The SS and police leaders directly commanded a headquarters staff with representatives from almost every branch of the SS and the uniformed police. This typically included the "Ordnungspolizei" (Orpo; regular police), Gestapo (secret police), "Totenkopfverbände" (SS-TV; Nazi concentration camps), SD (intelligence service), and certain units of the Waffen-SS (combat units). Most of these SS and Police Leaders normally held the rank of SS-"Gruppenführer" or above and answered directly to Himmler in all matters pertaining to the SS within their area of responsibility. Their role was to be part of the SS control mechanism within the state policing the German population and overseeing the activities of the SS men within each respective district. The men in these positions could bypass the main chain of command of the administrative offices in their district for the SS, SD, SiPo, SS-TV and Orpo under the "guise of an emergency situation" thereby gaining direct operational control of these groups.