{"id":3795,"date":"2026-03-08T19:08:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/?p=3795"},"modified":"2026-03-08T19:36:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:36:33","slug":"comparing-ice-to-the-gestapo-reveals-peoples-fears-for-the-us-a-holocaust-scholar-explains-why-nazi-analogies-remain-common-yet-risky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/comparing-ice-to-the-gestapo-reveals-peoples-fears-for-the-us-a-holocaust-scholar-explains-why-nazi-analogies-remain-common-yet-risky\/","title":{"rendered":"Comparing ICE to the Gestapo reveals people\u2019s fears for the US \u2013 a Holocaust scholar explains why Nazi analogies remain common, yet risky"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel H. Magilow, Professor of German, University of Tennessee<\/strong><\/a> <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz recently sparked controversy by comparing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Nazi Germany\u2019s notorious secret police<\/a>, the Gestapo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDonald Trump\u2019s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks<\/a> up off the streets,\u201d Walz said during a May 2025<\/a> speech at the University of Minnesota Law School\u2019s commencement ceremony. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons, no chance to mount a defense, not even a chance to kiss a loved one goodbye, just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans, and disappeared,\u201d Walz added. <\/p>\n

ICE, tasked with enforcing immigration policies, has dramatically increased<\/a> the number of nationwide arrests of immigrants since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025. ICE\u2019s arrests of immigrants have more than doubled<\/a> in 38 states since then. <\/p>\n

In recent months, other Democratic politicians, including U.S Rep. Dan Goldman of New York<\/a>, have also compared ICE to the Gestapo, or Adolf Hitler\u2019s \u201csecret police,\u201d as Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts said in April<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But do ICE\u2019s tactics actually resemble those of the Gestapo<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Because I am a scholar of modern Germany and the Holocaust<\/a>, people regularly ask me if this analogy is accurate. The answer is complicated.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n
\"Men<\/div>\n

<\/a>

\n The Gestapo arrests a group of Jewish men hiding in a cellar in Poland in 1939, in what was possibly a staged German propaganda photo.<\/span>
\n Keystone\/Hulton Archive\/Getty Images<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Understanding the Gestapo<\/h2>\n

The Nazi regime established the Gestapo, short for the German phrase Geheime Staatspolizei, meaning secret state police, soon after Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January 1933<\/a>. Among other responsibilities, the Gestapo was tasked with investigating political crimes and monitoring opposition activity. It later enforced racial laws in Germany and across occupied Europe<\/a>. <\/p>\n

As part of its daily work, the Gestapo identified and monitored the regime\u2019s political enemies. It arrested, interrogated, detained and tortured suspects and sent others to concentration camps. To identify suspects, it often relied on anonymous denunciations that came not only from zealous Nazis, but also from disgruntled neighbors or business competitors<\/a> who tipped off the Gestapo to Jews and other people. <\/p>\n

While the Gestapo was relatively small in terms of personnel, it projected an image of being, as one scholar wrote, \u201comniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

It enforced the regime\u2019s will and suppressed dissent not through sheer manpower but by creating a pervasive sense of fear. This aura of menace and terror has long outlived the Nazi regime itself. <\/p>\n

ICE\u2019s operations<\/h2>\n

ICE, with around 21,000 officers and staff<\/a> operating in a country of more than 340 million<\/a>, is smaller both in absolute terms and on a per capita basis. At its height between 1943 and 1945, the Gestapo had between 40,000 and 50,000 personnel <\/a> in a country of 79 million. <\/p>\n

ICE is set to expand its work in the next few years with an additional US$75 billion in funding<\/a> that Congress appropriated in July as part of Trump\u2019s tax and spending bill.<\/p>\n

And while ICE focuses on immigration, the Gestapo had a more expansive role. It was responsible for suppressing all forms of political dissent, not just violations of immigration law. <\/p>\n

ICE operates with vastly more advanced technologies<\/a> that did not exist in the 1940s, including facial recognition<\/a> and social media monitoring<\/a>. <\/p>\n

