Coordinates	19°28′56″N99°06′45″N
Agency name	SS
Nativename	Schutzstaffel
Logo	Flag Schutzstaffel.svg
Logo width	100px
Logo caption	SS insignia
Picture	Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H04436, Klagenfurt, Adolf Hitler, Ehrenkompanie.jpg
Picture width	300px
Picture caption	Adolf Hitler inspects the ''Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler'' on arrival at Klagenfurt in April 1938. Heinrich Himmler is to the right of and behind Hitler's right side.
Formed	April 4, 1925
Preceding1
Preceding2
Dissolved	May 8, 1945
Jurisdiction	GermanyGerman-occupied Europe
Headquarters	SS-Hauptamt, Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, Berlin
Employees	1,250,000 (c. February 1945)
Minister1 name	Adolf Hitler
Minister1 pfo	Führer
Minister2 name	Heinrich Himmler
Minister2 pfo	Reichsführer
Chief1 name	Julius Schreck
Chief1 position	Reichsführer-SS(Reich Leader of the SS)(1925–1926)
Chief2 name	Joseph Berchtold
Chief2 position	Reichsführer-SS(1926–1927)
Chief3 name	Erhard Heiden
Chief3 position	Reichsführer-SS(1927–1929)
Chief4 name	Heinrich Himmler
Chief4 position	Reichsführer-SS(1929–1945)Karl Hanke, Reichsführer-SS(29 April – May 1945)
Agency type	Paramilitary
Parent agency	NSDAP
Child1 agency	Allgemeine SS
Child2 agency	Waffen-SS (SS-Verfügungstruppe)
Child3 agency	SS-Totenkopfverbände
Child4 agency	RSHA – Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo) and Sicherheitsdienst (SD)
Child5 agency	Ordnungspolizei
Footnotes	}}

The ''Schutzstaffel'' (, translated to ''Protection Squadron'' or ''defence corps''), abbreviated SS—or 16px|Runic "↯↯" with stylized "Armanen" Sig runes—was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS, under Heinrich Himmler's command, was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II (1939–1945). After 1945, the SS was banned in Germany, along with the Nazi Party, as a criminal organization.

The SS was formed in 1925 under the then name "Saal-Schutz" (Assembly-Hall-Protection), intended for providing security for Nazi party meetings and as a personal protection squad for Adolf Hitler. Under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler between 1929 and 1945, the SS was renamed to "Schutz-Staffel" and grew from a small paramilitary formation to one of the largest and most powerful organizations in the Third Reich.

Background

The SS grew from a small paramilitary unit to a powerful force that served as the Führer's "Praetorian Guard", the Nazi Party's "Protection Squadron" and a force that, fielding almost a million men (both on the front lines and as political police), managed to exert as much political influence in the Third Reich as the ''Wehrmacht'' (Germany's regular armed forces).

According to the Nuremberg Trials, as well as many war crimes investigations and trials conducted since then, the SS was responsible for the vast majority of war crimes perpetrated under the Nazi regime. In particular, it was the primary organization which carried out The Holocaust. As a part of its race-centric functions, the SS oversaw the isolation and displacement of Jews from the populations of the conquered territories, seizing their assets and transporting them to concentration camps and ghettos where they would be used as slave labor (pending extermination) or immediately killed.

Initially a small branch of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (the "Brownshirts" or Stormtroopers, abbreviated in German as SA), the SS grew in size and power due to its exclusive loyalty to Adolf Hitler, as opposed to the SA, which was seen as semi-independent and a threat to Adolf Hitler's hegemony over the party. Under Himmler, the SS selected its members according to the Nazi ideology. Creating elite police and military units such as the ''Waffen-SS'', Adolf Hitler used the SS to form an order of men claimed to be superior in racial purity and ability to other Germans and national groups, a model for the Nazi vision of a master race. During World War II, SS units operated alongside the regular Heer (German Army). However, by the final stages of the war, the SS came to dominate the Wehrmacht in order to eliminate perceived threats to Adolf Hitler's power while implementing his strategies, despite the increasingly futile German war effort.

Chosen to implement the Nazi "Final Solution" for the Jews and other groups deemed inferior (and/or enemies of the state), the SS was the lead branch in carrying out the killing, torture and enslavement of approximately twelve million people. Most victims were Jews or of Polish or other Slavic extraction. However, other racial/ethnic groups such as the Roma made up a significant number of victims, as well. Furthermore, the SS purge was extended to those viewed as threats to "race hygiene" or Nazi ideology—including the mentally or physically handicapped, homosexuals, or political dissidents. Members of labor organizations and those perceived to be affiliated with groups (religious, political, social and otherwise) that opposed the regime, or were seen to have views contradictory to the goals of the Nazi government, were rounded up in large numbers; these included clergy of all faiths, Jehovah's Witnesses, Freemasons, Communists, and Rotary Club members.

Foreseeing Nazi defeat in the war, a significant number of SS personnel organized their escape to South American nations. These escapes are said to have been assisted by an organization known as ODESSA, an acronym of the German phrase ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', which translates as the ''Organization of Former Members of the SS''. Many others were captured and prosecuted by Allied authorities at the Nuremberg Trials for war crimes, and absconding SS criminals were the targets of police forces in various Allied nations, post-war West and East Germany, Austria and Israel.

The Nazis regarded the SS as an elite unit, the party's "Praetorian Guard", with all SS personnel (originally) selected on the principles of racial purity and loyalty to the Nazi Party. In the early days of the SS, officer candidates had to prove German ancestry to 1750. They also were required to prove that they had no Jewish ancestors. Later, when the requirements of the war made it impossible to confirm the ancestry of officer candidates, the proof of ancestry regulation was dropped.

In contrast to the black-uniformed ''Allgemeine SS'' (the political wing of the SS), the ''Waffen-SS'' (the military wing) evolved into a second German army aside the ''Wehrmacht'' (the regular national armed forces) and operating in tandem with them; especially with the Heer (German Army).

Special ranks and uniforms

The SS was distinguished from other branches of the German military, the National Socialist Party, and German state officials by its own rank structure, unit insignia, and uniforms. The all-black SS uniform was designed by ''SS-Oberführer'' Prof. Karl Diebitsch and graphic designer ''SS-Sturmhauptführer'' Walter Heck. These uniforms were rarely worn after the war began, however, as Himmler ordered that the all-black uniforms be turned in for use by others. They were sent east where they were used by auxiliary police units and west to be used by Germanic-SS units such as the ones in Holland and Denmark. In place of the black uniform, SS men wore uniforms of dove-grey or Army field-grey with distinctive insignia. The uniforms were made by hundreds of clothing factories licensed by the RZM, including Hugo Boss, with some workers being prisoners of war forced into labor work. Many were made in concentration camps. The SS also developed its own field uniforms. Initially these were similar to standard Wehrmacht wool uniforms but they also included reversible smocks and helmet covers printed with camouflage patterns with a brown/green "spring" side and a brown/brown "autumn" side. In 1944, the Waffen SS began using a universal camouflage uniform intended to replace the wool field uniform.

SS ideology

In contrast to the Imperial military tradition, the nature of the SS was based on an ideology where commitment, effectiveness and political reliability, not class or education, would determine how far they succeeded in the organization. The SS also stressed total loyalty and obedience to orders unto death. It became a powerful tool used by Hitler and the Nazi state for political ends. The SS ideology and values of the organization was one of the main reasons why the SS was entrusted with the execution of many Nazi atrocities and war crimes of the Nazi state.

Merger with police forces

As the Nazi party monopolized political power in Germany, key government functions such as law enforcement were absorbed by the SS, while many SS organizations became de facto government agencies. To maintain the political power and security of the Nazi party (and later the nation), the SS established and ran the ''SD'' (Security service) and took over the administration of ''Gestapo'' (Secret state police), ''Kripo'' (criminal investigative police), and the ''Orpo'' (regular uniformed police). Moreover, legal jurisdiction over the SS and its members was taken away from the civilian courts and given to courts run by the SS itself. These actions effectively put the SS above the law.

