Hitler’s Elite: The SS 1939-45

Hitler and Röhm march side by side at a rally in 1931, surrounded by men of the Sturmabteilung (SA). The SA would become something of an embarrassment and threat to Hitler, resulting in the 1934 ‘Blood Purge’.

INTRODUCTION: ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF THE SS

IN 1919, A DOLF H ITLER JOINED THE TINY G ERMAN D EUTSCHE A RBEITERPARTEI (DAP; German Workers Party) in Munich, becoming its leader the following year and adding ‘National Socialist’ to its title. It was an infamous moment in 20th-century history, as the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), popularly known as the Nazi Party, was born.

Hitler’s fiery brand of politics had found an opportune moment to flower. After four years of appalling slaughter, Germany had been defeated decisively in 1918. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated just days before the Armistice was signed and a left-wing government took over the country. This new government was obliged to sign what many Germans, at least, perceived to be an unfair Diktat masquerading as a peace settlement. The Treaty of Versailles that formally brought the war to an end was a controversial settlement, and a catalyst for future conflict. The treaty laid the blame for starting the war squarely upon Germany, saddled it with enormous reparations payments and also took away large areas of German territory, in many cases creating new states.

All of these considerations would have a bearing on the later outbreak of World War II, although in all probability the failure to implement the treaty adequately was as serious a factor as its provisions. Of particular significance also was the fact that the government that signed the humiliating treaty found itself being blamed for doing so, when in reality it had little choice. The Social Democrats were also criticized for the German capitulation – many right-wingers and particularly the army considered that the German people had not been defeated, but rather had been ‘stabbed in the back’ by the government. This myth gained widespread credence in Germany during the inter-war years, and Hitler more than capitalized upon the grievance.

In the early years after the war, Germany suffered along with most of the continent and political extremism was rife. The new German republic was established in the small town of Weimar, later to become famous for its proximity to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Hence this period of German history, the first ever of genuine German democracy, is known as the Weimar Republic. Weimar was chosen in preference to Berlin as the site of the new government because of Berlin’s associations with Prussian militarism.

Berlin itself was a testing place to be in the early years after World War I, and politics was a thuggish affair. The Weimar government was assailed from both sides of the political spectrum. Extremists fought in many large German cities and occasional attempts were made by left and right to overthrow the government; the insurrection led by Wolfgang Kapp (known as the ‘Kapp Putsch’) in March 1920 was one of the most serious. The constitutional system that underpinned the Weimar government also complicated matters. The system was so representative of political opinion that it produced only minority governments or fragile coalitions that had little opportunity to achieve anything. Meanwhile, international tensions rose when Germany suspended its reparations payments, as a result of which the French, eager to draw every pfennig from the Germans, occupied the Ruhr region in 1923. These international concerns were exacerbated by soaring inflation, with the German mark being traded at 10,000 million to the pound.

Amidst all this social, economic and political turbulence, one radical among many was making a name for himself. Adolf Hitler, an Austrian by birth, had served in the German Army throughout World War I. In 1923 Hitler, who had become leader of the NSDAP by virtue of his personal dynamism and skills of oratory, organized his first clumsy attempt to seize power. However, the Munich Putsch, on 9 November 1923, was a failure and earned him five years in Landsberg prison.

Despite the sentence, Hitler served only nine months in rather plush conditions. The authorities, many of whom had some sympathy for Hitler’s position, were persuaded to release him early, after Hitler temporarily resigned the leadership of the Nazi Party and agreed to refrain from addressing public meetings on political issues. However, Hitler neatly circumvented these restrictions by moving his meetings into the private homes of his wealthier supporters.

While Hitler was in jail, dictating his memoirs and thoughts, later to be published as Mein Kampf, the situation in Germany improved considerably. A new scheme, the Dawes Plan, was accepted to reschedule Germany’s repayments, which now reflected more closely Germany’s ability to pay. It also allowed Germany to borrow substantially, mainly from the United States, and fuelled a brief flurry of credit-induced economic prosperity. Germany later ratified a more comprehensive restructuring of the payments in the Young Plan, which further improved her economic situation.

