Misplaced Pages

Schutzstaffel

SS flag
Clockwise from top left: Adolf Hitler inspecting the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, 1938 Men of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler receiving awards SS headquarters in Berlin Women and children captured during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by SD men, 1943 Majdanek concentration camp, 1944 Heinrich Himmler inspecting a prisoner of war camp in the Soviet Union, 1941
Agency overview
Formed	4 April 1925
Preceding agencies	Sturmabteilung (SA) Stabswache
Dissolved	8 May 1945
Type	Paramilitary
Jurisdiction	Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe
Headquarters	Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, Berlin 52°30′25″N 13°22′58″E / 52.50694°N 13.38278°E / 52.50694; 13.38278
Employees	800,000 (c. 1944)
Reichsführer responsible	Heinrich Himmler (longest serving) Julius Schreck (first) Karl Hanke (last)
Parent agency	Nazi Party Sturmabteilung (until July 1934)
Child agencies	Allgemeine SS Waffen-SS SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; until 1939, when folded into the RSHA) Sicherheitsdienst (SD) Ordnungspolizei (Orpo)

The Schutzstaffel (German: [ˈʃʊtsˌʃtafl̩] ; lit. 'Protection Squadron'; SS; also stylised with Armanen runes as ᛋᛋ) was a major paramilitary organisation under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II.

It began with a small guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz ("Hall Security") made up of party volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name. Under his direction (1929–1945) it grew from a small paramilitary formation during the Weimar Republic to one of the most powerful organisations in Nazi Germany. From the time of the Nazi Party's rise to power until the regime's collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, mass surveillance, and state terrorism within Germany and German-occupied Europe.

The two main constituent groups were the Allgemeine SS (General SS) and Waffen-SS (Armed SS). The Allgemeine SS was responsible for enforcing the racial policy of Nazi Germany and general policing, whereas the Waffen-SS consisted of the combat units of the SS, with a sworn allegiance to Hitler. A third component of the SS, the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV; "Death's Head Units"), ran the concentration camps and extermination camps. Additional subdivisions of the SS included the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) organisations. They were tasked with the detection of actual or potential enemies of the Nazi state, the neutralisation of any opposition, policing the German people for their commitment to Nazi ideology, and providing domestic and foreign intelligence.

The SS was the organisation most responsible for the genocidal murder of an estimated 5.5 to 6 million Jews and millions of other victims during the Holocaust. Members of all of its branches committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II (1939–45). The SS was also involved in commercial enterprises and exploited concentration camp inmates as slave labour. After Nazi Germany's defeat, the SS and the Nazi Party were judged by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg to be criminal organisations. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the highest-ranking surviving SS main department chief, was found guilty of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials and hanged in 1946.

Origins

Forerunner of the SS

By 1923, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler had created a small volunteer guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz (Hall Security) to provide security at their meetings in Munich. The same year, Hitler ordered the formation of a small bodyguard unit dedicated to his personal service. He wished it to be separate from the "suspect mass" of the party, including the paramilitary Sturmabteilung ("Storm Battalion"; SA), which he did not trust. The new formation was designated the Stabswache (Staff Guard). Originally the unit was composed of eight men, commanded by Julius Schreck and Joseph Berchtold, and was modelled after the Erhardt Naval Brigade, a Freikorps of the time. The unit was renamed Stoßtrupp (Shock Troops) in May 1923.

The Stoßtrupp was abolished after the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, an attempt by the Nazi Party to seize power in Munich. In 1925, Hitler ordered Schreck to organise a new bodyguard unit, the Schutzkommando (Protection Command). It was tasked with providing personal protection for Hitler at party functions and events. That same year, the Schutzkommando was expanded to a national organisation and renamed successively the Sturmstaffel (Storm Squadron), and finally the Schutzstaffel (Protection Squad; SS). Officially, the SS marked its foundation on 9 November 1925 (the second anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch). The new SS protected party leaders throughout Germany. Hitler's personal SS protection unit was later enlarged to include combat units.

Early commanders

Schreck, a founding member of the SA and a close confidant of Hitler, became the first SS chief in March 1925. On 15 April 1926, Joseph Berchtold succeeded him as chief of the SS. Berchtold changed the title of the office to Reichsführer-SS (Reich Leader-SS). Berchtold was considered more dynamic than his predecessor but became increasingly frustrated by the authority the SA had over the SS. This led to him transferring leadership of the SS to his deputy, Erhard Heiden, on 1 March 1927. Under Heiden's leadership, a stricter code of discipline was enforced than would have been tolerated in the SA.

Between 1925 and 1929, the SS was considered to be a small Gruppe (battalion) of the SA. Except in the Munich area, the SS was unable to maintain any momentum in its membership numbers, which declined from 1,000 to 280 as the SA continued its rapid growth. As Heiden attempted to keep the SS from dissolving, Heinrich Himmler became his deputy in September 1927. Himmler displayed better organisational abilities than Heiden. The SS established a number of Gaue (regions or provinces). The SS-Gaue consisted of SS-Gau Berlin, SS-Gau Berlin Brandenburg, SS-Gau Franken, SS-Gau Niederbayern, SS-Gau Rheinland-Süd, and SS-Gau Sachsen.

Himmler appointed

With Hitler's approval, Himmler assumed the position of Reichsführer-SS in January 1929. There are differing accounts of the reason for Heiden's dismissal from his position as head of the SS. The party announced that it was for "family reasons". Under Himmler, the SS expanded and gained a larger foothold. He considered the SS an elite, ideologically driven National Socialist organisation, a "conflation of Teutonic knights, the Jesuits, and Japanese Samurai". His ultimate aim was to turn the SS into the most powerful organisation in Germany and the most influential branch of the party. He expanded the SS to 3,000 members in his first year as its leader.

In 1929, the SS-Hauptamt (main SS office) was expanded and reorganised into five main offices dealing with general administration, personnel, finance, security, and race matters. At the same time, the SS-Gaue were divided into three SS-Oberführerbereiche areas, namely the SS-Oberführerbereich Ost, SS-Oberführerbereich West, and SS-Oberführerbereich Süd. The lower levels of the SS remained largely unchanged. Although officially still considered a sub-organisation of the SA and answerable to the Stabschef (SA Chief of Staff), it was also during this time that Himmler began to establish the independence of the SS from the 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, mainly because they demanded a "second revolution" beyond the one that brought the Nazi Party to power. By the end of 1933, the membership of the SS reached 209,000. Under Himmler's leadership, the SS continued to gather greater power as more and more state and party functions were assigned to its jurisdiction. Over time the SS became answerable only to Hitler, a development typical of the organisational structure of the entire Nazi regime, where legal norms were replaced by actions undertaken under the Führerprinzip (leader principle), where Hitler's will was considered to be above the law.

In the latter half of 1934, Himmler oversaw the creation of SS-Junkerschule, institutions where SS officer candidates received leadership training, political and ideological indoctrination, and military instruction. The training stressed ruthlessness and toughness as part of the SS value system, which helped foster a sense of superiority among the men and taught them self-confidence. The first schools were established at Bad Tölz and Braunschweig, with additional schools opening at Klagenfurt and Prague during the war.

Ideology

The SS was regarded as the Nazi Party's elite unit. In keeping with the racial policy of Nazi Germany, in the early days all SS officer candidates had to provide proof of Aryan ancestry back to 1750 and for other ranks to 1800. Once the 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.

Commitment to SS ideology was emphasised throughout the recruitment, membership process, and training. Members of the SS were indoctrinated in the racial policy of Nazi Germany and were taught that it was necessary to remove from Germany people deemed by that policy as inferior. Esoteric rituals and the awarding of regalia and insignia for milestones in the SS man's career suffused SS members even further with Nazi ideology. Members were expected to renounce their Christian faith, and Christmas was replaced with a solstice celebration. Church weddings were replaced with SS Eheweihen, a pagan ceremony invented by Himmler. These pseudo-religious rites and ceremonies often took place near SS-dedicated monuments or in special SS-designated places. In 1933, Himmler bought Wewelsburg, a castle in Westphalia. He initially intended it to be used as an SS training centre, but its role came to include hosting SS dinners and neo-pagan rituals.

In 1936, Himmler wrote in the pamphlet "The SS as an Anti-Bolshevist Fighting Organisation":

We shall take care that never again in Germany, the heart of Europe, will the Jewish-Bolshevik revolution of subhumans be able to be kindled either from within or through emissaries from without.

The SS ideology 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 as a powerful tool to further his aims and those of the Nazi Party. The SS was entrusted with the commission of war crimes such as the murder of Jewish civilians. Himmler once wrote that an SS man "hesitates not for a single instant, but executes unquestioningly..." any Führer-Befehl (Führer order). Their official motto was "Meine Ehre heißt Treue" (My Honour is Loyalty).

As part of its race-centric functions during World War II, the SS oversaw the isolation and displacement of Jews from the populations of the conquered territories, seizing their assets and deporting them to concentration camps and ghettos, where they were used as slave labour or immediately murdered. Chosen to implement the Final Solution ordered by Hitler, the SS were the main group responsible for the institutional murder and democide of more than 20 million people during the Holocaust, including approximately 5.2 million to 6 million Jews and 10.5 million Slavs. A significant number of victims were members of other racial or ethnic groups such as the 258,000 Romani. The SS was involved in murdering people viewed as threats to race hygiene or Nazi ideology, including the mentally or physically disabled, homosexuals, and political dissidents. Members of trade unions and those perceived to be affiliated with groups that opposed the regime (religious, political, social, and otherwise), or those whose views were contradictory to the goals of the Nazi Party government, were rounded up in large numbers; these included clergy of all faiths, Jehovah's Witnesses, Freemasons, Communists, and Rotary Club members. According to the judgements rendered at the Nuremberg trials, as well as many war crimes investigations and trials conducted since then, the SS was responsible for the majority of Nazi war crimes. In particular, it was the primary organisation that carried out the Holocaust.

Pre-war Germany

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 in 1933 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. Also on that date, in a departure 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; security service).

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 executed. The SS and Gestapo carried out most of the murders. 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. 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). As Himmler's position and authority grew, so in effect did his rank.

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 country'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, since the SS answered only to Hitler, 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 SD (but not the Orpo), were consolidated into the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), headed by Heydrich. This further increased the collective authority of the SS.

During Kristallnacht (9–10 November 1938), SS security services clandestinely coordinated violence against Jews as the SS, Gestapo, SD, Kripo, SiPo, and regular police 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.

Hitler's personal bodyguards

As the SS grew in size and importance, so too did Hitler's personal protection forces. Three main SS groups were assigned to protect Hitler. In 1933, his larger personal bodyguard unit (previously the 1st SS-Standarte) was called to Berlin to replace the Army Chancellery Guard, assigned to protect the Chancellor of Germany. Sepp Dietrich commanded the new unit, previously known as SS-Stabswache Berlin; the name was changed to SS-Sonderkommando Berlin. In November 1933, the name was changed to Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. In April 1934, Himmler modified the name to Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH). The LSSAH guarded Hitler's private residences and offices, providing an outer ring of protection for the Führer and his visitors. LSSAH men manned sentry posts at the entrances to the old Reich Chancellery and the new Reich Chancellery. The number of LSSAH guards was increased during special events. At the Berghof, Hitler's residence in the Obersalzberg, a large contingent of the LSSAH patrolled an extensive cordoned security zone.

From 1941 forward, the Leibstandarte became four distinct entities, the Waffen-SS division (unconnected to Hitler's protection but a formation of the Waffen-SS), the Berlin Chancellory Guard, the SS security regiment assigned to the Obersalzberg, and a Munich-based bodyguard unit which protected Hitler when he visited his apartment and the Brown House Nazi Party headquarters in Munich. Although the unit was nominally under Himmler, Dietrich was the real commander and handled day-to-day administration.

Two other SS units composed the inner ring of Hitler's protection. The SS-Begleitkommando des Führers (Escort Command of the Führer), formed in February 1932, served as Hitler's protection escort while he was travelling. This unit consisted of eight men who served around the clock protecting Hitler in shifts. Later the SS-Begleitkommando was expanded and became known as the Führerbegleitkommando (Führer Escort Command; FBK). It continued under separate command and remained responsible for Hitler's protection. The Führer Schutzkommando (Führer Protection Command; FSK) was a protection unit founded by Himmler in March 1933. Originally it was only charged with protecting Hitler while he was inside the borders of Bavaria. In early 1934, they replaced the SS-Begleitkommando for Hitler's protection throughout Germany. The FSK was renamed the Reichssicherheitsdienst (Reich Security Service; RSD) in August 1935. Johann Rattenhuber, chief of the RSD, for the most part, took his orders directly from Hitler. The current FBK chief acted as his deputy. Wherever Hitler was in residence, members of the RSD and FBK would be present. RSD men patrolled the grounds and FBK men provided close security protection inside. The RSD and FBK worked together for security and personal protection during Hitler's trips and public events, but they operated as two groups and used separate vehicles. By March 1938, both units wore the standard field grey uniform of the SS. The RSD uniform had the SD diamond on the lower left sleeve.

Concentration camps founded

The SS was closely associated with Nazi Germany's concentration camp system. On 26 June 1933, Himmler appointed SS-Oberführer Theodor Eicke as commandant of Dachau concentration camp, one of the first Nazi concentration camps. It was created to consolidate the many small camps that had been set up by various police agencies and the Nazi Party to house political prisoners. The organisational structure Eicke instituted at Dachau stood as the model for all later concentration camps. After 1934, Eicke was named commander of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV), the SS formation responsible for running the concentration camps under the authority of the SS and Himmler. Known as the "Death's Head Units", the SS-TV was first organised as several battalions, each based at one of Germany's major concentration camps. Leadership at the camps was divided into five departments: commander and adjutant, political affairs division, protective custody, administration, and medical personnel. By 1935, Himmler secured Hitler's approval and the finances necessary to establish and operate additional camps. Six concentration camps housing 21,400 inmates (mostly political prisoners) existed at the start of the war in September 1939. By the end of the war, hundreds of camps of varying size and function had been created, holding nearly 715,000 people, most of whom were targeted by the regime because of their race. The concentration camp population rose in tandem with the defeats suffered by the Nazi regime; the worse the catastrophe seemed, the greater the fear of subversion, prompting the SS to intensify their repression and terror.

SS in World War II

By the outbreak of World War II, the SS had consolidated into its final form, which comprised three main organisations: the Allgemeine SS, SS-Totenkopfverbände, 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. 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.

Invasion of Poland

In the September 1939 invasion of Poland, the LSSAH and SS-VT fought as separate mobile infantry regiments. The LSSAH became notorious for torching villages without military justification. Members of the LSSAH committed war crimes in numerous towns, including the murder of 50 Polish Jews in Błonie and the massacre of 200 civilians, including children, who were machine-gunned in Złoczew. Shootings also took place in Bolesławiec, Torzeniec, Goworowo, Mława, and Włocławek. Some senior members of the Wehrmacht were not convinced the units were fully prepared for combat. Its 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.

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.

Battle of France

On 10 May 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 armoured 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. On 27 May, 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 miles (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. According to historian Charles Sydnor, 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.

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. Of Greece's 80,000 Jews, only 20 per cent survived the war.

War in the east

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-TV, 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, 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.

During battles in the Soviet Union in 1941 and 1942, the Waffen-SS suffered enormous casualties. The LSSAH and Das Reich lost over half their troops to illness and combat casualties. In need of recruits, Himmler began to accept soldiers that did not fit the original SS racial profile. In early 1942, SS-Leibstandarte, SS-Totenkopf, and SS-Das Reich were withdrawn to the West to refit and were converted to Panzergrenadier divisions. The SS-Panzer Corps returned to the Soviet Union in 1943 and participated in the Third Battle of Kharkov in February and March.

The Holocaust

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, with three million of those residing in the territories occupied by the Germans; by the time the war ended, over two million of these had been murdered.

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. Sometime in June 1943, Himmler issued the Bandenbekämpfung (bandit fighting) order, simultaneously announcing the existence of the Bandenkampfverbände (bandit fighting formations), with SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski as its chief. Employing troops primarily from the SS police and Waffen-SS, the Bandenkampfverbände had four principal operational components: propaganda, centralised 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 a balancing act as the military situation deteriorated. The labour needs of the war economy, especially for skilled workers, meant that some Jews escaped the genocide. On 30 October 1942, due to severe 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.

