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The (German for "Protective Echelon"), abbreviated SS- or (Runic)- was a major Nazi organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The SS grew from a small paramilitary unit to a powerful force that served as the Führer's "Praetorian Guard," the Nazi Party's "Shield Squadron" and a force that, fielding almost a million men (both on the front lines and as political police), managed to exert as much political influence in the Third Reich as the Wehrmacht, Germany's regular armed forces. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS, under Heinrich Himmler's command, was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Nazis during World War II, and most of the severest of those crimes.

Initially numerically smaller than Ernst Röhm's Sturmabteilungmarker (Storm Battalion abbreviated SA), the SS grew in size and power due to its exclusive loyalty to Hitler, as opposed to the SA, which was seen as semi-independent and a threat to Hitler's hegemony over the party. Under Himmler, the SS selected its members according to the Nazi ideology. Creating elite police and military units such as the Waffen-SS, Himmler used the SS to form an order of men claimed to be superior in racial purity and ability to other Germans and national groups, a model for the Nazi vision of a master race. During World War II, SS units operated alongside the regular German Army; and in the final stages of the war, the SS came to dominate the Wehrmacht in order to eliminate perceived threats to Hitler's power while implementing his strategies, despite the increasingly futile German war effort.

According to the Nuremberg Trialsmarker, as well as countless war crimes investigations and trials conducted over the past sixty years, the SS was responsible for the vast majority of war crimes perpetrated under the Nazi regime; in particular, it was the primary organization which carried out the Holocaust. As part of its race-centric functions, the SS oversaw the isolation and displacement of Jews from the populations of the conquered territories, seizing their assets and transporting them to concentration camps and ghettos where they would be used as slave labor (pending extermination) or immediately killed.

Chosen to implement the Nazi "Final Solution" for the Jews and other groups deemed inferior (and/or enemies of the state), the SS carried out the killing, torture and enslavement of approximately twelve million people. Most victims were Jews or of Polish or other Slavic extraction, but other racial/ethnic groups such as the Romani made up a significant number of victims. Furthermore, the SS purge was extended to those viewed as threats to "race hygiene" or Nazi ideology -- including political dissidents, homosexuals, and the mentally or physically handicapped. Members of labor organizations and those perceived to be affiliated with groups (religious, political, social and otherwise) that opposed the regime, or were seen to have views contradictory to the goals of the Nazi government, were rounded up in large numbers; these included clergy of all faiths, Jehovah's Witnesses, Freemasons, Communists, and Rotary Clubmarker members.

Foreseeing Nazi defeat in the war, a significant number of SS personnel organized their escape to South American nations. These escapes are said to have been assisted by an organization known as ODESSA, an acronym of the German phrase Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen, which translates as the Organization of Former Members of the SS. Many others were captured and prosecuted by Allied authorities at the Nuremberg Trialsmarker for war crimes, and absconding SS criminals were the targets of police forces in various Allied nations, post-war Germany, Austriamarker and Israelmarker.


The SS was formed in 1925 as a personal guard unit for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, ("Die Schutz-Staffel der NSDAP" [Shield Squadron of the NSDAP]). Under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler between 1929 and 1945, the SS grew from a small paramilitary formation to become one of the largest and most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. The first leader of the SS was a journalist named Berchtold from the Nazi party newspaper "People's Observer" (Völkischer Beobachter). Berchtold was then replaced by Erhard Heiden.

Racial requirements for membership

The Nazis regarded the SS as an elite unit, the party's "Praetorian Guard," with all SS personnel (originally) selected on the principles of racial purity and loyalty to the Nazi Party. In the early days of the SS, officer candidates had to prove German ancestry to 1750. They also were required to prove that they had no Jewish ancestors. Later, when the requirements of the war made it impossible to confirm the ancestry of officer candidates, the proof of ancestry regulation was dropped.

In contrast to the black-uniformed Allgemeine SSmarker (the political wing of the SS), the Waffen-SS (the military wing) evolved into a second German army aside the Wehrmacht (the regular armed forces) and operating in tandem with them; especially with the Heer (German Army).

