The Himmler's SS (33 page)

The Sig-Runes collar patch, initially restricted to members of the Leibstandarte but eventually worn by all German formations of the Waffen-SS.

The Sig-Rune in a triangle represented membership of the SS

The swastika in a square stood for Nazi philosophy

The Heilszeichen in a circle stood for prosperity

The Hagall-Rune in a hexagon denoted unshakable faith.

However, these were much diluted meanings in comparison to those initially drawn up by SS-Brigadeführer Karl-Maria Wiligut-Weisthor, an expert on runes and their coded symbolism, who designed the ring for Himmler. Wiligut-Weisthor's interpretations are given below and, meeting with the Reichsführer's approval, give an interesting insight into the workings of Himmler's mind at the time he was planning the future of his Black Order:

The Sig-Rune in a Triangle

The triangle means life is eternal. The three sides stand for birth/development/death, or past/present/future. Each death is the way to a new life and the triangle symbolises the eternal cycle of creation. The Sig-Rune represents the sun and good health. It was also the pagan symbol of victory. Hence it encompasses both the greeting (‘Heil' or ‘Good Health') and the battle-cry (‘Sieg' or ‘Victory') of the Germanic ancestors of the SS. (This combination of ancient greeting and battle-cry gave the Nazis their ‘Sieg Heil'.)

Close-up of the Sig-Runes key which featured on SS typewriters from 1936. SS documents and printed publications invariably used the Sig-Runes instead of the usual Roman letters ‘SS'.

The Swastika in a Square

The swastika comprises four ‘U'-Runes. The ‘U'-Rune represents the path of the sun and is symbolic of fertility. A split or halved swastika results in the ‘G'-Rune or Gibor-Rune, which means handing down to one's descendants. The total symbolism of this rune is man being at one with god and eternity.

The Heilszeichen in a Circle

In the circle are two Sig-Runes and one combined Tyr-Rune and Os-Rune. The circle stands for the circulation of divinity in nature, which forged the human spirit. It is the circle of life. The Sig-Runes stand for the SS and prosperity. The Tyr-Rune is the spear of Tyr, the Norse god of war. This all means that death is powerless and should not be feared. Those who fight bravely to ensure the prosperity of their Volk shall be forever remembered.

The Hagall-Rune in a Hexagon

All eighteen runes derive from the hexagon. Carrying this symbol gives strength over adversity as it encompasses the total power of all the runes. The overall interpretation of this rune is to believe in yourself and you will become the master of everything.

It is clear that Himmler personally believed in all the foregoing, and he treated the ring with extreme reverence. Initially, the Totenkopfring was reserved for those Old Guard veterans with SS membership numbers below 3,000. In effect, this meant that the ring was restricted to officers, for on 20 April 1934 Himmler commissioned as Sturmführer all SS men with membership numbers below 3,000 who were not already officers. All of these thousand or so individuals had joined the SS prior to September 1930, when the Nazis scored their first notable election success. Qualification for award of the ring was gradually extended, until by 1939 most SS officers with three years' service were entitled to wear it. Entitlement could be postponed or withdrawn for anything between three months and three years if the holder had been punished under the SS discipline code. Rings were bestowed on set SS and NSDAP festival dates, namely 20 April, 21 June, 9 November and 21 December, and all awards were recorded in the
Dienstaltersliste
. When a ring holder died, his ring had to be returned to the SS Personalhauptamt, which arranged for its preservation in a special shrine at Himmler's castle at Wewelsburg.

The SS death's head ring. The first such rings were presented by Himmler to the SS Old Guard on 24 December 1933, four months before publication of the order which elevated the Totenkopfring to the status of an official SS award. It is noteworthy that those who eventually qualified for the ring had to apply for it through the usual SS channels. This explains why many officers entitled to the ring never received it – they simply forgot to apply for it, or chose not to do so. Fewer than 100 death's head rings are known to survive in private collections.

Between 1934 and 1944, around 14,500 death's head rings were awarded. As at 1 January 1945, 64 per cent of these had been returned to the SS on the deaths of their holders, 10 per cent had been lost on the battlefield, and 26 per cent were either still in the possession of ring holders or otherwise unaccounted for. That would mean that, in theory, about 3,500 rings might have been in circulation at the end of the war. The Totenkopfring became so sought after an honour that many SS and police officers and men not entitled to wear it had a variety of unofficial ‘skull rings' produced in gold or silver by local jewellers and even concentration camp inmates. However, these lacked the runic symbolism and were rather vulgar representations of the real thing.

