Schutzstaffel

The **Schutzstaffel**, **Elite Guard** or **Protection Squadron** (  better known as the **SS** was a large security and military organization controlled by the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) in Germany. "SS" was sometimes written in Runic as , and this symbol was put on the SS flag and insignia. It was formed in 1925 in Weimar Germany or better known as the Weimar Republic . In 1934 the SS became powerful after the execution of the head of the Sturmabteilung (SA) leader Ernst Röhm in Night of the Long Knives .

The SS played a major part in The Holocaust. For example, they ran the Nazi labour camps and death camps, where they killed millions of people. After World War II, judges at the Nuremberg Trials ruled that the SS was an illegal criminal organization. The judges also said that the SS was the organization that had done most of the Holocaust.

## The SS is created

The SS was created in the 1925 to guard Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. (_Schutzstaffel_ means "Protection Squadron" in German).<sup>pp. 26–29</sup> From 1929 to 1945, Heinrich Himmler led the SS. During that time, the SS grew from a small paramilitary unit to one of the largest and most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany.<sup>p. 47</sup>

The Nazis saw the SS as a special unit, like the Praetorian Guard (which used to guard Roman emperors). To be chosen for the SS, a person had to be racially "pure". This meant they had to prove that all their ancestors were "Aryan". They also had to be completely loyal to the Nazi party. They could never ask questions or disagree with anything the SS did.

## Parts of the SS

The SS had two different parts. The _Allgemeine-SS_ ("General SS") were the Nazis' police. The _Waffen-SS_ ("Armed SS") were special units of soldiers in Nazi Germany's military. The Waffen-SS became known for fierce fighting and brutality against civilians and prisoners of war. Its units helped crush the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, where Polish Jews tried to fight back against the Nazis. Waffen-SS units also killed many American prisoners of war during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944.

The SS was militaristic but not military. It had its own rank system, insignia, and uniforms. This made the SS different from the German military, the Nazi party, and people who worked in the German government.

## The SS gains power

As the Nazi party gained more and more power in Germany, it gave control of more important jobs (like law enforcement) to the SS. Many SS organizations became as powerful as parts of the government. The Nazi party decided that to help it keep its power, it needed to give the SS two even more important jobs. One of these was to create and run the Sicherheitsdienst (_SD_), the Nazi security and intelligence service. The other was to control the _Geheime Staatspolizei_ (_Gestapo_): the SS secret police. Because it was in charge of so many important things, the SS could do almost anything it wanted.

## Role in the Holocaust

As the SS's leader, Heinrich Himmler used the SS to put the Final Solution into action. The SS Einsatzgruppen murdered many civilians, mostly Jews, in the countries controlled by Nazi Germany during World War II. The SS was in charge of creating and running labour camps and death camps (camps where people were sent to be killed). In these camps, millions of prisoners died from many causes, including murder, starvation, disease, freezing to death, and being experimented on by Nazi doctors like Josef Mengele.

## After the war

After the war, the judges at the Nuremberg Trials decided the SS was a criminal organization (a group that was created only to commit crimes). They ruled that the SS had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. They also said that the SS was the organization that had carried out most of the Holocaust.

### Oberster Führer der Schutzstaffel

|style="width: 15%"|Name|style="width: 45%"|Position|style="width: 10%"|SS Number|style="width: 10%"|Year|style="width: 10%"|Party Number|style="width: 10%"|Remarks|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|colspan=6||||||||||||
|Adolf Hitler|Born 20 April 1889; died 30 April 1945 when he was 56.|1|1934|555 3,680|This Position was held by Hitler alone.|||||||

## SS Generals

- Oberst-Gruppenführer (colonel general)
- Obergruppenführer (general)
- Gruppenführer (lieutenant general)
- Brigadeführer (major general)

## SS Officers

- Oberführer (senior colonel)
- Standartenführer (colonel)
- Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel)
- Sturmbannführer (major)
- Hauptsturmführer (captain)
- Obersturmführer (first lieutenant)
- Untersturmführer (second lieutenant)