Special ranks and uniforms

The SS was distinguished from other branches of the German military, the National Socialist Party, and German state officials by its own rank structure, unit insignia, and uniforms. The all-black SS uniform was designed by SS-Oberführer Prof. Karl Diebitsch and graphic designer, SS-Sturmhauptführer Walter Heck. This sinister icon, however, was rarely worn after the war began. Himmler ordered that all black uniforms be turned in for recycling. They were sent east for use by the native auxiliary police units and sent west to be used by Germanic-SS units such as the ones in Holland and Denmark. In place of the black uniform, SS men wore uniforms of dove-grey or Army field-grey with distinctive insignia. The uniforms were made by hundreds of clothing factories licensed by the RZM, including, Hugo Boss, with some workers being prisoners of war forced into labor work; many were made in concentration camps. The SS also developed its own field uniforms. Initially these were similar to standard Wehrmacht wool uniforms but they also included reversible smocks and helmet covers printed with camouflage patterns with a brown/green "spring" side and a brown/brown "autumn" side. In 1944 the Waffen SS began using a universal camouflage uniform intended to replace the wool field uniform.

Merger with police forces

As the Nazi party monopolized political power in Germany, key government functions such as law enforcement were absorbed into the SS, while many SS organizations became the de facto government agencies. To maintain the political power and security of the Nazi party, the SS established and ran the Sicherheitsdienstmarker or SD (the party security and intelligence service) and took over the Geheime Staatspolizeimarker (Gestapo), the state secret police. These actions effectively put the SS above the law.

Personal control of Himmler

Himmler, the leader of the SS, was a chief architect of the Final Solution. The SS Einsatzgruppenmarker death squads, formed by his deputy, Heydrich, murdered many civilian non-combatants, mostly Jews, in the countries occupied by Germany during World War II. Himmler was responsible for establishing and operating concentration camps and extermination camps in which millions of inmates died of systematic mass gassing, inhumane treatment, overwork, malnutrition, or medical experiments. After the war, the judges of the Nuremberg Trialsmarker declared part of the SS, the SD, a criminal organization responsible for the implementation of racial policies of genocide and committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.



The group was first formed in 1923, as a company of the SA who were given the task of protecting senior leaders of the Nazi Party at rallies, speeches, and other public events. Commanded by Emil Maurice, and known as the Stabswache (Staff Guard), they were nicknamed the "Brown Shirts" according to their dress. The original group consisted of eight men and was modeled after the Erhardt Naval Brigade, a violent Freikorps of the time.

After the failed 1923 Putschmarker by the Nazi Party, the SA and the Stabswache were abolished, yet they returned in 1925. At that time, the Stabswache was reestablished as the "Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler", given the task of providing personal protection for Hitler at Nazi Party functions and events. That same year, the Stosstrupp was expanded to a national level, and renamed as the Schutzstaffel (SS). The new SS was delegated to be a protection company of various Nazi Party leaders throughout Germany. Hitler's personal SS protection unit was later enlarged to include combat units and after 13 April 1934, was known as the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH). After Germany mobilized in 1939, the combat units in the LSSAH were mobilized as well, leaving behind an honor guard battalion to protect Hitler. It is these SS troops that are seen at the Reich Chancellerymarker and Hitler's Obersalzberg estate in his personal 8 mm movies.


Between 1925 and 1929, the SS was considered merely a battalion of the SA and numbered no more than 280 personnel. On January 6, 1929, Hitler appointed Himmler as the leader of the SS, and by the end of 1932, the SS had 52,000 members. By the end of the next year, it had over 209,000 members. Himmler's expansion of the SS was based on models from other groups, such as the Knights Templar and the Italian Blackshirts. According to SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS, Karl Wolff, it was also based on the model from the Society of Jesus of absolute obedience to the Pope. The motto of the SS was "Treu, Tapfer, Gehorsam" (Loyal, Valiant, Obedient).

Before 1932, the SS wore the same uniform as the SA, with the exception of a black tie and a black cap with a Totenkopf, skull and bones, ("death's head") symbol on it. Later, they adopted the black uniform, designed by Prof. Diebitsch and Walter Heck (and made by Hugo Boss). In 1938 an "earth-grey" uniform was issued. The Waffen ("armed") SS wore a field-grey (feldgrau) uniform similar to the regular army, or Heer. During the war, Waffen-SS units wore a wide range of items printed with camouflage patterns (such as Platanenmuster, Erbsenmuster, captured Italian Telo Mimetico, etc.), while their feldgrau uniforms became largely indistinguishable from those of the Heer, save for the insignia. In 1945, the SS adopted the Leibermuster disruptive pattern that inspired many forms of modern battle dress, although it was not widely issued before the end of the war.


