The personnel consisted of detectives in the junior, executive, and female careers, as well as criminal investigation employees.

[6] The Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei was officially abolished and its departments were folded into the Reich Main Security Office.

[6] It was commanded by Nebe until the summer of 1944, when he was denounced and executed subsequent to the failed 20 July plot to kill Hitler.

In the last year of its existence, Amt V was commanded by Friedrich Panzinger who answered directly to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the head of the Reich Security Main Office after Heydrich's assassination in 1942.

[5][7] The Kriminalpolizei mostly consisted of plainclothes detectives and agents, and worked in conjunction with the Gestapo, the Ordnungspolizei (Orpo; uniformed police) and the Geheime Feldpolizei.

The Kripo was also one of the sources of manpower used to fill the ranks of the Einsatzgruppen when the units were re-formed prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

The Einsatzgruppen mobile death squad units perpetrated atrocities in the occupied Soviet Union, including mass murder of Jews, communists, prisoners of war, and hostages, and played a key role in the Holocaust.

[11] As part of the Nazi doctrines on crime and race, the Rassenhygienische und Bevölkerungsbiologische Forschungsstelle (English: Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit) headed by psychiatrist and medical doctor Robert Ritter, was attached to the Kripo.

Both the Gestapo and the Kripo deferred their policies and guidelines to the criminal biology department on how to deal with "Gypsies".

[14] Internally recruited senior detective trainees came from the lower ranks of the Ordnungspolizei or from the junior criminal investigation career.

[18] According to regulations issued by the Reich Security Main Office in 1940, women that had been trained in social work or having a similar education could be hired as female detectives.

[21] The only requirements that were made beyond the normal conditions for public employment in Nazi Germany was that the applicant were physically and mentally fit for police duties.