the Gestapo, and the SD. All were separate internal organizations. The SD was largely manned by professional hatchet men who did their jobs methodically, whether in action against partisans or in executing prisoners of war (like Soviet Commissars) turned over to them. One of its tasks was reporting on the moral of the civilian population, which it did very objectively. The SD was first run by Reinhard Heydrich, and then by Ernst Kaltenbrunner after Czech patriots killed Heydrich in 1942. The SD was not in charge of gathering foreign intelligence. That was the job of Admiral Canaris and the Abwehr, the Gestapo, and the respective military intelligence services. One thing that made the SD so very feared by many was that it was in charge of conducting internal investigations of the Nazi Party. In the guerrilla warfare that went on in the German government of that time, this made people like Heydrich (and later Kaltenbrunner) extremely feared men. Heydrich was one of those rare people who had a very high intelligence and absolutely no conscious what so ever, and even people like Himmler feared him.
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