Similarly, the efforts of a new Chancellor, Gustav Stresemann, led to Germany entering the League of Nations in 1926 and signing the Treaty of Locarno with Britain and France, which helped to thaw the international situation. This treaty confirmed the existing borders of the participating states of Western Europe. The prevailing feeling of reconciliation appeared to usher in a more constructive period of international relations. Importantly, however, Locarno failed to guarantee the frontiers of Germany in the east, suggesting to many in Germany that the Western powers would not be as concerned if Germany were to attempt to reclaim lost territory there. Unfortunately, the improvements in Germany’s position by 1929 were undone totally by an unforeseen event that would have tremendous ramifications for the world at large. On 29 October 1929 came the Wall Street crash. The immediate effect was that all the American loans that had been artificially buoying up the world economy were recalled. The broader effects on the global economy were dramatic enough, but Germany, whose tenuous economic recovery had been sustained by extensive borrowing from the United States, was among the hardest hit. This new round of economic hardship gave Hitler another opportunity to make political capital, and he seized it with both hands.

Early National Socialist paramilitaries. Here we see, from left to right, a Freikorps trooper, a squad leader from the Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler and an SS-Mann, c. 1925. The central figure depicts Karl Fiehler, one of the founder members of the Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler, carrying the Imperial War Flag as he appeared at the ‘German Day’ rally in Bayreuth on 2 September 1923. His uniform is basically Reichswehr in character, but features an early hand-made Kampfbinde of the NSDAP on the left sleeve, and a Prussian-style Totenkopf and national cockade on the Austrian army-pattern cap. By the end of 1925, SS men were wearing the recently adopted plain brownshirt uniform of the SA, but with several distinctive accoutrements. The SS was now set apart not only by the Totenkopf but also by black képis, black ties, black borders to the swastika armband and, more gradually, black breeches. The truncheon was frequently used against political opponents in the street battles of the time. (Osprey Publishing © Paul Hannon)

Political violence on the streets of German cities characterized the years between 1929 and 1933 as Nazi fought communist and Germany’s economy laboured under the pressures of worldwide recession and reparations. It was Hitler and the Nazis who promised a brighter future for Germany, and on 29 January 1933, the President of the German Republic, Paul von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany. In the elections of the following March, the Nazi Party received 44 per cent of all votes cast. Even in the overly representational system of the Weimar Republic, this was still sufficient to give the Nazis 288 out of the 647 seats in the Reichstag. Hitler made ample use of his position, passing various ‘Enabling Laws’ to make himself effectively a legal dictator.

Once Hitler took power, he began immediately to destroy the old structures of society and rebuild them in the mode of National Socialism. All political parties other than the Nazi Party were banned. Progressively, Jews were excluded from society and publicly shunned, culminating in the anti-Jewish pogrom of Kristallnacht in 1938 when Jewish property was vandalized. Concentration camps were also opened for ‘undesirables’ where hard labour was the order of the day – the extermination role of these camps was as yet in the future. Hitler attempted to get Germans back to work with an ambitious programme of public works, the planning and construction of the Autobahnen being the most famous. Hitler also presided over a massive rearmament effort, creating a Wehrmacht (armed forces) that was one of the most professional and well equipped in the world, and ready for war.

During Hitler’s ascent to power, all political parties had strong-arm squads to protect their meetings from disruption by rivals, and the NSDAP was no exception. In August 1921, ex-naval Lieutenant Hans Ulrich Klintzsch took command of the NSDAP’s ‘Defence and Propaganda Troop’ which, the following month, was renamed the Sturmabteilung (SA; Storm Detachment). The SA was essentially a uniformed political thuggery, and that November it had its ‘baptism of fire’ when the communists attempted to break up a Nazi meeting in the Hofbrauhaus in Munich; although outnumbered, the SA gave their adversaries a bloody nose.

Symbols of new power. A standard bearer of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler carries a Feldzeichen standard, topped with a metal eagle and wreathed swastika. Note the gorget and bandolier of the standard bearer. (Cody Images).

Expansion brought new levels of organization. In 1922 the NSDAP created a youth section (Jugendbund) for males between the ages of 14 and 18 years. It was sub-divided into two age groups, the elder of which, for 16- to 18-year-olds and titled Jungsturm Adolf Hitler (Youth Assault Force Adolf Hitler), was in effect a junior SA. Its successor, the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth), remained under SA command until May 1932.

Originally confined to Munich, the SA made its first important sally outside that city when, on 14–15 October 1922, it took part in a ‘German Day’ at Coburg, which resulted in a pitched battle with the communists who held sway there. The ‘Battle of Coburg’ succeeded in breaking the hold of the Red Front in the city, and the press coverage which this incident achieved served to make Hitler’s name known to a wider public.