Personal control by Himmler

Himmler, the leader of the SS, was a chief architect of the Final Solution. The SS ''Einsatzgruppen'' death squads, formed by his deputy, Heydrich, murdered many civilian non-combatants, mostly Jews, in the countries occupied by Germany during World War II. Himmler was responsible for establishing and operating concentration camps and extermination camps in which millions of inmates died of systematic mass gassing, shooting, hanging, inhumane treatment, overwork, malnutrition, or medical experiments. After the war, the judges of the Nuremberg Trials declared the SS and its sub-parts criminal organizations responsible for the implementation of racial policies of genocide and committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

History

The History of the SS may be grouped into several key periods of the organization's existence. The first group associated with SS (but not known as such) existed briefly in 1923, before being disbanded and re-founded in 1925. This second version of the SS, sometimes known as the "Pre-Himmler SS", existed from 1925 to 1929; the more recognizable SS under Heinrich Himmler then came into being. Himmler's SS existed from 1929 to 1945, and may itself be divided into a peacetime SS until 1939, replaced by a wartime SS lasting until the end of World War II. The group was formally disbanded upon the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Origins

The group was first formed in 1923, as a company of the SA who were given the task of protecting senior leaders of the Nazi Party at rallies, speeches, and other public events. Commanded by Emil Maurice, and known as the ''Stabswache'' (Staff Guard), the original group consisted of eight men and was modeled after the Erhardt Naval Brigade, a violent ''Freikorps'' of the time.

After the failed 1923 ''Putsch'' by the Nazi Party, the SA and the ''Stabswache'' were abolished, yet they returned in 1925. At that time, the ''Stabswache'' was reestablished as the 30-man "''Stosstrupp'' Adolf Hitler", given the task of providing personal protection for Hitler at Nazi Party functions and events. That same year, the ''Stosstrupp'' was expanded to a national level, and renamed successively the ''Sturmstaffel'' (storm squadron), then the ''Schutzkommando'' (protection command), and finally the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS). The new SS was delegated to be a protection company of various Nazi Party leaders throughout Germany. Hitler's personal SS protection unit was later enlarged to include combat units and after April 13, 1934, was known as the ''Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler'' (LSSAH). After Germany mobilized in 1939, the combat units in the LSSAH were mobilized as well, leaving behind an honour guard battalion to protect Hitler. It is these SS troops that are seen at the Reich Chancellery and Hitler's Obersalzberg estate in his personal 8 mm movies.

Development

Between 1925 and 1929, the SS was considered merely a small ''Gruppe'' of the SA and numbered no more than 1000 personnel; by 1929 that number was down to 280. On January 6, 1929, Hitler appointed Himmler as the leader of the SS, and by the end of 1932, the SS had 52,000 members. By the end of the next year, it had over 209,000 members. Himmler's expansion of the SS was based on models from other groups, such as the Knights Templar and the Italian Blackshirts. According to ''SS''-''Obergruppenführer'' and General of the ''Waffen-SS'', Karl Wolff, it was also based on the model from the Society of Jesus of absolute obedience to the Pope. A motto of the SS was ''"Treu, Tapfer, Gehorsam"'' ("Loyalty, Valiance, Obedience").

Before 1929, the SS wore the same brown uniform as the SA, with the exception of a black tie and a black cap with a ''Totenkopf'' ("death's head") skull and bones symbol on it. In that year Himmler extended the black colour to include breeches, boots, belts, and armband edges; and in 1932 they adopted the all-black uniform, designed by Prof. Diebitsch and Walter Heck. In 1936 an "earth-grey" uniform was issued. The ''Waffen'' ("armed") SS wore a field-grey (''feldgrau'') uniform similar to the regular army, or ''Heer''. During the war, ''Waffen-SS'' units wore a wide range of items printed with camouflage patterns (such as ''Platanenmuster,'' ''Erbsenmuster,'' captured Italian ''Telo Mimetico,'' etc.), while their ''feldgrau'' uniforms became largely indistinguishable from those of the ''Heer'', save for the insignia. In 1945, the SS adopted the ''Leibermuster'' disruptive pattern that inspired many forms of modern battle dress, although it was not widely issued before the end of the war.

Their official motto was ''"Meine Ehre heißt Treue''" ("My Honour is Loyalty"). The SS rank system was unique in that it did not copy the terms and ranks used by the Wehrmacht's branches (''Heer'' ("army"), ''Luftwaffe'' ("air force"), and ''Kriegsmarine'' ("navy")), but instead used the ranks established by the post-World War I ''Freikorps'' and taken over by the SA. This was mainly done to establish the SS as being independent from the ''Wehrmacht'', although SS ranks did generally have equivalents in the other services.

Heinrich Himmler, together with his right-hand man, Reinhard Heydrich, consolidated the power of the organization. In 1931, Himmler gave Heydrich the assignment to build an intelligence and security service inside the SS, which became the ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD). By the time the war began, the number of members rose to 250,000, and the ''Waffen-SS'' was formed in August 1940, expanding the earlier armed SS troops who had fought in Poland and France in 1939–40, to serve alongside the ''Wehrmacht'', Germany's regular armed forces. Himmler also received control of the ''Gestapo'' in 1934, and, that same year, Hitler had given the SS jurisdiction over all concentration camps. In the wake of the plot against Hitler's life by a group of regular military generals in July 1944, the ''Führer'' came to distrust his regular military, putting ever more trust in the SS, particularly Himmler, who had acted against the plotters and their families. This attitude of Hitler's was further shown at the very end of the war, when he refused to station himself in the OKW bunker in Berlin, claiming that he did not 'trust the strength of army concrete', however the true reason was probably that he feared another generals' plot and so chose to stay in his own headquarters, surrounded by an apparently more loyal SS retinue.

Early SS disunity

Far from the united instrument of oppression that the SS would eventually become, in its first years of existence, the SS was in fact significantly divided into several factions both geographically within Germany as well as within the structure of the SS as a whole. In addition, prior to April 1934, the Gestapo was a civilian state police agency outside the control of SS leadership. In some cases, it came into direct conflict with the SS and even attempted to arrest some of its members.

The first major division in the early SS was between SS units in Northern Germany, situated around Berlin, and SS units in southern Germany headquartered around Munich. The "Northern-SS" was under the command of Kurt Daluege who had close ties to Hermann Göring and enjoyed his position in Berlin where most of the Nazi government offices were located. This in contrast to the SS in southern Germany, commanded unquestionably by Heinrich Himmler and located mostly in Munich which was the location of the major Nazi political offices.

Within the SS, early divisions also developed between the "General SS" and the SS under the command of Sepp Dietrich which would eventually become the Waffen-SS. The early military SS was kept quite separate from the regular SS and Dietrich introduced early regulations that the military SS answered directly to Hitler, and not Himmler, and for several months even ordered his troops to wear the black SS uniform without a swastika armband to separate the soldiers from other SS units once the black uniform had become common throughout Germany.

The division between the military and general SS never entirely disappeared even in the last days of World War II. Senior Waffen-SS commanders had little respect for Himmler and he was scornfully nicknamed "Reichsheini" by the Waffen-SS rank and file. Himmler worsened his own position when he attempted to hold a military command during the last months of the war and proved totally incompetent as a field commander.

The Gestapo, which would eventually become a semi-integrated part of the SS security forces, was at first a large "thorn in the side" to Himmler as the group was originally the Prussian state political police under the control of Hermann Göring and commanded by his protege Rudolf Diels. Early Gestapo activities came into direct conflict with the SS and it was not until the SA became a common enemy that Göring turned over control of the Gestapo to Himmler and Heydrich (the three then worked together to destroy the greater threat of the SA leadership). Even so, Göring was reported to have disliked Himmler to the last days of the war and even turned down honorary SS rank since he did not want to any way be subordinated to Himmler.

The SS before 1933

1925–1928

In early 1925, the future SS was a single, thirty-man company that was Hitler's personal bodyguard. In September, all local NSDAP offices were ordered to create body guard units of no more than ten men apiece. By 1926, six ''SS-Gaus'' were established, supervising all such units in Germany. In turn, the ''SS-Gaus'' answered to the ''SS-Oberleitung'', the headquarters unit. The ''SS-Oberleitung'' answered to the office of the Supreme SA Leader (''Oberste SA-Führer''), Franz Pfeffer von Salomon, clearly establishing the SS as a subordinate unit of the ''Sturmabteilung''.

Between 1926 and 1928, the SS command Gaus were as follows:

''SS-Gau Berlin Brandenburg''

''SS-Gau Franken''

''SS-Gau Niederbayern''

''SS-Gau Rheinland-Süd''

''SS-Gau Sachsen''

1929–1931

In 1929, the ''SS-Oberleitung'' was expanded and reorganized into the ''SS-Oberstab'' with five main offices, as listed below:

''Abteilung'' I: Administration

''Abteilung'' II: Personnel

''Abteilung'' III: Finance

''Abteilung'' IV: Security

''Abteilung'' V: Race

At the same time, the ''SS-Gaus'' were expanded into three ''SS-Oberführerbereiche'' as listed below

''SS-Oberführerbereiche Ost''

''SS-Oberführerbereiche West''

''SS-Oberführerbereiche Süd''

Each ''SS-Oberführerbereiche'' contained several ''SS-Brigaden'', which in turn were divided into regiment-sized ''SS-Standarten''.

