When the Nazis came to national power, Germany, as a federal state, had myriad local and centralised police agencies, which often were un-coordinated and had overlapping jurisdictions. Himmler and Heydrich's grand plan was to fully absorb all the police and security apparatus into the structure of the Schutzstaffel (SS).[3] To this end, Himmler took command first of the Gestapo (itself developed from the Prussian Secret Police).