By 1944, the SS-TV had been organised into three divisions: 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 wounded Waffen-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.

Business empire

In 1934, Himmler founded the first SS business venture, Nordland-Verlag, a publishing house that released propaganda material and SS training manuals. Thereafter, he purchased Allach Porcelain, which then began to produce SS memorabilia. Because of the labour shortage and a desire for financial gain, the SS started exploiting concentration camp inmates as slave labour. Most of the SS businesses lost money until Himmler placed them under the administration of Pohl's Verwaltung und Wirtschaftshauptamt Hauptamt (Administration and Business office; VuWHA) in 1939. Even then, most of the enterprises did not fare well, as SS men were not selected for their business experience, and the workers were starving. In July 1940 Pohl established the Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe GmbH (German Businesses Ltd; DWB), an umbrella corporation under which he took over administration of all SS business concerns. Eventually, the SS founded nearly 200 holding companies for their businesses.

In May 1941 the VuWHA founded the Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke GmbH (German Equipment Works; DAW), which was created to integrate the SS business enterprises with the burgeoning concentration camp system. Himmler subsequently established four major new concentration camps in 1941: Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen, Natzweiler-Struthof, and Neuengamme. Each had at least one factory or quarry nearby where the inmates were forced to work. Himmler took a particular interest in providing labourers for IG Farben, which was constructing a synthetic rubber factory at Auschwitz III–Monowitz. The plant was almost ready to commence production when it was overrun by Soviet troops in 1945. The life expectancy of inmates at Monowitz averaged about three months. This was typical of the camps, as inmates were underfed and lived under disastrously bad living conditions. Their workload was intentionally made impossibly high, under the policy of extermination through labour.

In 1942, Himmler consolidated all of the offices for which Pohl was responsible into one, creating the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt; WVHA). The entire concentration camp system was placed under the authority of the WVHA. The SS owned Sudetenquell GmbH, a mineral water producer in the Sudetenland. By 1944, the SS had purchased 75 per cent of the mineral water producers in Germany and were intending to acquire a monopoly. Several concentration camps produced building materials such as stone, bricks, and cement for the SS-owned Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke (German Earth And Stone Works; DEST). In the occupied Eastern territories, the SS acquired a monopoly in brick production by seizing all 300 extant brickworks. The DWB also founded the Ost-Deutsche Baustoffwerke (East German Building Supply Works; GmbH or ODBS) and Deutsche Edelmöbel GmbH (German Noble Furniture). These operated in factories the SS had confiscated from Jews and Poles.

The SS owned experimental farms, bakeries, meat packing plants, leather works, clothing and uniform factories, and small arms factories. Under the direction of the WVHA, the SS sold camp labour to various factories at a rate of three to six Reichsmarks per prisoner per day. The SS confiscated and sold the property of concentration camp inmates, confiscated their investment portfolios and their cash, and profited from their dead bodies by selling their hair to make felt and melting down their dental work to obtain gold from the fillings. The total value of assets looted from the victims of Operation Reinhard alone (not including Auschwitz) was listed by Odilo Globocnik as 178,745,960.59 Reichsmarks. Items seized included 2,909.68 kg (6,414.7 lb) of gold worth 843,802.75 RM, as well as 18,733.69 kg (41,300.7 lb) of silver, 1,514 kg (3,338 lb) of platinum, 249,771.50 American dollars, 130 diamond solitaires, 2,511.87 carats of brilliants, 13,458.62 carats of diamonds, and 114 kg of pearls. According to Nazi legislation, Jewish property belonged to the state, but many SS camp commandants and guards stole items such as diamonds or currency for personal gain or took seized foodstuffs and alcohol to sell on the black market.

Military reversals

On 5 July 1943, the Germans launched the Battle of Kursk, an offensive designed to eliminate the Kursk salient. The Waffen-SS by this time had been expanded to 12 divisions, and most took part in the battle. Due to stiff Soviet resistance, Hitler halted the attack by the evening of 12 July. On 17 July he called off the operation and ordered a withdrawal. Thereafter, the Germans were forced onto the defensive as the Red Army began the liberation of Western Russia. The losses incurred by the Waffen-SS and the Wehrmacht during the Battle of Kursk occurred nearly simultaneously with the Allied assault into Italy, opening a two-front war for Germany.

Normandy landings

Alarmed by the raids on St Nazaire and Dieppe in 1942, Hitler had ordered the construction of fortifications he called the Atlantic Wall all along the Atlantic coast, from Spain to Norway, to protect against an expected Allied invasion. Concrete gun emplacements were constructed at strategic points along the coast, and wooden stakes, metal tripods, mines, and large anti-tank obstacles were placed on the beaches to delay the approach of landing craft and impede the movement of tanks. In addition to several static infantry divisions, eleven panzer and Panzergrenadier divisions were deployed nearby. Four of these formations were Waffen-SS divisions. In addition, the SS-Das Reich was located in Southern France, the LSSAH was in Belgium refitting after fighting in the Soviet Union, and the newly formed panzer division SS-Hitlerjugend, consisting of 17- and 18-year-old Hitler Youth members supported by combat veterans and experienced NCOs, was stationed west of Paris. The creation of the SS-Hitlerjugend was a sign of Hitler's desperation for more troops, especially ones with unquestioning obedience.

The Normandy landings took place beginning on 6 June 1944. The 21st Panzer Division under Generalmajor Edgar Feuchtinger, positioned south of Caen, was the only panzer division close to the beaches. The division included 146 tanks and 50 assault guns, plus supporting infantry and artillery. At 02:00, Generalleutnant Wilhelm Richter, commander of the 716th Static Infantry Division, ordered the 21st Panzer Division into position to counter-attack. However, as the division was part of the armoured reserve, Feuchtinger was obliged to seek clearance from OKW before he could commit his formation. Feuchtinger did not receive orders until nearly 09:00, but in the meantime, on his own initiative he put together a battle group (including tanks) to fight the British forces east of the Orne. SS-Hitlerjugend began to deploy in the afternoon of 6 June, with its units undertaking defensive actions the following day. They also took part in the Battle for Caen (June–August 1944). On 7–8 and 17 June, members of the SS-Hitlerjugend shot and killed twenty Canadian prisoners of war in the Ardenne Abbey massacre.

The Allies continued to make progress in the liberation of France, and on 4 August Hitler ordered a counter-offensive (Operation Lüttich) from Vire towards Avranches. The operation included LSSAH, Das Reich, 2nd, and 116th Panzer Divisions, with support from infantry and elements of the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division "Götz von Berlichingen" under SS-Oberstgruppenführer Paul Hausser. These forces were to mount an offensive near Mortain and drive west through Avranches to the coast. The Allied forces were prepared for this offensive, and an air assault on the combined German units proved devastating. On 21 August, 50,000 German troops, including most of the LSSAH, were encircled by the Allies in the Falaise Pocket. Remnants of the LSSAH which escaped were withdrawn to Germany for refitting. Paris was liberated on 25 August, and the last of the German forces withdrew over the Seine by the end of August, ending the Normandy campaign.

Battle for Germany

Waffen-SS units that had survived the summer campaigns were withdrawn from the front line to refit. Two of them, the 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, did so in the Arnhem region of Holland in early September 1944. Coincidentally, on 17 September, the Allies launched in the same area Operation Market Garden, a combined airborne and land operation designed to seize control of the lower Rhine. The 9th and 10th Panzers were among the units that repulsed the attack.

In December 1944, Hitler launched the Ardennes Offensive, also known as the Battle of the Bulge, a significant counterattack against the western Allies through the Ardennes with the aim of reaching Antwerp while encircling the Allied armies in the area. The offensive began with an artillery barrage shortly before dawn on 16 December. Spearheading the attack were two panzer armies composed largely of Waffen-SS divisions. The battlegroups found advancing through the forests and wooded hills of the Ardennes difficult in the winter weather, but they initially made good progress in the northern sector. They soon encountered strong resistance from the US 2nd and 99th Infantry Divisions. By 23 December, the weather improved enough for Allied air forces to attack the German forces and their supply columns, causing fuel shortages. In increasingly difficult conditions, the German advance slowed and was stopped. Hitler's failed offensive cost 700 tanks and most of their remaining mobile forces in the west, as well as most of their irreplaceable reserves of manpower and materiel.

During the battle, SS-Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper left a path of destruction, which included Waffen-SS soldiers under his command murdering American POWs and unarmed Belgian civilians in the Malmedy massacre. Captured SS soldiers who were part of Kampfgruppe Peiper were tried during the Malmedy massacre trial following the war for this massacre and several others in the area. Many of the perpetrators were sentenced to hang, but the sentences were commuted. Peiper was imprisoned for eleven years for his role in the murders.

In the east, the Red Army resumed its offensive on 12 January 1945. German forces were outnumbered twenty to one in aircraft, eleven to one in infantry, and seven to one in tanks on the Eastern Front. By the end of the month, the Red Army had made bridgeheads across the Oder, the last geographic obstacle before Berlin. The western Allies continued to advance as well, but not as rapidly as the Red Army. The Panzer Corps conducted a successful defensive operation on 17–24 February at the Hron River, stalling the Allied advance towards Vienna. The 1st and 2nd SS Panzer Corps made their way towards Austria but were slowed by damaged railways.

Budapest fell on 13 February. Hitler ordered Dietrich's 6th Panzer Army to move into Hungary to protect the Nagykanizsa oilfields and refineries, which he deemed the most strategically valuable fuel reserves on the Eastern Front. Frühlingserwachsen (Operation Spring Awakening), the final German offensive in the east, took place in early March. German forces attacked near Lake Balaton, with 6th Panzer Army advancing north towards Budapest and 2nd Panzer Army moving east and south. Dietrich's forces at first made good progress, but as they drew near the Danube, the combination of muddy terrain and strong Soviet resistance brought them to a halt. By 16 March, the battle was lost. Enraged by the defeat, Hitler ordered the Waffen-SS units involved to remove their cuff titles as a mark of disgrace. Dietrich refused to carry out the order.

By this time, on both the Eastern and Western Front, the activities of the SS were becoming clear to the Allies, as the concentration and extermination camps were being overrun. Allied troops were filled with disbelief and repugnance at the evidence of Nazi brutality in the camps.

On 9 April 1945, Königsberg fell to the Red Army, and on 13 April Dietrich's SS unit was forced out of Vienna. The Battle of Berlin began at 03:30 on 16 April with a massive artillery barrage. Within the week, fighting was taking place inside the city. Among the many elements defending Berlin were French, Latvian, and Scandinavian Waffen-SS troops. Hitler, now residing in the Führerbunker under the Reich Chancellery, continued to hope that his remaining SS soldiers could rescue the capital. In spite of the hopelessness of the situation, members of the SS patrolling the city continued to shoot or hang soldiers and civilians for what they considered to be acts of cowardice or defeatism. The Berlin garrison surrendered on 2 May, two days after Hitler committed suicide. As members of SS expected little mercy from the Red Army, they attempted to move westward to surrender to the western Allies instead.

SS units and branches

Reich Security Main Office

Heydrich held the title of Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (Chief of the Security Police and SD) until 27 September 1939, when he became chief of the newly established Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). From that point forward, the RSHA was in charge of SS security services. It had under its command the SD, Kripo, and Gestapo, as well as several offices to handle finance, administration, and supply. Heinrich Müller, who had been chief of operations for the Gestapo, was appointed Gestapo chief at this time. Arthur Nebe was chief of the Kripo, and the two branches of SD were commanded by a series of SS officers, including Otto Ohlendorf and Walter Schellenberg. The SD was considered an elite branch of the SS, and its members were better educated and typically more ambitious than those within the ranks of the Allgemeine SS. Members of the SD were specially trained in criminology, intelligence, and counterintelligence. They also gained a reputation for ruthlessness and unwavering commitment to Nazi ideology.

Heydrich was attacked in Prague on 27 May 1942 by a British-trained team of Czech and Slovak soldiers who had been sent by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile to assassinate him in Operation Anthropoid. He died from his injuries a week later. Himmler ran the RSHA personally until 30 January 1943, when Heydrich's positions were taken over by Kaltenbrunner.

SS-Sonderkommandos

Beginning in 1938 and throughout World War II, the SS enacted a procedure where offices and units of the SS could form smaller sub-units, known as SS-Sonderkommandos, to carry out special tasks, including large-scale murder operations. The use of SS-Sonderkommandos was widespread. According to former SS-Sturmbannführer Wilhelm Höttl, not even the SS leadership knew how many SS-Sonderkommandos were constantly being formed, disbanded, and reformed for various tasks, especially on the Eastern Front.

An SS-Sonderkommando unit led by SS-Sturmbannführer Herbert Lange murdered 1,201 psychiatric patients at the Tiegenhof psychiatric hospital in the Free City of Danzig, 1,100 patients in Owińska, 2,750 patients at Kościan, and 1,558 patients at Działdowo, as well as hundreds of Poles at Fort VII, where the mobile gas van and gassing bunker were developed. In 1941–42, SS-Sonderkommando Lange set up and managed the first extermination camp, at Chełmno, where 152,000 Jews were killed using gas vans.

After the Battle of Stalingrad ended in February 1943, Himmler realised that Germany would likely lose the war and ordered the formation of Sonderkommando 1005, a special task force under SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel. The unit's assignment was to visit mass graves on the Eastern Front to exhume bodies and burn them in an attempt to cover up the genocide. The task remained unfinished at the end of the war, and many mass graves remain unmarked and unexcavated.

The Eichmann Sonderkommando was a task force headed by Adolf Eichmann that arrived in Budapest on 19 March 1944, the same day that Axis forces invaded Hungary. Their task was to take a direct role in the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. The SS-Sonderkommandos enlisted the aid of antisemitic elements from the Hungarian gendarmerie and pro-German administrators from within the Hungarian Interior Ministry. Round-ups began on 16 April, and from 14 May, four trains of 3,000 Jews per day left Hungary and travelled to the camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, arriving along a newly built spur line that terminated a few hundred metres from the gas chambers. Between 10 and 25 per cent of the people on each train were chosen as forced labourers; the rest were killed within hours of arrival. Under international pressure, the Hungarian government halted deportations on 6 July 1944, by which time over 437,000 of Hungary's 725,000 Jews had been murdered.

Einsatzgruppen

The Einsatzgruppen had its origins in the ad hoc Einsatzkommando formed by Heydrich following the Anschluss in Austria in March 1938. Two units of Einsatzgruppen were stationed in the Sudetenland in October 1938. When military action turned out not to be necessary because of the Munich Agreement, the Einsatzgruppen were assigned to confiscate government papers and police documents. They secured government buildings, questioned senior civil servants, and arrested as many as 10,000 Czech communists and German citizens. The Einsatzgruppen also followed Wehrmacht troops and killed potential partisans. Similar groups were used in 1939 for the occupation of Czechoslovakia.

Hitler felt that the planned extermination of the Jews was too difficult and important to be entrusted to the military. In 1941 the Einsatzgruppen were sent into the Soviet Union to begin large-scale genocide of Jews, Romani people, and communists. Historian Raul Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the Einsatzgruppen and related agencies murdered more than two million people, including 1.3 million Jews. The largest mass shooting perpetrated by the Einsatzgruppen was at Babi Yar outside Kiev, where 33,771 Jews were massacred in a single operation on 29–30 September 1941. In the Rumbula massacre (November–December 1941), 25,000 victims from the Riga ghetto were murdered. In another set of mass shootings (December 1941-January 1942), the Einsatzgruppe massacred over 10,000 Jews at Drobytsky Yar in Kharkov.

The last Einsatzgruppen were disbanded in mid-1944 (although some continued to exist on paper until 1945) due to the German retreat on both fronts and the consequent inability to continue extermination activities. Former Einsatzgruppen members were either assigned duties in the Waffen-SS or concentration camps. Twenty-four Einsatzgruppen commanders were tried for war crimes following the war.

SS Court Main Office

The SS Court Main Office (Hauptamt SS-Gericht) was an internal legal system for conducting investigations, trials, and punishment of the SS and police. It had more than 600 lawyers on staff in the main offices in Berlin and Munich. Proceedings were conducted at 38 regional SS courts throughout Germany. It was the only authority authorised to try SS personnel, except for SS members who were on active duty in the Wehrmacht (in such cases, the SS member in question was tried by a standard military tribunal). Its creation placed the SS beyond the reach of civilian legal authority. Himmler personally intervened as he saw fit regarding convictions and punishment. Historian Karl Dietrich Bracher describes this court system as one factor in the creation of the Nazi totalitarian police state, as it removed objective legal procedures, rendering citizens defenceless against the "summary justice of the SS terror."

