Schutzstaffel
As the Nazi party gained more and more power in Germany, it gave control of more important jobs (like law enforcement) to the SS. Many SS organizations became as powerful as parts of the government. The Nazi party decided that to help it keep its power, it needed to give the SS two even more important jobs. One of these was to create and run the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Nazi security and intelligence service. The other was to control the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo): the SS secret police. Because it was in charge of so many important things, the SS could do almost anything it wanted.