The
Schutzstaffel
By: Chris Kapuscik
“Clear the
streets, the SS marches, The storm-columns stand at the ready. They will take
the road, From tyranny to freedom. So we are all ready to give our all, As did
our fathers before us. Let death be our battle companion. We are the black
hand.” Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Marching Song (Hitler’s Teutonic Knights
pg. 10). Ancient
and medieval in its “lineage”, pagan and pseudo scientific in its beliefs, and
totalitarian in its exercise of power and brute force, the Schutzstaffel, more
commonly known by its abbreviated nomenclature, the SS, was, as an
organization, the physical and political personification of Nazism in Hitler’s
German Third Reich. At its inception in 1925, during the reign of the Weimar Republic, the SS was little more than a poorly organized band of thugs and
criminals. Yet within 10 years, Heinrich Himmler’s quasi-Teutonic order would
not only assist Hitler in his rise to total dominance over Germany but would
establish itself in its own right as the most revered and dreaded political,
paramilitary, and later military, organization in all the Reich.
To
understand the German mindset of the pre World War Two populace and their tacit
obedience, acceptance, and even approval of the Nazis party and its various
organizations, chiefly the SS, one must take into account the history of
rampant European anti-Semitism, the lifeblood of the Nazis party. “By decree
issued in Berlin March 12, 1933, the Nazi banner together with that of the Old
Empire was proclaimed the flag of Germany. Upon it was inscribed the Swastika-
symbolizing hatred of the Jew and in that sign the new German Government, with
Hitler at its head, declared and is waging official and relentless war upon
600,000 of its own citizens.” (Swastika: The Nazi Terror pg. 9)
Because of the history of prevalent anti-Semitism in Germany, and it fact in
all of Europe; more or less a historic bigotry dating back to the Middle Ages;
Hitler was able to use the Jewish population as a scapegoat with his claims of ‘Jewish
Bolshevism’(Profiles in Power: Hitler pg.23) and the ‘International
Jewish conspiracy’ which had “caused” Imperial Germany, under the
Kaiser, to fall into depression and chaos after World War One. Much of Hitler’s
racist tripe spouted at party rallies in Nuremburg and Berlin, an ideology that
later became part of the SS’s modus operandi, had its genesis in the various 19th and early
20th century German metaphysic/pseudo scientific organizations such
as the Thule Society, Ordo Templi Orientis, the Hermetic Order,
etc. “These cults were usually linked in some way with the overtly political
‘Pan-German’ movement, which sought to unite all the German-speaking peoples of
Europe into a single, coherent nation….(a) German national and racial entity
that would abrogate or dissolve sovereign boundaries and unite the German
speaker all over Europe…” (Unholy Alliance pg.49) Out of these
quasi-intellectual “societies”, which were no more than pagan cults that
attempted to justify racial superiority of the “Germanic” people through a mix
of pseudo-science inspired by contemporary and controversial works such as
Darwin’s Origin of Species and a sort of polytheistic deism inspired by
ancient Nordic religions and traditions, came not only the SS ideology but caused
the voluntary death of thousands upon thousands of “Germanic” and “non-Germanic”
SS volunteers alike who joined in the name of racial superiority.
As one of many paramilitary organizations within
the Nazis political hierarchy, the SS was indeed not the first. To put force
behind its ideology, the Nazis party created the Sturmabteilung
(SA), more commonly referred to as “the brown shirts” in 1923 as a
bodyguard for senior Nazis officials. The original group, known as the Stabswache (Staff
Guard), was modeled on the Erhardt Naval Brigade, a paramilitary Freikorps organization.