## SS NCOS

- Sturmscharführer (Regimental sergeant major)
- Hauptscharführer (sergeant major)
- Oberscharführer (senior sergeant)
- Scharführer (sergeant)
- Unterscharführer (corporal)

## Junior SS personnel

|style="width: 15%"|Name|style="width: 55%"|Position|style="width: 10%"|SS number|style="width: 10%"|Joined SS|style="width: 10%"|Party number|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|Heinrich Albert|Born 29.07.1924.SS Rank Sturmmann. SS-Karstwehr Battalion KIA 19.02.1944|||||||||
|Heinrich Barbl|Born 3 March 1900.SS rank Rottenführereich. He participated in the T-4 Euthanasian Program and later in the year Operation Reinhardt. He submitted his testimony in Linz on 6 September 1965 at the Austrian Ministry of Internal Affairs. No further details are known of his life and death.|||||||||
|Martin Bartesch|Born 1926. Member of the Prinz Eugen Division of the S.S. from 1943 to 1944; a guard at Mauthausen concentration camp. Ordered Deported from US 29 May 1987. Fled to Austria and died 1989|||||||||
|Anton Baumann|Born 1911. SS Death Head's Battalion guard at Stutthof and Buchenwald concentration camps. Ordered deported from US 17 May 1991 to Germany 1993; never deported due to health. Died 1994|||||||||
|Otto Beisheim|Born 3 January 1924. SS Rank Sturmmann; served in artillery regiment of SS Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. Died 18 February 2013|||||||||
|Walter Berezowskyj aka Wolodymyr Berezowskyj|Born 1924. SS Death Head's Battalion Guard at Trawniki, Poniatowa, and Gusen concentration camps. Ordered deported from US 15 September 1998. Never deported as no country would accept him; died 2010|||||||||
|Frederich Karl Berger|Born 1926. Nazi Guard at Meppen, a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg. Denaturalization Trial began 10 May 2019 Memphis Tenn;Ordered Deported to Germany 28 February 2020; appeal denied 17 November 2020. Deported from US to Germany 20 February 2021|||||||||
|Anton Bless|Born 1924. SS-Death's Head Battalion guard at Auschwitz concentration camp. Ordered Deported from US 18 December 1992. Fled to Germany in 1992, where he died in 2004|||||||||
|Josef Blösche|Born 12 Feb 1912.SS rank Rottenführer member of SD; involved in the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Executed 29 July 1969|314655||6547348||||||
|Ernst Bormann|Born 28.09.1924.SS Rank Sturmmann. SS-Karstwehr Battalion KIA 19.02.1944|||||||||
|Hans Johann Breyer aka Johann Breyer|Born 1925. member of Waffen SS; also Guard KZ Buchenwald and KZ Auschwitz. Ordered Deported from US May 1992. He died in a hospital in 2014 before his extradition hearing was held|||||||||
|Ildefonsas Bučmys|Born 1920. Guard at Majdanek concentration camp. Not deported but gave up US Citizenship; died 2005|||||||||
|John Demjanjuk|Born 3 April 1920. 1986 tried in Israel on charges of being Ivan the Terrible (Treblinka guard) KZ Treblinka; found guilty but verdict overturned on grounds of reasonable doubt; 2001 tried again for being part of personnel at KZ Sobibor; KZ Majdanek; KZ Flossenberg. 2009 deported to Germany-convicted 12 May 2011; died while appealing sentence 17 March 2012|||||||||
|Jacob Frank Denzinger|Born 1924. Guard at Mauthausen, St. Georgen, Kraków, and Auschwitz concentration camps Ordered deported from US 27 November 1989. Fled to West Germany in August 1989; living in Croatia as of 2014 and died 2016|||||||||
|Bruno Dey|Born 1927. Guard at Stutthof concentration camp. Charged in October 2019 of contributing to the killings of 5,230 prisoners at Stutthof camp between 1944 and 1945. He was tried in a juvenile court due to being about 17 at that time. On 23 July 2020,age 93 he was given a two-year suspended sentence by the court in Hamburg.|||||||||
