Misplaced Pages

#835164

150-700: According to German law, all executive powers in the deployment areas passed to the Wehrmacht armed forces. Overstrained and incapable to construct a civil administration, the German Army High Command willingly put these tasks to the CdZ. In the capacity as Reichsstatthalter governor, the office was under the authority of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, but operationally CdZ was under

300-857: A joint campaign with the Italian Army , and may be considered a separate theatre . More than 6,000,000 soldiers were wounded during the conflict, while more than 11,000,000 became prisoners. In all, approximately 5,318,000 soldiers from Germany and other nationalities fighting for the German armed forces—including the Waffen-SS , Volkssturm and foreign collaborationist units—are estimated to have been killed in action, died of wounds, died in custody or gone missing in World War II. Included in this number are 215,000 Soviet citizens conscripted by Germany. According to Frank Biess, German casualties took

450-719: 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

600-536: A clandestine cadre of air force officers in the early 1920s. These officers saw the role of an air force as winning air superiority, strategic bombing, and close air support. That the Luftwaffe did not develop a strategic bombing force in the 1930s was not due to a lack of interest, but because of economic limitations. The leadership of the Navy led by Grand Admiral Erich Raeder , a close protégé of Alfred von Tirpitz ,

750-664: A few of the Wehrmacht ' s upper leadership went on trial for war crimes, despite evidence suggesting that more were involved in illegal actions. According to Ian Kershaw , most of the three million Wehrmacht soldiers who invaded the USSR participated in war crimes. The German term "Wehrmacht " stems from the compound word of German : wehren , "to defend" and Macht , "power, force". It has been used to describe any nation's armed forces; for example, Britische Wehrmacht meaning "British Armed Forces". The Frankfurt Constitution of 1849 designated all German military forces as

900-543: 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

1050-598: 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

1200-624: 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

1350-620: 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,

1500-408: A single Joint Chief of Staff, Hitler refused. Even after the defeat at Stalingrad, Hitler refused, stating that Göring as Reichsmarschall and Hitler's deputy, would not submit to someone else or see himself as an equal to other service commanders. However, a more likely reason was Hitler feared it would break his image of having the "Midas touch" concerning military strategy. With the creation of

1650-701: 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

SECTION 10

#1732790093836

1800-764: A sudden jump with the defeat of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad in January 1943, when 180,310 soldiers were killed in one month. Among the 5.3 million Wehrmacht casualties during the Second World War, more than 80 per cent died during the last two years of the war. Approximately three-quarters of these losses occurred on the Eastern front (2.7 million) and during the final stages of the war between January and May 1945 (1.2 million). Jeffrey Herf wrote that: Whereas German deaths between 1941 and 1943 on

1950-604: A time frame of 10 years for remilitarization, but soon shortened it to four years. With the remilitarization of the Rhineland and the Anschluss , the German Reich's territory increased significantly, providing a larger population pool for conscription. Recruitment for the Wehrmacht was accomplished through voluntary enlistment and conscription, with 1.3 million being drafted and 2.4 million volunteering in

2100-586: 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

2250-755: The Polnische Wehrmacht ('Polish Wehrmacht', 'Polish Defense Force') in German. In January 1919, after World War I ended with the signing of the armistice of 11 November 1918 , the armed forces were dubbed Friedensheer (peace army). In March 1919, the national assembly passed a law founding a 420,000-strong preliminary army, the Vorläufige Reichswehr . The terms of the Treaty of Versailles were announced in May, and in June, Germany signed

2400-525: The Reichswehr , was established on 23 March 1921. General conscription was abolished under another mandate of the Versailles treaty. The Reichswehr was limited to 115,000 men, and thus the armed forces, under the leadership of Hans von Seeckt , retained only the most capable officers. The American historians Alan Millet and Williamson Murray wrote "In reducing the officers corps, Seeckt chose

2550-594: 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

2700-458: The 2nd SS Panzer Division "Das Reich" when it was reorganised as a Panzergrenadier division in 1942. 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