1931–1933

In 1931, as the SS began to increase its membership to over 100,000, the organization was again restructured beginning with the ''SS-Oberleitung'', which was replaced by the ''SS-Amt'', divided into five sections as follows:

Section I: Headquarters Staff

Section II: Personnel Office

Section III: Administration Office

Section IV: SS Reserves

Section V: SS Medical Corps

In addition to the ''SS-Amt'', the ''SS-Rasseamt'' (Race Office) and ''Sicherheitsdienst Amt'' (Office of the SD) were established as two separate offices on an equal footing with the Headquarters Office.

At the same time that the SS Headquarters was being reorganized, the ''SS-Oberführerbereichen'' were replaced with five ''SS-Gruppen'', listed as follows:

''SS-Gruppe Nord''

''SS-Gruppe Ost''

''SS-Gruppe Süd''

''SS-Gruppe Südost''

''SS-Gruppe West''

The lower levels of the SS remained unchanged between 1931 and 1933. However, it was during this time that the SS began to establish its independence from the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA), although officially the SS was still considered a sub-organization of the SA and answerable to the SA Chief of Staff.

The SS after the Nazi seizure of power

After the Nazi seizure of power, the mission of the SS expanded from the protection of the person of Adolf Hitler to the internal security of the Nazi regime. In 1936, Himmler described the new mission of the SS, protecting the internal security of the regime, in his pamphlet, "The SS as an Anti-bolshevist Fighting Organization." {{bquote|We shall unremittingly fulfill our task, the guaranty of the security of Germany from the interior, just as the Wehr-macht guarantees the safety, the honor, the greatness, and the peace of the Reich from the exterior. We shall take care that never again in Germany, the heart of Europe, will the Jewish-Bolshevistic revolution of subhumans be able to be kindled either from within or through emissaries from without. Without pity we shall be a merciless sword of justice for all those forces whose existence and activity we know, on the day of the slightest attempt, may it be today, may it be in decades or may it be in centuries.}} Following Hitler's assumption of power in Germany, the SS became regarded as a state organization and a branch of the established government. The Headquarters Staff, SD, and Race Office became full-time paid employees, as did the leaders of the ''SS-Gruppen'' and some of their command staffs. The rest of the SS were considered part-time volunteers, and in this concept the ''Allgemeine-SS'' came into being.

By the autumn of 1933, Hitler's personal bodyguard (previously the 1st SS Standarte located in Munich) had been called to Berlin to replace the Army Chancellery Guard as protectors of the Chancellor of Germany. In November 1933, the SS guard in Berlin became known as the ''Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler''. In April 1934, Himmler modified the name to ''Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler'' (LSSAH). Following the Night of the Long Knives, the SS again underwent a massive reorganization. The ''SS-Gruppen'' were renamed as ''SS-Oberabschnitt'', and the former SS Headquarters and command offices were reorganized into three and then eight ''SS-Hauptämter''. The ''SS-Hauptamt'' offices would eventually grow in number to twelve main offices by 1944. These offices remained unchanged in their names until the end of World War II and the fall of the SS.

By mid-1934, the SS had taken control of all concentration camps from the SA, and a new organization, the ''SS-Totenkopfverbände'' (SS-TV) had been established as the SS Concentration Camp Service. The original SS-TV was organized into six ''Wachtruppen'' at each of Germany's major concentration camps. The ''Wachtruppen'' were expanded in 1935 into ''Wachsturmbanne'' and again in 1937 into three main ''SS-Totenkopfstandarten''. This structure would remain unchanged until 1941, when a massive labor and death camp system in the occupied territories necessitated the concentration camps to be placed under the ''Wirtschafts und Verwaltungshauptamt'' (SS-WVHA) in three main divisions of Labor Camps, Concentration Camps, and Death Camps.

The early ''Waffen-SS'' can trace its origins to 1934 in the ''SS-Verfügungstruppe'': two ''Standarten'' (regiments) under retired general Paul Hausser armed and trained to Army standards, and held ready at the personal disposal of the Führer in peace or war. Hausser also established two ''Junkerschule'' for the training of SS officers.

1936–1939

Himmler was named the chief of all German police (nominally in that role subordinate to Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick) on June 17, 1936. He thereby assumed control of all of the German states' regular police forces and, nationalizing them, formed the ''Ordnungspolizei'' and the ''Kriminalpolizei''. The Orpo, uniformed police, were placed under the command of SS ''Obergruppenführer'' Kurt Daluege. Further, the Gestapo and the Kripo or ''Kriminalpolizei'' (Criminal Police) were incorporated into the SiPo or ''Sicherheitspolizei'' (Security Police) and considered a complementary organisation to the SD or ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (Security Service).

In 1939, from the existing ''Totenkopfverbände'' was formed the SS Division ''Totenkopf'' composed of members of the Concentration Camp service together with support units transferred from the Army. The ''Totenkopf'' or "Death's Head" division would later become a division of the ''Waffen-SS''.

The SS during World War II

By the outbreak of World War II, the SS had solidified into its final form. By this point, the term "SS" could be applied to two completely separate organizations, mainly the Allgemeine-SS and the Waffen-SS. The Allgemeine-SS also had control over a third SS branch, known as the Germanic-SS, which was composed of SS groups formed in occupied territories and allied countries. In the last months of World War II, a fourth branch of the SS known as the "Auxiliary-SS" was formed from non-SS members conscripted to serve in Germany's concentration camps.

SS and police leaders

During the Second World War, the most powerful men in the SS were the SS and Police Leaders, divided into three levels: Regular Leaders, Higher Leaders, and Supreme Leaders. Such persons normally held the rank of ''SS-Gruppenführer'' or above and answered directly to Himmler in all matters pertaining to the SS in their area of responsibility. Thus, SS and Police Leaders bypassed all other chains of command. In Himmler's grand dream of the SS, the SS and Police Leaders were eventually to become SS-Governors of the ''Lebensraum'' which would be ruled by SS-Lords, protected by SS-Legions, and worked and lived in by SS-Yeoman Warriors overseeing Slavic serfs.

SS offices

By 1942, all activities of the SS were managed through twelve main offices of the ''Allgemeine-SS''.

''Hauptamt Persönlicher Stab Reichsführer-SS'', Personal Staff of the Reich Leader SS (i.e., Himmler)

''SS-Hauptamt'', SS-HA, Main Administrative Office

''SS Führungshauptamt'', SS-FHA, SS Main Operational Office (military command for the Waffen-SS)

''Hauptamt SS-Gericht'', Main Office of SS Legal Matters

''SS-Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt'', RuSHA, SS Office of Race and Settlement

''SS Personalhauptamt'', SS Personnel Main Office

''SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt'', RSHA, Reich Main Security Office

''Hauptamt Ordnungspolizei'', Main Office of the Order Police

''Wirtschafts und Verwaltungshauptamt'', SS-WVHA, Economic and Administration Main Office (which administered the concentration camp system)

''Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle'', VOMI, Racial German Assistance Main Office

''Hauptamt Dienststelle Heissmeyer'', SS Education Office

''Hauptamt Reichskommissar für die Festigung Deutschen Volkstums'', RKFVD, Main Office of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood

Allgemeine-SS

The ''Allgemeine-SS'' (the "General SS") refers to a non-combat branch of the SS. The ''Allgemeine-SS'' formations were divided into ''Standarten'', organized into larger formations known as ''Abschnitte'' and ''Oberabschnitte''. Many personnel served in other branches of the state government, Nazi Party, and certain departments within the RSHA (e.g., the SD, Gestapo and Kripo). Members of the ''Allgemeine-SS'' were considered more or less reservists with many serving the German military, or the ''Waffen-SS''. For those who served in the ''Waffen-SS'', it was a standard practice to hold separate SS ranks for both the ''Allgemeine-SS'' and the ''Waffen-SS''.

Waffen-SS

The ''Waffen-SS'' were frontline combat troops trained to fight in Germany's battles during World War II. During the early campaigns against Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, military SS units were of regiment size and drawn from existing armed SS formations:

The ''Leibstandarte'', Hitler's personal bodyguard.

The Death's-Head Battalions (German: ''Totenkopfverbände''), which administered the concentration camps.

The Dispositional Troops, (German: ''Verfügungstruppe'').

