Totalitarian secret-police forces are legally segregated as the ruler’s personal instrument

Evidence

The Russian secret-police cadres were as much at the “personal disposal” of Stalin as the SS Shock Troops (Verfügungstruppen) were at the personal disposal of Hitler. Both, even if they are called to serve with the military forces in time of war, live under their own special jurisdiction. The special “marriage laws” which served to segregate the SS from the rest of the population, were the first and most fundamental regulations which Himmler introduced when he took over the reorganization of the SS. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2804

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the structural feature of personal-disposal police cadres—special jurisdiction and marriage-based segregation from the general population—as a hallmark of totalitarian rule.
• XREF: Connects to the toolkit concept of biopolitics/necropolitics—the ruler’s intimate control over the police instrument’s very reproduction through marriage law.