2850-552: 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

3000-555: The Battle of France , from 1940, CdZ officials were appointed in those western occupied territories that were not (yet) officially annexed by the Third Reich: Further CdZ assumed office upon the 1941 Balkan Campaign : After the beginning of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, a CdZ-Gebiet Bialystok under Erich Koch , Gauleiter of East Prussia , was established on Polish territory previously occupied by

3150-581: The Battle of Moscow , the Siege of Leningrad , Stalingrad , Tunis in North Africa , and the Battle of Kursk . The German Army was managed through mission-based tactics (rather than order-based tactics) which was intended to give commanders greater freedom to act on events and exploit opportunities. In public opinion, the German Army was, and sometimes still is, seen as a high-tech army. However, such modern equipment, while featured much in propaganda,

SECTION 20

#1732790093836

3300-548: 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

3450-531: 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

3600-515: The Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber. The planes cooperated closely with the ground forces. Overwhelming numbers of fighters assured air-supremacy, and the bombers would attack command- and supply-lines, depots, and other support targets close to the front. The Luftwaffe would also be used to transport paratroopers, as first used during Operation Weserübung . Due to the Army's sway with Hitler,

3750-479: The Luftwaffe was often subordinated to the Army, resulting in it being used as a tactical support role and losing its strategic capabilities. The Western Allies' strategic bombing campaign against German industrial targets (particularly the round-the-clock Combined Bomber Offensive ) and Germany's Defence of the Reich deliberately forced the Luftwaffe into a war of attrition. With German fighter force destroyed,

3900-629: 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

4050-762: The OKH became the de facto Eastern Theatre higher-echelon command-organization for the Wehrmacht , excluding Waffen-SS except for operational and tactical combat purposes. The OKW conducted operations in the Western Theatre. The operations by the Kriegsmarine in the North and Mid-Atlantic can also be considered as separate theatres, considering the size of the area of operations and their remoteness from other theatres. The Wehrmacht fought on other fronts, sometimes three simultaneously; redeploying troops from

4200-471: The SS and Wehrmacht , many SS officers were former army officers, which ensured continuity and understanding between the two. Throughout the war, army and SS soldiers worked together in various combat situations, creating bonds between the two groups. Guderian noted that every day the war continued the Army and the SS became closer together. Towards the end of the war, army units would even be placed under

4350-599: The SS was to be "procured from the Wehrmacht upon payment", however "in peacetime, no organizational connection with the Wehrmacht exists." The army was however allowed to check the budget of the SS and inspect the combat readiness of the SS troops. In the event of mobilization, the Waffen-SS field units could be placed under the operational control of the OKW or the OKH. All decisions regarding this would be at Hitler's personal discretion. Though there existed conflict between

4500-445: The SS were stepped up as well. Following the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, fitness and physical health standards for Wehrmacht recruits were drastically lowered, with the regime going so far as to create "special diet" battalions for men with severe stomach ailments. Rear-echelon personnel were more often sent to front-line duty wherever possible, especially during the final two years of the war where, inspired by constant propaganda,

4650-502: 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

Chief of Civil Administration - Misplaced Pages Continue

4800-588: 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

4950-408: 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

5100-539: The Soviet Union (1941) and North Africa (1941/42) are regarded by historians as acts of boldness. At the same time, the extent of advances strained the Wehrmacht's capacity to the breaking point, culminating in its first major defeat in the Battle of Moscow (1941); by late 1942, Germany was losing the initiative in all theatres. The German operational art proved no match to that of the Allied coalition , making

5250-539: The Soviet Union , converted into District Bialystok on 1 August 1941. Wehrmacht The Wehrmacht ( German pronunciation: [ˈveːɐ̯maxt] , lit.   ' defence force ' ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the Luftwaffe (air force). The designation " Wehrmacht " replaced