When the SA was reestablished after the failed 1923 Putsch, the Stabswache was
also reestablished but was renamed the Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler, a
private bodyguard for Hitler. In 1925, after his release from Lansberg Prison,
“Hitler set about reconstructing his party… (however) he was unable
initially to reconstitute the SA (Sturm Abteilung- Storm Detachment) on the
lines he wished. He had intended it to be a force for political indoctrination
and strong-arm purposes completely subordinate to the Party leadership.” (Anatomy
of the SS State pg. 140) Ernst Rohm, violent homosexual and leader of the
SA, did not want his organization to be subordinate to the party. In fact, it
was not exactly clear, at least to top Nazis party officials, where the
allegiance of the SA lay since every new member swore an oath to their local SA
organization rather than to the Nazis party and Hitler. On the other hand, the
SS, which had been given its title Schutz Staffel (Protection Echelon) in the
summer of 1925, was a “Party cadre to be used for any political, technical
or strong-arm purpose.” Yet even though the SS, which had adopted the
death’s head badge, a symbol used earlier in German history by the Husaren-Regiment Nr.5 (von Ruesch), was a
direct branch of the party, “the Schutz Staffel was (still) subordinate to
SA central headquarters.” (Anatomy of the SS State pg. 142)
Unlike the SA however, the SS had special tasks
that were described as “of a police nature.” Under the command of the
first three Reichsführer-SS,
Julius Schreck, Joseph Berchtold, and Erhard Heiden, the SS did not grow to the
level that the SA enjoyed. Besides acting as a “security intelligence” service;
more or less a secret police/terrorist organization; the SS would reorganize
itself twice before it entertained power as chief political organization within
the Reich. From 1926 to 1928, the SS organized itself on the basis of six main
departments or six SS-Gaus; these were the Berlin Brandenburg, Franken,
Niederbayern, Rheinland-Süd, Sachsen, and the SS
Headquarters or SS-Oberleitung. From 1929 to 1931, the SS again
reorganized itself from six SS-Gaus to three SS-Oberführerbereiche;
Ost, West, Süd. The SS headquarters, SS-Oberleitung, would be renamed SS-Oberstab
and would include 5 main offices; Administration, Personnel, Finance, Security,
and Race. The dichotomy of this constant reorganization on the part of the SS
leadership not only shows the insecure nature of the Schutzstaffel in its early
history, more importantly reflects Nazism’s culture of complete state
organization and an attempt at maximum efficiency in all things. Yet the SS
still did not exceed 2500 members during this period in time, far shy the
amount of recruits that the SA had.
It wouldn’t be until the fourth Reichsführer-SS, a
chicken farmer, that the SS would be transformed into the physical embodiment
of the Nazis party. Born on October 7th, 1900, in Bavaria, Germany, Heinrich
Luitpold Himmler, a loyal SS member who is quoted to have once said that, “The
best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men
may hate us. But, we don't ask for their love; only for their fear”, would
one day rise to head the most powerful organization within Germany. Himmler, who was described early on as a “good boy”, hailed from a devout Catholic
household “Come what may, I shall always love God, shall pray to Him, shall
remain faithful to the Catholic Church, and shall defend it even if I should be
expelled from it.” (History of the SS pg. 12) Himmler was not only a
personable, amiable boy; he was also patriotic. In late 1917, at the height of
World War One, Himmler joined the Second Bavarian Infantry Regiment, the Von
der Tann. Unfortunately, Himmler would never make it to combat; at the end of
1918 he was discharged as a Fahenjunker- an officer candidate, as a
result of the end of the war. As his enlistment in one of the many Freikorps
that dominated the chaotic landscape of Weimar Germany in the 1920’s and
his dedication to and intense development of the SS would show, the fact that
he never was able to lead troops into combat would bother him until the end of
the war; In 1945 he was actually given command of army group Upper Rhine and later army group Vistula,
however when presented the task of actually leading combat troops Himmler could
not bring himself to command and delegated his responsibilities to an inferior
officer.
As a rather impressionable young man, Himmler
was easily led in many of his beliefs. “Through his association with these
war veterans, the young Heinrich Himmler became enmeshed in specious social
theory and political debate. Because of his character, Himmler took everything
literally. It is not an overstatement to suggest that millions of people were
to meet their death as a result of this quality.” (History of the SS
pg. 5-6) From his background in agriculture as an agricultural assistant in a
chemical factory in Schleissiheim, Himmler developed an “obsession about the
purity of country life” which latter showed itself in his later belief that
the SS after the war would become an aristocratic class of farming lords who
could cultivate the lands to the east where the “subhuman” races would
be either displaced, or more likely, destroyed. Early on in his career in the
SS, Himmler was no more than a paper pushing office worker. However, as the
Nazis party had reestablished itself as a result the failed 1923 Putsch,
Himmler moved up in status when in 1925 he became Deputy Gauleiter of
Upper Bavaria and Swabia. After this he became Deputy Reich Propaganda Chief.
Again, in 1927, Himmler was promoted to Deputy Reichsfurher- SS, the
second highest position in the organization. And on January 6, 1929, at the age
of 28, Himmler was promoted to Reichsfurher-SS by Hitler. Interestingly
enough Himmler had actually worked for his promotion. When he was given command
of the SS, the organization only numbered about 280 members. By 1933, Himmler’s
Schutzstaffel numbered 50,000 plus members. Remarkably, Himmler had, in four
short years, made the SS the second most powerful organization in the Third Reich;
however, Rohm’s SA still stood in Himmler’s path.