For the invasion of France and the Low Countries in 1940 (''Fall Gelb'') the three SS-VT and three of the SS-TV regiments were each organized into divisions (the future 2nd "Das Reich" and 3rd "Totenkopf"), and another division was raised from the ''Ordnungspolizei'' (later the 4th "Polizei"). Following the campaign, these units together with the ''Leibstandarte'' and additional SS-TV ''Standarten'' were amalgamated into the newly-formed ''Kommandoamt der Waffen-SS'' within the ''SS Führungshauptamt''.

In 1941 Himmler announced that additional ''Waffen-SS'' ''Freiwilligen'' units would be raised from non-German foreign nationals. His goal was to acquire additional manpower from occupied nations. These foreign legions eventually included volunteers from Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands.

While the Waffen-SS remained officially outside the Armed Forces (''Wehrmacht'') and under Himmler's authority, they were placed under the operational command of the Armed Forces High Command (OKW) or Army High Command (OKH), and were largely funded by the Wehrmacht. During the war, the ''Waffen-SS'' grew to 38 divisions. The most famous are the ''1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler'' (LSSAH), ''2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich'', ''3rd SS Division Totenkopf'', ''5th SS Panzer Division Wiking'' and the ''12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend''.

The ''Waffen-SS'' maintained several "Foreign Legions" of personnel from conquered territories and countries allied to Germany. The majority wore a distinctive national collar patch and preceded their SS rank titles with the prefix ''Waffen'' instead of SS. Volunteers from Scandinavian countries filled the ranks of two divisions, the 5th "Wiking" and 11th "Nordland." Belgian Flemings joined Dutchmen to form the "Nederland" Legion,their Walloon compatriots joined the Sturmbrigade "Wallonien". There was also a French volunteer division,(33rd Franzosiche Division), "Charlemagne".

Racial restrictions were relaxed to the extent that Ukrainian Slavs, Albanians from Kosovo, Turkic Tatars, and even Asians from Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) units were recruited. The Ukrainians and the Tatars had both suffered persecution under Joseph Stalin and their motive was a hatred of communism rather than sympathy for National Socialism. The exiled Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, used hatred of Serbs and Jews to recruit an entire Waffen-SS division of Bosnian Muslims, the 13th SS Division "Handschar" (Scimitar). The year long Soviet occupation of the Baltic states at the beginning of World War II produced volunteers for Estonian and Latvian Waffen-SS units, though the majority of those units still was formed by forced draft. However, some other occupied countries such as Greece, Lithuania, Czech Republic and Poland never formed formal ''Waffen-SS'' legions. With that said, there were some countrymen that were in the service of the Waffen-SS. In Greece, the fascist organisation ESPO tried to create a Greek SS division, but the attempt was abandoned after its leader was assassinated.

The ''Indische Freiwilligen Infanterie Regiment 950'' (also known at various stages as the ''Indische Freiwilligen-Legion der Waffen-SS'', the ''Legion Freies Indien'', and ''Azad Hind Fauj'') was created in August 1942, chiefly from disaffected Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army, captured by the Axis in North Africa. Many, if not most, of the Indian volunteers who switched sides to fight with the German Army and against the British were strongly nationalistic supporters of the exiled, anti-British, former president of the Indian National Congress, ''Netaji'' (the Leader) Subhash Chandra Bose. See also the Tiger Legion and the Indian National Army.

Germanic-SS

The Germanic-SS was an SS-modeled structure formed in occupied territories and allied countries. The main purpose of the Germanic-SS was enforcement of Nazi racial doctrine and anti-semitic policies. Denmark and Belgium were the two largest participants in the Germanic-SS program. Germanic-SS members wore the all-black SS uniforms favored by the pre-war German SS. After the war began, Himmler ordered the uniforms to be turned in and many were then sent west to be used by Germanic-SS units such as the ones in Holland and Denmark.

Death squads

The ''Einsatzgruppen'' were special units of the SS that were formed on an 'as-needed' basis under the authority of the ''Sicherheitspolizei'' and later the RSHA, whose commander was Heydrich. The first ''Einsatzgruppen'' were created in 1938 for use during the ''Anschluss'' of Austria and again in 1939 for the annexation of Czechoslovakia. The original purpose of the ''Einsatzgruppen'' was to 'enter occupied areas, seize vital records, and neutralize potential threats'. In Austria and Czechoslovakia, the activities of the ''Einsatzgruppen'' were mainly limited to Nazification of local governments and assistance with the establishment of new concentration camps.

In 1939 the ''Einsatzgruppen'' were reactivated and sent into Poland to exterminate the Polish elite (Operation Tannenberg, AB-Aktion), so that there would be no leadership to form a resistance to German occupation. In 1941, the ''Einsatzgruppen'' reached their height when they were sent into Russia to begin large-scale extermination and genocide of "undesirables" such as Jews, Gypsies, and communists. The ''Einsatzgruppen'' were responsible for the murders of over 1,000,000 people. The most notorious massacre of Jews in the Soviet Union was at a ravine called Babi Yar outside Kiev, where 33,771 Jews were killed in a single operation on September 29–30, 1941.

The last ''Einsatzgruppen'' were disbanded in mid 1944 (although on paper some continued to exist until 1945) due to the retreating German forces on both fronts and the inability to carry on with further "in-the-field" extermination activities. Former ''Einsatzgruppen'' members were either folded into the ''Waffen-SS'' or took up roles in the more established Concentration Camps such as Auschwitz.

Special action units

Beginning in 1938, the SS enacted a procedure where offices and units of the SS could form smaller sub-units, known as ''Sonderkommandos'', to carry out special tasks and actions which might involve sending agents or troops into the field. The use of ''Sonderkommandos'' was very widespread, and according to former SS Sturmbannführer (Major) Wilhelm Höttl, not even the SS leadership knew how many ''Sonderkommandos'' were constantly being formed, disbanded, and reformed for various tasks.

The best-known ''Sonderkommandos'' were formed from the SS Economic-Administrative Head Office, the SS Head Office, and also Department VII of the Reich Main Security Office (Science and Research) whose duties were to confiscate valuable items from Jewish libraries.

The ''Eichmann Sonderkommando'' was attached to the Security Police and the SD in terms of provisioning and manpower, but maintained a special position in the SS due to its direct role in the deportation of Jews to the death camps as part of the Final Solution.

The term "Sonderkommando" was ironically also used to describe the teams of Jewish prisoners who were forced to work in gas chambers and crematoria, receiving special privileges and above-average treatment, before then being gassed themselves. The obvious distinction was that these Jewish "special-action units" were not SS ''Sonderkommandos''; the term was simply applied to these obviously non-SS personnel due to the nature of the tasks which they performed.

SS and police courts

SS and police courts were special tribunals which were the only authority authorized to try SS personnel for crimes. The different SS and Police Courts were as follows:

''SS- und Polizeigericht'': Standard SS and Police Court for trial of SS officers and enlisted men accused of minor and somewhat serious crimes

''Feldgerichte'': ''Waffen-SS'' Court for court martial of ''Waffen-SS'' military personnel accused of violating the military penal code of the German Armed Forces.

''Oberstes SS- und Polizeigericht'': The Supreme SS and Police Court for trial of serious crimes and also any infraction committed by SS Generals.

''SS- und Polizeigericht z.b. V.'': The Extraordinary SS and Police Court was a secret tribunal that was assembled to deal with highly sensitive issues which were desired to be kept secret even from the SS itself.

The one exception to the SS and Police Courts jurisdiction involved members of the ''Allgemeine-SS'' who were serving on active duty in the regular ''Wehrmacht''. In such cases, the SS member in question was subject to regular ''Wehrmacht'' military law and could face charges before a standard military tribunal.

Special protection units

The original purpose of the SS, that of safeguarding the leadership of the Nazi Party (Adolf Hitler) continued until the very end of the group's existence. Hitler had used bodyguards for protection since the 1920s, and as the SS grew in size and importance, so too did Hitler's personnel protection unit. In all, there were two main SS groups most closely associated with protecting the life of Adolf Hitler.

Leibstandarte: The Leibstandarate was the end product of several previous groups which had protected Hitler while he was living in Munich, before he became Chancellor of Germany. By the start of World War II, the Leibstandarte itself had become four distinct entities mainly the Waffen-SS division (unconnected to Hitler's personal protection but a key formation of the Waffen-SS), the Berlin Chancellory Guard, the SS security regiment assigned to the Obersalzberg in Berchtesgaden, and an original remnant of the Munich based bodyguard unit which protected Hitler when he visited his personal apartment and the Brown House Nazi Party headquarters in Munich.