5400-662: The Soviet Union , including the Caucasian Muslim Legion , Turkestan Legion , Crimean Tatars, ethnic Ukrainians and Russians, Cossacks , and others who wished to fight against the Soviet regime or who were otherwise induced to join. Between 15,000 and 20,000 anti-communist White émigrés who had left Russia after the Russian Revolution joined the ranks of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS , with 1,500 acting as interpreters and more than 10,000 serving in

5550-491: The Spanish Civil War . The effectiveness of officer training and recruitment by the Wehrmacht has been identified as a major factor in its early victories as well as its ability to keep the war going as long as it did even as the war turned against Germany. As the Second World War intensified, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe personnel were increasingly transferred to the army, and "voluntary" enlistments in

5700-521: 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 . 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

5850-636: 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

6000-454: The Wehrmacht's weaknesses in strategy, doctrine, and logistics apparent. Closely cooperating with the SS and their Einsatzgruppen death squads, the German armed forces committed numerous war crimes (despite later denials and promotion of the myth of the clean Wehrmacht ). The majority of the war crimes took place in the Soviet Union, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Italy, as part of

6150-756: The war of annihilation against the Soviet Union, the Holocaust and Nazi security warfare . During World War II about 18 million men served in the Wehrmacht . By the time the war ended in Europe in May 1945, German forces (consisting of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine , the Luftwaffe , the Waffen-SS , the Volkssturm , and foreign collaborator units ) had lost approximately 11,300,000 men, about 5,318,000 of whom were missing, killed or died in captivity. Only

Chief of Civil Administration - Misplaced Pages Continue

6300-524: The " battle of annihilation ", the Wehrmacht managed many lightning quick victories in the first year of World War II, prompting foreign journalists to create a new word for what they witnessed: Blitzkrieg . Germany's immediate military success on the field at the start of the Second World War coincides the favorable beginning they achieved during the First World War, a fact which some attribute to their superior officer corps. The Heer entered

6450-695: The "German Wehrmacht ", consisting of the Seemacht (sea force) and the Landmacht (land force). In 1919, the term Wehrmacht also appears in Article 47 of the Weimar Constitution , establishing that: "The Reich's President holds supreme command of all armed forces [i.e. the Wehrmacht ] of the Reich". From 1919, Germany's national defense force was known as the Reichswehr , a name that

6600-402: 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

6750-951: The Armed Forces, retaining the position until his suicide on 30 April 1945. The title of Commander-in-Chief was given to the Minister of the Reichswehr Werner von Blomberg , who was simultaneously renamed the Reich Minister of War. Following the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair , Blomberg resigned and Hitler abolished the Ministry of War. As a replacement for the ministry, the Wehrmacht High Command Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), under Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel ,

6900-436: 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. 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

7050-476: 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

7200-449: 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

7350-470: The British. Karl Doenitz , the U-Boat Chief, began unrestricted submarine warfare which cost the Allies 22,898 men and 1,315 ships. The U-boat war remained costly for the Allies until early spring of 1943 when the Allies began to use countermeasures against U-Boats such as the use of Hunter-Killer groups, airborne radar, torpedoes and mines like the FIDO . The submarine war cost the Kriegsmarine 757 U-boats, with more than 30,000 U-boat crewmen killed. In

7500-464: 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)

7650-423: The German armed forces prior to 1941. With the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the government's positions changed. German propagandists wanted to present the war not as a purely German concern, but as a multi-national crusade against the so-called Jewish Bolshevism . Hence, the Wehrmacht and the SS began to seek out recruits from occupied and neutral countries across Europe: the Germanic populations of

SECTION 50

#1732790093836

7800-418: The German army's early success. In the strategies of the Blitzkrieg , the Wehrmacht combined the mobility of light tanks with airborne assault to quickly progress through weak enemy lines, enabling the German army to quickly take over Poland and France. These tanks were used to break through enemy lines, isolating regiments from the main force so that the infantry behind the tanks could quickly kill or capture