SS Cavalry

Shortly after Hitler seized power in 1933, most horse riding associations were taken over by the SA and SS. Members received combat training to serve in the Reiter-SS (SS Cavalry Corps). The first SS cavalry regiment, designated SS-Totenkopf Reitstandarte 1, was formed in September 1939. Commanded by then SS-Standartenführer Hermann Fegelein, the unit was assigned to Poland, where they took part in the extermination of Polish intelligentsia. Additional squadrons were added in May 1940, for a total of fourteen.

The unit was split into two regiments in December 1939, with Fegelein in charge of both. By March 1941 their strength was 3,500 men. In July 1941, they were assigned to the Pripyat Marshes massacres, tasked with rounding up and exterminating Jews and partisans in the Pripyat swamps. The two regiments were amalgamated into the SS Cavalry Brigade on 31 July, twelve days after the operation started. Fegelein's final report, dated 18 September 1941, states that they killed 14,178 Jews, 1,001 partisans, and 699 Red Army soldiers, with 830 prisoners taken. Historian Henning Pieper estimates the actual number of Jews killed was closer to 23,700. The SS Cavalry Brigade took serious losses in November 1941 in the Battle of Moscow, with casualties of up to 60 per cent in some squadrons. Fegelein was appointed as commander of the 8th SS Cavalry Division "Florian Geyer" on 20 April 1943. This unit saw service in the Soviet Union in attacks on partisans and civilians. In addition, SS Cavalry regiments served in Croatia and Hungary.

SS Medical Corps

The SS Medical Corps were initially known as the Sanitätsstaffel (sanitary units). After 1931, the SS formed the headquarters office Amt V as the central office for SS medical units. An SS medical academy was established in Berlin in 1938 to train Waffen-SS physicians. SS medical personnel did not often provide actual medical care; their primary responsibility was medicalised genocide. At Auschwitz, about three quarters of new arrivals, including almost all children, women with small children, all the elderly, and all those who appeared on brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor not to be completely fit were killed within hours of arrival. In their role as Desinfektoren (disinfectors), SS doctors also made selections among existing prisoners as to their fitness to work and supervised the murder of those deemed unfit. Inmates in deteriorating health were examined by SS doctors, who decided whether or not they would be able to recover in less than two weeks. Those too ill or injured to recover in that time frame were killed.

At Auschwitz, the actual delivery of gas to the victims was always handled by the SS, on the order of the supervising SS doctor. Many of the SS doctors also conducted inhumane medical experiments on camp prisoners. The most well-known SS doctor, Josef Mengele, served as a medical officer at Auschwitz under the command of Eduard Wirths of the camp's medical corps. Mengele undertook selections even when he was not assigned to do so in the hope of finding subjects for his experiments. He was particularly interested in locating sets of twins. In contrast to most of the doctors, who viewed undertaking selections as one of their most stressful and horrible duties, Mengele undertook the task with a flamboyant air, often smiling or whistling a tune. After the war, many SS doctors were charged with war crimes for their medical experiments and for their role in gas chamber selections.

Other SS units

Ahnenerbe

The Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage Organisation) was founded in 1935 by Himmler and became part of the SS in 1939. It was an umbrella agency for more than fifty organisations tasked with studying German racial identity and ancient Germanic traditions and language. The agency sponsored archaeological expeditions in Germany, Scandinavia, the Middle East, Tibet, and elsewhere to search for evidence of Aryan roots, influence, and superiority. Further planned expeditions were postponed indefinitely at the start of the war.

SS-Frauenkorps

The SS-Frauenkorps was an auxiliary reporting and clerical unit, which included the SS-Helferinnenkorps (Women Helper Corps), made up of female volunteers. Members were assigned as administrative staff and supply personnel and served in command positions and as guards at women's concentration camps. While female concentration and extermination camp guards were civilian employees of the SS, the SS-Helferinnen who completed training at the Reichsschule für SS-Helferinnen in Oberehnheim (Alsace) were members of the Waffen-SS. Like their male equivalents in the SS, females participated in the mass murder of Jews, Poles, and others.

In 1942, Himmler set up the Reichsschule für SS Helferinnen (Reich School for SS Helpers) in Oberehnheim to train women in communications so that they could free up men for combat roles. Himmler also intended to replace all female civilian employees in his service with SS-Helferinnen members, as they were selected and trained according to Nazi ideology. The school was closed on 22 November 1944 due to the Allied advance.

SS-Mannschaften

The SS-Mannschaften (Auxiliary-SS) were not considered regular SS members, but were conscripted from other branches of the German military, the Nazi Party, the SA, and the Volkssturm for service in concentration camps and extermination camps.

Foreign legions and volunteers

Beginning in 1940, Himmler opened up Waffen-SS recruiting to ethnic Germans that were not German citizens. In March 1941, the SS Main Office established the Germanische Leitstelle (Germanic Guidance Office) to establish Waffen-SS recruiting offices in Nazi-occupied Europe. The majority of the resulting foreign Waffen-SS units 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 SS-Wiking and SS-Nordland. Swiss German speakers joined in substantial numbers. Belgian Flemings joined Dutchmen to form the SS-Nederland legion, and their Walloon compatriots joined the SS-Wallonien. By the end of 1943 about a quarter of the SS were ethnic Germans from across Europe, and by June 1944, half the Waffen-SS were foreign nationals.

Additional Waffen-SS units were added from the Ukrainians, Albanians from Kosovo, Serbians, Croatians, Turkic, Caucasians, Cossack, and Tatars. The Ukrainians and Tatars, who had suffered persecution under Joseph Stalin, were likely motivated primarily by opposition to the Soviet government rather than ideological agreement with the SS. The exiled Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini was made an SS-Gruppenführer by Himmler in May 1943. He subsequently used antisemitism and anti-Serb racism to recruit a Waffen-SS division of Bosnian Muslims, the SS-Handschar. The year-long Soviet occupation of the Baltic states at the beginning of World War II resulted in volunteers for Latvian and Estonian Waffen-SS units. The Estonian Legion had 1,280 volunteers under training by the end of 1942. Approximately 25,000 men served in the Estonian SS division, with thousands more conscripted into Police Front battalions and border guard units. Most of the Estonians were fighting primarily to regain their independence and as many as 15,000 of them died fighting alongside the Germans. In early 1944, Himmler even contacted Pohl to suggest releasing Muslim prisoners from concentration camps to supplement his SS troops.

The Indian Legion was a Wehrmacht unit formed in August 1942 chiefly from disaffected Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army captured in the North African Campaign. In August 1944 it was transferred to the auspices of the Waffen-SS as the Indische Freiwilligen-Legion der Waffen-SS. There was also a French volunteer division, SS-Charlemagne, which was formed in 1944 mainly from the remnants of the Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism and French Sturmbrigade.

Ranks and uniforms

The SS established its own symbolism, rituals, customs, ranks, and uniforms to set itself apart from other organisations. Before 1929, the SS wore the same brown uniform as the SA, with the addition of a black tie and a black cap with a Totenkopf (death's head) skull and bones symbol, moving to an all-black uniform in 1932. In 1935, the SS combat formations adopted a service uniform in field grey for everyday wear. The SS also developed its own field uniforms, which included reversible smocks and helmet covers printed with camouflage patterns. Uniforms were manufactured in hundreds of licensed factories, with some workers being prisoners of war performing forced labour. Many were produced in concentration camps.

Hitler and the Nazi Party understood the power of emblems and insignia to influence public opinion. The stylised lightning bolt logo of the SS was chosen in 1932. The logo is a pair of runes from a set of 18 Armanen runes created by Guido von List in 1906. It is similar to the ancient Sowilō rune, which symbolises the sun, but was renamed as "Sig" (victory) in List's iconography. The Totenkopf symbolised the wearer's willingness to fight unto the death, and also served to frighten the enemy.

SS membership estimates 1925–1945

After 1933 a career in the SS became increasingly attractive to Germany's social elite, who began joining the movement in great numbers, usually motivated by political opportunism. By 1938 about one-third of the SS leadership were members of the upper middle class. The trend reversed after the first Soviet counter-offensive of 1942.

Year	Membership	Reichsführer-SS
1925	200	Julius Schreck
1926	200	Joseph Berchtold
1927	200	Erhard Heiden
1928	280	Erhard Heiden
1929	1,000	Heinrich Himmler
1930–33	52,000 (Nazis come to power in 1933)	Heinrich Himmler (establishment of Nazi Germany)
1934–39	240,000	Heinrich Himmler
1940–44	800,000	Heinrich Himmler
1944–45	Unknown	Heinrich Himmler and Karl Hanke

SS offices

By 1942 all activities of the SS were managed through twelve main offices.

• Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS
• SS Main Office (SS-HA)
• SS-Führungshauptamt (SS Main Operational Office; SS-FHA)
• Reich Security Main Office (RSHA)
• SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (WVHA)
• Ordnungspolizei Hauptamt (Main Office of the Order Police)
• SS Court Main Office
• SS Race and Settlement Main Office (RuSHA)
• SS Personnel Main Office
• Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (Racial German Assistance Main Office; VOMI)
• SS Education Office
• Main Office of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood (RKFDV)

Austrian SS

The term "Austrian SS" is often used to describe that portion of the SS membership from Austria, but it was never a recognised branch of the SS. In contrast to SS members from other countries, who were grouped into either the Germanic-SS or the Foreign Legions of the Waffen-SS, Austrian SS members were regular SS personnel. It was technically under the command of the SS in Germany but often acted independently concerning Austrian affairs. The Austrian SS was founded in 1930 and by 1934 was acting as a covert force to bring about the Anschluss with Germany, which occurred in March 1938. Early Austrian SS leaders were Kaltenbrunner and Arthur Seyss-Inquart. Austrian SS members served in every branch of the SS. Austrians constituted 8 per cent of Nazi Germany's population and 13 per cent of the SS; 40 per cent of the staff and 75 per cent of commanders at death camps were Austrian.

After the Anschluss, the Austrian SS was folded into SS-Oberabschnitt Donau. The third regiment of the SS-Verfügungstruppe (Der Führer) and the fourth Totenkopf regiment (Ostmark) were recruited in Austria shortly thereafter. On Heydrich's orders, mass arrests of potential enemies of the Reich began immediately after the Anschluss. Mauthausen was the first concentration camp opened in Austria following the Anschluss. Before the invasion of the Soviet Union, Mauthausen was the harshest of the camps in the Greater German Reich.

The Hotel Metropole was transformed into the headquarters for the Gestapo in Vienna in April 1938. With a staff of 900 (80 per cent of whom were recruited from the Austrian police), it was the largest Gestapo office outside Berlin. An estimated 50,000 people were interrogated or tortured there. The Gestapo in Vienna was headed by Franz Josef Huber, who also served as chief of the Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Vienna. Although its de facto leaders were Adolf Eichmann and later Alois Brunner, Huber was nevertheless responsible for the mass deportation of Austrian Jews.

Post-war activity and aftermath

Following Nazi Germany's collapse, the SS ceased to exist. Numerous members of the SS, many of them still committed Nazis, remained at large in Germany and across Europe. On 21 May 1945, the British captured Himmler, who was in disguise and carrying a fraudulent passport. At an internment camp near Lüneburg, he committed suicide by biting down on a cyanide capsule. Several other leading members of the SS fled, but some were quickly captured. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, chief of the RSHA and the highest-ranking surviving SS main department chief upon Himmler's suicide, was captured and arrested in the Bavarian Alps. He was among the 22 defendants put on trial at the International Military Tribunal in 1945–46.

Some SS members were subject to summary execution, torture, and beatings at the hands of freed prisoners, displaced persons, or Allied soldiers. American soldiers of the 157th Regiment, who entered the concentration camp at Dachau in April 1945 and viewed the acts committed by the SS, shot some of the remaining SS camp guards. On 15 April 1945, British troops entered Bergen-Belsen. They placed the SS guards on starvation rations, made them work without breaks, forced them to deal with the remaining corpses, and stabbed them with bayonets or struck them with their rifle butts if they slowed their pace. Some members of the US Army Counter Intelligence Corps delivered captured SS camp guards to displaced person camps, where they knew they would be subject to summary execution.

International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg

The Allies commenced legal proceedings against captured Nazis, establishing the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945. The first war crimes trial of 24 prominent figures such as Göring, Albert Speer, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, and Kaltenbrunner took place beginning in November 1945. They were accused of four counts: conspiracy, waging a war of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in violation of international law. Twelve received the death penalty, including Kaltenbrunner, who was convicted of crimes against humanity and executed on 16 October 1946. The former commandant at Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, who testified on behalf of Kaltenbrunner and others, was tried and executed in 1947.

Additional SS trials and convictions followed. Many defendants attempted to exculpate themselves using the excuse that they were merely following superior orders, which they had to obey unconditionally as part of their sworn oath and duty. The courts did not find this to be a legitimate defence. A trial of 40 SS officers and guards from Auschwitz took place in Kraków in November 1947. Most were found guilty, and 23 received the death penalty. The twelve subsequent Nuremberg trials took place in 1946–1949; also, an estimated 37,000 members of the SS were tried and convicted in Soviet courts. Sentences included hangings and long terms of hard labour. Piotr Cywiński, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, estimates that of the 70,000 members of the SS involved in crimes in concentration camps, only about 1,650 to 1,700 were tried after the war. The International Military Tribunal declared the SS a criminal organisation in 1946.

Escapes

After the war, many former Nazis fled to South America, especially to Argentina, where they were welcomed by Juan Perón's regime. In the 1950s, former Dachau inmate Lothar Hermann discovered that Buenos Aires resident Ricardo Klement was, in fact, Adolf Eichmann, who had in 1948 obtained false identification and a landing permit for Argentina through an organisation directed by Bishop Alois Hudal, an Austrian cleric with Nazi sympathies, then residing in Italy. Eichmann was captured in Buenos Aires on 11 May 1960 by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. At his trial in Jerusalem in 1961, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. Eichmann was quoted as having stated, "I will jump into my grave laughing because the fact that I have the death of five million Jews on my conscience gives me extraordinary satisfaction." Franz Stangl, the commandant of Treblinka, also escaped to South America with the assistance of Hudal's network. He was deported to Germany in 1967 and was sentenced to life in prison in 1970. He died in 1971.

Mengele, worried that his capture would mean a death sentence, fled Germany on 17 April 1949. Assisted by a network of former SS members, he travelled to Genoa, where he obtained a passport under the alias "Helmut Gregor" from the International Committee of the Red Cross. He sailed to Argentina in July. Aware that he was still a wanted man, he moved to Paraguay in 1958 and Brazil in 1960. In both instances he was assisted by former Luftwaffe pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel. Mengele suffered a stroke while swimming and drowned in 1979.

Thousands of Nazis, including former SS members such as Trawniki guard Jakob Reimer and Circassian collaborator Tscherim Soobzokov, fled to the United States under the guise of refugees, sometimes using forged documents. Other SS men, such as Soobzokov, SD officer Wilhelm Höttl, Eichmann aide Otto von Bolschwing, and accused war criminal Theodor Saevecke, were employed by American intelligence agencies against the Soviets. As CIA officer Harry Rositzke noted, "It was a visceral business of using any bastard so long as he was anti-Communist... The eagerness or desire to enlist collaborators means that sure, you didn't look at their credentials too closely." Similarly, the Soviets used SS personnel after the war; Operation Theo, for instance, disseminated "subversive rumours" in Allied-occupied Germany.

Simon Wiesenthal and others have speculated about the existence of a Nazi fugitive network code-named ODESSA (an acronym for Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen, Organisation of former SS members) that allegedly helped war criminals find refuge in Latin America. British writer Gitta Sereny, who conducted interviews with SS men, considers the story untrue and attributes the escapes to postwar chaos and Hudal's Vatican-based network. While the existence of ODESSA remains unproven, Sereny notes that "there certainly were various kinds of Nazi aid organisations after the war — it would have been astonishing if there hadn't been."

See also

• Germanic SS
• Glossary of Nazi Germany
• HIAG
• List of SS personnel
• List of Waffen-SS divisions
• Myth of the clean Wehrmacht

Informational notes

1. Buchenwald, Dachau, Flossenbürg, Mauthausen, Ravensbrück, and Sachsenhausen.
2. Not to be confused with SS-Sonderkommandos, ad hoc SS units that used the same name.
3. In an act of reprisal, upwards of 10,000 Czechs were arrested; 1,300 were shot, including all male inhabitants from the nearby town of Lidice (where Heydrich's assassins had supposedly been harboured), and the town was razed.