|Erich Dinges|Born 20.11.1911. SS rank Sturmmann;Assigned to KZ Auschwitz; 22 December 1947 Auschwitz Trial sentenced to 5 years; died 23.04.1953||1 March 1932|||||||
|Andreas Dörfler|Born 20.12.1924. SS Rank Sturmmann. SS-Karstwehr Battalion KIA 19.02.1944|||||||||
|Otto Erich Drews|SS rank Rottenführer. 1968 sentenced to Life in prison along with Hauptstrumführer Max Hermann Richard Krahner and Revieroleutnant Otto Hugo Goldapp for being German Overseers of Jewish Sonderkommando 1005|||||||||
|Fedor Fedorenko|Born 1907.Guard at Treblinka extermination camp. Ordered deported from US 11 March 1981.Extradited to the Soviet Union, where he was executed 1987|||||||||
|Anton Geiser|Born 1924. SS Death's Head Battalion guard at KZ Sachsenhausen and KZ Buchenwald. Ordered deported from US 29 September 2006. While appealing deporation died 2012|||||||||
|Günter Grass|Born 16 Oct 1927. SS rank Sturmmann; served in 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg from February 1945 until he was wounded on 20 April 1945. Captured May 1945. Author of _The Tin Drum_. Died 13 April 2015|||||||||
|Stefan Gubanski|SS Rank Rottenführer. SS-Karstwehr Battalion KIA 19.02.1944|||||||||
|Jacob Habich|Born 1913. SS-Death's Head Battalion guard at KZ Lublin and KZ Auschwitz concentration camps. Ordered Deported from US 14 March 1990; never deported because of health and died 1995|||||||||
|Bronislaw Hadja aka Bruno Hajda|Born 1924. Guard at Trawniki concentration camp and Treblinka labor camp; member of SS Battalion Streibel. Ordered deported from US 9 April 1997. Not deported as no country would accept him; died in 2005|||||||||
|Ferdinand Hammer.|Born 1921. Alleged SS guard at Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. Ordered Deported from US 22 May 1996; Deported to Austria in 2000, where he died in 2004|||||||||
|Johann Hansl|Born 1925. SS Death's Head Battalion guard at the Sachsenhausen and Natzweiler concentration camps.Ordered Deported from US 8 April 2005; Died in 2007 in Des Moines, Iowa before deportation proceedings could begin.|||||||||
|Martin Hartmann|Born 1919. SS-Death Head's Battalion guard at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Ordered deported from US September 2007. Agreed to permanently depart the United States for Germany on 31 August 2007, in an agreement with the OSI. Believed to be living in Berlin|||||||||
|Sergis Hutyrczyk|Born 1924. Guard at Koldyczewo concentration camp. Ordered deported from US 2 October 1992. While appealing his denaturalization died in 1993|||||||||
|Franz Joseph, Prince of Hohenzollern-Emden|Born 30 August 1891. In June 1944 he was released from active service. In November 1944 he was expelled from the SS together with other upper class Nazis whose devotion was becoming suspect in the face of Germany's, by then, near-certain defeat. In a letter to Heinrich Himmler dated 3 January 1945, Franz Joseph proclaimed his continued devotion to the Nazi cause and unsuccessfully begged to be readmitted to the SS. Died 3 April 1964|276 691|1933|3765580||||||
|Ludwik Kalkstein|b. 13 March 1920, in Warsaw. Ludwik "Hanka" Kalkstein, also known as Ludwik Kalkstein-Stoliński. Joined SS As "Paul Henchel". Died in Munich 26 October 1994|||||||||
|Ludwig Kairys aka Liudvikas Kairys|Born 1920. Platoon leader at KZ Treblinka, Ordered deported from US 28 December 1984.Deported to Germany in 1993; Germany suspended its investigation of him in 1999, by which time he had died|||||||||
|Juris Kauls|Born 1912. Deputy chief and inspector of guards at a concentration camp near Riga, Latvia.Ordered Deported from US 8 September 1988. Fled to West Germany in August 1988. Died in Latvia in 2008|||||||||