7950-429: 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

8100-536: The Holocaust. 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

8250-422: The Jews serving in the Reichswehr given an automatic and immediate dishonorable discharge . Again, on his own initiative Blomberg had the armed forces adopt Nazi symbols into their uniforms in May 1934. In August of the same year, on Blomberg's initiative and that of the Ministeramt chief General Walther von Reichenau , the entire military took the Hitler oath , an oath of personal loyalty to Hitler. Hitler

8400-430: 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

8550-439: 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

8700-423: 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

8850-403: 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. On 22 June 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa , the invasion of the Soviet Union . The expanding war and

9000-441: The Netherlands and Norway were recruited largely into the SS , while "non-Germanic" people were recruited into the Wehrmacht . The "voluntary" nature of such recruitment was often dubious, especially in the later years of the war when even Poles living in the Polish Corridor were declared "ethnic Germans" and drafted. After Germany's defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad , the Wehrmacht also made substantial use of personnel from

9150-920: The OKW, Hitler solidified his control over the Wehrmacht . Showing restraint at the beginning of the war, Hitler also became increasingly involved in military operations at every scale. Additionally, there was a clear lack of cohesion between the three High Commands and the OKW, as senior generals were unaware of the needs, capabilities and limitations of the other branches. With Hitler serving as Supreme Commander, branch commands were often forced to fight for influence with Hitler. However, influence with Hitler not only came from rank and merit but also who Hitler perceived as loyal, leading to inter-service rivalry, rather than cohesion between his military advisers. The German Army furthered concepts pioneered during World War I , combining ground ( Heer ) and air force ( Luftwaffe ) assets into combined arms teams. Coupled with traditional war fighting methods such as encirclements and

SECTION 60

#1732790093836

9300-417: 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

9450-616: 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 . With Hitler's approval, Himmler assumed

9600-401: 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

9750-495: The SD diamond on the lower left sleeve. 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

9900-429: 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 ,

10050-403: 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

10200-565: 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

10350-410: 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;

10500-406: 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

10650-402: 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

10800-499: 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. 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

10950-649: 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

11100-489: 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

11250-726: 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 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 ,

11400-631: The Western Allies had air supremacy over the battlefield, denying support to German forces on the ground and using its own fighter-bombers to attack and disrupt. Following the losses in Operation Bodenplatte in 1945, the Luftwaffe was no longer an effective force. The Treaty of Versailles disallowed submarines, while limiting the size of the Reichsmarine to six battleships, six cruisers, and twelve destroyers. Following

11550-613: The appointment of Hans Frank as Governor-General on 26 October 1939. 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

11700-503: The army that existed in World War I. In the 1920s, Seeckt and his officers developed new doctrines that emphasized speed, aggression, combined arms and initiative on the part of lower officers to take advantage of momentary opportunities. Though Seeckt retired in 1926, his influence on the army was still apparent when it went to war in 1939. Germany was forbidden to have an air force by the Versailles treaty; nonetheless, Seeckt created

11850-451: 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

12000-471: 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

12150-410: The beginning, there was friction between the SS and the army, as the army feared the SS would attempt to become a legitimate part of the armed forces of Nazi Germany, partly due to the fighting between the limited armaments, and the perceived fanaticism towards Nazism. However, on 17 August 1938, Hitler codified the role of the SS and the army in order to end the feud between the two. The arming of

12300-543: The coast of Norway, which had been occupied since 1940, convoys from North America to the Soviet port of Murmansk could be intercepted though the Tirpitz spent most of her career as fleet in being . After the appointment of Karl Dönitz as Grand Admiral of the Kriegsmarine (in the aftermath of the Battle of the Barents Sea ), Germany stopped constructing battleships and cruisers in favor of U-boats. Though by 1941,

12450-515: The command of the SS , in Italy and the Netherlands. The relationship between the Wehrmacht and the SS improved; however, the Waffen-SS was never considered "the fourth branch of the Wehrmacht ." The Wehrmacht directed combat operations during World War II (from 1 September 1939 – 8 May 1945) as the German Reich 's armed forces umbrella command-organization. After 1941