RSD: The RSD, or ''Reichssicherheitsdienst'' was a special corps of personal bodyguards who protected Hitler from physical attack. While the Leibstandarte was concerned with security in and around Hitler, the RSD was trained to protect Hitler's actual person and to give their lives in order to prevent harm or death to the Führer.

Hitler also made use of regular military protection, especially when travelling into the field or to operational headquarters (such as the Wolf's Lair). Hitler always maintained an SS escort, however, and his security was mainly handled by the Leibstandarte and the RSD.

SS special purpose corps

Another section of the SS consisted of special purpose units which assisted the main SS with a variety of tasks. The first such units were SS cavalry formations formed in the 1930s as part of the Allgemeine-SS (these units were entirely separate from the later Waffen-SS cavalry commands).

One of the more infamous SS special purpose corps were the SS medical units, composed mostly of doctors who became involved in both euthanasia and human experimentation. The SS also formed a special corps for women, since full SS membership was available only for men, as well as a scientific corps to conduct historical research into Nordic-Germanic origins.

SS Cavalry Corps

The SS Cavalry Corps (German: ''Reiter-SS'') comprised several ''Reiterstandarten'' and ''Reiterabschnitte'', which were really equestrian clubs to attract the German upper class and nobility into the SS. In the 1930s, the ''Reiter-SS'' was considered as a nucleus for a military branch of the SS, but this idea was phased out with the rise of the ''SS-Verfügungstruppe'' (later the ''Waffen-SS'').

By 1941, the ''Reiter-SS'' was little more than a social club. Most of the serious cavalry officers transferred to combat units in the ''Waffen-SS'' and the SS Cavalry Brigade. Between 1942 and 1945, the ''Reiter-SS'' effectively ceased to exist except on paper, with only a handful of members. During the Nuremberg Trials, when the Tribunal declared the SS to be a criminal organization, the ''Reiter-SS'' was expressly excluded, due to its insignificant involvement in other SS activities.

SS Medical Corps

The SS Medical Corps first appeared in the 1930s as small companies of SS personnel known as the ''Sanitätsstaffel''. After 1931, the SS formed a headquarters office known as ''Amt'' V, which was the central office for SS medical units.

In 1945, after the surrender of Germany, the SS was declared an illegal criminal organization by the Allies. SS doctors, in particular, were marked as war criminals due to the wide range of human medical experimentation which had been conducted during World War II as well as the role SS doctors had played in the gas chamber selections of the Holocaust. The most infamous member, Doctor Josef Mengele, served as Head Medical Officer of Auschwitz and was responsible for the daily gas chamber selections of people as well as experiments at the camp.

SS Womens Corps

The ''SS-Helferinnenkorps'', translated literally as 'Women Helper Corps', comprised women volunteers who joined the SS as auxiliary personnel. Such personnel were not considered actual SS members, since SS membership was closed to women.

The Helferin Corps maintained a simple system of ranks, mainly ''SS-Helfer'', ''SS-Oberhelfer'', and ''SS-Haupthelfer''. Members of the Helferin Corps were assigned to a wide variety of activities such as administrative staff, supply support personnel, and female guards at concentration camps.

SS Scientific Corps

The Scientific Branch of the SS that was used to provide scientific and archeological proof of Aryan supremacy. Formed in 1935 by Himmler and Herman Wirth, the society did not become part of the SS until 1939.

Other SS groups

Austrian-SS

The term "Austrian-SS" was never a recognized branch of the SS, but is often used to describe that portion of the SS membership from Austria. Both Germany and Austria contributed to a single SS and Austrian SS members were seen as regular SS personnel, in contrast to SS members from other countries which were grouped into either the Germanic-SS or the Foreign Legions of the Waffen-SS.

The Austrian branch of the SS first developed in 1932 and, by 1934, was acting as a covert force to influence the ''Anschluss'' with Germany which would eventually occur in 1938. The early Austrian SS was led by Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Arthur Seyss-Inquart and was technically under the command of the SS in Germany, but often acted independently concerning Austrian affairs. In 1936, the Austrian-SS was declared illegal by the Austrian government.

After 1938, when Austria was annexed by Germany, the Austrian SS was folded into ''SS-Oberabschnitt Donau'' with the 3rd regiment of the ''SS-Verfugungstruppe'', ''Der Führer,'' and the fourth ''Totenkopf'' regiment, ''Ostmark'', recruited in Austria shortly thereafter. A new concentration camp at Mauthausen also opened under the authority of the SS Death's Head units.

Austrian SS members served in every branch of the SS, including Concentration Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and the Security Services. One notable Austrian-SS member was Amon Göth, immortalized in the film ''Schindler's List''. The fictional character of Hans Landa, seen in the film ''Inglorious Basterds'' was also depicted as a member of the Austrian-SS.

According to political science academic David Art:

Contract workers

To conduct upkeep, house-keeping, and the general maintenance of its many headquarters buildings both in Germany and in other occupied countries, the SS frequently hired civilian contract workers to perform such duties as maids, maintenance workers, and general laborers. The SS also occasionally employed civilian secretaries, but more often used the female SS corps for these duties.

Within the concentration camps, the SS used a different method to gain such work skills, mainly through the use of slave labor by "assigning" concentration camp inmates to work in certain jobs. This included doctors, such as Miklós Nyiszli who, while a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz, served as Chief Pathologist and personal assistant to Josef Mengele.

In occupied countries, especially France and the Low Countries, various resistance groups made use of the SS need for low level workers by planting resistance members in certain jobs within SS headquarters buildings. This allowed for intelligence gathering which assisted resistance attacks against German forces; resistance groups in the conquered eastern lands also used this method, with less success, although groups in Norway conducted several assassinations of SS officers through the use of intelligence plants within SS offices.. The SS was often aware of such "moles" and actively attempted to locate such persons and, on occasion, even used the resistance plants to German advantage by supplying bad information in an attempt to bring resistance groups out into the open and destroy them.

The French Resistance was by far the most successful in using SS contracted civilian workers to achieve intelligence gathering and conduct partisan operations. At the end of World War II, resistance groups also rounded up local civilians who had worked for the SS, usually subjecting them to humiliating ordeals such as the shaving of heads in public squares or carving swastikas into their foreheads with bowie knives.

Several motion pictures have been the subject of local civilians working for the SS, such as ''A Woman at War'', starring Martha Plimpton, and ''Black Book'', starring Christian Berkel.

Postwar activity and ODESSA

According to Simon Wiesenthal, toward the end of World War II, a group of former SS officers went to Argentina and set up a Nazi fugitive network code-named ODESSA, (an acronym for ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', "Organization of the former SS members"), with ties in Germany, Switzerland and Italy, operating out of Buenos Aires. ODESSA allegedly helped Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele, Erich Priebke, and many other war criminals find postwar refuge in Latin America.

It is estimated that out of roughly 70,000 members of the SS involved in crimes in German concentration camps, only between 1650 and 1700 were tried after the war.

However, SS members who escaped judicial punishment were often subject to summary execution, torture and beatings at the hands of freed prisoners, displaced persons or allied soldiers. Waffen SS soldiers were executed by U.S soldiers during the liberation of Dachau concentration camp, and SS officer Oskar Dirlewanger was beaten and tortured to death at the end of the war. In addition at least some members of the U.S Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) delivered captured SS camp guards to displaced person camps with the intention of them being extra-judicially executed.

Argentinian citizen and water company worker Ricardo Klement was discovered to be Adolf Eichmann in the 1950s, by former Jewish Dachau worker Lothar Hermann, whose daughter, Sylvia, became romantically involved with Klaus Klement (born Klaus Eichmann in 1936 in Berlin). He was captured by the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, in a suburb of Buenos Aires on May 11, 1960, and tried in Jerusalem on April 11, 1961, where he explicitly declared that he had abdicated his conscience in order to follow the ''Führerprinzip'' (the 'leader principle' or superior orders).

Josef Mengele, disguised as a member of the regular German infantry, was captured and released by the Allies, oblivious of who he was. He was able to go and work in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1949 and to Altos, Paraguay, in 1959 where he was discovered by Nazi hunters. From the late 1960s on, he exercised his medical practice in Embu, a small city near São Paulo, Brazil, under the identity of Wolfgang Gerhard, where in 1979, he suffered a stroke while swimming and drowned.

The British writer Gitta Sereny (born in 1921 in Hungary), who conducted interviews with SS men, considers the story about ODESSA untrue and attributes the escape of notorious SS members to postwar chaos, an individual bishop in the Vatican, and the Vatican's inability to investigate the stories of those people who came requesting help.