|Hans Joachim Koch|Born 1912. Occupation actor. SS Rank NC0 W/T and Cypher expert with the 7. SS-Freiwilligen-Gebirgsdivision "Prinz Eugen". Postwar part of "Gehlen Organization"of which he was  in radio contact East Berlin Revolt, June 1953 under Code Name "Bar" [Bear]. Afterwards captured; tried and executed Dresden, Germany June 1955.|||||||||
|Michael Kolnhofer|Born 1918. KZ Guard. In 1996 US Justice Department filed suit to strip him of citizenship; Not denaturalized as he was shot and wounded in Kansas City Kansas after a gunfight with police in which he fired a pistol at reporters and police 31 December 1996; died of injuries March 1997|||||||||
|Hans Krellner|Born 29.09.1922 SS Rank Sturmmann. SS-Karstwehr Battalion KIA 19.02.1944|||||||||
|Alfried Krupp|Born 13 August 1907. member of the Förderndes Mitglied der SS. Arms/Steel industrialist/Colonel in National Socialist Flyers Corps (NSFK). Sentenced to 12 years imprisonment 1948; pardoned by John J. McCloy in 1951. Died 30 July 1967|None|1931|6989627||||||
|Wasyl Krysa|Born 1925. SS guard at Poniatowa and Gusen concentration camps. Ordered deported from US 5 October 2001. While appealing his denaturalization died in 2004|||||||||
|Josias Kumpf|Born 1925. SS-Death's Head Guard at KZ Sachsenhausen and KZ Trawniki. Ordered deported from US 10 May 2005. Deported to Austria in 2009, where he died later that year.|||||||||
|Andrew Kuras|Born 1922. Guard at Trawniki, Poniatowa, and Dorohucza concentration camps; member of SS-Battalion Striebel. Ordered deported from US 14 April 2004. Never deported from the United States due to his health; died in 2007|||||||||
|Fedor Kwoczak;|Born 1921. Guard at Trawniki and Poniatowa concentration camps; participated in liquidation of Warsaw and Białystok ghettos; member of SS-Battalion Streibel.Ordered Deported from US 27 June 2002; while appealing his denaturalization died in 2003|||||||||
|Erwin Lambert|Born 7 December 1909, Schildow. SS rank Rottenführer; He supervised construction of the gas chambers for the Action T4 euthanasia program at Hartheim, Sonnenstein, Bernburg and Hadamar, and then at Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps during Operation Reinhard. He specialized in building larger gas chambers that killed more people than previous efforts in the extermination program. At the conclusion of Operation Reinhard, Lambert was posted to Trieste, where he continued to participate in genocide by installing cremation facilities at the concentration camp Risiera di San Sabba. After the war, Lambert was arrested on 28 March 1962. At the First Treblinka Trial in 1965, Lambert was tried for the first time and sentenced to four years imprisonment for aiding and abetting the murder of at least 300,000 people. Having already served this time, he was allowed to live as a free man. At the Sobibor Trial in 1966, Lambert was acquitted. At the trials Lambert denied involvement in the killing operation and claimed that he merely suspected that the buildings would be used for killing. Died on 15 October 1976.|||1.491.565||||||
|Stefan Leili|Born 1909. SS-Death's Head guard at Mauthausen concentration camp. Ordered deported from US 30 December 1986. Fled to West Germany in August 1986,where he died in 1995|||||||||
|Johann Leprich|Born 1925. SS Death's Head Battalion guard at Mauthausen concentration camp Ordered deported from US 13 July 1987. Not deported as no country would accept him; died in 2013|||||||||
|Ivan Marchenko|Born about 1911. SS Wachmann at Lodz Ghetto and operated gas Chambers at KZ Treblinka. Nicknamed Ivan the Terrible (Treblinka guard) in 1944 reported to have deserted the Germans for the partisans in Yugoslavia; alleged last sighting in Fiume, Croatia in 1945; unknown if survived the war.|||||||||