12600-692: 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

12750-490: The commander-in-chief of the German Army and ultimately of Adolf Hitler as supreme commander. Hitler generally interfered in the domestic policies of the occupied territories, giving unrestricted powers to Sicherheitsdienst and SS squadrons under the command of Heinrich Himmler . Several administrative divisions under the authority of a Chief of Civil Administration were officially designated as CdZ-Gebiete (CdZ Areas, Chief of Civil Administration Territories): After

12900-503: 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

13050-559: The creation of the Wehrmacht , the navy was renamed the Kriegsmarine . With the signing of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement , Germany was allowed to increase its navy's size to be 35:100 tonnage of the Royal Navy, and allowed for the construction of U-boats. This was partly done to appease Germany, and because Britain believed the Kriegsmarine would not be able to reach the 35% limit until 1942. The navy

13200-558: 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

13350-621: The early stage of Operation Barbarossa in the Soviet Union (June 1941). After Hitler declared war on the United States in December 1941, the Axis powers found themselves engaged in campaigns against several major industrial powers while Germany was still in transition to a war economy. German units were then overextended, undersupplied, outmaneuvered, outnumbered and defeated by its enemies in decisive battles during 1941, 1942, and 1943 at

13500-555: The enemy troops. Originally outlawed by the Treaty of Versailles, the Luftwaffe was officially established in 1935, under the leadership of Hermann Göring . First gaining experience in the Spanish Civil War , it was a key element in the early Blitzkrieg campaigns (Poland, France 1940, USSR 1941). The Luftwaffe concentrated production on fighters and (small) tactical bombers, like the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter and

13650-476: 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

13800-587: 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,

13950-434: 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

14100-563: 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

14250-625: The guard force of the Russian Protective Corps . In the beginning, women in Nazi Germany were not involved in the Wehrmacht , as Hitler ideologically opposed conscription for women, stating that Germany would " not form any section of women grenade throwers or any corps of women elite snipers. " However, with many men going to the front, women were placed in auxiliary positions within the Wehrmacht , called Wehrmachtshelferinnen ( lit.   ' Female Wehrmacht Helper ' ), participating in tasks as: They were placed under

14400-488: 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

14550-514: 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

14700-753: The intensifying theatre in the East to the West after the Normandy landings caused tensions between the General Staffs of both the OKW and the OKH ;– as Germany lacked sufficient materiel and manpower for a two-front war of such magnitude. Major campaigns and battles in Eastern and Central Europe included: For a time, the Axis Mediterranean Theatre and the North African Campaign were conducted as

14850-419: 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. In response to the army's difficulties in dealing with Soviet partisans, Hitler decided in July 1942 to transfer anti-partisan operations to

15000-430: 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

15150-472: 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

15300-470: The name " Wehrmacht "; the Reichswehr was officially renamed the Wehrmacht on 21 May 1935. Hitler's proclamation of the Wehrmacht ' s existence included a total of no less than 36 divisions in its original projection, contravening the Treaty of Versailles in grandiose fashion. In December 1935, General Ludwig Beck added 48 tank battalions to the planned rearmament program. Hitler originally set

15450-476: 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

15600-411: The navy had already lost a number of its large surface ships, which could not be replenished during the war. The Kriegsmarine ' s most significant contribution to the German war effort was the deployment of its nearly 1,000 U-boats to strike at Allied convoys. The German naval strategy was to attack the convoys in an attempt to prevent the United States from interfering in Europe and to starve out

15750-420: 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

15900-578: 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 ),

16050-403: The new leadership from the best men of the general staff with ruthless disregard for other constituencies, such as war heroes and the nobility." Seeckt's determination that the Reichswehr be an elite cadre force that would serve as the nucleus of an expanded military when the chance for restoring conscription came essentially led to the creation of a new army, based upon, but very different from,