Citations

1. ^ Weale 2010, p. 26.
2. McNab 2009, p. 137.
3. ^ Evans 2008, p. 318.
4. Evans 2003, p. 228.
5. Michael & Doerr 2002, p. 356.
6. McNab 2009, pp. 14, 16.
7. McNab 2009, p. 14.
8. Weale 2010, p. 16.
9. ^ McNab 2009, p. 16.
10. Hein 2015, p. 10.
11. Weale 2010, pp. 26–29.
12. Koehl 2004, p. 34.
13. Cook & Bender 1994, pp. 17, 19.
14. ^ Laqueur & Baumel 2001, p. 604.
15. Weale 2010, p. 30.
16. ^ Weale 2010, p. 32.
17. Hein 2015, p. 12.
18. ^ Weale 2010, pp. 45–46.
19. Weale 2010, pp. 32–33.
20. Miller & Schulz 2012, pp. 1–2.
21. McNab 2009, p. 18.
22. Weale 2010, p. 47.
23. Longerich 2012, p. 113.
24. ^ Burleigh & Wippermann 1991, pp. 272–273.
25. Weale 2010, pp. 45–47, 300–305.
26. Miller & Schulz 2012, pp. 2–3.
27. Kershaw 2008, pp. 308–314.
28. Baranowski 2010, pp. 196–197.
29. Zentner & Bedürftig 1991, p. 901.
30. Zentner & Bedürftig 1991, p. 903.
31. Laqueur & Baumel 2001, p. 606.
32. Allen 2002, p. 112.
33. Höhne 2001, pp. 146, 147.
34. Stackelberg 2002, p. 116.
35. ^ Jacobsen 1999, pp. 82, 93.
36. Weale 2010, pp. 62–67.
37. Weale 2010, pp. 63–65.
38. Langerbein 2003, p. 19.
39. Yenne 2010, p. 115.
40. Höhne 2001, pp. 148–149.
41. Weale 2010, pp. 65–66.
42. Höhne 2001, pp. 150–151.
43. Yenne 2010, p. 93.
44. Yenne 2010, p. 94.
45. Laqueur & Baumel 2001, p. 608.
46. Yenne 2010, pp. 111–113.
47. Himmler 1936.
48. ^ Langerbein 2003, p. 21.
49. Himmler 1936, p. 134.
50. Weale 2012, pp. 60–61.
51. ^ Rummel 1992, pp. 12–13.
52. Rummel 1992, p. 12.
53. International Military Tribunal 1946.
54. ^ Williams 2001, p. 77.
55. ^ Buchheim 1968, p. 157.
56. Hein 2015, pp. 66–71.
57. Evans 2005, p. 54.
58. Williams 2001, p. 61.
59. Hildebrand 1984, pp. 13–14.
60. Kershaw 2008, pp. 313, 316.
61. McNab 2009, pp. 9, 17, 26–27, 30, 46–47.
62. Reitlinger 1989, p. 90.
63. Dear & Foot 1995, pp. 814–815.
64. Longerich 2012, p. 204.
65. ^ Longerich 2012, p. 470.
66. Hein 2015, pp. 70–71.
67. Read 2005, pp. 512–514.
68. Evans 2005, p. 584.
69. ^ Read 2005, p. 515.
70. Evans 2005, p. 590.
71. Evans 2005, p. 591.
72. Hildebrand 1984, pp. 61–62.
73. Weale 2010, p. 85.
74. Hildebrand 1984, p. 61.
75. Koehl 2004, pp. 144, 148, 169, 176–177.
76. McNab 2009, p. 165.
77. Spielvogel 1992, pp. 102–108.
78. Cook & Bender 1994, pp. 8, 9.
79. Cook & Bender 1994, pp. 9, 12, 17–19.
80. Hoffmann 2000, pp. 157, 160, 165.
81. Hoffmann 2000, p. 166.
82. Hoffmann 2000, pp. 181–186.
83. Cook & Bender 1994, pp. 17–19.
84. Hoffmann 2000, pp. 157, 160, 165, 166, 181–186.
85. Cook & Bender 1994, pp. 19, 33.
86. Hoffmann 2000, pp. 32, 48, 57.
87. Hoffmann 2000, pp. 36–48.
88. Joachimsthaler 1999, p. 288.
89. Hoffmann 2000, p. 32.
90. ^ Hoffmann 2000, p. 36.
91. Felton 2014, pp. 32–33.
92. Hoffmann 2000, pp. 36, 48.
93. Felton 2014, p. 18.
94. Padfield 2001, pp. 128–129.
95. Weale 2010, p. 95.
96. Evans 2005, p. 85.
97. Hilberg 1985, p. 222.
98. Hein 2015, p. 63.
99. Wachsmann 2010, p. 22.
100. Weale 2010, pp. 106–108.
101. Weale 2010, p. 108.
102. Evans 2008, pp. 366–367.
103. Weale 2010, pp. 108–109.
104. Ayçoberry 1999, p. 273.
105. Stein 2002, p. 23.
106. ^ Flaherty 2004, p. 156.
107. Stein 2002, pp. 285–287.
108. Stein 2002, pp. 18, 287.
109. Mollo 1991, pp. 1–3.
110. Stein 2002, p. 27.
111. Butler 2001, p. 45.
112. Rossino 2003, pp. 114, 159–161.
113. ^ Flaherty 2004, p. 149.
114. Hein 2015, p. 82.
115. Stone 2011, p. 127.
116. Longerich 2010, pp. 144–145.
117. Evans 2008, pp. 14–15.
118. Flaherty 2004, pp. 109–111.
119. Kershaw 2001, p. 246.
120. Laqueur & Baumel 2001, p. xxxi.
121. Reynolds 1997, pp. 6, 7.
122. Stein 2002, p. 32.
123. Stein 2002, pp. 33–35.
124. ^ McNab 2009, p. 66.
125. Hildebrand 1984, p. 50.
126. Weale 2010, p. 229.
127. Hellwinkel 2014, p. 9.
128. Reitlinger 1989, p. 147.
129. ^ Stein 2002, p. 61.
130. Butler 2003, p. 64.
131. Manning 1999, p. 59.
132. Sydnor 1977, p. 93.
133. Weale 2012, p. 251.
134. Sydnor 1977, p. 102.
135. Flaherty 2004, p. 143.
136. ^ Stein 2002, pp. 150, 153.
137. Koehl 2004, pp. 213–214.
138. Mattson 2002, pp. 77, 104.
139. Flaherty 2004, pp. 162, 163.
140. Weale 2012, p. 297.
141. Bessel 2006, pp. 110–111.
142. Bessel 2006, p. 110.
143. Flaherty 2004, pp. 163, 165.
144. Flaherty 2004, pp. 163–166.
145. Evans 2008, p. 155.
146. Bessel 2006, p. 111.
147. Frusetta 2012, p. 266.
148. Glantz 2001, pp. 7–9.
149. Bracher 1970, p. 409.
150. Blood 2006, p. 64.
151. Windrow & Burn 1992, p. 9.
152. Heer & Naumann 2000, p. 136.
153. Browning 2004, p. 315.
154. Hilberg 1985, p. 164.
155. Kershaw 2008, pp. 696–697.
156. Flaherty 2004, p. 168.
157. Flaherty 2004, p. 171.
158. Reynolds 1997, p. 9.
159. Flaherty 2004, p. 173.
160. Fritz 2011, pp. 69–70, 94–108.
161. Krausnik 1968, p. 77.
162. Longerich 2010, p. 185.
163. ^ Rhodes 2003, pp. 159–160.
164. Bessel 2006, pp. 118–119.
165. Stackelberg 2007, p. 163.
166. Laqueur & Baumel 2001, p. 164.
167. Bessel 2006, p. 119.
168. Zentner & Bedürftig 1991, p. 227.
169. Evans 2008, pp. 256–257.
170. Longerich 2012, p. 547.
171. Gerwarth 2011, p. 199.
172. Rhodes 2003, p. 243.
173. Blood 2006, pp. 70–71.
174. Longerich 2012, p. 625.
175. Longerich 2010, p. 198.
176. Longerich 2012, pp. 626, 629.
177. Longerich 2012, p. 627.
178. Blood 2006, pp. 71–77.
179. Blood 2006, p. 121.
180. Blood 2006, pp. 152–154.
181. Longerich 2012, pp. 628–629.
182. Wachsmann 2010, p. 27.
183. Wachsmann 2010, pp. 26–27.
184. Gerwarth 2011, p. 208.
185. Longerich 2010, pp. 279–280.
186. Evans 2008, p. 283.
187. Evans 2008, pp. 283, 287, 290.
188. McNab 2009, p. 141.
189. Evans 2008, pp. 295, 299–300.
190. Wachsmann 2010, p. 29.
191. ^ Longerich 2012, p. 559.
192. ^ Koehl 2004, pp. 182–183.
193. ^ Weale 2012, p. 115.
194. Gruner 2012, pp. 174–175.
195. Longerich 2012, p. 629.
196. Reitlinger 1989, p. 265.
197. Stein 2002, pp. 258–263.
198. Weale 2012, p. 114.
199. Flaherty 2004, pp. 119, 120.
200. Mazower 2008, pp. 312–313.
201. Longerich 2012, p. 485.
202. Longerich 2012, p. 482.
203. Allen 2002, p. 95.
204. Longerich 2012, pp. 480–481.
205. Longerich 2012, p. 480.
206. Steinbacher 2005, p. 129.
207. Steinbacher 2005, p. 56.
208. Longerich 2010, p. 316.
209. ^ Longerich 2012, p. 484.
210. Weale 2012, pp. 114–115.
211. Allen 2002, p. 102.
212. Weale 2012, pp. 115–116.
213. Longerich 2012, p. 483.
214. Frei 1993, p. 128.
215. Weale 2012, p. 116.
216. International Military Tribunal 1950.
217. Baxter 2014, p. 67.
218. Evans 2008, p. 486.
219. Bessel 2006, p. 143.
220. Evans 2008, pp. 488–489.
221. McNab 2009, pp. 68, 70.
222. Fritz 2011, p. 350.
223. Ford & Zaloga 2009, p. 30.
224. Ford & Zaloga 2009, pp. 54–56.
225. Whitmarsh 2009, pp. 12, 13.
226. Ford & Zaloga 2009, pp. 60, 63, 122, 275.
227. Stein 2002, p. 219.
228. McNab 2013, p. 295.
229. Rempel 1989, p. 233.
230. Whitmarsh 2009, p. 73.
231. Ford & Zaloga 2009, p. 230.
232. Wilmot 1997, p. 282.
233. McNab 2013, p. 297.
234. McNab 2009, p. 73.
235. Wilmot 1997, pp. 399–400.
236. Stein 2002, pp. 222–223.
237. Wilmot 1997, p. 420.
238. McNab 2013, p. 197.
239. Shirer 1960, pp. 1085–1086.
240. Weinberg 1994, p. 701.
241. Murray & Millett 2001, pp. 439–442.
242. Weinberg 1994, pp. 765–766.
243. Murray & Millett 2001, p. 465.
244. Weinberg 1994, pp. 767–769.
245. Weinberg 1994, p. 769.
246. Stein 2002, p. 232.
247. Murray & Millett 2001, p. 468.
248. Parker 2012, p. 278.
249. Kershaw 2011, p. 168.
250. Beevor 2002, p. 70.
251. Beevor 2002, p. 83.
252. ^ Duffy 2002, p. 293.
253. Ziemke 1968, p. 439.
254. Beevor 2002, p. 82.
255. Seaton 1971, p. 537.
256. Duffy 2002, p. 294.
257. Stein 2002, p. 238.
258. Ziemke 1968, p. 450.
259. Messenger 2001, pp. 167–168.
260. Wachsmann 2015, pp. 542–548.
261. Fritz 2004, pp. 50–55.
262. Stein 2002, p. 237.
263. ^ Kershaw 2011, p. 302.
264. Stein 2002, p. 246.
265. McNab 2013, pp. 328, 330, 338.
266. Moorhouse 2012, pp. 364–365.
267. Stein 2002, pp. 248–249.
268. Headland 1992, p. 22.
269. Weale 2010, p. 131.
270. Langerbein 2003, pp. 21–22.
271. Höhne 2001, pp. 494–495.
272. Höhne 2001, pp. 495–496.
273. Longerich 2012, p. 661.
274. Diner 2006, p. 123.
275. Laqueur & Baumel 2001, p. 228.
276. Montague 2012, pp. 188–190.
277. Friedlander 1997, p. 138.
278. Stackelberg 2007, p. 220.
279. Rhodes 2003, pp. 258–260, 262.
280. Laqueur & Baumel 2001, p. 195.
281. ^ Longerich 2010, p. 408.
282. Cesarani 2005, pp. 168, 172.
283. Cesarani 2005, p. 173.
284. Cesarani 2005, pp. 160, 183.
285. ^ Streim 1989, p. 436.
286. Longerich 2012, pp. 405, 412.
287. Stackelberg 2007, p. 161.
288. Flaherty 2004, p. 109.
289. Hilberg 1985, p. 102.
290. Langerbein 2003, pp. 15–16.
291. Rhodes 2003, p. 257.
292. Flaherty 2004, pp. 120–123.
293. Rhodes 2003, pp. 210–214.
294. Zentner & Bedürftig 1991, p. 228.
295. Rhodes 2003, p. 274.
296. McNab 2009, pp. 37, 40, 41.
297. Bracher 1970, p. 214.
298. Krüger & Wedemeyer-Kolwe 2009, p. 34.
299. Krüger & Wedemeyer-Kolwe 2009, p. 35.
300. McNab 2013, pp. 224–225.
301. Pieper 2015, p. 38.
302. McNab 2013, p. 225.
303. Miller 2006, p. 308.
304. Pieper 2015, pp. 52–53.
305. Pieper 2015, pp. 81–90.
306. Pieper 2015, pp. 81–82.
307. Pieper 2015, pp. 119–120.
308. Miller 2006, p. 310.
309. Pieper 2015, p. 120.
310. Pieper 2015, pp. 146–147.
311. McNab 2013, p. 182.
312. Stockert 1997, p. 229.
313. McNab 2013, pp. 225–230.
314. Proctor 1988, p. 86.
315. Lifton 1986, p. 147.
316. Levy 2006, pp. 235–237.
317. Lifton 1986, pp. 148–149.
318. Piper 1994, p. 170.
319. Lifton & Hackett 1994, p. 304.
320. Yahil 1990, p. 368.
321. Yahil 1990, p. 369.
322. Levy 2006, pp. 248–249.
323. Posner & Ware 1986, p. 29.
324. Posner & Ware 1986, p. 27.
325. Lifton 1985.
326. Pringle 2006, pp. 294–296.
327. ^ Spielvogel 1992, p. 108.
328. Yenne 2010, pp. 132–133.
329. Yenne 2010, pp. 128–131, 139, 142.
330. Yenne 2010, p. 141.
331. Lower 2013, p. 108.
332. Schwarz 1997, pp. 223–244.
333. Lower 2013, pp. 108–109.
334. Mühlenberg 2011, pp. 13–14.
335. Lower 2013, p. 109.
336. Century 2011.
337. Rempel 1989, pp. 223–224.
338. Mühlenberg 2011, p. 27.
339. Benz, Distel & Königseder 2005, p. 70.
340. Flaherty 2004, p. 160.
341. Koehl 2004, pp. 212–213.
342. Koehl 2004, pp. 214–219.
343. Gutmann 2017, Chapter 3.
344. McNab 2013, pp. 272–273.
345. McNab 2013, pp. 321–323.
346. Höhne 2001, p. 458.
347. Weale 2012, p. 306.
348. Reitlinger 1989, pp. 200–204.
349. Reitlinger 1989, p. 199.
350. Hale 2011, pp. 264–266.
351. Bishop 2005, p. 93.
352. Bishop 2005, pp. 93–94.
353. Müller 2012, p. 169.
354. Motadel 2014, p. 242.
355. Stein 2002, p. 189.
356. McNab 2013, pp. 326–330.
357. McNab 2013, p. 90.
358. Flaherty 2004, pp. 88–92.
359. Givhan 1997.
360. ^ Yenne 2010, p. 64.
361. Yenne 2010, p. 69.
362. Ziegler 2014, pp. 132–134 and note 13.
363. Weale 2012, p. 26.
364. ^ Weale 2012, p. 32.
365. Weale 2012, p. 30.
366. Weale 2012, p. 46.
367. Weale 2012, p. 49.
368. ^ Weale 2012, p. 33.
369. Ziegler 2014, p. 133.
370. Ziegler 2014, p. 131.
371. Snyder 1994, p. 330.
372. Laqueur & Baumel 2001, p. 609.
373. Evans 2008, p. 724.
374. Yerger 1997, pp. 13–21.
375. Stackelberg 2007, p. 302.
376. Browder 1996, pp. 205–206.
377. Art 2006, p. 43.
378. Gerwarth 2011, pp. 120–121.
379. Weale 2012, p. 107.
380. Gerwarth 2011, p. 121.
381. Anderson 2011.
382. Mang 2003, pp. 1–5.
383. Höhne 2001, p. 580.
384. Evans 2008, pp. 739–741.
385. Longerich 2012, p. 736.
386. Weale 2012, p. 410.
387. Burleigh 2000, pp. 803–804.
388. MacDonogh 2009, p. 3.
389. Murray & Millett 2001, pp. 565–568.
390. Lowe 2012, pp. 83–84.
391. Lowe 2012, pp. 84–87.
392. Brzezinski 2005.
393. ^ Evans 2008, p. 741.
394. Evans 2008, pp. 741–742.
395. Evans 2008, p. 743.
396. Burleigh 2000, p. 804.
397. Ingrao 2013, pp. 240–241.
398. Evans 2008, pp. 743–744.
399. Burleigh 2010, p. 549.
400. Bosacki, Uhlig & Wróblewski 2008.
401. Zentner & Bedürftig 1991, p. 906.
402. Levy 2006, pp. 143–144.
403. Cesarani 2005, p. 207.
404. Arendt 2006, p. 46.
405. Evans 2008, pp. 746–747.
406. Levy 2006, p. 263.
407. Levy 2006, pp. 264–265.
408. Levy 2006, pp. 269, 273.
409. Levy 2006, pp. 294–295.
410. Lichtblau 2014, pp. 2–3, 10–11.
411. Lichtblau 2014, pp. 29–30, 32–37, 67–68.
412. Biddiscombe 2000, pp. 131–143.
413. Segev 2010, pp. 106–108.
414. Sereny 1974, p. 274.