Heinrich Himmler, together with his right-hand man, Reinhard Heydrich, consolidated the power of the organization. In 1931, Himmler gave Heydrich the assignment to build an intelligence and security service inside the SS, which became the Sicherheitsdienst (SD). By the time the war began, the number of members rose to 250,000, and the Waffen-SS was formed in December 1940, expanding the earlier armed SS troops who had fought in Poland and France in 1939-40, to serve as part of the Wehrmacht, Germany's regular armed forces. Himmler also received control of the Gestapo in 1934, and, that same year, Hitler had given the SS jurisdiction over all concentration camps. In the wake of the plot against Hitler's life by a group of regular military generals in July 1944, the Führer came to distrust his regular military, putting ever more trust in the SS, particularly Himmler, who had acted against the plotters and their families. This attitude of Hitler's was further shown at the very end of the war, when he refused to station himself in the OKW bunker in Berlin, claiming that he did not 'trust the strength of army concrete', however the true reason was probably that he feared another generals' plot and so chose to stay in his own headquarters, surrounded by an apparently more loyal SS retinue.

Early SS Disunity

Far from the united instrument of terror that the SS would eventually become, in its first year of existence, the SS was in fact significantly divided into several factions both geographically within Germany as well as within the structure of the SS as a whole. In addition, prior to 1934, the Gestapo was considered a civilian police agency completely separate from the SS and, in some cases, the Gestapo came into direct conflict with the SS and even attempted to arrest some of its members.

The first major division in the early SS was between SS units in Northern Germany, situated around Berlin, and SS units in southern Germany headquartered around Munich. The “Northern-SS” was under the command of Kurt Daluege who had close ties to Hermann Göring and enjoyed his position in Berlin where most of the Nazi government offices were located. This in contrast to the SS in southern Germany, commanded unquestionably by Heinrich Himmler and located mostly in Munich which was the location of the major Nazi political offices.


The division between the military and general SS never entirely disappeared even in the last days of World War II. Senior Waffen-SS commanders had little respect for Himmler and he was nicknamed “Reichsheine” by the Waffen-SS rank and file. Himmler himself worsened his own position when he attempted to hold a military command in the last days of the war and proved totally incompetent as a military field commander.

The Gestapo, which would eventually become an integrated part of the SS security forces, was at first a large “thorn in the side” to Himmler as the group was originally a political police force under the personal command of Hermann Göring. Early Gestapo activities came into direct conflict with the SS and it was not until the SA became a common enemy that Göring turned over control of the Gestapo to Himmler and Heydrich (the three then worked together to destroy the greater threat of the SA leadership). Even so, Göring was reported to have disliked Himmler to the last days of the war and even turned down honorary SS rank since he did not want to any way be subordinated to Himmler.

The SS before 1933


In early 1925, the SS was a single, eight-man company that was Hitler's personal bodyguard. In September, all local NSDAP offices were ordered to create body guard units of no more than ten men apiece. By 1926, six SS-Gaus were established, supervising all such units in Germany. In turn, the SS-Gaus answered to the SS-Oberleitung, the headquarters unit. The SS-Oberleitung answered to the office of the SA Chief of Staff, clearly establishing the SS as a subordinate unit of the Sturmabteilung.

  • SS-Gau Berlin Brandenburg
  • SS-Gau Franken
  • SS-Gau Niederbayern
  • SS-Gau Rheinland-Süd
  • SS-Gau Sachsen


In 1929, the SS-Oberleitung was expanded and reorganized into the SS-Oberstab with five main offices, as listed below:
  • Abteilung I: Administration
  • Abteilung II: Personnel
  • Abteilung III: Finance
  • Abteilung IV: Security
  • Abteilung V: Race

At the same time, the SS-Gaus were expanded into three SS-Oberführerbereiche as listed below
  • SS-Oberführerbereiche Ost
  • SS-Oberführerbereiche West
  • SS-Oberführerbereiche Süd



  • Section I: Headquarters Staff
  • Section II: Personnel Office
  • Section III: Administration Office
  • Section IV: SS Reserves
  • Section V: SS Medical Corps


At the same time that the SS Headquarters was being reorganized, the SS-Oberführerbereichen were replaced with five SS-Gruppen, listed as follows:
  • SS-Gruppen Nord
  • SS-Gruppen Ost
  • SS-Gruppen Süd
  • SS-Gruppen Südost
  • SS-Gruppen West

The lower levels of the SS remained unchanged between 1931 and 1933. However, it was during this time that the SS began to establish its independence from the Sturmabteilungmarker (SA); the SS was still considered merely a sub-organization of the SA and answerable to the SA Chief of Staff.