By this point in time, many in the
upper echelons of the Nazis party hierarchy including Himmler and Herman
Goering believed that the SA was too extreme for the party and wanted to take
power for itself. “..From the earliest moment, the SA had sown the seeds of
its own destruction. Its members did not mind beating people up at political
meetings; that, after all, was what life was all about. Their experiences in
the Freikorps had taught them that. What they abhorred was politicians, and
they drew no fine distinctions.”(History of the SS pg. 33) Even
Hitler understood that the SA, unlike the SS, was too unpredictable “I told
myself I needed a bodyguard… made up of men who would be enlisted without conditions,
even to march against their own brothers… rather than a dubious mass.”
Finally, on June 30-July 1, 1934, Hitler ordered the purge of the SA
leadership, including Rohm. This event, known as "The Night of the Long Knives" basically destroyed the SA
as the powerhouse it once was within the Reich; after the purge, Victor Lutze, a World
War One veteran and member of the Prussian
State Council, was placed in charge of the new SA but the organization was more
or less marginalized and was basically placed on the “back-burner.” Himmler’s
SS finally assumed control as the primary Nazis state organization.
The Schutzstaffel had an interesting period of
development between 1934 and the beginning of World War Two. Prior to this
period, the SS had served two main purposes; first, it acted as Hitler’s
personal bodyguard, and second, it performed “special police duties.”
However, after the purge of the SA, the SS would move to incorporate the main
law enforcement agency in Germany; the Gestapo, into its overall sphere of
influence. The Gestapo, which was an abbreviation for Geheime Staatspolizei;
“secret state police”, originally was part of the Prussian Secret Police under
the nomenclature of “Department 1A of the Prussian State Police.” To
structure things even more, the SS put the Gestapo into a broader security
organization known as the RSHA, or Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich
Security Main Office). Officially, the RSHA, which was led by
Reinhard Heydrich, was tasked with “the usual maintenance of security and
public order.” (Anatomy of the SS State pg. 147) Unofficially
however, the RSHA, along with its parent organization, the SS, was tasked with
furthering the party ideology by attempting to answer the “Jewish question.”
Essentially, Hitler felt that this “question” necessitated “the removal of
their (the Jews) legal rights and ultimately the ‘removal of the Jews
altogether.’” (Profiles in Power: Hitler pg. 23)
At first, the SS would assist the German
government in executing the provisions of the Nuremburg Race Laws of 1935 by
keeping the Jews from taking part in or enjoying any of the benefits of German
society. However, as time went on, the SS itself would be the very organization
that would be tasked with the “removal of the Jews.” In March of 1933, Dachau was established as Germany’s first concentration camp. Originally, Dachau housed only political prisoners; radicals that the state felt dangerous to the Nazis
party. But ultimately, Dachau, like every other concentration camp established
before and during the war, would be used to implement Hitler’s “final
solution.” The method that the SS used to “remove” the Jews at Dachau was more or less a combination of starvation and extremely harsh slave labor. In
other camps however, the methods of death used by the SS were far more
horrific.
Auschwitz, a concentration camp
that was built around an old Polish army barracks, would see the first use of
poison gas, specifically cyanide, on a mass scale. Yet to a large extent, the
SS still used extreme physical violence to eradicate the Jews “For whole
days at a time the inmates would be made to stand in front of the block, and
often even at night as well. They were beaten and murdered by drunken SS men.”
(Auschwitz: Nazi Extermination Camp pg. 123) Auschwitz, whose
cynical motto on the entrance gate was “Arbeit macht frei”
(Work shall make you free), had, by the end of the war, created a death toll
anywhere from 1.1 million to 3 million Jews, gypsies, Poles, homosexuals, and
other “untermensch” (sub-humans). The SS run concentration camps that
mainly dotted Eastern Europe but to some extent western and southern Europe as
well (France for example was home to Natzweiler) were horrific industrialized
“factories of death.” Throughout the course of the war, over 6 million Jews and
5 million other “untermensch” perished in the camps.
To perform the everyday tasks of
running the camps such as guard duty, etc., the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV)
was established under the direction of Standartenführer Theodor Eicke, a
zealous member of the SS who, to prove his loyalty to Himmler and Hitler,
personally murdered Ernst Rohm. As “inspector of concentration camps”, Eicke
established the SS-TV to maintain order in the camps. This unit, which
recruited from many of the worst criminals and sadists in the Third Reich,
became the first true military organization within the SS; eventually this
organization would supply many soldiers to some of the first Waffen (armed) SS
units and would also create a division from its members, the 3.SS-Panzer-Division
Totenkopf.