Bibliography

• Allen, Michael Thad (2002). The Business of Genocide: The SS, Slave Labor, and the Concentration Camps. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-2677-5.
• Anderson, Christopher (1 November 2011). "Crossing the Painful Threshold of Memory". Vienna Review. Archived from the original on 22 March 2016. Retrieved 16 March 2016.
• Arendt, Hannah (2006). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-303988-4.
• Art, David (2006). The Politics of the Nazi Past in Germany and Austria. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-85683-6.
• Ayçoberry, Pierre (1999). The Social History of the Third Reich, 1933–1945. New York: The New Press. ISBN 978-1-56584-635-7.
• Baranowski, Shelley (2010). Nazi Empire: German Colonialism and Imperialism from Bismarck to Hitler. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-67408-9.
• Baxter, Ian (2014). Nazi Concentration Camp Commandants 1933–1945: Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives. Images of War. Barnsley: Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-78159-388-2.
• Beevor, Antony (2002). The Fall of Berlin, 1945. New York; London: Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-03041-5.
• Benz, Wolfgang; Distel, Barbara; Königseder, Angelika (2005). Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager (vol. 7) (in German). Munich: Beck. ISBN 978-3-406-52960-3.
• Bessel, Richard (2006). Nazism and War. New York: Modern Library. ISBN 978-0-8129-7557-4.
• Biddiscombe, Perry (2000). "The Problem with Glass Houses: The Soviet Recruitment and Deployment of SS Men as Spies and Saboteurs". Intelligence and National Security. 15 (3): 131–145. doi:10.1080/02684520008432620. ISSN 0268-4527. S2CID 153452361.
• Bishop, Chris (2005). Hitler's Foreign Divisions: 1940–45. London: Amber. ISBN 978-1-904687-37-5.
• Blood, Philip W. (2006). Hitler's Bandit Hunters: The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe. Potomac Books. ISBN 978-1-59797-021-1.
• Bosacki, Marcin; Uhlig, Dominik; Wróblewski, Bogdan (21 May 2008). "Nikt nie chce osądzić zbrodniarza". Gazecie Wyborczej (in Polish). Agora SA. Archived from the original on 7 September 2009. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
• Bracher, Karl Dietrich (1970). The German Dictatorship: The Origins, Structure, and Effects of National Socialism. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 978-0-03-037556-9.
• Browder, George C (1996). Hitler's Enforcers: The Gestapo and the SS Security Service in the Nazi Revolution. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-510479-0.
• Browning, Christopher R. (2004). The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942. Comprehensive History of the Holocaust. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-1327-2.
• Brzezinski, Matthew (24 July 2005). "Giving Hitler Hell". The Washington Post. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
• Buchheim, Hans (1968). "The SS – Instrument of Domination". In Krausnik, Helmut; Buchheim, Hans; Broszat, Martin; Jacobsen, Hans-Adolf (eds.). Anatomy of the SS State. New York: Walker and Company. ISBN 978-0-00-211026-6.
• Burleigh, Michael; Wippermann, Wolfgang (1991). The Racial State: Germany 1933–1945. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-39802-2.
• Burleigh, Michael (2000). The Third Reich: A New History. New York: Hill and Wang. ISBN 978-0-8090-9325-0.
• Burleigh, Michael (2010). Moral Combat: Good and Evil in World War II. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-058097-1.
• Butler, Rupert (2001). SS-Leibstandarte: The History of the First SS Division, 1934–45. Staplehurst: Spellmount. ISBN 978-1-86227-117-3.
• Butler, Rupert (2003). The Black Angels. Staplehurst: Spellmount. ISBN 978-1-86227-117-3.
• Cesarani, David (2005) . Eichmann: His Life and Crimes. London: Vintage. ISBN 978-0-09-944844-0.
• Century, Rachel (January 2011). "Review of Das SS-Helferinnenkorps: Ausbildung, Einsatz und Entnazifizierung der weiblichen Angehörigen der Waffen-SS 1942–1949". Reviews in History. Review no. 1183. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
• Cook, Stan; Bender, R. James (1994). Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler: Uniforms, Organization, & History. San Jose, CA: R. James Bender. ISBN 978-0-912138-55-8.
• Dear, Ian; Foot, M.R.D., eds. (1995). The Oxford Guide to World War II. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-534096-9.
• Diner, Dan (2006). Beyond the Conceivable: Studies on Germany, Nazism, and the Holocaust. Los Angeles; Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-21345-6.
• Duffy, Christopher (2002). Red Storm on the Reich: The Soviet March on Germany, 1945. Edison, NJ: Castle Books. ISBN 978-0-7858-1624-9.
• Evans, Richard J. (2003). The Coming of the Third Reich. New York: Penguin Group. ISBN 978-0-14-303469-8.
• Evans, Richard J. (2005). The Third Reich in Power. New York: Penguin Group. ISBN 978-0-14-303790-3.
• Evans, Richard J. (2008). The Third Reich at War. New York: Penguin Group. ISBN 978-0-14-311671-4.
• Felton, Mark (2014). Guarding Hitler: The Secret World of the Führer. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-1-78159-305-9.
• Flaherty, Thomas H., ed. (2004) . The Third Reich: The SS. Time-Life. ISBN 978-1-84447-073-0.
• Ford, Ken; Zaloga, Steven J. (2009). Overlord: The D-Day Landings. Oxford; New York: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-84603-424-4.
• Frei, Norbert (1993). National Socialist Rule in Germany: The Führer State, 1933–1945. Cambridge, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-18507-9.
• Friedlander, Henry (1997). The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-4675-9.
• Fritz, Stephen (2004). Endkampf: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Death of the Third Reich. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-2325-7.
• Fritz, Stephen (2011). Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-3416-1.
• Frusetta, James (2012). "The Final Solution in Southwestern Europe". In Friedman, Jonathan C. (ed.). The Routledge History of the Holocaust. New York: Taylor & Francis. pp. 264–276. ISBN 978-0-415-52087-4.
• Gerwarth, Robert (2011). Hitler's Hangman: The Life of Heydrich. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-11575-8.
• Givhan, Robin (15 August 1997). "Clothier Made Nazi Uniforms". Los Angeles Times. The Washington Post. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
• Glantz, David (11 October 2001), The Soviet-German War 1941–45: Myths and Realities: A Survey Essay, Strom Thurmond Institute of Government and Public Affairs, Clemson University, archived from the original (PDF) on 18 February 2015.
• Gruner, Wolf (2012). "Forced Labor in Nazi Anti-Jewish Policy, 1938–45". In Friedman, Jonathan C. (ed.). The Routledge History of the Holocaust. New York: Taylor & Francis. pp. 168–180. ISBN 978-0-415-52087-4.
• Gutmann, Martin R. (2017). Building a Nazi Europe: The SS's Germanic Volunteers. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-15543-5.
• Hale, Christopher (2011). Hitler's Foreign Executioners: Europe's Dirty Secret. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-5974-5.
• Headland, Ronald (1992). Messages of Murder: A Study of the Reports of the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the Security Service, 1941–1943. Rutherford, N.J: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 978-0-8386-3418-9.
• Heer, Hannes; Naumann, Klaus (2000). War of Extermination: The German Military in World War II 1941–1944. New York: Berghahn. ISBN 978-1-57181-232-2.
• Hein, Bastian (2015). Die SS: Geschichte und Verbrechen (in German). Munich: C.H. Beck. ISBN 978-3-406-67513-3.
• Hellwinkel, Lars (2014). Hitler's Gateway to the Atlantic: German Naval Bases in France 1940–1945. Barnsley: Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-84832-199-1.
• Hilberg, Raul (1985). The Destruction of the European Jews. New York: Holmes & Meier. ISBN 978-0-8419-0910-6.
• Hildebrand, Klaus (1984). The Third Reich. London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-04-943033-4.
• Himmler, Heinrich (1936). Die Schutzstaffel als antibolschewistische Kampforganisation [The SS as an Anti-Bolshevist Fighting Organization] (in German). Franz Eher Verlag.
• Hoffmann, Peter (2000). Hitler's Personal Security: Protecting the Führer 1921–1945. New York: Da Capo. ISBN 978-0-306-80947-7.
• Höhne, Heinz (2001). The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS. New York: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-139012-3.
• Ingrao, Christian (2013). Believe and Destroy: Intellectuals in the SS War Machine. Malden, MA: Polity. ISBN 978-0-7456-6026-4.
• International Military Tribunal (1946). Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (PDF). Vol. 1. Washington: United States Government Printing Office. pp. 70–71.
• International Military Tribunal (1950). "Report on the Administrative Development of Operation Reinhardt: Document NO-059: Odilo Globocnik, January 1944. Attachment NO-062: Detailed List of Money, Precious Metals, Jewels, Other Valuables, and Textiles" (PDF). Nuremberg Trials. The Green Series. Vol. 5. Washington: United States Government Printing Office. pp. 728–731. OCLC 315875936.
• Jacobsen, Hans-Adolf (1999). "The Structure of Nazi Foreign Policy, 1933–1945". In Christian Leitz (ed.). The Third Reich: The Essential Readings. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-20700-9.
• Joachimsthaler, Anton (1999). The Last Days of Hitler: The Legends, The Evidence, The Truth. London: Brockhampton Press. ISBN 978-1-86019-902-8.
• Kershaw, Ian (2001). Hitler: 1936–1945, Nemesis. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-32252-1.
• Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-06757-6.
• Kershaw, Ian (2011). The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1944–1945. New York; Toronto: Penguin. ISBN 978-1-59420-314-5.
• Koehl, Robert (2004). The SS: A History 1919–45. Stroud: Tempus. ISBN 978-0-7524-2559-7.
• Krausnik, Helmut (1968). "The Persecution of the Jews". In Krausnik, Helmut; Buchheim, Hans; Broszat, Martin; Jacobsen, Hans-Adolf (eds.). Anatomy of the SS State. New York: Walker and Company. ISBN 978-0-00-211026-6.
• Krüger, Arnd; Wedemeyer-Kolwe, Bernd (2009). Vergessen, verdrängt, abgelehnt – Zur Geschichte der Ausgrenzung im Sport (in German). Münster: Lit Verlag. ISBN 978-3-643-10338-3.
• Langerbein, Helmut (2003). Hitler's Death Squads: The Logic of Mass Murder. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 978-1-58544-285-0.
• Laqueur, Walter; Baumel, Judith Tydor (2001). The Holocaust Encyclopedia. New Haven; London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-08432-0.
• Levy, Alan (2006) . Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File (Revised 2002 ed.). London: Constable & Robinson. ISBN 978-1-84119-607-7.
• Lichtblau, Eric (2014). The Nazis Next Door. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-547-66919-9.
• Lifton, Robert Jay (21 July 1985). "What Made This Man? Mengele". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
• Lifton, Robert Jay (1986). The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-04905-9.
• Lifton, Robert Jay; Hackett, Amy (1994). "The Auschwitz Prisoner Administration". In Gutman, Yisrael; Berenbaum, Michael (eds.). Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. pp. 363–378. ISBN 978-0-253-32684-3.
• Longerich, Peter (2010). Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280436-5.
• Longerich, Peter (2012). Heinrich Himmler: A Life. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-959232-6.
• Lowe, Keith (2012). Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II. New York: Picador. ISBN 978-1-250-03356-7.
• Lower, Wendy (2013). Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-547-86338-2.
• MacDonogh, Giles (2009). After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00337-2.
• Mang, Thomas (2003). "Gestapo-Leitstelle Wien – "Mein Name ist Huber"" [Head Gestapo Agency of Vienna: "My name is Huber"] (PDF). Döw Mitteilungen (in German). 164: 1–5.
• Manning, Jeanne (1999). A Time to Speak. Paducah, KY: Turner. ISBN 978-1-56311-560-8.
• Mattson, Gregory L. (2002). SS-Das Reich: The History of the Second SS Division, 1944–45. Amber Books. ISBN 978-0-7603-1255-1.
• Mazower, Mark (2008). Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe. New York; Toronto: Penguin. ISBN 978-1-59420-188-2.
• McNab, Chris (2009). The SS: 1923–1945. London: Amber Books. ISBN 978-1-906626-49-5.
• McNab, Chris (2013). Hitler's Elite: The SS 1939–45. Osprey. ISBN 978-1-78200-088-4.
• Messenger, Charles (2001). Hitler's Gladiator: The Life and Military Career of Sepp Dietrich. London: Brassey's. ISBN 978-1-57488-315-2.
• Michael, Robert; Doerr, Karin (2002). Nazi-Deutsch/Nazi-German: An English Lexicon of the Language of the Third Reich. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0313321061.
• Miller, Michael (2006). Leaders of the SS and German Police, Vol. 1. San Jose, CA: R. James Bender. ISBN 978-93-297-0037-2.
• Miller, Michael; Schulz, Andreas (2012). Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders Of The Nazi Party And Their Deputies, 1925–1945. San Jose, CA: R. James Bender. ISBN 978-1-932970-21-0.
• Mollo, Andrew (1991). Uniforms of the SS: Volume 3: SS-Verfügungstruppe. London: Windrow & Greene. ISBN 978-1-872004-51-8.
• Moorhouse, Roger (2012). Berlin at War. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-02855-9.
• Montague, Patrick (2012). Chelmno and the Holocaust: The History of Hitler's First Death Camp. London: I.B. Tauris. pp. 188–190. ISBN 978-1-84885-722-3.
• Motadel, David (2014). Islam and Nazi Germany's War. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-72460-0.
• Mühlenberg, Jutta (2011). Das SS-Helferinnenkorps: Ausbildung, Einsatz und Entnazifizierung der weiblichen Angehörigen der Waffen-SS, 1942–1949 (PDF) (in German). Hamburg: VerlagsgesmbH. ISBN 978-3-86854-500-5. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
• Müller, Rolf-Dieter (2012). The Unknown Eastern Front: The Wehrmacht and Hitler's Foreign Soldiers. New York: I.B. Taurus. ISBN 978-1-78076-072-8.
• Murray, Williamson; Millett, Allan R. (2001). A War To Be Won: Fighting the Second World War. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-00680-5.
• Padfield, Peter (2001) . Himmler: Reichsführer-SS. London: Cassel & Co. ISBN 978-0-304-35839-7.
• Parker, Danny S. (2012). Fatal Crossroads: The Untold Story of the Malmédy Massacre at the Battle of the Bulge. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo. ISBN 978-0-306-81193-7.
• Pieper, Henning (2015). Fegelein's Horsemen and Genocidal Warfare: The SS Cavalry Brigade in the Soviet Union. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-45631-1.
• Piper, Franciszek (1994). "Gas Chambers and Crematoria". In Gutman, Yisrael; Berenbaum, Michael (eds.). Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. pp. 157–182. ISBN 978-0-253-32684-3.
• Posner, Gerald L.; Ware, John (1986). Mengele: The Complete Story. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-050598-8.
• Pringle, Heather (2006). The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust. London: Fourth Estate. ISBN 978-0-00-714812-7.
• Proctor, Robert (1988). Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-74578-0.
• Read, Anthony (2005). The Devil's Disciples: Hitler's Inner Circle. New York; London: Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-32697-0.
• Reitlinger, Gerald (1989). The SS: Alibi of a Nation, 1922–1945. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-80351-2.
• Rempel, Gerhard (1989). Hitler's Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-4299-7.
• Reynolds, Michael Frank (1997). Steel Inferno: I SS Panzer Corps in Normandy: The Story of the 1st and 12th SS Panzer Divisions in the 1944 Normandy Campaign. Steelhurst: Spellmount. ISBN 978-1-873376-90-4.
• Rhodes, Richard (2003). Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust. New York: Vintage. ISBN 978-0-375-70822-0.
• Rossino, Alexander B. (2003). Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1234-5.
• Rummel, Rudolph (1992). Democide: Nazi Genocide and Mass Murder. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. ISBN 978-1-56000-004-4.
• Schwarz, Gudrun (1997). "Frauen in der SS: Sippenverband und Frauenkorps". In Kristen Heinsohn; Barbara Vogel; Ulrike Weckel (eds.). Zwischen Karriere und Verfolgung: Handlungsräume von Frauen im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland (in German). Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag. ISBN 978-3-593-35756-0.
• Seaton, Albert (1971). The Russo-German War, 1941–45. New York: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 978-0-213-76478-4.
• Segev, Tom (2010). Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends. New York: Schocken Books. ISBN 978-0-385-51946-5.
• Sereny, Gitta (1974). Into That Darkness: From Mercy Killings to Mass Murder. New York: Vintage. ISBN 978-0-394-71035-8.
• Shirer, William L. (1960). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-62420-0.
• Snyder, Louis (1994) . Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-1-56924-917-8.
• Spielvogel, Jackson (1992). Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History. New York: Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0-13-393182-2.
• Stackelberg, Roderick (2002). Hitler's Germany: Origins, Interpretations, Legacies. London; New York: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-203-00541-5.
• Stackelberg, Roderick (2007). The Routledge Companion to Nazi Germany. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-30861-8.
• Stein, George (2002) . The Waffen-SS: Hitler's Elite Guard at War 1939–1945. Cerberus Publishing. ISBN 978-1841451008.
• Steinbacher, Sybille (2005) . Auschwitz: A History. Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck. ISBN 978-0-06-082581-2.
• Stockert, Peter (1997). Die Eichenlaubträger 1939–1945 Band 2 [The Oak Leaves Bearers 1939–1945 Volume 2] (in German). Bad Friedrichshall, Germany: Friedrichshaller Rundblick. ISBN 978-3-9802222-9-7.
• Stone, David (2011). Shattered Genius: The Decline and Fall of the German General Staff in World War II. Philadelphia: Casemate. ISBN 978-1-61200-098-5.
• Streim, Alfred (1989). "The Tasks of the SS Einsatzgruppen, pages 436–454". In Marrus, Michael (ed.). The Nazi Holocaust, Part 3, The "Final Solution": The Implementation of Mass Murder, Volume 2. Westpoint, CT: Meckler. ISBN 978-0-88736-266-8.
• Sydnor, Charles W (1977). Soldiers of Destruction: The SS Death's Head Division, 1933–1945. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-05255-7. OCLC 1202023457.
• Wachsmann, Nikolaus (2010). "The Dynamics of Destruction". In Caplan, Jane; Wachsmann, Nikolaus (eds.). Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany: The New Histories. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-42651-0.
• Wachsmann, Nikolaus (2015). KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-11825-9.
• Weale, Adrian (2010). The SS: A New History. London: Little, Brown. ISBN 978-1-4087-0304-5.
• Weale, Adrian (2012). Army of Evil: A History of the SS. New York: Caliber Printing. ISBN 978-0-451-23791-0.
• Weinberg, Gerhard (1994). A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-44317-3.
• Whitmarsh, Andrew (2009). D-Day in Photographs. Stroud: History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-5095-7.
• Williams, Max (2001). Reinhard Heydrich: The Biography (Vol. 1). Church Stretton: Ulric. ISBN 978-0-9537577-5-6.
• Wilmot, Chester (1997) . The Struggle For Europe. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions. ISBN 978-1-85326-677-5.
• Windrow, Martin; Burn, Jeffrey (1992). The Waffen-SS. Men At Arms. London: Osprey. ISBN 978-0-85045-425-3.
• Yahil, Leni (1990). The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-504522-2.
• Yenne, Bill (2010). Hitler's Master of the Dark Arts: Himmler's Black Knights and the Occult Origins of the SS. Minneapolis: Zenith. ISBN 978-0-7603-3778-3.
• Yerger, Mark C. (1997). Allgemeine-SS: The Commands, Units, and Leaders of the General SS. Atglen, PA: Schiffer. ISBN 978-0-7643-0145-2.
• Zentner, Christian; Bedürftig, Friedemann (1991). The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. New York: MacMillan. ISBN 978-0-02-897500-9.
• Ziegler, Herbert (2014). Nazi Germany's New Aristocracy: The SS Leadership, 1925–1939. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-60636-1.
• Ziemke, Earl F (1968). Stalingrad to Berlin: the German defeat in the east. Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Army. OCLC 1169880509.

