Schutzstaffel

The Schutzstaffel (Abbreviated as SS) is a German state organisation and paramilitary force that holds significant influence in the Reich and its colonies. Originally led in Germania by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, his title of SS Leader has been "technically" removed after his attempted coup against the Reich's government and Hitler. Currently, the title of Reichsführer-SS is split between the leader of the Burgundian-SS, Heinrich Himmler, and the leader of the Deutsche-SS, Reinhard Heydrich. However, this "power struggle" is but a facade, as most of the SS troops and personnel is compliant and loyal to Himmler.

With over 1.000.000 active personnel and their own Army branch, the Waffen-SS, the Schutzstaffel is a Major force to be reckoned with politically and militarily.

Their current headquarters are situated on the Prinz-Albrecht-Straße (Prince Albert Strasse) in Germania.

Origins

The SS originally started as a bodyguard unit, to provide security to Adolf Hitler in party functions and meetings. Marking it's foundation on 9th November 1925 (The 2nd Anniversary of Munich Beer Hall Putsch), this organisation would grow over the interwar years, protecting important leaders of the NSDAP.

Originally considered a part of the Strumabteilung (SA), it would see itself lose against its parent organisation until Heinrich Himmler assumed his role initially as deputy of the SS, in September 1927. It was around this time the SS would pick up steam, seeing itself established in a number of provinces across Germany.

By 1929, Himmler became head of the SS, with Hitler's blessing. With his ultimate aim of turning the SS into the most powerful organisation in Germany and the most influential branch of the party, he would expand membership to 3000 members in his first year as head of the organisation.

Himmler considered the SS an elite, ideologically driven National Socialist organisation and under his leadership the SS expanded and gained a larger foothold in the NSDAP.

The Organisation's Role in the Nazis Consolidation of Power

After Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power on 30 January 1933, the SS was considered a state organisation and a branch of the government. Law enforcement gradually became the purview of the SS, and many SS organisations became de facto government agencies.

The SS established a police state within Nazi Germany, using the secret state police and security forces under Himmler's control to suppress resistance to Hitler. In his role as Minister President of Prussia, Hermann Göring had created a Prussian secret police force, the Geheime Staatspolizei or Gestapo, and appointed Rudolf Diels as its head.

Concerned that Diels was not ruthless enough to use the Gestapo effectively to counteract the power of the SA, Göring handed over its control to Himmler on 20 April 1934. On the same day, diverting from long-standing German practice that law enforcement was a state and local matter, Hitler appointed Himmler chief of all German police outside Prussia. Himmler named his deputy and protégé Reinhard Heydrich chief of the Gestapo on 22 April 1934. Heydrich also continued as head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD).

The Gestapo's transfer to Himmler was a prelude to the Night of the Long Knives, in which most of the SA leadership were arrested and subsequently murdered, of which the SS and Gestapo was responsible.

On 20 July 1934, Hitler detached the SS from the SA, which was no longer an influential force after the purge. The SS became an elite corps of the Nazi Party, answerable only to Hitler. As Himmler's position and authority grew, so in effect did his rank. Himmler's title of Reichsführer-SS now became his actual rank – and the highest rank in the SS, equivalent to the rank of field marshal in the army (his previous rank was Obergruppenführer , equivalent to a 3-star general).

On 17 June 1936, all police forces throughout Germany were united under the purview of Himmler and the SS. Himmler and Heydrich thus became two of the most powerful men in the Reich's administration. Police and intelligence forces brought under their administrative control included the SD, Gestapo, Kriminalpolizei (Kripo; criminal investigative police), and Ordnungspolizei (Orpo; regular uniformed police).

In his capacity as police chief, Himmler was nominally subordinate to Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick. In practice, the SS answered only to Hitler, as the de facto merger of the SS and the police made the police independent of Frick's control. In September 1939, the security and police agencies, including the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; security police) and the SD, were consolidated into the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), headed by Heydrich. This further increased the collective authority of the SS.