The first ‘national’ rally of the NSDAP was held on 28 January 1923 when some 6,000 SA men paraded before Hitler, who presented Standarten (standards) to four recently formed SA units: München, München II, Nürnberg and Landshut. A Sturmfahne (‘battle flag’) was, at the same time, conferred upon an SA company from Zwickau – the first SA unit to be formed outside Bavaria. On 1 March 1923, SA Regiment München was formed. In the same month, command of the SA passed to Hermann Göring after Klintzsch, a member of Korvettenkapitän Hermann Ehrhardt’s Freikorps (Free Corps), was recalled by his chief following a quarrel between Ehrhardt and Hitler over their differing reactions to French occupation of the Ruhr. Göring brought with him the prestige of a hero of World War I, but was, by nature, indolent and self-indulgent. The true moving force behind the SA was Ernst Röhm, a staff officer at army headquarters in Munich. It was Röhm who persuaded the military to supply the SA with arms, thus transforming it into one among several Wehrverbände (officially tolerated ‘armed groups’ who were without exception anti-communist).

In September 1923 Hitler succeeded in creating a Kampfbund (fighting union) of some 70,000 men, mainly SA but also Bund Oberland (a Freikorps unit) and Reichs-Kriegsflagge (an armed formation commanded by Röhm). On 9 November 1923, as noted above, Hitler attempted to use this force to overthrow the Munich government. The badly planned, badly executed operation ended in humiliating defeat. The police opened fire on the demonstrators, killing 16 and wounding many more. Hitler was arrested; Göring, wounded, escaped to Austria. The SA was banned; those of its leaders who managed to avoid arrest fled to other German states where Bavarian law could not touch them. Hitler was given a five-year prison sentence but was released under an amnesty in December 1924. Röhm, protected by his army masters, received nothing worse than a ‘severe reprimand’.

The failure of the putsch, far from destroying the SA, served rather to spread it to other German regions. Refugees from Munich set up clandestine SA units under the name Frontbann. Hitler did not fail to draw the correct conclusions from this disaster. Armed insurrection against a government that commands the loyalty of the police and army is foredoomed. Henceforth he would employ only legal methods.

When the SA was re-activated in February 1925, Hitler categorically forbade it to bear arms or function as any form of private army. The days of the SA as a Wehrverband were over. Its purpose was to clear the streets of his political enemies. Hitler’s view of the SA’s role was hotly contested by Röhm, who envisaged it as a citizens’ army, part of Germany’s secret re-armament. The disagreement between the two became so bitter that Röhm resigned from the Party in April and in 1928 quit Germany for a military adviser’s post in Bolivia. The SA remained without an overall command (its various units each being accountable to their area Gauleiter (regional party leader) until November 1926, when Hitler named himself Oberste SA Führer (Supreme SA Leader). The actual executive leadership was vested in the Chef des Stabes (Chief of Staff). This post was entrusted to a prominent Freikorps leader, Franz Felix Pfeffer von Salomon, who set about organizing the SA along military lines. It was now formed into:

Gruppen (the smallest units)

Standarten (regiments)

Trupps (roughly platoons)

Brigaden (brigades)

Stürme (roughly companies)

Gaustürme (roughly divisions)

A Gausturm corresponded exactly to an NSDAP Gau (region).

In August 1927, the SA numbered some 30,000 men. Two years later that strength had doubled. In 1930 a Motor SA was established to give greater mobility and allow a quick mustering of strength. Despite his success in expanding the SA and increasing its efficiency, Pfeffer ceased to enjoy Hitler’s confidence. It became apparent that Pfeffer’s concept of the SA differed little from that of Röhm. Hitler discovered that Pfeffer had been secretly attempting to involve the army in the paramilitary training of the SA. In August 1930 Hitler dismissed Pfeffer and telegraphed Röhm in Bolivia asking him to return and take charge of the SA. Röhm was back in Germany before Christmas and officially assumed duty as Chef des Stabes on 5 January 1931. He revised the structure of the SA, now dividing it into:

Pre-war black service uniforms. 1: SS-Schütze, Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, 1934. A private in pre-war parade and guard dress. 2: SS-Oberscharführer, SS-Standarte Deutschland, 1934. He wears the black service dress with Gothic script ‘Deutschland’ cuffband, and the Standarte identifying number ‘1’ alongside the runes on his right collar patch. 3: SS-Hauptsturmführer, SS-Totenkopf Standarte Oberbayern, 1936. This captain’s officer-quality black service dress tunic has the collar and collar patches edged with silver twist cord. (Osprey Publishing © Stephen Andrew)

Scharen (the former Gruppen)

Trupps

Stürme

Sturmbanne

Standarten

Untergruppen (the former Gaustürme)

Gruppen

Under Pfeffer the highest SA formation, the Gausturm, had been subordinate to the Party leadership; but the new Gruppe had no NSDAP counterpart as it extended over several Gaue, and its leader (Gruppenführer) was thus answerable only to Röhm or, of course, to Hitler himself.