Further reading

• Browder, George C. (1990). Foundations of the Nazi Police State: The Formation of Sipo and SD. Lexington: University of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-1697-6.
• Gellately, Robert (1990). The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933–1945. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-822869-1.
• Johnson, Eric (1999). Nazi Terror: The Gestapo, Jews, and Ordinary Germans. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-04906-6.
• Miller, Michael (2015). Leaders of the SS and German Police, Vol. 2. San Jose, CA: Bender. ISBN 978-1-932970-25-8.
• Segev, Tom (1988). Soldiers of Evil: The Commandants of the Nazi Concentration Camps. New York: McGraw Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-056058-1.

External links

• Judgment of Nuremberg Trials on the SS
• SS at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Testimonies concerning SS crimes in occupied Poland in "Chronicles of Terror" testimony database

Articles and topics related to SS (Nazi Germany)

v t e Schutzstaffel (SS) Branches Allgemeine SS SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) Waffen-SS Leadership Reichsführer-SS SS and police leader SS commands Allgemeine-SS regional commands Leaders Julius Schreck Joseph Berchtold Erhard Heiden Heinrich Himmler Karl Hanke Main departments Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS Command Staff Reichsführer-SS SS Main Office SS Medical Corps Head Operational Office Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) Economics and Administration Office Office of Race and Settlement (RuSHA) Main Office for Ethnic Germans (VOMI) Office of the Reich Commissioner for Germanic Resettlement (RKFDV) Courts Office Personnel Office Education Office Ideological institutions Ahnenerbe Das Schwarze Korps SS-Junker Schools Lebensborn Police and security services Uniformed police (Orpo) Schutzpolizei (Schupo) Criminal police (Kripo) Secret State Police (Gestapo) State Security Police (SiPo) SS Security Service (SD) Customs Border Guards (ZGS) Führer protection SS-Begleitkommando des Führers Reichssicherheitsdienst Waffen-SS units Paramilitary Einsatzgruppen Schutzmannschaft Byelorussian Latvian Lithuanian Ukrainian Estonian Rollkommando Hamann Arajs Kommando Selbstschutz Volksdeutscher Trawnikis Order Police battalions Hiwi Security Battalions (Greece) Waffen-SS divisions SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT) Leibstandarte (LSSAH) SS Division Das Reich SS Division Totenkopf SS Polizei Division SS Division Wiking Foreign SS units Austrian SS Germanic-SS Germaansche SS in Nederland Germaansche SS in Vlaanderen Germanske SS Norge Schalburg Corps British Free Corps Kaminski Brigade Finnish Volunteer Battalion SS-controlled enterprises Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe German Earth and Stone Works (DEST) Ostindustrie German Equipment Works Klinker-Zement Allach porcelain Apollinaris Mattoni Sudetenquell Anton Loibl v t e Allgemeine-SS regional commands of Nazi Germany Commanders Erich von dem Bach Karl Hermann Frank Richard Hildebrandt Friedrich Jeckeln Rudolf Querner Hanns Albin Rauter Wilhelm Rediess Gustav Adolf Scheel Walter Schimana Units (Oberabschnitt) Alpenland Böhmen-Mähren Donau Elbe Fulda-Werra Lothringen-Saarpfalz Main Mitte Nord Nordost Nordsee Nordwest Ost Ostland Österreich Ostsee Rhein Rhein-Westmark Spree Süd Südost Südwest Ukraina Warthe Weichsel West Westmark See also SS and Police Leaders v t e Waffen-SS brigades Panzer Gross Westfalen 150 Panzer- grenadier Schuldt 4 Nederland 49 51 Sturmbrigade Wallonia Langemarck Reichsführer SS France Dirlewanger Kaminski Cavalry SS Cavalry Brigade Infantry 1st SS Infantry Brigade 2nd SS Infantry Brigade 3 Estonian Landstorm Nederland 1 Italian Charlemagne (1 French) 1 Belarussian Police Schutzmannschaft-Brigade Siegling Units marked in bold were officially named "volunteer". See also: List of Waffen-SS units, List of Waffen-SS brigades v t e Waffen-SS divisions Panzer 1 Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler 2 Das Reich 3 Totenkopf 5 Wiking 9 Hohenstaufen 10 Frundsberg 12 Hitlerjugend Panzer- grenadier 11 Nordland 16 Reichsführer-SS 17 Götz von Berlichingen 18 Horst Wessel 23 Nederland Mountain 6 Nord 7 Prinz Eugen 13 Handschar (1 Croatian) 21 Skanderbeg (1 Albanian) 23 Kama (2 Croatian) 24 Karstjäger Cavalry 8 Florian Geyer 22 33 (3 Hungarian) 37 Lützow Cossack 1 2 Infantry 14 (1 Galician) 15 (1 Latvian) 19 (2 Latvian) 20 (1 Estonian) 25 Hunyadi (1 Hungarian) 26 (2 Hungarian) 27 Langemarck (1 Flemish) 28 Wallonien 29 RONA (1 Russian) 29 (1 Italian) 30 (2 Russian) 30 (1 Belarusian) 31 32 30 Januar 33 Charlemagne (1 French) 34 Landstorm Nederland 36 38 "Nibelungen" Police 4 (Panzergrenadier) 35 (Grenadier) Deception "Panzer" 26 27 Lists Divisional commanders Divisions Units marked in bold were officially named "volunteer". See also: SS heavy Panzer battalions Category v t e Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos People Director Reinhard Heydrich Ernst Kaltenbrunner Commanders of Einsatzgruppen Humbert Achamer-Pifrader Walther Bierkamp Horst Böhme Erich Ehrlinger Wilhelm Fuchs Heinz Jost Bruno Müller Erich Naumann Arthur Nebe Otto Ohlendorf Friedrich Panzinger Otto Rasch Heinrich Seetzen Franz Walter Stahlecker Bruno Streckenbach Commanders of Einsatzkommandos, Sonderkommandos Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski Gerhard Bast Rudolf Batz Ernst Biberstein Wolfgang Birkner Helmut Bischoff Paul Blobel Walter Blume Friedrich-Wilhelm Bock Otto Bradfisch Werner Braune Karl Brunner Friedrich Buchardt Ernst Damzog Gerhard Flesch Ludwig Hahn Erich Isselhorst Karl Jäger Friedrich Jeckeln Waldemar Klingelhöfer Wolfgang Kügler Walter Kutschmann Rudolf Lange Josef Meisinger Gustav Adolf Nosske Hans-Adolf Prützmann Walter Rauff Martin Sandberger Emanuel Schäfer Hermann Schaper Karl Eberhard Schöngarth Erwin Schulz Franz Six Eugen Steimle Eduard Strauch Martin Weiss Udo von Woyrsch Other members August Becker Lothar Fendler Joachim Hamann Emil Haussmann Felix Landau Heinz Schubert Albert Widmann Collaborators Viktors Arājs Herberts Cukurs Antanas Impulevičius Konrāds Kalējs Algirdas Klimaitis Groups German Schutzstaffel (SS) Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo) Sicherheitsdienst (SD) Ordnungspolizei (Orpo) 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz Sonderdienst Non-German Schutzmannschaft (Belarusian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian) Arajs Kommando Lithuanian Security Police Rollkommando Hamann TDA Ypatingasis būrys Crimes Belarus Łachwa Ghetto Minsk Ghetto Slutsk Affair Estonia Kalevi-Liiva Latvia Burning of the Riga synagogues Dünamünde Action Jelgava Pogulianski Rumbula Liepāja (Šķēde) Lithuania Ninth Fort Kaunas June 1941 Kaunas 29 October 1941 Ninth Fort November 1941 Ponary Poland Operation Tannenberg Intelligenzaktion AB-Aktion Russia Gully of Petrushino Zmievskaya Balka Slovakia Kremnička and Nemecká Ukraine Babi Yar Drobytsky Yar Drohobycz Kamianets-Podilskyi Lviv pogroms Mizocz Ghetto Odesa Records List of Einsatzgruppen The Black Book Commissar Order Einsatzgruppen trial Jäger Report Korherr Report Special Prosecution Book-Poland Einsatzgruppen reports v t e Nazi Party Leader Anton Drexler (1919–1921) Adolf Hitler (1921–1945) Martin Bormann (1945) History Adolf Hitler's rise to power Beer Hall Putsch Brown House, Munich Denazification Enabling Act of 1933 German Workers' Party National Socialist Program Nazism Night of the Long Knives Nuremberg rallies Röhm scandal SA Thule Society Party offices Amt Rosenberg Hitler Youth Hitler's Chancellery Nazi Party Chancellery Office of Colonial Policy Office of Military Policy Office of Racial Policy Office of Foreign Affairs NSDAP/AO SS SS Education Office Publications Völkischer Beobachter Das Schwarze Korps Das Reich Innviertler Heimatblatt Arbeitertum Der Angriff Panzerbär Der Stürmer Kampfverlag Notable members Artur Axmann Houston Stewart Chamberlain Kurt Daluege Richard Walther Darré Rudolf Diels Karl Dönitz Dietrich Eckart Adolf Eichmann Hans Frank Roland Freisler Wilhelm Frick Walther Funk Joseph Goebbels Hermann Göring Ernst Hanfstaengl Rudolf Hess Reinhard Heydrich Heinrich Himmler Rudolf Höss Ernst Kaltenbrunner Robert Ley Josef Mengele Konstantin von Neurath Joachim von Ribbentrop Ernst Röhm Alfred Rosenberg Bernhard Rust Fritz Todt Baldur von Schirach Arthur Seyss-Inquart Albert Speer Gregor Strasser Otto Strasser Julius Streicher Derivatives Black Front (Strasserism) / German Social Union Deutsche Reichspartei / National Democratic Party of Germany Socialist Reich Party Related articles Adolf Hitler Schools Munich Documentation Centre National Political Institutes of Education Nazi concentration camps Nazi Germany Nazi songs Horst-Wessel-Lied Ranks and insignia of the Nazi Party Samoan branch of the Nazi Party v t e Fascism Themes Core tenets Actual idealism Aestheticization of politics Anti-communism Anti-intellectualism Anti-materialism Anti-pacifism Authoritarianism Chauvinism Class collaboration Conspiracism Corporatism Cult of personality Dictatorship Direct action Dirigisme Economic interventionism Eugenics Heroic capitalism Heroic realism Heroism Imperialism Indoctrination Irrationalism Machismo Masculinity Militarism National syndicalism Nationalism Integral Palingenetic Ultra New Man One-party state Perpetual war Populism Proletarian nation Propaganda Racism Reactionary modernism Social Darwinism Social interventionism Social order State capitalism Statolatry Supercapitalism Syncretism Third Position Totalitarianism Topics Definitions Economics Fascism and ideology Fascism worldwide Symbolism Variants Arab Argentine Nacionalismo Orthodox Peronism Austrian Banderism Brazilian British Christian Christian Identity Mexican synarchism Clerical Confucian Crypto Eco Falangism French Doriotism Pétainism Neo-Pétainism Jeune Nation L'Œuvre Française Valoisism Hindu Hungarism Hutu Irish Islamic Ziaism Italian Intransigent Japanese Reform bureaucratism Statism Restoration Jewish Kahanism Revisionist Maximalism Korean Ilminism Nyulaiteu LaRoucheism Latvian Mystical Nazism Austrian Esoteric Hitlerism Neo-Nazism Russian Strasserism Swedish Neo Finnish NRx Pan-Turkic Rexism Romanian Legionarism Neo-Legionarism Romanianism/Stelism Russian Neo-Eurasianism Syndicalist Syrian Social Nationalism Techno Third Positionism National-anarchism National Bolshevism Nazi-Maoism Uruguayan Marzism Revisionism Sosism Ustašism Movements Africa Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging Greyshirts Muslim Association of the Lictor Ossewabrandwag Young Egypt Party (1933) Asia Abhinav Bharat Al-Muthanna Club Aria Party Azerbaijan National Democrat Party Azure Party Black Dragon Society Brit HaBirionim Concordia Association Grey Wolves Golden Square Hindu Mahasabha Iran-e-No Party Jewish National Front Kach Kataeb Party Kenkokukai Kokumin Dōmei Korea Nationalist Party Korean National Youth Association Lehi Liberal Party (South Korea) Nasyonal Aktivite ve Zinde İnkişaf National Socialism Association National Socialist Japanese Workers' Party Nationalist Movement Party Nationalist Task Party National Will Party Nation Party of Iran Otzma Yehudit Pan-Iranist Party Palestine Arab Party Patrol 36 Progress Party (Iran) Philippine Falange Rastakhiz Party Rastriya Prajatantra Party Reform bureaucrats Religious Zionist Party Sakurakai Sangh Parivar Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad Bharatiya Gau Raksha Dal Bharatiya Janata Party Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha Bharatiya Jana Sangh Bharatiya Kisan Sangh Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh Bharat Vikas Parishad Ekal Vidyalaya Hindu Makkal Katchi Hindu Munnani Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh Jammu Praja Parishad Muslim Rashtriya Manch Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas Rashtra Sevika Samiti Rashtriya Sikh Sangat Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana Seva Bharati Vidya Bharati Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram Vishva Hindu Parishad Bajrang Dal Durga Vahini SUMKA Syrian Social Nationalist Party Tōhōkai Tsagaan Khas Turkish Union Party Wang Jingwei Kuomintang Northern / Northwestern Europe Academic Karelia Society Ailtirí na hAiséirghe Autonome Nationalisten Bases Autónomas Black Front (Netherlands) Blood & Honour Blueshirts Breton Social-National Workers' Movement British Democratic Party British Fascists Britain First British League of Ex-Servicemen and Women British Movement British National Party (1960) British National Party British People's Party (1939) British People's Party (2005) British Union of Fascists The Britons La Cagoule Casuals United Centre Party '86 Clerical People's Party Dutch Fascist Union English Defence League English National Association European Liberation Front Le Faisceau Fédération d'action nationale et européenne Finnish National Socialist Labor Organisation Finnish People's Organisation Finnish-Socialist Workers' Party Flemish National Union French National-Collectivist Party French Nationalist Party French Popular Party General Dutch Fascist League Greater Britain Movement Groupe Collaboration Heathen Front Imperial Fascist League International Third Position Jeune Nation Lalli Alliance of Finland Lapua Movement League of Saint George Les Identitaires Mouvement d'Action Civique Mouvement Franciste Nasjonal Samling National Action (UK) National Alliance (Sweden) National Corporate Party National Fascisti National Front (UK) National League of Sweden Nationalist Party National Popular Rally National Rally National Socialist Bloc National Socialist Dutch Workers Party National Socialist Front National