The Himmler's SS (11 page)

SS D
UTIES AND
C
ONDITIONS OF
S
ERVICE

The first and foremost duty of the entire SS organisation was the protection of Adolf Hitler; at least that was the official line. In 1931, after Hitler had lost the presidential election to von Hindenburg, Himmler described the SS as ‘Des Führers ureigenste, erlesene Garde', the Führer's most personal, selected guards. However, while it is true to say that the earliest Stosstrupp and SS men in the 1920s were indeed directly employed only as Hitler's bodyguards and then as ‘Rednerschutz' to protect other leading Nazi orators, the vast majority of the Allgemeine-SS in the 1930s and 1940s never even came into the close proximity of members of the political hierarchy, far less that of the Führer himself, whose protection after 1933 was the responsibility of the Leibstandarte-SS ‘Adolf Hitler' alone. Nevertheless, even in later years the primary SS duty of guarding Hitler was still stressed, the Organisationsbuch der NSDAP declaring in 1937: ‘It is the fundamental and most noble task of the SS to be concerned with the safety of the Führer'.

SS men guarding Hitler during a speech at Elbing, 5 November 1933. Only the man in the centre sports collar patches: the others are still probationary members.

After the advent of the Leibstandarte, whose members worked full-time to a rota system and accompanied Hitler on his journeys throughout the Reich, the part-time SS men who had originally been recruited on a local basis to protect Hitler during his trips around Germany found that aspect of their work taken from them. Consequently, it was decided that as of 1933 the main day-to-day function of these highly disciplined Allgemeine-SS volunteers would be to bolster the régime by supporting the police in maintaining public order, especially since some of the police themselves were politically unreliable. Their immediate success as Hilfspolizei during the mass arrests of communists and other dissidents after the Nazi assumption of power led to the rapid expansion of the SS organisation and the formation of dozens of new Allgemeine-SS Standarten trained and equipped to combat any internal uprising or counter-revolution which might take place within Germany. It was planned that, in such an event, the Allgemeine-SS Fuss-Standarten and Stammabteilungen would act as police reinforcements in conjunction with the heavily armed SS-Verfügungstruppe and SS-Totenkopfverbände, while the Nachrichtensturmbanne, Pioniersturmbanne and Kraftfahrstürme of the Allgemeine-SS would take over the operation of the post office and national radio network, public utilities and public transport, respectively. Consequently, throughout 1934 particular emphasis was placed on the recruitment of personnel for these specialist SS support units. However, the anticipated civil unrest never came about, and internal party rivalries were crushed during the ‘Night of the Long Knives'. As a result, the police duties of the Allgemeine-SS before the outbreak of the war were generally restricted to overseeing crowd control at NSDAP rallies and other celebrations, including national holidays and state visits of foreign dignitaries.

SS-Standartenführer Julius Schreck after receiving the Golden Party Badge at the end of 1933. Of particular interest are the early pattern collar patches and the Sports Eagle of the National Motor and Air Travel Organisation, the latter being worn below the ribbon bar. Schreck was an expert driver, and frequently chauffeured Hitler around Germany in his open-topped Mercedes tourer at speeds in excess of 100 mph. Co-founder of the Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler, Schreck was constantly at the Führer's side until his death from meningitis in 1936.

After 1939, members of the Allgemeine-SS who had not been called up for military service took a more active police support role. They were frequently lectured on the work of the police and the SD, and in many cities special SS Wachkompanie and Alarmstürme were detailed to protect factories, bridges, roads and other strategic points and assist the Luftschutz or Civil Defence during air raids. On the borders of the Reich, SS men worked as Auxiliary Frontier Personnel, or Hilfsgrenzangestellte (HIGA), in conjunction with the Customs Service. Others helped with the harvest, supervised foreign labourers and engaged in welfare work among the families and dependants of deceased SS servicemen. During 1944–5, the cadres of the Allgemeine-SS spread throughout Germany were trained to co-ordinate the short-lived guerrilla campaign which took place against Allied occupation troops.

SS men lining the route for a parade at Bückeberg in 1935, during the annual harvest festival celebrations.

The Allgemeine-SS unit which normally mustered for training purposes was the Trupp or, in more populous districts, the Sturm. Larger musters of the SS were possible only in exceptional circumstances. There were periodic gatherings of the Standarten and occasional conferences of Abschnitte officers, when speeches and propaganda displays helped to foster corporate spirit and preserve SS ideology, but the vast majority of meetings usually took place on a local basis, once or twice a week in the evening or at the weekend. They gave those attending a feeling of ‘belonging' and importance which made a welcome break from the humdrum of their daily lives working in the fields and factories of the Reich. In summer, there were route marches, parade and field drill, and manoeuvres. In winter, the routine activity of the Allgemeine-SS comprised instruction in military matters, indoor shooting, specialist and technical training, lectures on propaganda, political topics and Germanic culture, and talks on the general history and work of the SS and NSDAP. At party rallies and assemblies the SS always took a prominent role, and in processions had the place of honour at the end of the parade.