On 17/18 October 1931 a ‘token mobilization’ of the Nazis’ forces took place in the town of Brunswick, with around 104,000 uniformed participants. It was an impressive display of strength, but its very success alarmed the Weimar authorities. In December they imposed a ban on the wearing of all political uniforms. This proscription remained in force until the following June, by which time it had been demonstrated to have had little practical effect. The Nazis simply adopted a civilian ‘uniform’ of white shirt and black tie, and carried on as before.

In July 1932 Röhm created a yet larger SA agglomerate – the Obergruppe – of which there were, at this stage, five. The SA now dominated the streets, disrupting the meetings of its rivals, and terrorizing its opponents. Without actually challenging the government to a head-on confrontation, Hitler was able to blackmail and intimidate it with the size and discipline of his brown-shirted army.

On 30 January 1933, as a result of a combination of victory at the polls and backstairs intrigues, Hitler was appointed Chancellor (Prime Minister) of Germany. The burning of the Reichstag building the following month was blamed on the communists and used as the pretext for pushing through an enabling law which gave Hitler virtually dictatorial powers. Göring, Minister of the Interior for Prussia, authorized the SA to act as a police auxiliary and to sweep all ‘enemies of the state’ into concentration camps.

At the Party Day of Victory at Nuremberg that September, some 120,000 uniformed men participated. Röhm was made a member of the Reichs cabinet as Minister without Portfolio. The number of SA Obergruppen had increased to ten by January 1934. But time was running out for the SA’s most celebrated Chief of Staff. Röhm made no attempt to conceal his differences with Hitler over the role of the SA: an advocate of ‘the second revolution’, he wished to transform it into an armed force to supplement, even replace, the regular army.

Hitler, on the contrary, felt that the SA had already fulfilled its task of crushing its political opponents and now, with its rowdy behaviour, was becoming something of an embarrassment. He already looked ahead to a future war of conquest for which a fully professional army was essential. The army, for its part, regarded the SA with undisguised contempt as ‘brown scum’, and was eager to co-operate with Hitler in expansion and re-armament. Recklessly foolhardy, or naive to an incredible degree, Röhm continued publicly to voice his criticisms of his leader and to back them with scarcely veiled threats. The SA was now set to clash with another paramilitary body that had emerged from the roots of the NSDAP.

HITLER’S BODYGUARD

By the time it paraded before Hitler at the first national rally of the NSDAP in January 1923 the SA numbered 6,000 men in four regiments, and there were sufficient recruits during the next month alone to form a fifth. Frustrated by Röhm’s continued ambition and independence despite Göring’s leadership, which were upheld by the former leaders of the Freikorps, Hitler was compelled to set up a small troop of men from outside the SA which would be entirely devoted to him alone. Thus the SS was born.

Heinrich Himmler, although a physically weak and militarily uncertain man, combined driving ambition with administrative acumen. Himmler was arguably the true architect of the Holocaust, putting in place the entire system of extermination and concentration camps.

In March 1923 Hitler ordered the formation of the Munich-based bodyguard known as the Stabswache, whose members swore an oath of loyalty to him personally. Two months later, to avoid confusion with an SA unit of the same name which protected Röhm and Göring, the Stabswache was renamed the Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler and, like the German Army shock troops of World War I, it adopted the death’s head as its distinctive emblem. The Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler was led by Julius Schreck and Josef Berchtold, and its membership included Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich, Rudolf Hess, Julius Schaub, Ulrich Graf and Karl Fiehler. The 30-man squad participated in the ill-fated Munich Putsch on 9 November 1923 – during the episode Graf saved the Führer’s life, so fulfilling the primary duty of the Stosstrupp. He was later rewarded with the title ‘des Führers alter Begleiter’, or ‘The Führer’s Senior Bodyguard’, and his bravery that day left a lasting impression on Hitler.