During the Kristallnacht in 1938. SS security services clandestinely coordinated violence against Jews whilst the other SS branches did what they could to ensure that while Jewish synagogues and community centres were destroyed, Jewish-owned businesses and housing remained intact so that they could later be seized. In the end, thousands of Jewish businesses, homes, and graveyards were vandalised and looted, particularly by members of the SA. Some 500 to 1,000 synagogues were destroyed, mostly by arson. On 11 November, Heydrich reported a death toll of 36 people, but later assessments put the number of deaths at up to two thousand. On Hitler's orders, around 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps by 16 November. As many as 2,500 of these people died in the following months. It was at this point that the SS state began in earnest its campaign of terror against political and religious opponents, who they imprisoned without trial or judicial oversight for the sake of "security, re-education, or prevention".

In September 1939, the authority of the SS expanded further when the senior SS officer in each military district also became its chief of police. Most of these SS and police leaders held the rank of SS-Gruppenführer or above and answered directly to Himmler in all SS matters within their district. Their role was to police the population and oversee the activities of the SS men within their district. By declaring an emergency, they could bypass the district administrative offices for the SS, SD, SiPo, SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV; concentration camp guards), and Orpo, thereby gaining direct operational control of these groups.

Ideology

The Ideology of the SS was to be the elite guard of the NSDAP, In keeping with the racial policy of Nazi Germany, all SS officer candidates had to provide proof of Aryan ancestry back to 1750 and for other ranks to 1800 in the founding days of the organisation. Once the Second World War started and it became more difficult to confirm ancestry, the regulation was amended to proving only the candidate's grandparents were Aryan, as spelled out in the Nuremberg Laws.

Other requirements were complete obedience to the Führer and a commitment to the German people and nation. Himmler also tried to institute physical criteria based on appearance and height, but these requirements were only loosely enforced, and over half the SS men did not meet the criteria.

Inducements such as higher salaries and larger homes were provided to members of the SS since they were expected to produce more children than the average German family as part of their commitment to Nazi Party doctrine.

The SS ideology also included the application of brutality and terror as a solution to military and political issues. The SS stressed total loyalty and obedience to orders unto death. Hitler used this brutal ideology in the SS as a powerful tool to further his aims and those of the Nazi Party, hence the SS was entrusted with the commission of war crimes such as the murder of Jewish civilians.

Their official motto was "Meine Ehre heißt Treue" (My Honour is Loyalty).

Their Role in World War II (Campaigns in Poland, France and the Low Countries and the Balkans)

By the outbreak of World War II, the SS had consolidated into its final form, which comprised three main organisations: the Allgemeine SS (General-SS), SS-Totenkopfverbände (Death's Head Units), and the Waffen-SS, which was founded in 1934 as the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT) and renamed in 1940.

The Waffen-SS evolved into a second German army alongside the Wehrmacht and operated in tandem with them, especially with the Heer (German Army). However, it never obtained total "independence of command", nor was it ever a "serious rival" to the German Army. Waffen-SS Members were never able to join the ranks of the German High Command and it was dependent on the army for heavy weaponry and equipment. Although SS ranks generally had equivalents in the other services, the SS rank system did not copy the terms and ranks used by the Wehrmacht's branches. Instead, it used the ranks established by the post-World War I Freikorps and the SA. This was primarily done to emphasise the SS as being independent of the Wehrmacht.

The SS would be involved in the Campaigns of Poland, France and the Low Countries, providing the Divisions of the SS-VT and the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) in these campaigns

Invasion of Poland

In the September 1939 invasion of Poland, the LSSAH and SS-VT fought as separate mobile infantry regiments.