More recent research, however, notably by the Argentine author and journalist Uki Goñi in his book ''The Real Odessa'', has shown that such a network in fact existed, and in Argentina was largely run by Argentine President Juan Domingo Perón, a Nazi sympathiser who had been impressed by Mussolini's reign in Italy during a military tour of duty in that country which also took him to Nazi Germany.

In the modern age, several neo-Nazi groups claim to be successor organizations to the SS. There is no single group, however, that is recognized as a continuation of the SS, and most such present-day organizations are loosely organized with separate agendas.

See also

''Das Schwarze Korps''

Glossary of Nazi Germany

List of SS personnel

Units and Commands of the Schutzstaffel

Uniforms and insignia of the Schutzstaffel

Sig (rune)

''SS marschiert''

''Wenn alle untreu werden''

War crimes

SS State of Burgundy

Nazi gold

Notes

References

Further reading

Arenhövel, Verlag. ''Topography of Terror''. Berlin: Berliner Festspiele GmbH. (1989). ISBN 3-922912-25-7

Browder, George C. ''Foundations of the Nazi Police State—The Formation of Sipo and SD'', University of Kentucky, Lexington, (1990). ISBN 0-8131-1697-X

Cook, Stan & Bender, Roger James. ''Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler: Uniforms, Organization, & History'', San Jose, CA: R. James Bender Publishing (1994). ISBN 978-0-912138-55-8

Höhne, Heinz. ''Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf'', Verlag der Spiegel (Hamburg 1966); English translation by Richard Barry entitled ''The Order of the Death's Head, The Story of Hitler's SS''. London: Pan Books Ltd. (1969). ISBN 0 330 02963 0.

Infield, Glenn. ''The Secrets of the SS''. ISBN 978-0515102468

International Military Tribunal (referred to as IMT), (1947–1949). ''Record of the Nuremberg Trials November 14, 1945 – October 1, 1946''. 42 Vols. London: HMSO.

Koehl, Robert Lewis. ''The Black Corps'' University of Wisconsin Press, (1983).

Koehl, Robert Lewis. 1989, ''The SS: A History 1919–1945'', Tempus Publishing Limited. ISBN 0-7524-2559-5

Krausnick, Helmut (editor). ''Anatomy of the SS State'' with contributions by Hans Buchheim; Martin Broszat & Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, translated from the German by Richard Barry, Marian Jackson, Dorothy Long, New York : Walker, (1968).

Lasik Aleksander. ''Sztafety Ochronne w systemie niemieckich obozów koncentracyjnych. Rozwój organizacyjny, ewolucja zadań i struktur oraz socjologiczny obraz obozowych załóg SS'', wyd. Państwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau, Oświęcim 2007. ISBN 978-83-60210-32-1.

Library of Congress Military Legal Resources: Office of the United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality, ''Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression'', Volumes I though VIII

Lumsden, Robin. ''A Collector's Guide To: The Allgemeine – SS'', Ian Allan Publishing, Inc. (2001). ISBN 0-7110-2905-9

Merkel, Reiner: ''Hans Kammler – Manager des Todes'', 2010 August von Goethe Literaturverlag, Frankfurt am Main, ISBN 978-3-8372-0817-7.

Mollo, Andrew. ''Pictorial History of the SS (1923–1945)''. ISBN 0-7128-2174-0

Reitlinger, Gerald. ''The SS: Alibi of a Nation 1922–1945''. Viking (Da Capo reprint), New York (1957). ISBN 0-306-80351-8

Schultz, Sigrid. ''Germany Will Try It Again'' Reynal & Hitchcock, New York, (1944).

Shirer, William L.. ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'', Gramercy (1960). ISBN 0-517-10294-3

Speer, Albert. ''Inside the Third Reich'', pages 45, 94, 95, 144, 268–69 (Russian POWs), 369–371 (concentration camp labor), 372–374 (business enterprises and labor camps), Macmillan, New York (1970). ISBN 0-517-38579-1 (1982 Bonanza reprint).

SS Officer Personnel Files, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland

Tetens, T.H. ''The New Germany and the Old Nazis'' (LCN 61-7240)

Wechsbert, Joseph: ''The Murderers Among Us'' (LCN 67-13204)

Williams, Max. ''Reinhard Heydrich: The Biography: Volumes 1'', Ulric Publishing (2001), ISBN 0-9537577-5-7.

Yerger, Mark C. ''Allgemeine-SS: The Commands, Units, and Leaders of the General SS'', Schiffer Publishing (1997). ISBN 0-7643-0145-4

Discussion and detailed verdict of the International Military Tribunal finding the SS to have been a criminal organization, ''Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression''. Vol. II. USGPO, Washington, 1946, pages 173-237

Indonesian volunteers in the Waffen-SS

External links

1938 Transfer list of SS personnel to Wehrmacht, forum.axishistory.com

Axis History Factbook - SS Personal website from Sweden.

The German SS/Waffen-SS in WWII German military history research site. feldgrau.com

The Norwegian SS Volunteers Website in English about the Norwegian SS volunteers serving under German command during World War II. frontkjemper.com

Dywizje Waffen-SS In Polish. Many graphics on units, insignia and maps.

SS Views on the Solution to the Jewish Question from Das Schwarze Korps, No. 47, November 24, 1938. wilk.wpk.p.lodz.pl

Testimonies of SS-Men Regarding Gassing from the Jewish Virtual Library. jewishvirtuallibrary.org

The SS from Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression, Volume II Chapter XV, Criminality of Groups and Organizations from the Nuremberg Trial. nizkor.org

Category:1925 establishments in Germany Category:Military wings of political parties Category:Nazi organizations Category:Terrorism in Germany Category:The Holocaust Category:The Holocaust in Germany Category:Nazi Germany Category:Heinrich Himmler

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Coordinates	19°28′56″N99°06′45″N
Name	Michael Wittmann
Birth date	April 22, 1914
Death date	August 08, 1944
Birth place	Vogelthal
Death place	Between the towns of Cintheaux and St. Aignan de Cramesnil near the farm of Gaumesnil
Placeofburial	La Cambe German war cemetery (reinterred)
Nickname	The Black Baron
Allegiance	Nazi Germany
Branch
Serviceyears	1934 – 1944
Rank	Hauptsturmführer
Unit	Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and Schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 101
Battles	World War II Polish Campaign Battle of France Battle of Greece Operation Barbarossa Battle of Kursk Battle of Normandy
Awards	Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords
Laterwork	}}

Michael Wittmann (April 22, 1914 – August 8, 1944) was a German Waffen-SS tank commander during the Second World War. Wittmann would rise to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) and was a Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross holder.

He was credited with the destruction of 138 tanks and 132 anti-tank guns, along with an unknown number of other armoured vehicles, making him one of Germany's top scoring panzer aces, together with Johannes Bölter, Ernst Barkmann, Otto Carius and Kurt Knispel who was the top scoring ace of the war with 168 tank kills.

Wittmann is most famous for his ambush of elements of the British 7th Armoured Division, during the Battle of Villers-Bocage on 13 June 1944. While in command of a single Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger he destroyed up to 14 tanks and 15 personnel carriers along with 2 anti-tank guns within the space of 15 minutes.

The circumstances behind Wittmann’s death have caused some debate and discussion over the years, but it had been historically accepted that Trooper Joe Ekins, the gunner in a Sherman Firefly, of the 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry was his killer. However, in recent years, some commentators have suggested that members of the Canadian Sherbrooke Fusiliers Regiment may have been responsible instead.

Early life and career

Michael Wittmann was born on April 22, 1914 in the village of Vogelthal in the Oberpfalz region of Bavaria. He was the second son of local farmer Johann Wittmann and his wife Ursula. In February 1934, Michael joined the Volunteer Labour Service, the FAD (what later became the RAD) and on October 30, 1934 he joined the German Army. He was assigned to the 19. Infantry Regiment based at Freising by Munich, eventually reaching the rank of Gefreiter (lance-corporal). In October 1936 the 22-year-old Wittmann joined the Allgemeine-SS. On April 5, 1937, he was assigned to the premier regiment, later division Leibstandarte-SS ''Adolf Hitler'' (LSSAH) and was given the rank SS-Mann (private). A year later, he participated in the occupation of Austria and the Sudetenland with an armoured car platoon.

Second World War

Early War

His first experience of action came in the Polish Campaign, followed by the Battle of France as a commander of the new self-propelled assault guns, the Sturmgeschütz III Ausf. A. The Greek campaign - Operation 'Marita' - was launched on April 6, 1941. Leibstandarte SS ''Adolf Hitler'' (LSSAH) captured the Greek capital and formed the spearhead, alongside the 9th Panzer Division, which punched through the Greek countryside. After three weeks of campaigning, Nazi Germany had conquered Greece. Wittmann and his unit were sent to Czechoslovakia for a refit.

