[2] With the formation of the RSHA, Himmler combined under one roof the Nazi Party's Sicherheitsdienst (SD; SS intelligence service) and the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; "Security Police"), which was nominally under the Interior Ministry.

[3] In correspondence, the RSHA was often abbreviated to RSi-H[4] to avoid confusion with the SS-Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt (RuSHA; "SS Race and Settlement Office").

The organization's main goal was to protect Nazi Germany against enemies "inside" the country but later became instrumental (by design) in dealing with any opposition in occupied territories.

Departments like the SD and Gestapo (within the RSHA) were controlled directly by Himmler and his immediate subordinate SS-Obergruppenführer and General of Police Reinhard Heydrich; the two held the power of life and death for nearly every German and were essentially above the law.

"The complexity of RSHA was unequalled... with at least a hundred... sub-sub-sections, a modest camouflage of the fact that it handled the progressive extermination which Hitler planned for the ten million Jews of Europe".

[14] The organization at its simplest was divided into seven offices (Ämter):[15][16] RSHA-controlled activities included gathering intelligence, criminal investigation, overseeing foreigners, monitoring public opinion, and Nazi indoctrination.

[29] Entry into the Second World War afforded the RSHA the power to act as an intermediary in conquered or occupied territories, which according to Hans Mommsen, lent itself to implementing the extermination of Jewish populations in those places.

[38] From March 1942 through November 1943, the horrific endeavor Operation Reinhard commenced under the RSHA's oversight, whereby they established extermination camps at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, which resulted in the systematic murder of approximately 1.7 million Jews.

Convened by RSHA chief, Reinhard Heydrich, the meeting brought together fifteen high-ranking Nazi officials from various government ministries, including the Gestapo, SS, and the civil administration.

The meeting lasted approximately 90 minutes, during which mass murder was spoken of in purely administrative terms, reflecting the dehumanizing efficiency of Nazi policy.

"[42] In callous and detached language, Heydrich outlined plans to deport 11 million Jews from both occupied and neutral European countries to the East, where they would be subjected to forced labor under conditions designed to ensure mass death.

[43] The Wannsee Protocol, the official record of the meeting according to the RSHA, later became crucial evidence in post-war trials, exposing the role of Nazi bureaucrats in the Holocaust.

Historians avow that the conference remains a chilling example of how genocide can be facilitated not just by ideological fervor, but also through cold, technocratic planning by educated officials operating within a modern state apparatus.

[49] As early as 1941, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels began to complain that large numbers of Jews had not been transported out of Germany because of their work in the armaments industry.