Satisfied with their performance in Poland, Hitler allowed further expansion of the armed SS formations but insisted new units remain under the operational control of the army. While the SS-Leibstandarte remained an independent regiment functioning as Hitler's personal bodyguards, the other regiments—SS-Deutschland, SS-Germania, and SS-Der Führer—were combined to form the SS-Verfügungs-Division. A second SS division, the SS-Totenkopf, was formed from SS-TV concentration camp guards, and a third, the SS-Polizei, was created from police volunteers. The SS gained control over its own recruitment, logistics, and supply systems for its armed formations at this time. The SS, Gestapo, and SD were in charge of the provisional military administration in Poland until the appointment of Hans Frank as Governor-General on 26 October 1939.

Invasion of France

in 1940, Hitler launched the Battle of France, a major offensive against France and the Low Countries. The SS supplied two of the 89 divisions employed. The LSSAH and elements of the SS-VT participated in the ground invasion of the Netherlands. Simultaneously, airborne troops were dropped to capture key Dutch airfields, bridges, and railways. In the five-day campaign, the LSSAH linked up with army units and airborne troops after several clashes with Dutch defenders.

SS troops did not take part in the thrust through the Ardennes and the river Meuse. Instead, the SS-Totenkopf was summoned from the army reserve to fight in support of Generalmajor Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division as they advanced toward the English Channel. On 21 May, the British launched an armored counterattack against the flanks of the 7th Panzer Division and SS-Totenkopf. The Germans then trapped the British and French troops in a huge pocket at Dunkirk, which was soon crushed.

At the close of the campaign, Hitler expressed his pleasure with the performance of the SS-Leibstandarte, telling them: "Henceforth it will be an honour for you, who bear my name, to lead every German attack." The SS-VT was renamed the Waffen-SS in a speech made by Hitler in July 1940. Hitler then authorised the enlistment of "people perceived to be of related stock", as Himmler put it, to expand the ranks.

Danes, Dutch, Norwegians, Swedes, and Finns volunteered to fight in the Waffen-SS under the command of German officers. They were brought together to form the new division SS-Wiking. In January 1941, the SS-Verfügungs Division was renamed SS-Reich Division (Motorised), and was renamed as the 2nd SS Panzer Division "Das Reich" when it was reorganised as a Panzergrenadier division in 1942.

Campaign in the Balkans

In April 1941, the German Army invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. The LSSAH and Das Reich were attached to separate army Panzer corps. Fritz Klingenberg, a company commander in the Das Reich division, led his men across Yugoslavia to the capital, Belgrade, where a small group in the vanguard accepted the surrender of the city on 13 April. A few days later Yugoslavia surrendered. SS police units immediately began taking hostages and carrying out reprisals, a practice that became common. In some cases, they were joined by the Wehrmacht. Similar to Poland, the war policies of the Nazis in the Balkans resulted in brutal occupation and racist mass murder. Serbia became the second country (after Estonia) declared Judenfrei (free of Jews).

In Greece, the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS encountered resistance from the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the Greek Army. The fighting was intensified by the mountainous terrain, with its heavily defended narrow passes. The LSSAH was at the forefront of the German push. The BEF evacuated by sea to Crete, but had to flee again in late May when the Germans arrived. Like Yugoslavia, the conquest of Greece brought its Jews into danger, as the Nazis immediately took a variety of measures against them. Initially confined in ghettos, most were transported to Auschwitz concentration camp in March 1943, where they were murdered in the gas chambers on arrival.

The Eastern Front

More notable was the Schutzstaffel's role in the Eastern Front. On 22 June 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The expanding war and the need to control occupied territories provided the conditions for Himmler to further consolidate the police and military organs of the SS. Rapid acquisition of vast territories in the East placed considerable strain on the SS police organisations as they struggled to adjust to the changing security challenges.

The 1st and 2nd SS Infantry Brigades, which had been formed from surplus concentration camp guards of the SS-VT, and the SS Cavalry Brigade moved into the Soviet Union behind the advancing armies. At first, they fought Soviet partisans, but by the autumn of 1941, they left the anti-partisan role to other units and actively took part in the Holocaust. While assisting the Einsatzgruppen, they formed firing parties that participated in the liquidation of the Jewish population of the Soviet Union.