A Hauptsturmführer of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Röhm Purge, 30 June 1934. Typifying the Hollywood stereotype of an SS officer, this captain clasping a 9mm P 08 Luger is dressed in the all-black uniform which would later be reserved for ceremonial duties, and was shared (with different insignia) by members of the Allgemeine-SS. For headgear he wears the smart service dress cap (Tellermütze) with SS-pattern eagle and the Totenkopf device that was shared with personnel of the army Panzertruppen. (Osprey Publishing © Jeffrey Burn)

On his release from prison in December 1924, Hitler began to rebuild his party, and to continue his attempts to reign in the SA. In April 1925, therefore, Hitler formed a new bodyguard commanded by Schaub, Schreck and his other Stosstrupp favourites. The guard, which still came under the auspices of the SA High Command, was known first as the Schutzkommando (Protection Command), then as the Sturmstaffel (Assault Squadron), but on 9 November it adopted the title of Schutzstaffel or Protection Squad, soon commonly abbreviated to SS.

From the start it was laid down that the SS, unlike the SA, should never become a mass organization. Groups of Ten, or Zehnerstaffeln, were set up across Germany so that the Führer could have access to a local SS bodyguard wherever he went during his political campaigning. Applicants had to be between 25 and 35 years of age, have two sponsors, be registered with the police as residents of five years’ standing, and be sober, disciplined, strong and healthy. The seeds of elitism were sown. Yet despite the gradual extension of its numbers and prestige, the SS remained a limited organization subordinated to the SA. The latter kept a jealous eye on SS expansion, and local SA commanders consistently used the SS under their control for the most demeaning tasks such as distributing propaganda leaflets and recruiting subscribers to the party newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter. By the end of 1928 morale in the SS was at an all-time low.

The watershed in the development of the SS can be traced to a single date – 6 January 1929. On that fateful day Heinrich Himmler took command of the organization at a time when the SA was becoming increasingly rebellious. From then on, SS progress became bound up with the career of Himmler, who obtained one important post after another; indeed, by 1945 he had concentrated more power in his hands than any other man except Hitler. In April 1929 Himmler received approval for a recruiting plan designed to create a truly elite body out of the SS; and by 1930 it had grown to a force of 2,000 men. When the SA in northern Germany rebelled against the bourgeois NSDAP hierarchy in 1931, only the SS remained loyal to Hitler. The revolt collapsed, and Himmler was rewarded with his appointment as security chief of the NSDAP headquarters in Munich. In effect, he was made head of the party police.

A soldier of the LSSAH stands in a Czech town in 1939. Civilian populations in occupied territories quickly learned to fear the SS, an organization with an ideological as well as military agenda.

Less than a month after Hitler became Chancellor the Reichstag building was burned to the ground, and the blame put on the communists. Hitler immediately gave police powers to 25,000 SA but also 15,000 SS men, who began to arrest left-wing opponents of the new regime in large numbers and herd them into makeshift prisons and camps. While the SS was consolidating its position and controlling its membership and recruitment by a constant purging process, the SA began to throw its weight about noisily. Now Hitler decided to act.

Matters came to a head in the spring of 1934, when Hitler learned that Röhm was secretly arming his Staff Guards, something he had expressly forbidden. During June the SA was ordered to take a month’s leave. On 30 June Hitler cut down its entire leadership in a single decisive blow, using the SS as the tool of destruction. Dozens of SA men (and others) were shot dead by SS squads working from death lists prepared by Hitler and Göring. Röhm was arrested and, in prison, offered the chance to shoot himself. When he refused, he was shot through the window of his cell by his SS guard.

Hitler now declared the 200,000-strong SS an independent formation of the NSDAP and removed it completely from SA control. Its ascendancy was now assured; and it entered a period of consolidation during which it developed a new command structure and organization under Himmler, whose rank as Reichsführer-SS for the first time actually meant what it implied and made him directly subordinate to Hitler. From the middle of 1934 the traditional non-military SS, the backbone of the organisation, began to be known as the Allgemeine-SS (General SS) to distinguish it from the newly developing armed branches.

Although the SS was now clearly in the ascendancy, the SA continued to exist. In Röhm’s place Hitler appointed a loyal but colourless SA Obergruppenführer, Viktor Lutze, like all previous incumbents of the post a former army officer. Lutze had to preside over the emasculation of the SA. On 20 July 1934 the SS, until this time subordinate to the SA Supreme Command, was granted its independence. The Motor SA was hived off and amalgamated with its ‘junior partner’ the Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrkorps (NSKK; National Socialist Motor Corps) to become a separate body. The Flieger SA (Airborne SA) was integrated into the Deutscher Luftsportverband (German Air Sport Association), while the SA Feldjägerkorps was incorporated into the Prussian Police. The ten SA Obergruppen were abolished (although the rank Obergruppenführer was retained), the largest SA formation now being the Gruppe.