The SS after the Nazi seizure of power

 In 1936, Himmler described the new mission of the SS, protecting the internal security of the regime, in his pamphlet, "The SS as an Anti-bolshevist Fighting Organization."


By the autumn of 1933, Hitler's personal bodyguard (previously SS-Standarten 1 situated in Munich) had been called to Berlin to replace the Army Chancellery Guard as protectors of the Chancellor of Germany. By the start of 1934, the SS guard in Berlin had taken on the name of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH), and would later become the first division in the Order of Battle of the Waffen-SS.


On April 20, 1934, (as a prelude to the Night of the Long Knives), Göring transferred the Gestapo to Himmler, who was also named chief of all German police forces outside Prussia. Himmler on April 22, 1934 named Heydrich the head of the Gestapo.
SS organization ca. 1936-37
Following the Night of the Long Knives, the SS again underwent a massive reorganization. The SS-Gruppen were renamed as SS-Oberabschnitt, and the former SS Headquarters and command offices were reorganized into eight SS-Hauptämter. The SS-Hauptamt offices would eventually grow in number from eight to twelve main offices by 1944. These offices remained unchanged in their names until the end of World War II and the fall of the SS.

By mid-1934, the SS had taken control of all concentration camps from the SA, and a new organization, the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) had been established as the SS Concentration Camp Service. The original SS-TV was organized into six Wachtruppen at each of Germany's major concentration camps. The Wachtruppe were expanded in 1935 into Wachsturmbann and again in 1937 into three main SS-Totenkopfstandarten. This structure would remain unchanged until 1941, when a massive labor and death camp system in the occupied territories necessitated the concentration camps to be placed under the Wirtschafts und Verwaltungshauptamt marker in three main divisions of Labor Camps, Concentration Camps, and Death Camps.

The early Waffen-SS can trace its origins to 1934 in the SS-Verfügungstruppe. Established as a military company of the SS, the Verfügungstruppe grew into an SS Division which would, along with the Leibstandarte and the Police and Totenkopf divisions become part of the Waffen-SS in 1940.


Troops of the SS Leibstandarte at a Nazi procession in 1939.
Himmler was named the chief of all German police on June 17, 1936. The SS thereby absorbed all of Germany's regular police forces and formed the Ordnungspolizeimarker and the Kriminalpolizeimarker. Further, the Gestapo was incorporated into the Sipo or Sicherheitspolizei with the Kripo or Kriminalpolizel (Criminal Police) and considered a sister organisation of the SD or Sicherheitsdienst. Reinhard Heydrich was head of the Sipo (made up of the Gestapo and Kripo) and SD. Heinrich Müller, was chief of operations of the Gestapo. In September of 1939, the security and police agencies of Nazi Germany were consolidated into the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), headed by Heydrich. The Gestapo became Department IV of RSHA and Müller became the Gestapo Chief, with Heydrich as his immediate superior. After Heydrich's assassination in 1942, Ernst Kaltenbrunner became head of RSHA and Müller remained the Gestapo Chief (a position he occupied until the end of the war).

In 1939, from the existing Totenkopfverbände was formed the SS Division Totenkopf composed of former members of the Concentration Camp service. The Totenkopf or "Death's Head" division would later become a division of the Waffen-SS.

Austrian SS

The Austrian branch of the SS developed in 1934 as a covert force to influence the Anschluss with Germany which would occur in 1938. The early Austrian SS was led by Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Arthur Seyss-Inquart. The Austrian SS was technically under the command of the German SS and Heinrich Himmler but acted independently concerning Austrian affairs.

Austrian SS men were organized under the same manner as the Allgemeine-SSmarker but operated as an underground organization, in particular after 1936 when the Austrian government declared the SS an illegal organization. The Austrian SS used the same rank system as the regular SS, but rarely used uniforms or identifying insignia. Photographic evidence indicates that Austrian SS men typically would wear a swastika armband on civilian clothes, and then only at secret SS meetings.

After 1938, when Austria was annexed by Germany, the Austrian SS was completely incorporated into the regular SS. Most of the Austrian SS was folded into Oberabschnitt Donau with a new concentration camp at Mauthausenmarker opened under the authority of the SS Death's Head units.

Cultural differences between Austrian and German SS men were present to the end of World War II, even though in theory the two countries contributed to a single SS. The issue was highlighted in 1943, when Austrian SS commanders were responsible for heavy losses in the first days of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and charged with negligence. Jürgen Stroop, the Higher SS and Police Leader in Warsaw, overturned several courts martial sentences since it was believed that Austrian members of the SS might rebel against the German officers who passed the sentences.