|Hansjörg Maurer|Born 20 October 1891. Aka Hans Georg Maurer. Served as Hitlers Strossup SS Bodyguards in 1925. Retired from NSDAP 24 August 1926 after quarrel with Max Amann. USed an alias to rejoin NSDAP 31 March 1933-for which he was expelled in 1934. Died 30 December 1959||1925|76 1.724.803||||||
|Werner Messinger|Born 1925.SS Rank Oberschütze . SS-Karstwehr Battalion KIA 02.03.1944|||||||||
|Karl Missy|Occupation Plumber. Served in SS 1930s. On the outbreak of World War II; he was Lance Corporal in the Luftwaffe. On 3 February 1940 the Heinkel III 1H+FM of 4./KG 26 he was part of the crew as an air gunner shot down by RAF Officer Peter Townsend {1/3 credit]; Missy was one of two survivors of shot down crew, but his right leg had to be amputated because of war wounds; repatriated October 1943. Postwar was friends with Squadron leader Townsend who mentioned him in postwar biography "Duel of Eagles"; died 1981|||||||||
|Jakiw Palij|Nazi Labor Camp Guard. Deported from the US to Germany August 2018. Died 10 January 2019 age 95|||||||||
|Eric Pleasants|Born 17 May 1913. British defector and member of the SS British Free Corps died July 1998|None|1940|None||||||
|Josef Pospischil|Rank SS-Man. Member of SD Section III|||||||||
|Peter Quintus|Born 1915. SS guard at Majdanek concentration camp Ordered deported from US July 1988; Never deported due to his health; died in 1997|||||||||
|Hans Ramsauer|SS Rank Jäger. SS-Karstwehr Battalion KIA 19.02.1944|||||||||
|Stefan Reger|Born 1925. service in the SS Death's Head Battalion and at Birkenau. Ordered deported from US 8 September 1988;led to West Germany in 1988, where he died in 2003|||||||||
|Johann Rehbogen|Born 1924. SS Strummann at Stutthof concentration camp. At age 94 charged in November 2018 of accessory to murder of prisoners at Stutthof camp. He was tried in a juvenile court due to being under 21 at that time. In February 2019 trial halted for medical reasons|||||||||
|Jakob Reimer|Born 1918. Trawniki concentration camp guard. Ordered deported from US 5 September 2002; before he could be deported to Germany died 2005|||||||||
|Elfriede Lina (Huth) Rinkel|Born 1922. KZ Guard. In 2006 deported from US to Germany, died 2018|||||||||
|Wiatscheslaw Rydlinskis|Born 1924. Guard and attack dog handler at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany and at Buchenwald's Laura subcamp. Ordered deported 21 July 1995. Fled to Germany in late 1994, where he died in 1997|||||||||
|Dr. Eugen Sänger|Born 22.09.1905.SS Rank Mann. Died 10.02.1964||1933|1.303.775||||||
|Dmytro Sawchuk|Born 1924. Guard at Trawniki concentration camp and Bełżec extermination camp; participated in liquidation of Białystok ghetto; member of SS-Battalion Streibel. Ordered deported from US 23 March 1999; Fled to Germany in 1999, where he renounced his US citizenship and later died in 2004|||||||||
|Nikolaus Schiffer|Born 1919. Guard at Sachsenhausen, Hersbruck, Majdanek, and Trawniki concentration camps. Ordered deported from US 25 August 1993.Deported to Romania in 2002, where he later died in 2007|||||||||
|Michael Schmidt|Born 1923. Guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Ordered deported from US 3 January 1990.Agreed to permanently depart the United States by 31 December 1992 in an agreement with the OSI. Died in Germany in 2008|||||||||