Despite these amputations and revisions, the numerical strength of the SA continued to grow. Thirty-six new Standarten were created in 1935, a further 25 in 1936, 30 in 1937 and 42 in 1938. Although membership was, as before, voluntary, there can be little doubt that many joined out of opportunism, since job prospects or advancement often depended on evidence of Nazi affiliation. What now was to be the function of the SA? The leadership had no clear answer. The most favoured solution was that it should act as a sort of paramilitary sports club providing both physical and martial training although without, in the case of the latter, the actual use of arms. The SA might practise throwing grenades – but only wooden dummies. A secondary task was to assist in the dissemination of Nazi propaganda and to furnish – as it did dramatically each year at Nuremberg – a physical manifestation of the power and authority of the state. The role of the SA as a preparatory school for the armed forces was established only in January 1939 with the creation of the SA Wehrmannschaften (SA Military Units).

SA troopers on parade at Nuremberg in 1934. The ‘Blood Purge’ of 1934, in which the SS beheaded the SA leadership, secured an already growing enmity between the two organizations.

In May 1943 Lutze was killed in a motor accident and was succeeded by Wilhelm Schepmann. When the Volkssturm was formed in October 1944 Schepmann was appointed its Director of Rifle Training, while Franz Pfeffer re-emerged from obscurity to take command of a Volkssturm brigade on the quiet Swiss border.

ROLE OF THE SS

The period 1934–39 saw the expanding SS take over responsibility for political police work, and it extended its tentacles into many other areas of Party and government function. By the outbreak of war it would have been impossible to define exactly the role within the German state of this huge organization. Apart from direct powers, the SS employed a system of granting SS rank to functionaries in many governmental and semi-governmental bureaux and institutions, extending de facto SS influence over areas in which the organization had no powers de jure. For the purposes of this book the armed SS troops – initially SS-Verfügungstruppen (SS-VT; SS Dispositional Troops) and from 1940 Waffen-SS (explored in greater depth in later chapters) – may be treated as a distinct part of the Reichsführer’s complex empire. Readers new to this subject may find it helpful to remember that during World War II the black-uniformed SS men beloved of Hollywood drama were in fact simply the Allgemeine-SS, whose function was mainly political and bureaucratic rather than executive. The ‘teeth’ arms of the NSDAP were the grey-uniformed Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Security Service) security police, the plain clothes Gestapo secret police, and the grey-uniformed military units of the Waffen-SS.

The first and foremost duty of the SS was the protection of Adolf Hitler. After the advent of the Leibstandarte (see below), however, whose members worked full-time to a rota and accompanied Hitler on his journeys through the Reich, the part-time SS men who had originally been recruited on a local basis to protect the Führer during his trips around Germany found that aspect of their work taken from them. Consequently, it was decided that as of 1934 the main day-to-day function of these highly disciplined Allgemeine-SS volunteers would be to support the police in maintaining public order.

The SS rapidly expanded with the formation of many new Allgemeine-SS Standarten, trained and equipped to combat any internal uprising or counter-revolution. In such an event the SS would take over the operation of the post office, national radio network, public utilities and public transport, as well as acting as police reinforcements. The anticipated civil unrest never came about, and so the police duties of the Allgemeine-SS before the outbreak of war in 1939 were generally restricted to overseeing crowd control at party rallies and other celebrations, including national holidays and state visits of foreign dignitaries.

During World War II members of the Allgemeine-SS who had not been called up for military service took an active role in the war effort at home. In many cities special SS Wachkompanien (guard companies) and Alarmstürme (air raid alarm units) were detailed to protect factories, bridges, roads and other strategic points, and to assist the Luftschutzwarndienst (LSW; Air Protection Warning Service or ‘Luftschutz’) during air raids. On the Reich’s borders, SS men worked as Auxiliary Frontier Personnel in conjunction with the Customs Service. Others helped with the harvest, supervised foreign labourers, and engaged upon welfare work. During 1944–45 the cadres of the Allgemeine-SS throughout Germany were trained to co-ordinate the short-lived guerrilla fighting which took place against Allied troops.

April 1938, and SS-VT soldiers of the SS-Standarte 1/VT Deutschland stand