Socialist League National Socialist Movement (UK, 1962) National Socialist Movement (United Kingdom) National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands National Socialist Movement of Norway National Socialist Union of Finland National Socialist Workers' Party (Sweden) National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark National Socialists of Finland National Syndicalists National Union (Netherlands) National Union (Portugal) New Party Nipsters Nordic League The Nordic Realm Party Nordic Resistance Movement Northern League Norwegian Defence League Nouvelle Droite GRECE L'Œuvre Française Official National Front Order of Flemish Militants Order of Nine Angles Organisation of National Socialists Parti Communautaire National-Européen Party of Finnish Labor Party of the Swedes Patriotic Alternative Patriotic People's Movement Patriotic People's Movement (1993) Pērkonkrusts Phalange Française Rexist Party Rising Finland Scottish Democratic Fascist Party Scottish Protestant League Stormers Terre et Peuple Third Way (France) Third Way (UK) Union Movement Verdinaso Vigrid White Aryan Resistance World Union of National Socialists Central Europe Action Front of National Socialists/National Activists Arrow Cross Party Artgemeinschaft Austrian Nazism Black Front (Germany) Bund Deutscher Osten Christian National Socialist Front Deutsche Reichspartei Eidgenössische Sammlung Free German Workers' Party German Faith Movement German National Movement in Liechtenstein German National Socialist Workers' Party (Czechoslovakia) German Social Union Hungarian National Front Hungarian National Socialist Agricultural Labourers' and Workers' Party Hungarian National Socialist Party Kampfbund Deutscher Sozialisten Liechtenstein Homeland Service National Democratic Party (Austria) National Democratic Party of Germany National Front (Hungary) National Front (Switzerland) National Movement of Switzerland National Radical Camp National Radical Camp (1993) National Revival of Poland National Union (Switzerland) Nationalist Front (Germany) Nazi Party Greater German People's Community Nazi Germany National Socialist Freedom Movement National Socialist Working Association New Order Nipsters Positive Christianity German Christians The Right (Germany) Socialist Reich Party Sudeten German Party The Third Path United Hungarian National Socialist Party Volksdeutsche Bewegung Volkssozialistische Bewegung Deutschlands/Partei der Arbeit Wiking-Jugend Southern Europe ADÑ–Spanish Identity Albanian Fascist Party Balli Kombëtar Brothers of Italy CEDADE Democratic Fascist Party European Nation State Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria Fasci Italiani di Combattimento Fascio d'Azione Rivoluzionaria Falange Sección Femenina La Falange (1999) Falange Auténtica Falange Española Falange Española Auténtica Falange Española de las JONS Falange Española de las JONS (1976) Falange Española Independiente Falangist Movement of Spain Freethinkers' Party Imperium Europa Italian fascism National Fascist Party (Italy) Italian Social Republic Republican Fascist Party Italian Social Movement Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista Juntas Españolas National Alliance (Spain) National Alliance July 18 National Democracy (Italy) National Democracy (Spain) National Front (Spain, 1986) National Front (Spain, 2006) National Union (Italy, 1923) National Union (Spain) New Force (Italy) New Force (Spain) Republican Social Movement The Right (Italy) Sammarinese Fascist Party Spanish Military Union Struggle of the People Student Action Terza Posizione Tricolour Flame Unidad Falangista Montañesa Youth Front Eastern and Southeastern Europe Autochthonous Croatian Party of Rights Bosnian Movement of National Pride Bulgarian National Socialist Workers Party Croatian Liberation Movement Croatian National Resistance Croatian Party of Rights Crusade of Romanianism Ethnic National Union Eurasia Movement Eurasia Party Falanga Format18 For the Native Language! Front of National Revolutionary Action German Party German People's Party Golden Dawn Greek National Socialist Party Hosank Iron Guard LEPEN Liberal Democratic Party of Russia Lithuanian Nationalist Union National Agrarian Party National Bolshevik Front National Bolshevik Party National-Christian Defense League National Christian Party National Fascist Community National Fascist Movement National Italo-Romanian Cultural and Economic Movement National Party – Greeks National Socialist Patriotic Organisation National Socialist Society National Social Movement National Radical Camp National Romanian Fascio National Renaissance Front National Salvation Front National Socialism / White Power Occupy Pedophilia Order of Nine Angles Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists The Other Russia of E. V. Limonov Pamyat Patriotic Alliance People's Party Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine Ratniks (Bulgaria) Romanian Front Russian Imperial Movement Russian Fascist Party Russian National Unity Russian Women's Fascist Movement Serbian Action Serbian Radical Party Slovak People's Party Steel Shield Svoboda Union of Bulgarian National Legions Ustaše Ustaše in Australia Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood Vlajka Yugoslav Radical Union ZBOR North America Fascism in Canada Aryan Guard Aryan Nations Canadian Association for Free Expression Canadian Union of Fascists Citizens for Foreign Aid Reform Heritage Front Parti national social chrétien Fascism in the United States American Front American Nazi Party Creativity Fascist League of North America German American Bund Goyim Defense League Hammerskins Identity Evropa LaRouche movement League of the South National Alliance (United States) National Renaissance Party Nationalist Social Club-131 National Socialist Legion National Socialist Liberation Front National Socialist Movement National States' Rights Party National Vanguard Nationalist Front (United States) The Order Patriot Front Proud Boys Rise Above Movement Silver Legion of America Christian Party (United States, 1930s) Third Klan Traditionalist Worker Party Vanguard America Volksfront White Aryan Resistance Wotansvolk Revolutionary Mexicanist Action Mexican Democratic Party Mexican Fascist Party National Pro Patria Party National Synarchist Union Nationalist Front of Mexico Order of Nine Angles Oceania Action Zealandia Antipodean Resistance Australia First Movement Australia First Party Australian Defence League Australian National Socialist Party Centre Party Lads Society National Action (Australia) National Socialist Network National Socialist Party of Australia Progressive Nationalist Party Reclaim Australia True Blue Crew United Patriots Front South America Agrarian Labor Party Argentine Anticommunist Alliance Argentine Fascist Party Argentine Nationalist Action Argentine Patriotic League Bolivian Socialist Falange Brazilian Integralism Brazilian Integralist Action Brazilian Integralist Front Falangism in Latin America Female Peronist Party Iron Guard (Argentina) Nacionalismo National Fascist Party (Argentina) National Fascist Union Nationalist Liberation Alliance National Liberation Movement National Socialist Movement of Chile National Universitary Concentration New Triumph Party Patriot Front (Argentina) Popular Dignity Popular Freedom Alliance Popular Representation Party Popular Socialist Vanguard Republican League La Resistencia Dios, Patria y Familia Revolutionary Union Tacuara Nationalist Movement People Australia Campbell (Eric) Campbell (Graeme) Cottrell Groot Mills Saleam Austria Dollfuss Miklas Pfrimer Planetta Schuschnigg Seyss-Inquart Starhemberg Belgium Daye Declercq Degrelle Denis Elias Eriksson Hermans Lagrou Poulet Severen Streel van de Wiele Croatia Boban Francetić Kraljević Kvaternik Luburić Pavelić Pavičić Rover Servatzy Finland Helanen Isotalo Kalsta Konkka Kosola Orko Simojoki Somersalo Törni Varjonen France Augier Bardèche Benoist-Méchin Béraud Brasillach Bucard Châteaubriant Déat Déroulède Dior Doriot La Rochelle Lagardelle Laval Pétain Rebatet Myatt Valois Vial Germany Abetz Andrae Baeumler Berchtold Berger Best Brunner Bühler Darré Falkenhausen Hocke Feder Forster Frank Franz V Gesche Goebbels Göring Graf Greiser Günther Hanke Heiden Hess Heydrich Himmler Hitler Klintzsch Kuhn Kühnen Ludendorff Maurice Müller Niekisch Ploetz Rahn Reitsch Remer Renthe-Fink Ribbentrop Rieger Rosenberg Schmitt Schreck Skorzeny Strasser (Gregor) Strasser (Otto) Streicher Terboven Thadden Krosigk Zündel Greece Dragoumis Kasidiaris Koryzis Lagos Michaloliakos Papadopoulos India Advani Bose Godse Golwalkar Hedgewar Modi Mukherjee Savarkar Vajpayee Iran Forouhar Kashani Monshizadeh Pezeshkpour Teymourtash Israel Ahimeir Ben-Ari Ben-Gvir Eldad Eliyahu Goldstein Gopstein Greenberg Ha'ivri Heruti Kahane Marzel Natan-Zada Stern Yeivin Italy Acerbo Alfieri Ambris D'Annunzio Azara Badoglio Balbo Torrente Ballester Bastianini Bianchi Boni Bono Boselli Bottai Ciano (Costanzo) Ciano (Galeazzo) Cogni Corradini Evola Freda Gentile Giuriati Gozi Grandi Graziani Guidi Malaparte Marinetti Michels Morgagni Mussolini Olivetti Panunzio Papini Pavolini Rauti Ricci Ridruejo Rocco Rossoni Sarfatti Soffici Spirito Volpi Japan Akao Araki Chō Hashimoto Honjō Kita Kodama Matsuoka Nonaka Ōkawa Sasakawa Romania Antonescu Bacaloglu Codreanu Crainic Cuza Gigurtu Goga Manoilescu Moța Ogoranu Sima Russia Ayo Astroŭski Barkashov Borovikov Dugin Dugina Ilyin Kaminski Kuryokhin Letov Limonov Martsinkevich Milchakov Oktan Prilepin Prokhanov Rodzaevsky Stojadinović Zhirinovsky Spain Arrese Bau Nolla Bilbao Eguía Carrero Blanco Fernández-Cuesta Franco Franco y Polo Giménez Caballero Primo de Rivera Ramos Sánchez Mazas Serrano Suñer Ukraine Bandera Biletsky Dontsov Gubarev Klyachkivsky Lebed Rebet Samchuk Shukhevych Stetsko Tyahnybok Vitrenko United Kingdom Beckett Chamberlain Chesterton Griffin Jordan Leese Mosley (Diana) Mosley (Oswald) Pankhurst Pearson Ramsay Southgate Tyndall Wellesley United States Abascal Anglin Auernheimer Biggs Black Butler Carto Collins Dilling Duke Enoch Frankhouser Fuentes Garza Graves Heimbach Hall Invictus Jones Joyce Kessler Lane LaRouche Lindbergh MacDonald Mason Metzger Miller Mills Minadeo Mullins Nordean Patsalos Pelley Pierce Pound Rockwell Rubin Smith Spencer Strom Tarrio Thomson Trump Vonsyatsky Yockey Other Arana Osorio Arcand D'Aubuisson Bahçeli Blythe Bushati Caetano Carrasco Castillo Armas Celmiņš Cerro Clausen Coughlin Devi O'Duffy Ďurčanský Frashëri al-Gaylani Genoud Gömbös Gustloff Hácha Hamidov Hamsun Hlinka al-Husayni al-Husseini Lee Linderman Ljotić Lugones Lukov Mach Madero Martínez Merlika-Kruja Noreika Piasecki Perón Phibunsongkhram Preto Puyi Quisling Ramírez Rhee Riva-Agüero y Osma Rupnik Saadeh Salgado Sayigh Šešelj Szálasi Terre'Blanche Tiso Tsankov Vikernes Wang Weinstein Works Literature 1776 Returns La Conquista del Estado The Culture of Critique Defiance Did Six Million Really Die? The Doctrine of Fascism Fascist Manifesto For My Legionaries The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia The Fourth Political Theory Hitlers Zweites Buch Hunter Impeachment of Man Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus Kokutairon and Pure Socialism The Last Will of a Russian Fascist Manifesto of Race Manifesto of the Fascist Intellectuals Mein Kampf My Autobiography My Life The Myth of the Twentieth Century OPROP! Our Race Will Rule Undisputed Over The World Protestantische Rompilger A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century Siege The Turner Diaries Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews A Warning to the Hindus Who Are the Mind Benders? Periodicals Action Ajan Suunta L'Alba El Alcázar The American Review Der Angriff Arriba The Blackshirt La Conquista del Estado The Daily Stormer Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung Das Deutsche Mädel La Difesa della Razza Eleftheros Kosmos The European Fashist Fashizmi La France au travail Fritt Folk Fronten Gândirea Gioventù Fascista Golden Dawn Hamaas Hrvatski Domobran Je suis partout Kangura Kansallissosialisti Limonka Masada2000 Münchener Beobachter Nash Put' Nástup Nation Europa Neue Anthropologie Neues Volk Het Nieuwe Volk Norsk-Tysk Tidsskrift Novopress Norsk-Tysk Tidsskrift Organiser Panchjanya Panzerbär Parole der Woche Le Pays Réel Der Pimpf Il Popolo d'Italia Das Reich Revue d'histoire du fascisme Das Schwarze Korps Sfarmă-Piatră Signal Siniristi Spearhead Der Stürmer Türkische Post Der Umbruch Vairas Vlajka Volk en Staat Völkischer Beobachter Die Wehrmacht Wochenspruch der NSDAP Film L'Armata Azzurra Bengasi Condottieri The Daughter of the Samurai Erbkrank Europa: The Last Battle The Great Appeal The Old Guard Raza Scipio Africanus: The Defeat of Hannibal Der Sieg des Glaubens The Siege of the Alcazar Lo squadrone bianco Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht Triumph of the Will Other Allach Ethnic Cleansing Related topics Art of the Third Reich Fascist architecture Heroic realism Hindutva pop Nazi architecture Nazism and cinema Organizations Institutional Ahnenerbe Chamber of Fasces and Corporations Grand Council of Fascism Imperial Way Faction Italian Nationalist Association National Socialist League of the Reich for Physical Exercise Quadrumvirs Activist Adelaide Institute Agrarian Trade Union Federation The Britons Casuals United DeVlag European Social Movement Finnish Realm Union Francisco Franco National Foundation Friends of New Germany German American Bund GRECE The Link Mladorossi National Party of Europe National Policy Institute National Popular Consciousness People's Party Our Slovakia Popular Force Party Republic (Slovakia) Resistance Records Right Club Russian Fascist Organization Youth Adler