16200-529: The next decade until the Germans finally left in September 1933. However, the arms buildup was done in secrecy, until Hitler came to power and it received broad political support. After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg on 2 August 1934, Adolf Hitler assumed the office of President of Germany , and thus became commander in chief. In February 1934, the Defence Minister Werner von Blomberg , acting on his own initiative, had all of

16350-560: The oldest and youngest were being recruited and driven by instilled fear and fanaticism to serve on the fronts and, often, to fight to the death, whether judged to be cannon fodder or elite troops. Prior to World War II, the Wehrmacht strove to remain a purely ethnic German force; as such, minorities within and outside of Germany, such as the Czechs in annexed Czechoslovakia , were exempted from military service after Hitler's takeover in 1938. Foreign volunteers were generally not accepted in

16500-674: The opening year of the war. No aircraft carrier was operational, as German leadership lost interest in the Graf Zeppelin which had been launched in 1938. Following the loss of the German battleship  Bismarck in 1941, with Allied air-superiority threatening the remaining battle-cruisers in French Atlantic harbors, the ships were ordered to make the Channel Dash back to German ports. Operating from fjords along

16650-406: The other half performed obligatory services connected to the war effort ( German : Kriegshilfsdienst ). Legally, the commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht was Adolf Hitler in his capacity as Germany's head of state, a position he gained after the death of President Paul von Hindenburg in August 1934. With the creation of the Wehrmacht in 1935, Hitler elevated himself to Supreme Commander of

16800-591: 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

16950-586: The period 1935–1939. The total number of soldiers who served in the Wehrmacht during its existence from 1935 to 1945 is believed to have approached 18.2 million. The German military leadership originally aimed at a homogeneous military, possessing traditional Prussian military values. However, with Hitler's constant wishes to increase the Wehrmacht ' s size, the Army was forced to accept citizens of lower class and education, decreasing internal cohesion and appointing officers who lacked real-war experience from previous conflicts, especially World War I and

17100-479: 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

17250-444: 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

17400-614: 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

17550-505: 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

17700-572: The previously used term Reichswehr ( Reich Defence ) and was the manifestation of the Nazi regime's efforts to rearm Germany to a greater extent than the Treaty of Versailles permitted. After the Nazi rise to power in 1933, one of Adolf Hitler 's most overt and bellicose moves was to establish the Wehrmacht , a modern offensively-capable armed force, fulfilling the Nazi regime's long-term goals of regaining lost territory as well as gaining new territory and dominating its neighbours. This required

17850-434: 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

18000-474: 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

18150-456: 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 ,

18300-460: 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. As

18450-547: The reinstatement of conscription and massive investment and defence spending on the arms industry . The Wehrmacht formed the heart of Germany's politico-military power. In the early part of the Second World War , the Wehrmacht employed combined arms tactics (close-cover air-support, tanks and infantry) to devastating effect in what became known as Blitzkrieg (lightning war). Its campaigns in France (1940) ,

18600-597: The same authority as ( Hiwis ), auxiliary personnel of the army ( German : Behelfspersonal ) and they were assigned to duties within the Reich, and to a lesser extent, in the occupied territories, for example in the general government of occupied Poland , in France , and later in Yugoslavia , in Greece and in Romania . By 1945, 500,000 women were serving as Wehrmachtshelferinnen , half of whom were volunteers, while

18750-502: The terms. Germany helped the Soviet Union with industrialization and Soviet officers were to be trained in Germany. German tank and air-force specialists could exercise in the Soviet Union and German chemical weapons research and manufacture would be carried out there along with other projects. In 1924 a fighter-pilot school was established at Lipetsk , where several hundred German air force personnel received instruction in operational maintenance, navigation, and aerial combat training over

18900-412: The treaty that, among other terms, imposed severe constraints on the size of Germany's armed forces. The army was limited to one hundred thousand men with an additional fifteen thousand in the navy. The fleet was to consist of at most six battleships , six cruisers , and twelve destroyers . Submarines , tanks and heavy artillery were forbidden and the air-force was dissolved. A new post-war military,