Within the SS hierarchy, “the
activity of the concentration camp at Oswiecim and of the other concentration
camps was regulated…. by the SS Economic Administration Head Office (WVHA),
which decided matters concerning the economic administration of the camps, and
the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), which through its branches supplied
prisoners to the camp and decided their fate…” (Auschwitz: Nazi
Extermination Camp pg. 39) From the point of view of the Nazis state, the
concentration camp, and more importantly how the SS ran them, was the best
“final solution” because it attempted to treat the situation as a health
problem, as if the extermination of the Jewish race was like eradicating polio
or smallpox. Essentially, the Nazis party, as a result of the way they dealt
with the Jews and other “sub humans”, not only self justified their actions but
created an atmosphere and mindset of self praise “Himmler showed special
interest in the experiments conducted by SS Dr. Sigmund Rascher, who worked in
the field of human resistance to extremes of cold and heat. At Ravensbruck, a
women’s camp, SS-Brigadefuhrer Professor Hans Clauberg boasted that it lay
within his capacities to sterilize up to one thousand women daily.” (History
of the SS pg. 151)
In the context of dominating power,
the Allegemeine SS (General SS) was to domestic policy what the Waffen
SS (Armed SS) was to the Third Reich’s foreign policy. As the official military
branch of the SS, the Waffen SS implemented the Nazis policy of “racial
purification” on a wider scale in other nations. Early on in their
organization’s history, the Waffen SS was viewed by the Wermacht (regular army)
as a fanatic, poor excuse for a military outfit “In their baptism of fire in
Poland, the SS had a somewhat mixed reception from senior Army personnel,
suspicious of what they considered ‘political soldiers’ fighting alongside
‘real’ troops.” (SS: The Blood Soaked Soil pg. 7) As a relatively
new organization at the outbreak of the war, the Waffen SS consisted of three main
units, the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, the SS-Verfügungstruppe
, and the infamous SS-Totenkopfverbände.
In the Polish campaign, the SS as a whole not only proved its worth as an elite
fighting force but it reinforced the ideological beliefs behind the
organization “In a secret report to Army High Command, Kempf was asked to
comment on the performance of the SS troops under his command. In view of the
rather antagonistic attitude of some senior Army officers to the armed SS, even
after it had undergone it had undergone its baptism of fire, Kempf’s comments
are illuminating. Deutschland (a regiment within SS-Verfügungstruppe)
was described as ‘in all respects, a fully capable Infantry Regiment.’” (SS:
The Blood Soaked Soil pg. 18) However, as seen during the course of the
Polish campaign in 1939, the SS’s true motive was not recognition for
professional soldiering; it was much darker “They were ruthless- and they
were responsible for the first recorded atrocity by the armed SS in World War 2
when part of their artillery company massacred fifty Jews who had been herded
into a synagogue.” ( Hitler’s Teutonic Knights pg.13)
Indeed, throughout the war, the
Waffen SS’s reputation was marked by numerous documented and undocumented cases
of war crimes. In Operation Barbarossa, the campaign against the Soviet Union, we see the creation and implementation of the Einsatzgruppen or
“mission group.” This “task force”, which was a combination of Gestapo,
military Polizei, SD security officers from the RSHA, and members of the Waffen
SS, was tasked with the systematic elimination of the Jewish populations,
gypsies, Communist party officials such as Commissars, and any other
“undesirables.” In the west, as early as 1940, we see Waffen SS war crimes
against Western allied nations “The prisoners (men of the 2nd
Royal Warwickshire Regiment, the Cheshire Regiment and the Royal Artillery)
were marched into a barn- they thought at the time that it was for shelter from
the rain which had begun to fall. Their only officer, Captain Lynn-Allen, complained
to the guards that there was not enough room for all his wounded to lie down.
An infuriated guard, whose name has never been revealed, threw a hand grenade
into the packed barn.” (Hitler’s Teutonic Knights pg.16) Overall,
the brutality of the Waffen SS was highly evident throughout the war.
However, the SS as a whole was also
known as one of the most elite military organizations during the war on the
Axis side. As Hitler once said “The SS Panzer Korps is worth twenty Italian
divisions.” Time and time again, the Waffen SS proved itself on the
battlefields of Russia, Eastern Europe, Greece, France, Belgium, and eventually Germany itself. In July, 1943, three SS divisions, Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Totenkopf , and Das Reich dominated the battlefield of Kursk, one of if
not the biggest tank battle in history “The Leibstandarte’s hero, and
ultimately the greatest tank ‘ace’ of the war, Michael Wittman, destroyed no
fewer than thirty T-34’s with his Tiger.” (Hitler’s Teutonic Knights
pg. 34) As the war wound on, the Waffen SS would expand from the three original
divisions to 38 divisions and 97 independent SS regiments; at its peak the
Waffen SS would have over 900,000 recruits.