The powerful and symbolic SS uniform of the late 1930s and early 1940s developed from very humble origins. The earliest Nazis wore normal civilian clothing and were distinguished only by their crudely homemade Kampfbinde, or swastika armbands, worn on the left upper arm. With the advent of the paramilitary SA in 1921, however, it became necessary to evolve a uniform specifically for its members. At first, their dress lacked any consistency and was characteristically Freikorps in style, generally taking the form of field-grey army surplus double-breasted windcheater jackets, waist belts with cross-straps, grey trousers, trench boots, steel helmets and mountain caps. Many SA men simply retained the uniforms they had worn during the 1914–18 war, stripped of badges. The swastika armband was the only constant feature, sometimes bearing a metal numeral or emblem to indicate unit identity and a metal ‘pip' or cloth stripes to denote rank. The Commander of the 1st Company of SA Regiment ‘München', for example, wore a Brunswick-style death's head over the numeral ‘1' and a single pip on his armband. In 1923, members of the Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler wore similar garb with the addition of a Prussian-pattern Totenkopf on the cap, usually surmounted by the ‘Reichskokarde', a circular metal cockade in the imperial colours of black, white and red. After the failure of the Munich putsch and the banning of the SA and Stosstrupp, the men continued to wear their old uniforms as members of the Frontbanne, adding a steel helmet badge to the centre of the swastika armband.

At the end of 1924 Leutnant Gerhard Rossbach, formerly one of the most famous of the Freikorps and SA leaders, acquired a bargain lot of surplus German army tropical brown shirts in Austria. These items, which had been destined for the Reich's colonies in Africa, were not in fact shirts at all, but blouses with collars and pockets which were worn over an ordinary collarless shirt. When the NSDAP was reconstituted and the SA reactivated in February 1925, Hitler kitted his men out with these readily available shirts and had ties, breeches and kepis made to match. Thus by chance circumstances rather than design, brown became the adopted colour of the SA and the Nazi party in general. When the SS was formed in April of the same year, its members too were issued with brown shirts. To distinguish them from the SA, however, they retained their Stosstrupp death's heads and wore black kepis, black ties, black breeches and black borders to the swastika armband. By the end of 1925, the brown shirt with black accoutrements was firmly established as the ‘traditional uniform' of the SS. The vast majority of SS men, who were also members of the NSDAP, wore the Nazi party badge on their ties.

On 9 November 1926, the rapidly expanding SA introduced collar patches or Kragenspiegel to indicate unit and rank, replacing the badges and stripes formerly worn on the armband. The right patch bore unit numerals and the left patch a Stahlhelm-type system of rank pips, bars and oakleaves. By contrasting the colour of the patch with that of the numerals, an attempt was made to reflect the state colours of the district in which the unit concerned was located. For example, Berlin SA men wore black and white patches, Hamburg SA men red and white, Munich men blue and white, and so on. This arrangement proved difficult to sustain and the colour combinations ultimately underwent a number of changes. SA unit patches were particularly complex, accommodating not only Standarte, specialist and staff appointments, but also Sturmbann and Sturm designations. In August 1929, the SS likewise introduced collar patches to denote rank and unit. As with the SA, rank was shown on the left patch, or both patches for Standartenführer and above, with unit markings on the right patch. However, the SS system was much more simple than that of the SA. All SS collar patches were black in colour with white, silver or grey numerals, pips, bars and oakleaves. Moreover, the unit collar patches were restricted to indicating Standarte, specialist or staff appointment.

The plain SS traditional uniform as worn by Himmler in 1929 (see p. 12).

To show Sturmbann and Sturm membership, the SS devised their own complicated system of cuff titles or Ärmelstreifen, narrow black bands worn on the lower left sleeve. Within every Fuss-Standarte, each Sturmbann was assigned a colour which bordered the upper and lower edges of the cuff title. The prescribed Sturmbann colours were:

The number and, if appropriate, honour name of the wearer's Sturm appeared embroidered in grey or silver thread on the title. Thus a member of the 2nd Sturm, 1st Sturmbann, 41st SS Fuss-Standarte would wear a green-bordered cuff title bearing the numeral ‘2' in conjunction with the number ‘41' on his right collar patch. A man in the 11th Sturm, ‘Adolf Höh', 3rd Sturmbann, 30th SS Fuss-Standarte would sport a red-edged cuff title with the legend ‘11 Adolf Höh', and regimental numeral ‘30' on the right collar patch. All members of the Allgemeine-SS cavalry units had yellow-edged cuff titles, while those of signals and pioneer formations had their titles bordered in brown and black, respectively. A relatively small number of cuff titles bore Roman numerals or designations relating to staff or specialist appointments.