On 31 July 1941, Hermann Göring gave Heydrich written authorisation to ensure the cooperation of administrative leaders of various government departments to undertake genocide of the Jews in territories under German control. Heydrich was instrumental in carrying out these exterminations, as the Gestapo was ready to organise deportations in the West and his Einsatzgruppen were already conducting extensive murder operations in the East. On 20 January 1942, Heydrich chaired a meeting, called the Wannsee Conference, to discuss the implementation of the plan.

Their Role in War Crimes

During the Polish Campaign, the LSSAH became notorious for torching villages without military justification. Members of the LSSAH committed war crimes in numerous towns, involving the massacres and shootings of civillians in Polish towns and cities. Some senior members of the Wehrmacht were not convinced the units were fully prepared for combat. SS units took unnecessary risks and had a higher casualty rate than the army. Generaloberst Fedor von Bock was quite critical; following an April 1940 visit of the SS-Totenkopf division, he found their battle training was "insufficient". Hitler thought the criticism was typical of the army's "outmoded conception of chivalry." In its defence, the SS insisted that its armed formations had been hampered by having to fight piecemeal and were improperly equipped by the army.

After the invasion, Hitler entrusted the SS with extermination actions codenamed Operation Tannenberg and AB-Aktion to remove potential leaders who could form a resistance to German occupation. The murders were committed by Einsatzgruppen (task forces; deployment groups), assisted by local paramilitary groups. Men for the Einsatzgruppen units were drawn from the SS, the SD, and the police. Some 65,000 Polish civilians, including activists, intelligentsia, scholars, teachers, actors, former officers, and others, were murdered by the end of 1939. When the army leadership registered complaints about the brutality being meted out by the Einsatzgruppen, Heydrich informed them that he was acting "in accordance with the special order of the Führer." The first systematic mass shooting of Jews by the Einsatzgruppen took place on 6 September 1939 during the attack on Kraków.

On 27 May 1940, 4 Company, SS-Totenkopf perpetrated the Le Paradis massacre, where 97 men of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment were machine-gunned after surrendering, with survivors finished off with bayonets. Two men survived. By 28 May the SS-Leibstandarte had taken Wormhout, 10 mi (16 km) from Dunkirk. There, soldiers of the 2nd Battalion were responsible for the Wormhoudt massacre, where 81 British and French soldiers were murdered after they surrendered. The fanatical recklessness in the assault, suicidal defence against enemy attacks, and savage atrocities committed in the face of frustrated objectives exhibited by the SS-Totenkopf division during the invasion were typical of the SS troops as a whole.

The SS was built on a culture of violence, which was exhibited in its most extreme form by the mass murder of civilians and prisoners of war on the Eastern Front. Augmented by personnel from the Kripo, Orpo (Order Police), and Waffen-SS, the Einsatzgruppen reached a total strength of 3,000 men. Einsatzgruppen A, B, and C were attached to Army Groups North, Centre, and South; Einsatzgruppe D was assigned to the 11th Army. The Einsatzgruppe for Special Purposes operated in eastern Poland starting in July 1941. Historian Richard Rhodes describes them as being "outside the bounds of morality"; they were "judge, jury and executioner all in one", with the authority to kill anyone at their discretion. Following Operation Barbarossa, these Einsatzgruppen units, together with the Waffen-SS and Order Police as well as with assistance from the Wehrmacht, engaged in the mass murder of the Jewish population in occupied eastern Poland and the Soviet Union. The greatest extent of Einsatzgruppen action occurred in 1941 and 1942 in Ukraine and Russia. Before the invasion there were five million registered Jews throughout the Soviet Union, by the end of the war, less than 1 million remained.