A notable figure of the Austrian SS included Amon Göth, who was portrayed in the film Schindler's List by Ralph Fiennes. Göth had joined the Austrian SS in 1930 and was an underground member to 1938, after which he entered the Concentration Camp service.

The SS during World War II

The war helped Hitler transform his empire into undoubtedly the most powerful political and economic force in mainland Europe, and by 1944, the SS had grown into a vast and complex organization.

SS and police leaders

The most powerful men in the SS were the SS and Police Leaders, divided into three levels: Regular Leaders, Higher Leaders, and Supreme Leaders. Such persons normally held the rank of SS-Gruppenführer or above and answered directly to Himmler in all matters pertaining to the SS in their area of responsibility. Thus, SS and Police Leaders bypassed all other chains of command. In Himmler's grand dream of the SS, the SS and Police Leaders were eventually to become SS-Governors of the Lebensraum which would be ruled by SS-Lords, protected by SS-Legions, and worked and lived in by SS-Peasant Warriors.

SS offices

By 1940, the SS organizational structure was denoted by three distinct branches: the general SS (Allgemeine-SSmarker), military SS (Waffen-SS) and the concentration camp SS (SS-Totenkopfverbändemarker).

By 1944, all activities of the organization within and outside Germany were managed through the 12 main offices of the Allgemeine-SS.

The Einsatzgruppenmarker, SDmarker, and the Gestapomarker were under the overall command of the RSHAmarker.


The Allgemeine-SS (the "General SS") refers to a non-combat branch of the SS. The Allgemeine-SS formations were divided into Standarten, organized into larger formations known as Abschnitte and Oberabschnitte. The Allgemeine-SS members were considered more or less reservists, and many Allgemeine-SS personnel served in other branches of the German military, the Nazi Party, departments of the RSHA or the Waffen-SS. For those who served in the Waffen-SS, it was a standard practice to hold separate SS ranks for both the Allgemeine-SS and the Waffen-SS.

SS Cavalry Corps

The SS Cavalry Corps (German: Reiter-SS) comprised several Reiterstandarten and Reiterabschnitte that were equestrian riding groups founded to attract the German upper class and nobility into the SS. In the 1930s, the SS Cavalry Corps was considered as a starting point for a military branch of the SS, but this idea was phased out with the rise of the SS-Verfügungstruppe, which would later become known as the Waffen-SS.

By 1941, the SS-Cavalry Corps was little more than a social club with most of the serious cavalry officers having transferred to combat units in the Waffen-SS and the SS Cavalry Brigade. Between 1942 and 1945, the Reiter-SS effectively ceased to exist except on paper and with only a handful of members. At the subsequent Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, when the SS was judged a criminal organization, the Tribunal made a special note that this distinction did not include members of the "Rider-SS" due to the Reiter-SS' having insignificant involvement with the activities contributed to the SS as a whole.


The Germanic-SSmarker was an SS-modeled structure formed in occupied territories and allied countries. The main purpose of the Germanic-SS was enforcement of Nazi racial doctrine and anti-semitic policies. Denmarkmarker and Belgiummarker were the two largest participants in the Germanic-SS program. Germanic-SS members wore their own uniforms with a modification of SS rank titles and insignia. All Germanic-SS units answered to the SS headquarters in Germany.

SS Medical Corps

The first units of the SS Medical Corps began to appear in the 1930s. Within each SS-Sturmbann (battalion), there existed one company of SS personnel whose duty was to serve as medical support personnel to the rest of the SS battalion.

Known as the Sanitätsstaffel, these formations were originally small units under the command of local SS leaders. After 1931, however, the SS formed a headquarters office known as Amt V, which was the central office for SS medical units. At this same time, a special SS unit was formed known as the Röntgensturmbann SS-HA, or the Hauptamt X-Ray Battalion. This formation comprised 350 full time SS personnel who toured Germany offering X-ray diagnostics to any SS member. While the Röntgensturmbann was an independent office, the local Sanitätsstaffel were under dual command of both the SS Medical Office (Amt V), and the leaders of the various SS-Sturmbann and Standarten.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the SS was reorganized and an office of the SS Surgeon General was established. Commanding by an SS-Obergruppenführer, the SS Surgeon General was a member of the personal staff of the Reichsführer-SS, with the SS Medical Corps, as a whole, losing the status of a headquarters office. This was an important development in changing the nature of service for members of the SS Medical Corps.