There is technically more transparency around ICE\u2019s work than the Gestapo\u2019s, since ICE is a federal agency that is subject to its work and information<\/a> being reviewed by politicians and the public alike. But in June 2020, the first Trump administration reclassified ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, as a \u201csecurity\/sensitive agency<\/a>.\u201d This designation makes it harder for people to request and receive information about ICE\u2019s work through Freedom of Information Act records requests.<\/p>\n

Like the Gestapo, ICE can seem performative in its work, like when it carried out a dramatic July raid<\/a> of a cannabis farm in California in which balaclava-wearing officers used tear gas against protesters<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Gestapo in today\u2019s world<\/h2>\n

Since World War II and the fall of the Nazi regime, the term Gestapo has become shorthand in the United States to describe police repression. <\/p>\n

Using the word Gestapo to describe the worst possible authoritarian oppression has been popularized in popular movies in everything from the 1943 film \u201cCasablanca\u201d<\/a> and \u201cThe Black Gestapo\u201d<\/a> in 1975 to \u201cInglourious Basterds<\/a>\u201d in 2009 and \u201cJojo Rabbit<\/a>\u201d in 2019. <\/p>\n

Walz\u2019s remarks in May, though provocative, were also far from isolated in politics. Politicians from both sides of the aisle, as well as political observers, regularly use Gestapo<\/a> and Nazi metaphors to attack their opponents. <\/p>\n

In 2022, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia famously confused the term Gestapo with gazpacho soup in a gaffe that went viral. \u201cNow we have Nancy Pelosi\u2019s gazpacho police<\/a> spying on members of Congress,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

In 2024, Trump accused President Joe Biden of running a \u201cGestapo administration\u201d<\/a> as the Justice Department prosecuted Trump for attempting to overturn the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

Overall, mentions of the word Gestapo in social media increased by 184%<\/a> between 2017 and 2024, according to the nonprofit group Foundation to Combat Antisemitism. <\/p>\n

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is among the organizations that have condemned making comparisons to the Holocaust and the Nazis for many reasons, including their historical inaccuracy<\/a> and because they are insulting to people whose families remain scarred by the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n
\"A<\/div>\n

<\/a>

\n A Paraguayan woman whose relative was detained by ICE agents scuffles with officers in the halls of an immigration court in New York City on July 16, 2025.<\/span>
\n Spencer Platt\/Getty Images<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What historical comparisons really say<\/h2>\n

Analogies can be useful for clarifying complex ideas. But especially when they stretch across decades and vastly different political contexts, they risk oversimplifying and trivializing history. <\/p>\n

I believe that comparing ICE to the Gestapo is less a historical judgment than a reflection of modern anxiety \u2013 a fear that the U.S. is veering toward authoritarianism reminiscent of 1930s Germany<\/a>. <\/p>\n

If politicians and other public figures are looking for historical comparisons to modern law enforcement agencies that use severe tactics, there is, unfortunately, no shortage of options: the Soviet Union\u2019s secret police agencies NKVD<\/a> and KGB<\/a>, Iran\u2019s former secret police and intelligence agency SAVAK<\/a> or East Germany\u2019s Stasi<\/a>, to name just a few.
\nAll of those organizations denied suspects due process and grossly violated human rights in order to protect political regimes \u2013 but they don\u2019t necessarily easily compare to ICE, either. <\/p>\n

Still, politicians and political observers alike most often turn to the Gestapo and other Nazi references instead.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Gestapo, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust serve as a powerful, shared cultural reference point. The catastrophes of World War II epitomize the worst possible outcomes of evil left unchecked. <\/p>\n

They have become the master moral paradigm and an ethical compass for the world today. In an age of polarization, World War II and the Holocaust remain the mirror in which Americans examine their present.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

This article written by Daniel H. Magilow, Professor of German, University of Tennessee<\/strong> and is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel H. Magilow, Professor of German, University of Tennessee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz recently sparked controversy by comparing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Nazi Germany\u2019s notorious secret police, the Gestapo. \u201cDonald Trump\u2019s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets,\u201d Walz said during a May 2025 speech at the University of Minnesota […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":3796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"inline_featured_image":false,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}