An interesting aspect of the Waffen
SS is that besides a select few divisions, such as LSSAH, Das Reich,
Totenkopf, the Hohenstaufen and Frundsberg, and the Hitlerjugend, the Waffen SS was comprised
of mostly foreign volunteer units (however the majority of the manpower came
from Germany). In the early part of the war, when the Waffen SS needed to
expand, Himmler allowed for the recruitment of “ethnic Germans” who had been
displaced to places like the Sudetenland in Western Czechoslovakia in previous
centuries. As time went on however, the SS would include non only “ethnic
Germans” but non-Germanic Europeans, Yugoslavian Muslims, separatist POW
Indians, and Caucasians from the steppes of Asia. To bolster its ranks with
foreign volunteers, the SS, and in fact Germany, as the following excerpt from
Signal, the magazine published by the Third Reich, shows, Nazis propagandists
attempted to shape World War Two into a war to unify Europe against the Bolshevik
east, “It is one of the most tragic things in European history that at this
moment the smouldering passions of the world should flare up for a second time
and try to plunge Europe into chaos. Today, now that the Axis has established
its outposts along all the coasts and frontiers of Europe and now that she has
been forced to oppose Bolshevist imperialism in arms revealing in the attack
the extent of the danger, the powers of Europe who look forward to the future
with confidence have recognized the second demand of the hour, the dynamic
demand of European history and have formed a common front regardless of
frontiers. The road to the synthesis of Europe has been opened up- perhaps for
the last time.” (Signal: Years of Retreat)
By 1945 however, the Waffen SS was
beginning to falter. As a result of misinformation of their performance in
combat, even Hitler became frustrated with the SS “The result was entirely
predictable. Hitler flew into a paroxysm of rage, which resulted in an amazing
message being sent to Dietrich as commander of the 6th SS Panzer
Army: ‘The Furher believes that the troops have not fought as the situation
demanded and orders that the SS Divisions Leibstandarte, Das Reich, Totenkopf
and Hohenstaufen be stripped of their armbands.’” (SS: The Blood Soaked
Soil pg. 183) Even though this report Hitler received was not totally
accurate, it highlighted the fact that even his beloved SS, the “pure”,
“superhuman” organization of elite Aryans, could not deliver a final victory to
him in the Third Reich’s most dire time.
The SS as a whole, like its
military branch, the Waffen SS, would too loose favor with Hitler. The downfall
of the Third Reich at the end of the war in Europe would not only be the
downfall of Hitler but of his party and its various organizations, most notably
the SS. Yet as an institution, the SS would leave its mark on history; as a
whole, the Schutzstaffel would leave not only a trail of blood but a legacy of
brute force and fanatic devotion in the name of one man, his ideology, and his
visions of grandeur.
1.) James
Waterman Wise Swastika: The Nazi Terror Rahway, N.J.; Quinn and
Boden Company, Inc. 1933
2.) G. S. Graber
The History of the SS New York, N.Y.; David McKay Company, Inc. 1978
3.) Peter Levenda
Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult 15 East 26th Street, New York, N.Y.; Continuum International Publishing Group
Inc. 2003
4.) Ian Kershaw
Profiles in Power: Hitler Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, Essex CM20 2JE, England; Addison Wesley Longman Limited 1991
5.) Helmut
Krausnick,Hans Bucheim, Martin Broszat, Han-Adolf Jacobsen Anatomy of
the SS State Trowbridge, Wiltshire, Great Britain; Redwood Press Ltd
1972
6.) Jozef Buszko,
Danuta Czech, Tadeusz Iwaszko, Franciszek Piper, Barbara Jarosz, Kazimierz
Smolen Auschwitz: Nazi Extermination Camp Warsaw, Poland;
Interpress Publishers 1978
7.) Michael
Reynolds The Devil’s Adjutant: Jochen Peiper, Panzer Leader 166 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.; Sarpedon 1995
8.) Bruce Quarrie
Hitler’s Teutonic Knights: SS Panzers in Action Denington Estate,
Wellingborough, Northants, NN8 2QD, England; Buce Quarrie and Patrick Stephens
Limited 1986
9.) Marc J.
Rikmenspoel Waffen SS: The Encyclopedia Garden City, New York, N.Y.; Bookspan 2002
10.)
Gordon Williamson SS: The Blood-Soaked Soil 729 Prospect Avenue, Osceloa, WI; Motorbooks International Publishers and Wholesalers 1995
11.)
Signal:Years of Retreat 1943-44: Hitler’s Wartime Picture Magazine
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.; Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1979
Home :: 9th Infantry Division, 39th Regiment, Easy Company 