Eastern Front

The rest would not last long, however, as Wittmann's unit was soon dispatched to the Eastern Front to participate in the invasion of the Soviet Union. He initially served as a commander of a StuG III assault gun. He was assigned for both officer and tank training in the winter of 1942–43.

Returning to the Eastern Front as a newly commissioned officer, Wittmann was reassigned to the SS Panzer Regiment 1, a tank unit with the rank of SS-Untersturmführer (second lieutenant), where he commanded a Panzer III tank. By 1943, he commanded a Tiger, and by the Battle of Kursk (Operation Citadel), he was a platoon leader. In the Battle of Kursk, a Tiger I commanded by Michael Wittmann survived a collision with a T-34. Whittmann's driver was able to back away from the T-34 which was destroyed when its ammunition exploded. On January 14, 1944, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and on January 30, the Oak Leaves for his continued excellence in the field. By this time, he had destroyed 88 enemy tanks and a significant number of other armoured vehicles. In Agte's book on Wittmann (''Michael Wittmann And The Tiger Commanders Of The Leibstandarte'') it calculates his kills thusly: In the 5 days of Zittadelle Wittmann destroyed 'at least' 30 tanks.(page 100) 'destroyed 13 T34's' on 21 November 1943 (page 130) 56 enemy tanks in the period July 1943-7/1/44 (page 158) In summary:

56 kills on 7/1/44 (page 213)

66 kills on 9/1/44 (page 181)

88 kills on 13/1/44 (page 213)

114-117 kills on 29/1/44 (page 185)

It would seem over half his total were claimed in a three week period in January 1944.

Normandy

In April 1944, the LSSAH's Tiger Company was transferred to the SS Heavy Panzer Battalion 101. This battalion was assigned to the I SS Panzer Corps and was never permanently attached to any division or regiment within the corps. Wittmann commanded the 2nd Company of the battalion and held the rank of SS-Obersturmführer (first lieutenant). Following the Allied Invasion of Normandy, the battalion was ordered to move from Beauvais to Normandy on 7 June, a move that was completed on 12 June after a five day road march.

Due to the Anglo-American advances from Gold and Omaha Beachs, the German 352nd Infantry Division began to buckle; as it withdrew south, it opened up a wide gap in the German lines near Caumont-l'Éventé. Sepp Dietrich ordered his only reserve, the Heavy SS-Panzer Battalion 101, to position itself behind the Panzer-Lehr-Division and 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend to cover his open left flank. Anticipating the importance the British would assign to the high ground near Villers-Bocage, Wittmann's company was positioned near the town.

The British 7th Armoured Division was ordered to exploit the gap in the German lines and capture Villers-Bocage and a nearby ridge, Point 213. The British occupied the town and ridge during the morning of 13 June. Wittmann's company consisted of five tanks, of which two were damaged. He was surprised to discover the British in the Villers-Bocage area much sooner than had been expected. He later stated:

I had no time to assemble my company; instead I had to act quickly, as I had to assume that the enemy had already spotted me and would destroy me where I stood. I set off with one tank and passed the order to the others not to retreat a single step but to hold their ground.

At approximately 09:00 Wittmann's Tiger emerged from cover onto Route Nationale 175 and engaged the rearmost British tanks on Point 213, destroying them. Wittmann then moved towards Villers-Bocage engaging several transport vehicles parked along the roadside, the carriers bursting into flames as their fuel tanks were ruptured by machine gun and high explosive fire. Moving into the eastern end of Villers-Bocage, Wittmann engaged a number of light tanks followed by several medium tanks. Alerted to Wittmann's actions, light tanks in the middle of the town quickly got off the road while medium tanks were brought forward. Wittmann, meanwhile, had accounted for a further British tank, two artillery observation post (OP) tanks followed by a scout car and a half-track. Accounts differ as to what happened next. Historians record that, following the destruction of the OP tanks, Wittmann briefly duelled without success against a Sherman Firefly before withdrawing. The Tiger is then reported to have continued eastwards to the outskirts of the town before being disabled by an anti-tank gun. Wittmann's own account, however, contradicts this; he states that his tank was disabled by an anti-tank gun in the town centre.

In less than 15 minutes, 13–14 tanks, two anti-tank guns and 13–15 transport vehicles had been destroyed by the Heavy SS-Panzer Battalion 101, the vast majority attributed to Wittmann. Wittmann would however play no further role in the Battle of Villers-Bocage. For his actions during the battle, Wittmann was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) and awarded Swords to his Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.

Historian Wolfgang Schneider calls into question Wittmann's tactical ability, claiming "a competent tank company commander does not accumulate so many serious mistakes". Schneider also criticises Wittmann's disposition of his forces before the battle by having his Tigers position themselves in a sunken lane with a vehicle with engine trouble at the head of a stationary column thereby hampering mobility of his unit. It also risked blocking the entire company. However, Schneider saves his real opprobrium for Wittmann’s solitary advance into Villers-Bocage. Although he acknowledges Wittmann's courage, he points out that such an action "goes against all the rules". No intelligence was gathered beforehand, and there was no "centre of gravity" or "concentration of forces" in the attack. Schneider claims that because of Wittmann's actions, "the bulk of the 2nd Company and Mobius 1st Company came up against an enemy who had gone onto the defensive". He calls Wittman's "carefree" advance into British-occupied positions "pure folly", and states that "such over hastiness was uncalled for". Schneider goes on to surmise that if Wittmann had properly prepared an assault involving the rest of his company and the 1st Company, far greater results could have been achieved. He concludes with the belief that "thoughtlessness of this kind was to cost [Wittmann] his life on August 9, 1944, near Gaumesnil, during an attack casually launched in open country with an exposed flank."

Death

Wittmann was killed on 8 August 1944 while taking part in a counterattack ordered by Kurt Meyer, of the 12th SS Panzer Division to retake tactically important high ground near the town of Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil. The town and surrounding high ground had been captured a few hours earlier by Anglo-Canadian forces during Operation Totalize. Wittmann had decided to participate in the attack as he believed the company commander who was supposed to lead the attack was too inexperienced.

A group of seven Tiger tanks from the Heavy SS-Panzer Battalion 101, supported by several other tanks, was ambushed by tanks from A Squadron, 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry, A Squadron, the Sherbrooke Fuisilier Regiment, and B Squadron, the 144 Royal Armoured Corps.

The killing shots have long been thought to have come from a Sherman Firefly of ‘3 Troop’, A Squadron, 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry (commander - Sergeant Gordon; gunner - Trooper Joe Ekins), which was positioned in a wood called Delle de la Roque on the advancing Tigers' right flank at approximately 12:47.

It appears the shells penetrated the upper hull of the tank and ignited the Tiger's own ammunition, causing a fire which engulfed the tank and then blew off the turret.

Discredited claims

For such a junior officer, there has been quite a lot of speculation surrounding how he died. At the time of his death, although the majority of Allied soldiers had never heard of him, Wittmann had become a household name within Germany.

In 1985, issue 48 of ''After the Battle Magazine'' was published, containing an article on the last battle of Michael Wittmann. In this issue, Les Taylor, another member of the 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry during the war, stated that Joe Ekins was the man who was responsible for the death of Wittmann.

The 1st Polish Armoured Division, the 4th Canadian Armoured Division, the 144 Regiment Royal Armoured Corps and the RAF Second Tactical Air Force have also been the subject of claims to have killed Wittmann. ''No Holding Back'', a book by Brian Reid on Operation Totalize, contains an entire appendix devoted to the death of Michael Wittmann, in which these claims are completely discredited.

Examination of the armoured divisions' war diaries revealed that they were too far north of St. Aignan de Cramesnil to have taken any part in the defeat of the German armoured counterattack. Investigation also ruled out the 144 Royal Armoured Corps; although they did take part in defeating the counterattack, they were positioned around Cramesnil and therefore out of effective range of Wittmann’s tank. The regiment did originally claim that they destroyed two Tigers during this German counterattack. However, their commanding officer changed this claim to one Tiger and one Panzer IV destroyed, post-battle.

The main source of controversy surrounding Wittmann's demise comes from the claim that he was killed when an RP-3 rocket from a Royal Air Force Hawker Typhoon struck his tank.

This myth, originating in German propaganda, stated Wittmann had fallen in combat to the ''dreaded fighter-bombers''. This was further enhanced when a French civilian, Serge Varin, who took the only known photo of the destroyed Tiger, stated that in his opinion the tank had been destroyed by an air attack. He said he had found an unexploded rocket nearby and could not see any other penetration holes, other than the one on the upper hull. However, some accounts describe this as an exit hole and state the engine was intact and not damaged from any explosion.

