The champion tonight responded to an answer about a French Resistance leader murdered by “this Nazi organization” with the question “What is the SS?” The correct question (according to the show) was “What is the Gestapo?”
Fine, but the Gestapo was a branch of the SS. They should have at least asked him to be more specific, especially since it was in the last minute or so of Double Jeopardy and it put him irrevocably in the red.
IMHO, “What is the SS?” was a perfectly acceptable question.
What do the rules say about being specific?
Contestants are often asked to be more specific when their question is in the ballpark but not the one expected.
In this case, that was the very least Alex should have done.
Saying the Gestapo was a branch of the SS is over simplifying to say the least.
Care to expand on that?
There was one a while back about a borrowing rodent acting, or something. They accepted “sole mole role”. Moles aren’t rodents.
Well, French resistance implies 1940 or later.
If I’m reading this wikipedia article correctly, and if it’s correct, by 1939 the Gestapo and SS were sister organizations. The Gestapo was not under the SS by then.
But I welcome any corrections.
Double Jeopardy is stricter than regular Jeopardy (and Final Jeopardy stricter still). If that question had happened in the first set of questions, they probably would have asked for clarification, but you don’t get breaks in Double Jeopardy. They remind you to ask in the form of a question in the first round, but in the second round, you just lose if you fail to ask in the form of a question.
Here is the organizational chart for the many branches of the SS. The Gestapo was a subbranch of the RSHA, the Reich Security Service. Everything was always under the ultimate control of Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler.
if they had a clue about the branches of US military and they wanted the response of “Marines” but rejected “Navy” would you think it is a mistake?
Missed the edit window: Yes, it was founded by Goering, but fell under the control of Himmler just a couple of years later.
As for the difference between the USN and USMC, I’d say it would depend on the answer. There’s a big difference between, say, “This branch of the US military won the Battle of Midway in June 1942” and “This branch of the US military landed on the beaches of Iwo Jima in February 1945.”
The most famous resistance fighter murdered by the nazis was Jean Moulin. He was tortured and murdered by Klaus Barbie. Klaus Barbie was an SS officer and the head of Gestapo in Lyon. If the question was about Moulin then the Jeopardy people were really splitting hairs. Resistance leader murdered by a SS Hauptsturmführer working for the Gestapo organization.
The U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) and the U.S. Navy (USN) are separate uniformed services in the U.S. armed forces.
Both of these services, however, are in the Department of the Navy, which is headed by a civilian (the Secretary of the Navy).
People hear that the USMC is in the Department of the Navy (after all, it’s in their seal), and think that it part of the USN. It is not.
The USMC is headed by the Commandant of the Marine Corps (a 4-star general). The USN is headed by the Chief of Naval Operations (a 4-star admiral). The CMC does NOT report to the CNO. Instead, each reports to the Secretary of the Navy (and are part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff).
Himmler wore several hats. All of them snappy little Hugo Boss numbers but different hats nonetheless. He was head of the SS and he was also head of all state police organizations.
In many ways the Gestapo and SS were interwoven. Many Gestapo officers were borrowed from the SS but not all of them. The Gestapo had a separate rank structure with totally different titles than the SS. An Obersturmführer in the SS would be a Kriminalkommissar in the Gestapo.
Basically saying the Gestapo was a branch of the SS is like saying the DEA is part of the FBI just because they both belong to DoJ and are overseen by the Attorney General. Or as said above like saying the Marines are a part of the Navy because the boss of both is the Secretary of the Navy. The SS/Gestapo relationship was more convoluted and incestuous than either of those examples but for a Jeopardy question I think it is clearly wrong to use them interchangeably.
As I just stated many Gestapo officers also concurrently held SS rank. But not all of them. While working as a Gestapo officer Barbie would also hold the rank of Kriminalkommissar. Since they fell under the RSHA they were more closely related to the SD than the SS. The SD acted closely with them on the intel side.
When I was kid, I wondered why Colonel Klink was intimidated by Major Hochstetter rants.
