Reichssicherheitshauptamt - "Reich Security Main Office" - orgainisation created by Himmler to coordinate all German security and police departments including the Gestapo, Kripo and SD.

The RSHA, or Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office), was a subordinate organization of the SS created by Heinrich Himmler on September 22 1939, through the merger of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD, or Security Agency), the Gestapo (Secret State Police) and the Kriminalpolizei (Criminal Police). The organization's stated duty was to fight all "enemies of the Reich" within and outside the borders of Nazi Germany. Included within the rubric of "enemies" were communists, freemasons, Jews, Gypsies and other "racially undesirables"; thus the RSHA coordinated activities among a number of different agencies with wideranging responsibilities.