Brian Reid has also discredited this explanation after examining the logs of the RAF Second Tactical Air Force. Reid notes that they made no claim of engaging or destroying any tanks in the area during the battle. He concludes:

"...no tanks were claimed destroyed or damaged in the forward areas by immediate support aircraft"

"...the only tanks claimed were by Typhoons on armed reconnaissance missions in areas away from the actual battle. Therefore Wittmann and his crew almost assuredly did not fall victim to an attack from the air."

Reid also notes that Kurt Meyer, the divisional commander of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend who had ordered the Schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 101 to counterattack,

"…made a point of remarking on the Allies' failure to use their tactical fighters on the morning of August 8."

There is also no evidence to support any other aircraft outside of the Second Tactical Airforce attacked the tank.

The final piece of evidence, which rules out air attack upon the attacking German tanks, comes from eyewitness testimony. German tank crews and other members of the Schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 101, such as Alfred Bahlo, Hans Dollinger, Hans Höflinger and Doctor Rabe, along with Allied tankers such as Captain Boardman, Trooper Ekins and Major Radley-Walters have all stated in interviews (as well as other media such as letters) that the Tiger tanks came under tank attack only and do not mention any air attacks.

The most recent claim

After discrediting the main claimants other than Joe Ekins, Brian Reid then discusses another possibility, as there was another armoured regiment much closer to Wittmann’s tank. ''A Squadron'' of The Sherbrooke Fusiliers Regiment, 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade, commanded by Major Sydney Radley-Walters, was positioned in the chateau grounds at Gaumesnil. This area, south of Hill 112, is parallel with the Delle de la Roque woods and the location of Joe Ekin’s Firefly. The regiment at this time was made up of several Sherman III and 2 Sherman VC, whose tankers had created firing holes in the property's wall. From this position, based on verbal testimony of the Canadian tankers, they engaged several tanks (including Tigers) and self-propelled guns driving up the main road and across the open ground towards Hill 112.

Reid puts forth the opinion that, with the range Joe Ekins would have to fire over to hit Wittmann’s tank, the proximity of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers Regiment to the tank, no other evidence to suggest anything other than tank-to-tank combat, that the latter are most likely responsible for Wittmann's death. Because of changes in land use from orchards to ploughed fields since 1944, it is problematic to establish the exact location of Ekin's Firefly at the beginning of the engagement and even more difficult to know the position of the claimed kill shot as Ekins' tank moved during the engagement. At a minimum, the 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry was positioned over away, possibly as much as , while the Canadian tanks were only around away. Recent field studies that located the exact position of the Sherbrooke tanks puts the range at less than and the firing angle from their position behind the Chateau's now removed east wall coincides exactly with the damage area to Wittman's Tiger in the left rear engine compartment. There are no official Canadian records to back up this position due to the Regimental Headquarters halftrack being destroyed by a stray USAAF bomb.

With the Tigers caught in a crossfire between the Northamptonshire Yeomanry and the Sherbrooke Fusiliers Regiment, it is understandable that both regiments claimed to have destroyed his tank. The significant hole in the belief that Ekins was Wittman's killer is that, if Wittman's Tiger was one of three Tigers engaged and destroyed by Ekins that afternoon - a truly remarkable feat of tank gunnery, who then is responsible for one of the three Tigers nearest to where Ekins fired from. He killed three Tigers and if one was Wittman's, someone else had to engage and kill one of these three destroyed Tigers within of Ekins position. There is no record or claim by any other Allied tank for any of these three Tigers.

In the appendix of “No Holding Back”, devoted to Wittmann’s demise, there is a topographical map of the engagement, diagrams of the tank and the location of the shell strike.

Burial

The German war graves commission, either with help of veterans from the s.SS-Pz Abt. 101 or from the author of ''Panzers in Normandy – Then and Now'', located Wittmann and his crew's unmarked grave in 1983. They were then reinterred together at the German war cemetery of La Cambe in France.

Personal life

On March 1, 1944, Wittmann married Hildegard Burmester in Lüneburg.

Summary of SS career

Dates of rank

SS-Mann: April 1, 1937

SS-Sturmmann: November 11, 1937

SS-Unterscharführer: April 20, 1939

SS-Oberscharführer: November 9, 1941

SS-Untersturmführer: December 21, 1942

SS-Obersturmführer: January 30, 1944

SS-Hauptsturmführer: June 21, 1944

Notable decorations

Iron Cross (1939)

2nd Class (12 July 1941)

1st Class (8 September 1941)

SS-Honour Ring

Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords

Knight's Cross on 14 January 1944 as SS-''Untersturmführer'' and section leader in the 13.(schwere)/SS-Panzer-Regiment 1

380th Oak Leaves on 30 January 1944 as SS-''Untersturmführer'' and section leader in the 13.(schwere)/SS-Panzer-Regiment 1

71st Swords on 22 June 1944 as SS-''Obersturmführer'' and chief of the 2./schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 101

Wound Badge in Black (20 August 1941) Panzer Badge in Silver (21 November 1941)

Eastern Front Medal (1942)

Sudetenland Medal (1938)

Anschluss Medal (1938)

[[Orders, decorations, and medals of Bulgaria#Orders|Soldier's Cross Of The Order Of Bravery 4th Class 2nd Grade] (Tsardom Of Bulgaria) (1941)

Mentioned in the Wehrmachtbericht on January 13, 1944

SS Long Service Award

Reference in the ''Wehrmachtbericht''

{|class="wikitable" ! Date ! Original German ''Wehrmachtbericht'' wording ! Direct English translation |- | 13 January 1944 || ''SS-Untersturmführer Wittmann in einer SS-Panzerdivision schoß am 9. Januar an der Ostfront mit seinem "Tiger"-Panzer seinen 66. feindlichen Panzer ab.'' || SS-''Untersturmführer'' Wittmann in a SS-''Panzerdivision'' on January 9 destroyed his 66th enemy tank with his "Tiger"-tank on the eastern front. |}

See also

Bobby Woll - Wittmann's gunner for a long period of time.

Notes

;Footnotes ;Citations

References

External links

Michael Wittman's grave

Joe Ekin's View

Category:1914 births Category:1944 deaths Category:People from the District of Neumarkt Category:German military personnel killed in World War II Category:Military personnel referenced in the Wehrmachtbericht Category:SS officers Category:Panzer commanders Category:Recipients of the Knight's Cross

bg:Михаел Витман ca:Michael Wittmann cs:Michael Wittmann da:Michael Wittmann de:Michael Wittmann (SS-Panzerkommandant) et:Michael Wittmann el:Μίχαελ Βίττμαν es:Michael Wittmann fr:Michael Wittmann ko:미하엘 비트만 io:Michael Wittmann it:Michael Wittmann he:מיכאל ויטמן hu:Michael Wittmann nl:Michael Wittmann ja:ミハエル・ヴィットマン no:Michael Wittmann pl:Michael Wittmann pt:Michael Wittmann ru:Виттман, Михаэль sl:Michael Wittmann sr:Михаел Витман fi:Michael Wittmann sv:Michael Wittmann tr:Michael Wittmann vi:Michael Wittmann zh:米歇尔·魏特曼

Mitchell and Webb are a British comedy double act, comprising David Mitchell (born 14 July 1974) and Robert Webb (born 29 September 1972). They are best known for starring in the Channel 4 sitcom ''Peep Show''.

They met whilst students at Cambridge University. They have also performed three sketch shows, ''Bruiser'' for BBC2, ''The Mitchell and Webb Situation'', on the short-lived Play UK channel, and their own Radio 4 sketch show, ''That Mitchell and Webb Sound'' – which was later adapted for television on BBC Two as ''That Mitchell and Webb Look''. Mitchell and Webb have written for Armstrong and Miller and ''Big Train''. They often appear with Olivia Colman, James Bachman, Mark Evans and Paterson Joseph.

Mitchell and Webb have also appeared in the short-lived U.K. regional versions of the 'Get a Mac' advertisements for Apple. They also voiced a pair of peas on the Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway sponsorship adverts for Birds Eye.

''Magicians'', a film starring the pair was released on 18 May 2007.

In 2008, the duo wrote a pilot script for their first original sitcom; in ''Playing Shop'', the two star as Eric and Jamie, friends who set up a business together after they are made redundant from their old jobs. Hartswood Films recorded the pilot episode on 20 December, with a view to producing a full series for BBC Two. They have also released the book This Mitchell and Webb Book.

References

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