The SS-Totenkopfverbönde

At the same time as the SS-VT was set up, Himmler also established a rival branch eventually dubbed the SS-Totenkopfverbönde (SS-TV), or Death's Head Units. This was the responsibility of the head of the concentration camp guard force, Eicke, who set up the first of these infamous camps at Dachau, outside Munich, in 1933. By early 1938, in addition to a string of prison camps around Germany holding thousands of inmates in poor conditions, the SS-TV mustered three regiments of fully motorized troops equipped with machine guns and other light weapons. The Oberbayern Regiment was based at Dachau in Bavaria, the Brandenberg Regiment operated from Oranienberg concentration camp outside Berlin, and the Thüringen Regiment ran the Buchenwald camp near Weimar. It was intended that they would reinforce the SS-VT troops in times of crisis, but also allowed Himmler and Hitler to play off rival SS officers against each other. Eicke was a brutal thug who showed no pity towards the inmates of his camps. He indoctrinated his men to believe they were responsible for imprisoning Germany's most dangerous enemies, and instructed them to show no mercy. The most minor infringements of his camp rules were to be dealt with by severe beatings and other forms of torture.

The growth in Himmler's power

This period also saw Himmler move to spread the tentacles of the SS into every sphere of German life. In June 1936, Hitler designated Himmler as head of the unified German police system, as well as head, or Reichsführer, of the SS and chief of the secret police - the infamous Gehieme Staatspolizei, or Gestapo. In this capacity the SS became responsible for all the apparatus of the Nazi police state. Its members were now the masters of terror in Hitler's Germany. By 1939 all the security police organizations of Hitler's Third Reich were brought under the control of Himmler's loyal henchman, Reinhard Heydrich, via the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RHSA), or Reich Central Security Office. This included the SD, the Gestapo, the ordinary criminal police (Kriminalpolizei, or Kripo) and security police (Sicherheitspolizei, or Sipo). Heydrich epitomized the Nazi police state. He was ambitious, ruthless and totally loyal to Hitler.

SS racial offices

As well as its armed and security branches, the SS also eventually boasted unusual organizations such as the SS marriage bureau, the Rasse-und Siedlungshauptamt (Central Office for Race and Resettlement, or RuSHA), which first had the responsibility of confirming the racial purity of the brides of SS men. There was also the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (German Racial Assistance Office, or VOMI), which was charged with protecting the well-being of ethnic Germans living outside the borders of the Reich. These groups then helped in the establishment of the Reichskommisariat für die Festigung des Deutschen Volkstums (Reich Office for the Consolidation of the German Nationhood, or RKFDV), which was nominally responsible for the movement of ethnic Germans back into Reich territory, but was really a cover for the deportation and eventual extermination of Jews, Slavs and other groups considered untermenschen (sub-humans) by Hitler. It finally spawned the SS Wirtschafts-und Verwaltungshauptamt (Economic and Administrative Central Office, or WVHA), which was in charge of the concentration camp system and the "Final Solution" of the Jewish problem (the leaders of these organizations developed bland euphemisms for the mass murder of most of Europe's Jews).

prev | next