19050-546: 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

19200-594: 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,

19350-510: 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

19500-480: The war with a minority of its formations motorized ; infantry remained approximately 90% foot-borne throughout the war, and artillery was primarily horse-drawn . The motorized formations received much attention in the world press in the opening years of the war, and were cited as the reason for the success of the invasions of Poland (September 1939), Denmark and Norway (April 1940), Belgium, France, and Netherlands (May 1940), Yugoslavia and Greece (April 1941) and

19650-400: 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. By

19800-524: The western front had not exceeded three per cent of the total from all fronts, in 1944 the figure jumped to about 14 per cent. Yet even in the months following D-day, about 68.5 per cent of all German battlefield deaths occurred on the eastern front, as a Soviet blitzkrieg in response devastated the retreating Wehrmacht. Schutzstaffel The Schutzstaffel ( German: [ˈʃʊtsˌʃtafl̩] ; lit.   ' Protection Squadron ' ; SS ; also stylised with Armanen runes as ᛋᛋ )

19950-537: 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

20100-754: 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

20250-575: 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. By 1923,

20400-650: Was also prioritized last in the German rearmament scheme, making it the smallest of the branches. In the Battle of the Atlantic , the initially successful German U-boat fleet arm was eventually defeated due to Allied technological innovations like sonar , radar , and the breaking of the Enigma code. Large surface vessels were few in number due to construction limitations by international treaties prior to 1935. The "pocket battleships" Admiral Graf Spee and Admiral Scheer were important as commerce raiders only in

20550-423: 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

20700-422: Was dedicated to the idea of reviving Tirpitz's High Seas Fleet. Officers who believed in submarine warfare led by Admiral Karl Dönitz were in a minority before 1939. By 1922, Germany had begun covertly circumventing the conditions of the Versailles treaty. A secret collaboration with the Soviet Union began after the Treaty of Rapallo . Major-General Otto Hasse traveled to Moscow in 1923 to further negotiate

20850-651: 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

21000-403: 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

21150-484: Was dropped in favor of Wehrmacht on 21 May 1935. While the term Wehrmacht has been associated, both in the German and English languages, with the German armed forces of 1935–45 since the Second World War, before 1945 the term was used in the German language in a more general sense for a national defense force. For instance, the German-aligned formations of Poles raised during the First World War were known as

21300-431: 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

21450-413: 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

21600-465: Was most surprised at the offer; the popular view that Hitler imposed the oath on the military is false. The oath read: "I swear by God this sacred oath that to the Leader of the German empire and people, Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces, I shall render unconditional obedience and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared to give my life for this oath". By 1935, Germany

21750-477: Was often only available in relatively small numbers. Only 40% to 60% of all units in the Eastern Front were motorized, baggage trains often relied on horse-drawn trailers due to poor roads and weather conditions in the Soviet Union, and for the same reasons many soldiers marched on foot or used bicycles as bicycle infantry . As the fortunes of war turned against them, the Germans were in constant retreat from 1943 and onward. The Panzer divisions were vital to

21900-621: Was openly flouting the military restrictions set forth in the Versailles Treaty: German rearmament was announced on 16 March with the "Edict for the Buildup of the Wehrmacht " ( German : Gesetz für den Aufbau der Wehrmacht ) and the reintroduction of conscription. While the size of the standing army was to remain at about the 100,000-man mark decreed by the treaty, a new group of conscripts equal to this size would receive training each year. The conscription law introduced

22050-431: Was put in its place. Placed under the OKW were the three branch High Commands: Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH), Oberkommando der Marine (OKM), and Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (OKL). The OKW was intended to serve as a joint command and coordinate all military activities, with Hitler at the top. Though many senior officers, such as von Manstein , had advocated for a real tri-service Joint Command, or appointment of

22200-655: 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

22350-617: 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. 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

22500-572: 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

#835164