By 1935, the SS Medical Corps was considered an 'auxiliary duty', and all members of the medical corps were also attached to regular SS formations. To denote medical corps status, the SS authorized a serpent crest to be worn on the collar patches of SS unit insignia. Since SS Medical Corps members could now serve in any branch of the SS, this expansion allowed medical professionals to join every SS office and participate in a variety of duties.

Between 1935 and 1938, the SS Medical Corps began to serve a more sinister purpose, with SS doctors serving in concentration camps and engaging in a variety of human medical experiments. SS doctors were also called upon, in 1936, to assist with Germany's euthanasia program against the mentally disabled and physically handicapped.

When World War II began in 1939, the SS Medical Corps extended itself in the Armed wing of the SS which would, by 1941, be known as the Waffen-SS. Waffen-SS doctors were highly trained both in medical skills and combat tactics with many such doctors receiving high combat awards.

It was also during World War II that SS doctors reached their height with human medical experiments, the most notorious of which occurred at Dachau concentration campmarker and Auschwitzmarker. Such experiments ranged from vivisections, sterilization experiments, infectious disease research, freezing experiments, as well as many other excruciating medical procedures often performed without anesthetic. This period of time also saw the work of one of the most notorious SS doctors in history, Doctor Josef Mengele, who served as Head Medical Officer of Auschwitz and was responsible for daily gas chamber selections as well as brutal experiments on human twins.

In 1945, after the surrender of Germany, the SS was declared an illegal criminal organization by the Allies. SS doctors, in particular, were marked as war criminals due to the wide range of human medical experimentation which had been conducted during World War II as well as the role SS doctors had played in the gas chamber selections of the Holocaust. Relatively few SS doctors, however, were ever brought to justice with such figures as Josef Mengele escaping to Argentinamarker while still other SS doctors returned to civilian practice in Germany under assumed names or, in some cases, even their original identities.

SS and Concentration camps

After 1934, the running of Germany's concentration camps was placed under the total authority of the SS and an SS formation known as the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV), under the command of Theodor Eicke. Known as the "Death's Head Units", the SS-TV was first organized as several regiments, each based at one of Germany's major concentration camps, the oldest of which was at Dachaumarker. In 1939, the Totenkopfverbände expanded into a military division with the establishment of the Totenkopf division, which by 1941 would become a full division within the Waffen-SS.

In 1939, with the start of World War II, the Totenkopfverbände began a large expansion that eventually would develop into three branches covering each type of concentration camp the SS operated. By 1944, there existed three divisions of the SS-TV, those being the staffs of the concentration camps proper in Germanymarker and Austriamarker, the labor camp system in occupied territories, and the guards and staffs of the extermination camps in Polandmarker that were involved in the Holocaust.

In 1942, for administrative reasons, the guard and administrative staff of all the concentration camps became full members of the Waffen-SS. In addition, to oversee the large administrative burden of an extensive labor camp system, the concentration camps were placed under the command of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt marker. Oswald Pohl commanded the WVHA, while Richard Glücks served as the Inspector of Concentration Camps.


Death squads

To save ammunition, the SS executioners, under the supervision of people such as Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, used one bullet to kill a victim. The killers would attempt to kill mothers with small children, also with a single shot, by shooting the child first with the bullet passing through child's body and into the mother's.

The Einsatzgruppen were special units of the SS that were formed on an 'as-needed' basis under the authority of the Sicherheitspolizei and later the RSHAmarker, whose commander was Heydrich. The first Einsatzgruppen were created in 1938 for use during the Anschluss of Austria and again in 1939 for the annexation of Czechoslovakiamarker. The original purpose of the Einsatzgruppen was to 'enter occupied areas, seize vital records, and neutralize potential threats'. In Austria and Czechoslovakia, the activities of the Einsatzgruppen were mainly limited to Nazification of local governments and assistance with the establishment of new concentration camps.

In 1939 the Einsatzgruppen were reactivated and sent into Polandmarker to exterminate the Polish elite, so that there would be no leadership to form a resistance to German occupation. In 1941, the Einsatzgruppen reached their height when they were sent into Russiamarker to begin large-scale extermination and genocide of "undesirables" such as Jews, Gypsies, and communists.


Special action units

Beginning around 1938, the SS enacted a procedure where offices and units of the SS could form smaller sub-units, known as Sonderkommandos, to carry out special tasks and actions which might involve sending agents or troops into the field. The use of Sonderkommandos was very widespread, and according to former SS-Major Wilhelm Höttl, not even the SS leadership knew how many Sonderkommandos were constantly being formed, disbanded, and reformed for various tasks.