und Falke Albanian Lictor Youth Arab Lictor Youth Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha Blue-and-Blacks Ethiopian Lictor Youth Fascist Union of Youth Frente de Juventudes Al-Futuwwa Gioventù Italiana del Littorio Great Japan Youth Party Hitler Youth Faith and Beauty Society Deutsches Jungvolk Jungmädelbund League of German Girls Jeunesse Populaire Française Juventudes de Acción Popular Korean National Youth Association Levente Mocidade Portuguesa Nationale Jeugdstorm National League of Sweden National Socialist Liberation Front National Youth (Sweden) National Youth (Italy) National Youth Alliance National Youth Organisation (Greece) Opera Nazionale Balilla Österreichisches Jungvolk Patriotic/Eureka Youth League Union of Fascist Little Ones Union of Young Fascists – Vanguard (boys) Union of Young Fascists – Vanguard (girls) Ustaše Youth Wiking-Jugend Youth Front Paramilitary and terrorist Abhinav Bharat Albanian Fascist Militia Atomwaffen Division Azov Brigade Bajrang Dal The Base Battle Organization of Russian Nationalists Black Brigades Black Legion Blackshirts Blueshirts (Canada) Blueshirts (Ireland) Column 88 Combat Terrorist Organization Confederation of the Nation Corpul Muncitoresc Legionar Croatian Defence Forces Croatian National Resistance Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood Bugojno group Einsatzgruppen Fasci di Azione Rivoluzionaria Falange Armata Falange Militia FEAR Flemish Guard Flemish Legion Frontbann Gold Shirts Hilfspolizei Hitler Youth Greenshirts (Romania) Greyshirts Heimwehr Hirden Hlinka Guard Hungarian National Defence Association Interbrigades Iron Wolf Jewish Defense League Jewish Defense Organization Kataeb Regulatory Forces Lăncieri Legion Wasa Lehava Lehi Levente Makapili Mano Blanca National Republican Guard National Socialism / White Power New Guard The Order Ostmärkische Sturmscharen Rodobrana Russian Imperial Movement Russian National Unity (2000) S14 Schutzstaffel Serbian Volunteer Corps Sicarii Sich Battalion Silver Shirts Sturmabteilung Sudetendeutsches Freikorps Terror Against Terror Third Klan Ukrainian Insurgent Army Ukrainian People's Militsiya Ustaše Militia Volkssport Walloon Guard Walloon Legion Waffen-SS Wagner Group Rusich Group Weerbaarheidsafdeling Werwolf Westland New Post Yokusan Sonendan Youth Front Student Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad Avanguardia Giovanile Fascista Frente de Estudiantes Sindicalistas German Student Union National Socialist German Students' League Sindicato Español Universitario Student Action International Axis powers NSDAP/AO ODESSA History 1900s Herero and Nama genocide and the Holocaust 1910s Arditi Fascio Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria Armenian genocide and the Holocaust 1920s March on Rome Corfu incident Acerbo Law Beer Hall Putsch Aventine Secession Italian economic battles Le Faisceau 28 May 1926 coup d'état Libyan genocide 1930s March of the Iron Will November 1932 German federal election March 1933 German federal election Enabling Act Austrian Civil War July Putsch 1934 Montreux Fascist conference Romani Holocaust 4th of August Regime Anti-Comintern Pact Spanish Civil War 1940s World War II Nazi crimes against the Polish nation The Holocaust Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia End in Italy Nuremberg Trials Tokyo Trials Lists Anti-fascists Books about Hitler British fascist parties Fascist movements by country (A-F G-M N-T U-Z) Nazi ideologues Nazi leaders Secretaries of Italian fascist parties Speeches by Hitler SS personnel Related topics Authoritarian conservatism Chiangism Francoism Khomeinism Maurrassisme Pinochetism Putinism Ziaism Alt-right Alt-lite Alt-right pipeline Alt-tech Identitarian movement Anti-fascism Berlusconism Conservative Revolution Criticism of fascism Europe a Nation Fascist (epithet) Fascist mysticism Feudal fascism F-scale (personality test) Garveyism Germanisation of Poles during the Partitions Italianization of South Tyrol Japanization Morenazi Neosocialism Para/semi-fascism Post-fascism Proto-fascism Red fascism Red–green–brown alliance Roman salute Sansepolcrismo Scientific racism Aryanism Nordicism Social fascism Sorelianism Synarchism Szeged Idea Trumpism Donald Trump and fascism Völkisch movement Women in Nazi Germany Category v t e Heinrich Himmler Reichsführer-SS Chief of German Police Minister of the Interior Reichsführer-SS Ideology of the SS Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS Freundeskreis Reichsführer-SS ("Circle of Friends of the Reichsführer-SS") Adolf Hitler Reinhard Heydrich (Chief of the RSHA) Ernst Kaltenbrunner (successor as Chief of the RSHA) Karl Wolff (Chief of Personal Staff) Hedwig Potthast (secretary) Rudolf Brandt (Personal Administrative Officer to RFSS) Hermann Gauch (adjutant) Werner Grothmann (aide-de-camp) Heinz Macher (second personal assistant) Walter Schellenberg (personal aide) Karl Maria Wiligut (occultist) Organizations Schutzstaffel Gestapo Ahnenerbe Lebensborn Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion Responsibility for the Holocaust The Holocaust Romani genocide Crimes against Poles Crimes against Soviet POWs Persecution of Slavs in Eastern Europe Persecution of homosexuals Persecution of Serbs Suppression of Freemasonry Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses Persecution of black people Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS Deutsche Volksliste Operation Reinhard Hegewald Posen speeches Himmler-Kersten Agreement Family Margarete Himmler (wife) Gudrun Burwitz (daughter) Hedwig Potthast (mistress) Gebhard Ludwig (older brother) Ernst (younger brother) Katrin Himmler (great-niece) Heinz Kokott (brother-in-law) Richard Wendler (brother-in-law) Military Operation Himmler Army Group Upper Rhine Army Group Vistula Operation Nordwind Failed assassins Václav Morávek Thomas Sneum Claus von Stauffenberg Henning von Tresckow People Erhard Heiden (predecessor as Reichsführer-SS) Karl Hanke (successor as Reichsführer-SS) Falk Zipperer (closest friend) Karl Gebhardt (personal physician) Felix Kersten (personal masseur) Hugo Blaschke (dentist) Sidney Excell (man who arrested Himmler) v t e The Holocaust By territory Albania Austria Belgium Bulgaria Czechoslovakia Bohemia and Moravia Slovakia Sudetenland Denmark Estonia France Germany Greece Bulgarian-occupied Greece Hungary Italy and colonies Libya Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Romania Soviet Union Belarus Russia Ukraine Yugoslavia Croatia Serbia Overview Evidence and documentation Contemporary knowledge Hidden children Timeline Response International response Japan Philippines Portugal Spain Sweden Turkey United States Vatican Rescue of Jews by Catholics by Poles Righteous Among the Nations Camps and ghettos Concentration Auschwitz Bergen-Belsen Buchenwald Dachau Flossenbürg Gross-Rosen Herzogenbusch Hinzert Kaiserwald Kauen Kraków-Płaszów Majdanek Mauthausen and Gusen Mittelbau-Dora Natzweiler-Struthof Neuengamme Ravensbrück Sachsenhausen Stutthof Vaivara Warsaw Extermination Auschwitz II-Birkenau Belzec Chełmno Majdanek Sobibor Treblinka Transit be Breendonk Mechelen fr Gurs Drancy it Bolzano Risiera di San Sabba nl Amersfoort Schoorl Westerbork sk Sereď Methods Einsatzgruppen Gas van Gas chamber Extermination through labour Human experimentation Death marches Nazi units SS-Totenkopfverbände Concentration Camps Inspectorate Politische Abteilung Sanitätswesen Ghettos (list) Poland Białystok Kraków Łódź Lublin Lwów Radom Warsaw Elsewhere Budapest Kovno Minsk Riga Theresienstadt Vilna Judenrat Jewish Ghetto Police Reich Association of Jews in Germany Ústredňa Židov Victims Jews Roundups Izieu Marseille Vel' d'Hiv Pogroms Kristallnacht Bucharest Dorohoi Iași 1941 pogroms in eastern Poland Jedwabne Lviv in Lithuania Kaunas "Final Solution" Wannsee Conference Operation Reinhard Holocaust trains Mass executions Einsatzgruppen Babi Yar Harvest Festival Kamianets-Podilskyi Maly Trostenets Ninth Fort Odesa Piaśnica Ponary Rumbula Resistance Jewish partisans Bielski partisans Ghetto uprisings Warsaw Białystok Częstochowa Rescue Aid and Rescue Committee Attack on the twentieth convoy Kastner train Le Chambon-sur-Lignon Danish underground Working Group Żegota Others Soviet POWs Soviet urban residents Civilians targeted during anti-partisan warfare People with disabilities Romani people Polish leaders and intellectuals Homosexuals Jehovah's Witnesses Responsibility List of major perpetrators of the Holocaust Organizations Nazi Party Schutzstaffel (SS) Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) Referat IV B4 Sicherheitsdienst (SD) Ordnungspolizei (Orpo) Waffen-SS Wehrmacht Units Einsatzgruppen Police Regiments Order Police battalions Collaborators Arajs Kommando Lithuanian Security Police Nederlandsche SS Rollkommando Hamann Special Brigades Topf and Sons Trawnikis Ukrainian Auxiliary Police Ypatingasis būrys Early elements Aftermath Remembrance Early elements Nazi racial policy Nazi eugenics Nuremberg Laws Haavara Agreement Hitler's prophecy Jewish war conspiracy theory Jewish emigration Kindertransport Madagascar Plan Nisko Plan Forced euthanasia (Action T4) Aftermath Depopulated shtetls Holocaust survivors Sh'erit ha-Pletah Bricha List Postwar violence Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law Nuremberg trials Eichmann trial Holocaust restitution Reparations Agreement Holocaust denial trivialization History and memory Academia Books and other resources Days of remembrance Education Films Lessons Memorials and museums Uniqueness Armenian genocide and the Holocaust Humor Righteous Among the Nations Yad Vashem Yizkor books "Never again" v t e Nazism Organisation Ahnenerbe Artaman League Geheime Staatspolizei Deutscher Fichte-Bund Deutsches Jungvolk Franz Eher Nachfolger Hitler Youth League of German Girls Organisation Todt NSDÄB NSDStB NSRL NSFK NSKK NSF Nazi media organizations Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte Neues Volk NS-Frauen-Warte Das Reich Das Schwarze Korps Nazi Party Sicherheitsdienst (SD) Sturmabteilung (SA) Schutzstaffel (SS) SS Gefolge Waffen-SS History Early timeline National Socialist Program Hitler's rise to power Machtergreifung Gleichschaltung German rearmament Nazi Germany Kirchenkampf Adolf Hitler's cult of personality Enabling Act of 1933 Night of the Long Knives Nuremberg rallies Nuremberg Laws Anti-Comintern Pact Kristallnacht Anschluss World War II The Holocaust 1938–1939 German expedition to Tibet Tripartite Pact Denazification Nuremberg trials Final solution Concentration camps Deportations Doctors' Trial Extermination camps Genocide Ghettos Human experimentation Labour camps Pogroms Racial segregation Ideology Aestheticization of politics Anti-communism Anti-intellectualism Anti-liberalism Anti-pacifism Blood and soil Chauvinism Class collaboration Conspiracism Dolchstoßlegende "International Jewry" Judeo-Bolshevism Corporatism Cult of personality Dictatorship Führerprinzip Direct action Economic interventionism Eugenics Geopolitik Heimat Imperialism Greater Germanic Reich Heim ins Reich Lebensraum Pan-Germanism Militarism Nationalism Ethno Racial Palingenetic Revolutionary Ultra New Man New Order One-party state Populism Propaganda Prussianism Racism Antisemitism Anti-Slavic sentiment Aryan race Aryanism Master race Nordicism Nordic Indo-Germanic people Renordification Rassenschande Untermenschen Völkisch equality Völkisch movement Reactionary modernism Romanticism Social Darwinism Social interventionism Social order State capitalism Syncretism Totalitarianism Volksgemeinschaft Volk ohne Raum Volkskörper Politicians Bierbaumer Bloem Bormann Daluege Dönitz Drexler Eichmann Esser Fischer Frank Frick Hess Heydrich Himmler Hitler Goebbels Göring Keller Lammers Lutze Mitford von Neurath Quisling von Ribbentrop Röhm Schacht von Schirach Scholtz-Klink Seldte Seyss-Inquart Speer Strasser (Gregor) Strasser (Otto) Streicher Ideologues Pre-Machtergreifung Arndt Burnouf Chamberlain Drumont Eckart Fritsch de Gobineau Grant von Liebenfels von List Löns Lueger Marr Nietzsche (Contentious) Ratzel Riehl Ruskin Wagner Post-Machtergreifung Anacker Baeumler Bergmann Berndt Darré Eggers Eichrodt Feder Ford Grimm Günther Hauer Haushofer Heidegger (Contentious) Hentschel Hoche al-Husseini Jung Krannhals Kriek Lindbergh Müller Plenge Rahn Rosenberg Saadeh Schäfer Schmalenbach Schmitt (Contentious) von Sebottendorf Schwarz Stapel Wirsing Zimmermann Atrocities and war crimes Action T4 Nazi concentration camps Extermination camp Final Solution Human experimentation Romani genocide Outside Germany Americas Brazil Chile Europe Greece Sweden Parties American Nazi Party Arrow Cross Party (Hungary) German American Bund German National Movement in Liechtenstein Nasjonal Samling (Norway) National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands National Socialist Movement of Chile National Socialist Movement (United States) National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark Nordic Resistance Movement Ossewabrandwag (South Africa) SUMKA (Iran) Syrian Social Nationalist Party Tsagaan Khas (Mongolia) World Union of National Socialists Lists Bibliography of Adolf Hitler Nazi ideologues NSDAP leaders and officials Nazi Party members Last surviving war crime suspects Party ideologues Speeches given by Adolf Hitler SS personnel Role and impact in German society The Wehrmacht Economy Nobility Related topics Anti-Bolshevist League Art Architecture Cinema Atsızism "Beefsteak Nazi" Economy Denordification Renordification Glossary Drang nach Osten Generalplan Ost German American Bund Horst-Wessel-Lied Political views of Adolf Hitler Nazi propaganda and the United Kingdom Racial theories Sorelianism Strasserism Women Category