Reichs Security Main Office Bureau

(Reichssicherheitshauptamt)

(RSHA)

   The RSHA was the German agency responsible for the resettlement of the Jews in the aborted Nisko Plan and Madagascar Plan. Reinhard Heydrich, who headed the RSHA, would subsequently assume responsibility for the Final Solution. The RSHA was organized in September 1939 when the Nazi Party merged its intelligence apparatus, the security services of the Schutzstaffel (SS), the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Sicherheitspolizei (SIPO), and the state security and the criminal police (Gestapo and Kripo) into the RSHA under the command of Heydrich, who reported directly to Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS. The RSHA consisted of seven bureaus, of which Section B of the fourth bureau was responsible for the Jewish question, with Adolf Eichmann in charge of the Jewish section.