The term Sonderkommando was ironically also used to describe the teams of Jewish prisoners who were forced to work in gas chambers and crematoria, receiving special privileges and above-average treatment, before then being gassed themselves. An important distinction is that these Jewish special-action units were not considered regular SS Sonderkommandos; but rather the term for special action unit was simply applied to these obviously non-SS personnel due to the nature of the tasks which they performed.

Order Police

In 1936, Himmler was given command of the regular German police forces and incorporated all local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies into the Ordnungspolizei. SS-Obergruppenführer Kurt Daluege became commander of the Ordnungspolizei (known as the Orpo), and Heinrich Himmler became Chief of the German Police. By 1944, the Orpo had also absorbed minor law enforcement agencies such as the Postal Police, Railway Security Police, Water Protection Police, and even night watchmen who were considered state employees. The Ordnungspolizei had a separate system of Orpo ranks and it was possible for Orpo members to hold dual status in both the SS and the Orpo. In 1944, all Orpo Police Generals gained equivalent Waffen-SS rank so that they would be treated as military officers, instead of police officials, if captured by the Allies. The Orpo also maintained a military division, considered part of the Waffen-SS as well as a number of Police Regiments which performed security duties under the authority of the RSHAmarker.

Auxiliary SS

The Auxiliary-SS (SS mannschaft or "wiking") was an organization that arose in 1945 as a last ditch effort to keep concentration camps running. Auxiliary-SS members were not considered regular SS personnel, but were conscripted members from other branches of the German military, the Nazi Party, and the Volkssturm. Such personnel wore a distinctive twin swastika collar patch and served as camp guard and administrative personnel until the surrender of Germany.

Auxiliary SS members had the distinct disadvantage of being the "last ones in the camp" as the major Concentration Camps were liberated by allied forces. As a result, many auxiliary SS members, in particular those captured by Russian forces, faced swift and fierce retaliation and were often held personally responsible for the carnage of the camps to which some had only been assigned for a few weeks or even days.

There also exists very few records of the Auxiliary SS since, at the time of this group's creation, it was a forgone conclusion that Germany had lost the Second World War and the entire purpose of the Auxiliary SS was to serve in support roles while members of the SS proper escaped from allied forces. Thus, there was never a serious effort to properly train, equip, or maintain records on the Auxiliary SS and many in the regular SS "looked down" upon such persons with feelings that they would soon be captured or dead and therefore deserved little attention.

Helferinnen Corps

The SS-Helferinnenkorps, translated literally as 'Women Helper Corps', comprised women volunteers who joined the SS as auxiliary personnel. Such personnel were not considered actual SS members, since SS membership was closed to women.



The Waffen-SS were frontline combat troops trained to fight in Germany's battles during WWII. During the early campaigns against Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, military SS units were of regiment size and drawn from existing armed SS formations:


In 1941 Himmler announced that additional Waffen-SS Freiwilligen units would be raised from non-German foreign nationals. His goal was to acquire additional manpower from occupied nations. These foreign legions eventually included volunteers from Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands.

While the Waffen-SS remained officially outside the Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) and under Himmler's authority, they were placed under the operational command of the Armed Forces High Command (OKW) or Army High Command (OKH), and were largely funded by the Wehrmacht. During the war, the Waffen-SS grew to 38 divisions. The most famous are the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH), the SS Division Das Reich, the SS Division Totenkopf and the 12th SS Panzerdivision Hitlerjugend.

The Waffen-SS maintained several "Foreign Legions" of personnel from conquered territories and countries allied to Germany. The majority wore a distinctive national collar patch and preceded their SS rank titles with the prefix Waffen instead of SS. Volunteers from Scandinavian countries filled the ranks of two divisions, the 5th "Wiking" and 11th "Nordland." Belgian Flemings joined Dutchmen to form the "Nederland" Legion, and their Walloon compatriots joined the Sturmbrigade "Wallonien". Racial restrictions were relaxed to the extent that Ukrainian Slav, Albanians from Kosovomarker, and Turkic Tatars' units were recruited. The Ukrainians and the Tatars had both suffered persecution under Stalin and their motive was a hatred of Communism rather than sympathy for National Socialism. The exiled Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, used hatred of Serbs and Jews to recruit an entire Waffen-SS division of Bosnian Muslims, the 13th SS Division "Handschar" . The year long Soviet occupation of the Baltic states at the beginning of World War II produced volunteers for Estonianmarker and Latvianmarker Waffen-SS units, though majority of those units still was formed by forced draft. However, some other occupied countries such as Greecemarker and Polandmarker never formed any Waffen-SS legions. (In Greece, the Fascist organisation ESPO tried to create a Greek SS division, but the attempt was abandoned after its leader was assassinated).

