Gestapo

Gestapo (pronounced guh-stah-poh or guh-shtah-poh (German)

(1) The German state secret police during the Nazi regime, 1933-1945.

(2) A critical descriptor of any organ (usually) of a state which to some degree resembles Nazi Gestapo, especially in the brutal suppression of opposition (often initial lower-case).

1933: An abbreviated form of the German Geheime Staatspolizei (the construct being Ge(heime) Sta(ats)po(lizei)); literally “secret state police”.

A typically German abbreviation

The Gestapo was an outgrowth of the Prussian police.  Shortly after Hitler assumed power in 1933, the political and intelligence sections of the Prussian police were detached from the general force and, after being purged of those not sympathetic to the new regime, re-staffed with Nazis.  In April 1933, the two entities were merged as to become the Geheime Staatspolizei (secret state police), the famous abbreviation the work of a post office clerk whose job description included truncating long names (of which the German language has many) so they would fit on franking stamps.  He intended originally to name it Geheimes Polizeiamt (Secret Police Office) but the German initials (GPA) were too similar to those of the USSR’s Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravlenie (State Political Directorate), known throughout Europe as the GPU.  It’s an urban myth that Hugo Boss designed the uniforms of both the Gestapo and the SS; Hugo Boss was one of a number of companies contracted to produce the uniforms.