|Gerhard Schneider|Born 6.4.1890. Served in World War I and was 1925 bodyguard of Adolf Hitler. Promoted to Oberführer 31 July 1933 as administrative chief over the SD Main Office and the Race and Settlement Office. Brought up on charges by Heinrich Himmler on charges including Suppressing and defrauding service funds; irresponsible dissipation of service funds and damaging the image of the SS by boasting. Found guilty reduced in rank to SS Mann and dismissed 24 July 1934; succeeded in office by Oswald Pohl|30941|14 July 1932|916047||||||
|Hans Schoger|SS Rank Jäger, SS-Karstwehr Battalion KIA 19.02.1944|||||||||
|Albert Speer|Born 19 March 1905. Enrolled by order of Heinrich Himmler as a SS Man/member of Personal Staff of the SS Reichsführer. However application never completed (Nazi conspiracy and aggression vol VI pp. 256 3568-PS) becoming Nolle prosequi. Died 1 September 1981|46104|20.7.1942|474.481||||||
|Theodor Szehinskyj|Born 1924. SS Death's Head Battalion guard at Gross-Rosen, Sachsenhausen and Nazi camp in Warsaw concentration camps. ordered deported from US 24 July 2000. Remained in the United States until his death in 2014, as no country was found that would accept him.|||||||||
|Horst Tappert|Born 26 May 1923. 1943 served with the "SS-Panzergrenadieregiment 1 Totenkopf" Died 13 December 2008|||||||||
|Wilhelm Thellman|SS Rank Sturmmann. SS-Karstwehr Battalion KIA 19.02.1944|||||||||
|Anton Tittjung|Born 1924. Guard at Mauthausen concentration camp.Ordered deported from US 14 December 1990.Not deported as no country would accept him; died in 2012|||||||||
|Erich Topp|Born 2 July 1914. Briefly member of Allgemeine-SS; dropped active NSDAP/SS membership after becoming member of armed Forces.Commander of U-552. Died 26 December 2005||1934|2621078||||||
|Mykola Wasylyk|Born 1923. Guard at KZ Trawniki and KZ Budzyn Ordered deported from US JUly 13, 2001.Remained in the U.S. after denaturalization as no other country would accept him. He died in 2010|||||||||
|Ernest Werner|Rank SS-Mann. Member of SD-section OST and SD-section III|||||||||
|Josef Wieland|Born 1908. SS-Death's Head guard at Mauthausen concentration camp. Ordered deported from US 19 June 1986. Fled to West Germany in 1986, where he died in 1992.|||||||||
|Thomas Wippenbeck|Born 28 August 1907. SS rank Rottenführer. Assigned to Pawiak Prison Warsaw Prison. Tried with SS Colonel Dr. Ludwig Hahn in 1972/1973-declared guilty of two cases of complicity in committing a homicide but was exonerated. No further details are known of his life and death.|||||||||
|Joseph Wittje|Born 1920. Waffen-SS guard at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Ordered deported from US 27 August 2004. Before deportation hearings could begin he died 2006|||||||||
|Chester Wojciechowski|Born 1920. Guard at the Majdanek concentration camp. Ordered depored from US OCtober 5, 1987. Fled to West Germany, where he died in 2003|||||||||
|Vladas Zajančkauskas|Born 1915. Trawniki concentration camp guard who participated in the Nazi operation at the Warsaw Ghetto. 26 January 2005 Ordered deported by an immigration judge; appeal denied by Supreme Court on 18 November 2010. He died 2013|||||||||
|Johann Ziegler|Born in 1907. Was the SS-Death's Head guard at Stutthof, Kauen, and Gotenhafen concentration camps. Ordered deported from US in 1991. Fled to Austria in 1991; died in 1997.|||||||||

## Related pages

- The Holocaust
    - Nazi concentration camps and death camps
    - Holocaust victims
    - _Einsatzgruppen_
- Nazi Germany
- Heinrich Himmler

## Infobox (criminal organization)

- **name**: _Schutzstaffel_ (SS)
- **image**: Flag Schutzstaffel.svg
- **caption**: The double-_Sig Rune_ SS flag
- **founded**: November 9, 1925
- **founding location**: Germany
- **years active**: 1925-1945
- **territory**: Nazi Germany
- **ethnicity**: German
- **activities**: Killed millions of people during The Holocaust