A similar formation was the Indische Freiwilligen Infanterie Regiment 950 (also known at various stages as the Indische Freiwilligen-Legion der Waffen-SS and Azad Hind Fauj.) See also the Tiger Legion and the Indian National Army.


Ahnenerbe SS


SS and police courts


Situations arose early in the Nazi regime of SS activities coming into conflict with German law. The first recorded instances, of SS personnel charged with breaking the law through the performance of their duties, was in 1934 at Dachau, when the local town magistrate charged several SS guards with murder after several prisoners were executed without cause or trial.

The SS response to the German legal establishment was to petition the Reich Ministry of Justice to pass an act that removed the SS, and all of its members, from the jurisdiction of the civilian courts. This effectively placed the SS 'above the law', and its members could break regular German law without fear of penalty.

For those SS personnel who committed acts that were illegal even by SS standards, the SS established a series of SS and Police Courts. The SS and Police Courts were the only authority that could try SS personnel for criminal behavior and were under the authority of the Hauptamt SS Gericht.

Court types

The different SS and Police Courts were as follows:


Post war activity and ODESSA

According to Simon Wiesenthal, towards the end of World War II, a group of former SS officers went to Argentinamarker and set up a Nazi fugitive network code-named ODESSA, (an acronym for Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen, "Organization of the former SS members"), with ties in Germanymarker, Switzerlandmarker, Italymarker, and the Vatican, operating out of Buenos Airesmarker. ODESSA allegedly helped Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele, Erich Priebke, and many other war criminals find postwar refuge in Latin America.

It is estimated that out of roughly 70,000 members of the SS involved in crimes in German concentration camps, only between 1650 and 1700 were tried after the war.

Argentinian citizen and water company worker Ricardo Klement was discovered to be Adolf Eichmann in the 1950s, by former Jewish Dachau worker Lothar Hermann, whose daughter, Sylvia, became romantically involved with Klaus Klement (born Klaus Eichmann in 1936 in Berlin). He was captured by the Israeli Secret Service, Mossad, in a suburb of Buenos Aires on May 11, 1960, and tried in Jerusalem on April 11, 1961, where he explicitly declared that he had abdicated his conscience in order to follow the Führerprinzip (the 'leader principle' or superior orders).



More recent research, however, notably by the Argentine author and journalist Uki Goñi in his book The Real Odessa, has shown that such a network in fact existed, and in Argentina was largely run by Argentine President Juan Domingo Perón, a Nazi sympathiser who had been impressed by Mussolini's reign in Italy during a military tour of duty in that country which also took him to Nazi Germany.



  1. d'Alquen, IMT Volume IV, Document 2284-PS, at 975
  2. Lumsden, Robin. A Collector's Guide To: The Allgemeine - SS, Ian Allan Publishing, Inc. 2001, p 53.
  3. Lumsden, Robin. A Collector's Guide To: The Allgemeine - SS, 2001, p 56.
  4. Cook, Stan and Bender, R. James. Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler - Volume One, R. James Bender Publishing, 1994, p 19.
  5. SS Motto
  6. Williams, Max. Reinhard Heydrich: The Biography: Volumes 1. 2003, page 61.
  7. Williams, Max. Reinhard Heydrich: The Biography: Volumes 1. 2003, p 77.
  8. Lumsden, Robin. A Collector's Guide To: The Allgemeine - SS, 2001, pp 80-84.
  10. Yerger has at least a paragraph on each office. pp. 13-21
  11. Ezergailis, Andrew, The Holocaust in Latvia 1941-1944 -- The Missing Center, pages 239-270, Historical Institute of Latvia (in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) Riga 1996 ISBN 9984-9054-3-8
  12. Himmler had convinced himself that Bosniaks and Croats were Aryans rather than Slavs, and he admired Islam. "SS: Hell on the Western Front. The Waffen SS in Europe 1940-1945", 2003. p. 70


Further reading

  • Robert Lewis Koehl, 1989, The SS: A History 1919–1945, Tempus Publishing Limited. ISBN 0-7524-2559-5
  • Sven Hassel, 1969, SS General, Corgi Books. (Based on the author's World War II experiences. The story takes place in the Russian front, especially during the siege of Stalingradmarker.)

See also

External links

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