The SS already had strong influence over the German war effort because it controlled the supply of forced labour to German industry, giving it huge financial resources and control over the country's economy. After the Bomb Plot this influence grew and Himmler ordered that the Waffen-SS be accorded a higher priority for receiving weapons and equipment.

The army and the Luftwaffe were also stripped of responsibility for the V-rocket programmes. Even before the first V-1s and V-2s were fired in anger, their potential as possible war-winning weapons was recognized by Himmler. He was determined that the SS would control and take the glory for these weapons. In February 1944, Himmler began to pressure the army's top missile scientist, Werner von Braun, to transfer from the army to the SS. When this failed, he had Braun and several other key scientists working at the Peenemünde missile research centre arrested on the charge that they were wasting valuable resources. General Walter Dornberger, who was the army's commissioner for special duties in charge of the development, training and operation of V-2 units, was able to secure the scientists' release after claiming the rocket programme was falling behind without their irreplaceable expertise.

The SS, however, moved fast to secure control of the V-weapons. Himmler appointed Hans Kammler, head of the SS construction office, to lead the SS V-weapon division, with Dornberger reduced to the status of his deputy. In January 1945, Kammler had managed to expand his empire to include full control of the Luftwaffe's V-1 programme. Kammler played a key role in controlling the V-2 operations in Holland, with a special SS unit operating missile-launch sites around The Hague. The strength of SS-Werfer Abteilung 500 was eight officers and about four hundred men, with about one hundred vehicles and missile launchers. When the rocket units were forced out of Holland in April 1945, Kammler regrouped them around the Nordhausen factory to stage a last stand as infantry.

Meanwhile, in the summer of 1944 Himmler was able to get himself appointed as commander of the Replacement Army, which was responsible for the recruitment, training and allocation to units of all German conscripts. The SS now had total control of the stream of manpower into its ranks. More than half of the Waffen-SS divisions were formed during this period,. The last nine months of the war, however, were characterized by a virtual collapse of the army and Waffen-SS training units as they were plundered ruthlessly by Himmler to form new Waffen-SS and army units with grand titles. Himmler put a premium on forming new units rather than rebuilding old ones. This meant he was eventually forced to draft in the instructors and other key staff from training schools and depots to form the command staff of the new units. Not only did this starve existing units of new recruits, but it meant there was no training infrastructure left to generate new replacements. Himmler did not allow the new units time to train properly before sending them to the front. When they were committed to battle they were quickly decimated. This was a double disaster, because there was no one left to train the next generation of Waffen-SS men.

As commander of the Replacement Army, Himmler was in charge of preparing for the defence of German territory. He placed local district Nazi chiefs, or Gauleiters, in charge of the defence of their regions rather than the army. So incompetent political hacks were given the job of organizing Germany's defences. Few supplies and little equipment were available for the hundreds of thousands of Volkssturm local militia forces that were mobilized to bolster the regular Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS. The only thing that Himmler seemed to organize properly were the execution squads from the SS, SD and Gestapo that were set up to roam behind the front and prevent desertions. They left a terrible legacy of butchery in the final days of Hitler's Reich.

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