The extermination activities of the Einsatzgruppen generally followed a standard procedure, with the Einsatzgruppen chief contacting the nearest Wehrmacht unit commander to inform him of the impending action; this was done so they could coordinate and control access to the execution grounds. Initially, the victims were shot, but this method proved impracticable for an operation of this scale. Also, after Himmler observed the shooting of 100 Jews at Minsk in August 1941, he grew concerned about the impact such actions were having on the mental health of his SS men. He decided that alternate methods of murder should be found, which led to the introduction of gas vans. However, these were not popular with the men, as they regarded removing the dead bodies from the van and burying them to have been unpleasant. Prisoners or auxiliaries were often assigned to do this task so as to spare the SS men the trauma.

Anti-partisan operations

In response to the army's difficulties in dealing with Soviet partisans, Hitler decided in July 1942 to transfer anti-partisan operations to the police. This placed the matter under Himmler's purview. As Hitler had ordered on 8 July 1941 that all Jews were to be regarded as partisans, the term "anti-partisan operations" was used as a euphemism for the murder of Jews as well as actual combat against resistance elements. In July 1942 Himmler ordered that the term "partisan" should no longer be used; instead resisters to Nazi rule would be described as "bandits".

Himmler set the SS and SD to work on developing additional anti-partisan tactics and launched a propaganda campaign. Employing troops primarily from the SS police and Waffen-SS, the Bandenkampfverbände had four principal operational components: propaganda, centralized control and coordination of security operations, training of troops, and battle operations. Once the Wehrmacht had secured territorial objectives, the Bandenkampfverbände first secured communications facilities, roads, railways, and waterways. Thereafter, they secured rural communities and economic installations such as factories and administrative buildings. An additional priority was securing agricultural and forestry resources. The SS oversaw the collection of the harvest, which was deemed critical to strategic operations. Any Jews in the area were rounded up and killed. Communists and people of Asiatic descent were killed presumptively under the assumption that they were Soviet agents.

Death camps

After the start of the war, Himmler intensified the activity of the SS within Germany and in Nazi-occupied Europe. Increasing numbers of Jews and German citizens deemed politically suspect or social outsiders were arrested. As the Nazi regime became more oppressive, the concentration camp system grew in size and lethal operation, and grew in scope as the economic ambitions of the SS intensified.

Intensification of the killing operations took place in late 1941 when the SS began construction of stationary gassing facilities to replace the use of Einsatzgruppen for mass murders. Victims at these new extermination camps were killed with the use of carbon monoxide gas from automobile engines. During Operation Reinhard, run by officers from the Totenkopfverbände, who were sworn to secrecy, three extermination camps were built in occupied Poland: Bełżec (operational by March 1942), Sobibór (operational by May 1942), and Treblinka (operational by July 1942), with squads of Trawniki men (Eastern European collaborators) overseeing hundreds of Sonderkommando prisoners, who were forced to work in the gas chambers and crematoria before being murdered themselves. On Himmler's orders, by early 1942 the concentration camp at Auschwitz was greatly expanded to include the addition of gas chambers, where victims were killed using the pesticide Zyklon B.

For administrative reasons, all concentration camp guards and administrative staff became full members of the Waffen-SS in 1942. The concentration camps were placed under the command of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (SS Main Economic and Administrative Office; WVHA) under Oswald Pohl. Richard Glücks served as the Inspector of Concentration Camps, which in 1942 became office "D" under the WVHA. Exploitation and extermination became an essential part of the economy. The labour needs of the war economy, especially for skilled workers, meant that some Jews escaped the genocide. On 30 October 1942, due to labour shortages in Germany, Himmler ordered that large numbers of able-bodied people in Nazi-occupied Soviet territories be taken prisoner and sent to Germany as forced labour. This would be the start of the slave economy.

By 1944, the SS-VT had been organised into three divisions: The staff of the concentration camps in Germany and Austria, in the occupied territories, and of the extermination camps in Poland. By 1944, it became standard practice to rotate SS members in and out of the camps, partly based on manpower needs, but also to provide easier assignments to convalescentWaffen-SS members. This rotation of personnel meant that nearly the entire SS knew what was going on inside the concentration camps, making the entire organisation liable for war crimes and crimes against humanity.