The great reduction in the number of active part-time personnel which resulted from the war and their temporary enlistment in the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS considerably reduced the day-to-day activities of the Allgemeine-SS. Even among the members still at home in reserved occupations, long working hours and additional war service drastically cut down attendance at company parades. By 1943, it had become the rule to find SS NCOs in command of Stürme and even Sturmbanne, and for duty parades to be confined to one or two hours per week. Under such circumstances, musters were frequently attended by only a dozen or fewer members, and the local Allgemeine-SS administration was run by severely wounded men and those temporarily returned to active duty from the Stammabteilungen. Nevertheless, so far as Himmler was concerned, the Allgemeine-SS was the original and ‘real' SS, and he continued issuing orders aimed at reinforcing it well into 1945.

From the day he took charge of the SS in 1929, Himmler set himself the task of creating an aristocracy within the Nazi party, an élite which he later called his ‘Deutsche Männerorden' or Order of German Manhood. The qualifications on which he initially based his policy of selection were those of discipline and high personal standards, but after 1933 racial and political attributes became increasingly important. Whosoever possessed the requisite qualities, whatever his background, class or education, could find a place in the SS. The first SS men, the former members of the Freikorps who had fought against communist revolutionaries and Allied occupation troops after the First World War, were followed by an assortment of unemployed labourers, farmers, disillusioned teachers, white-collar workers and ex-officers, all of whom went into the SS during the late 1920s and early 1930s with no aim other than to better their current difficult existence. The turning point so far as SS recruiting was concerned was the spring of 1933, which Himmler called ‘the time of the great influx and flood tide of all those opportunists wishing to join the party and its various organisations'. After Hitler's appointment as Chancellor on 30 January that year, everyone suddenly wanted to join the SS and there was a rush at the recruiting offices. Himmler maintained his standards by immediately closing ranks and instituting a vigorous weeding-out process among those already admitted. Between 1933 and 1935 60,000 SS officers and men were expelled from the organisation because of petty criminal convictions, homosexuality, alco-holism, poor health, inadequate physique, questionable racial or political backgrounds or simple lack of commitment. The result was an Allgemeine-SS numbering about 210,000 only 0.4 per cent of whom were now unemployed, which did actually constitute the élite which Himmler required. It was inevitable, because of this policy, that the ordinary SS units were scattered widely throughout Germany. Concentration would have meant a lowering of standards. As a result, the organisation was spread very thinly across all the rural districts of the Reich, so much so that Himmler could proudly boast in 1936: ‘Many SS Truppen are recruited from several villages, a single village never having more than its two really best boys in the SS'. Not surprisingly, the majority of these ‘best boys' found that their SS membership, while unpaid, had a real and beneficial knock-on effect on their chosen civilian careers.

After 1933, the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend or HJ) was the main source of recruitment for the Allgemeine-SS, excepting of course honorary members, specialists and those in affiliated bodies such as the police. Potential SS recruits were singled out by local units while still in the HJ, and boys who had proved themselves in the HJ-Streifendienst were made particularly welcome. Out of every hundred applicants, only ten or so were finally admitted. While no educational qualifications were required, each of these had to demonstrate the good political behaviour of his parents, brothers and sisters, produce a clean police record and an Aryan pedigree dating back to the mideighteenth century, and prove that there was no hereditary disease in his family. A Race Commission composed of SS eugenists and doctors supervised the last and most decisive medical tests. They judged not only the shape of head and colour of eyes, but also whether the applicant had the right build. Even if he had attained the prescribed height, which altered periodically but was approximately 5 ft 10 in, he had also to have the correct proportions between the upper and lower leg, and between leg and body. The Commission also considered whether the applicant behaved in a disciplined yet not servile way, and how he answered questions and generally conducted himself. If the applicant satisfied all these requirements of political reliability, racial purity and physique he was officially recognised on his eighteenth birthday as an SS-Bewerber, or SS Candidate, and given a uniform without insignia.

After some preliminary training, the Candidate progressed to the stage of becoming an SS-Anwärter, or Cadet, on the occasion of the annual NSDAP Reichsparteitag celebrations in Nürnberg the following September. At that time he was provisionally enrolled into the ranks of the SS proper, and received his uniform insignia and Ausweis, or membership card. On the following 9 November, the anniversary of the Munich putsch, he and all other SS-Anwärter appointed that year took the organisation's personal oath of allegiance to the Führer, which ran:

I swear to you, Adolf Hitler, as Führer and Chancellor of the Reich, loyalty and bravery. I promise to you, and to those you have appointed to have authority over me, obedience unto death.