Questions about Schutzstaffel
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What was the Schutzstaffel (SS) and what was its role in Nazi Germany?
The Schutzstaffel, or SS, was a major paramilitary organisation under Adolf Hitler that grew from a bodyguard unit of eight men in 1923 into the primary security, police, and genocide apparatus of Nazi Germany. It controlled the Gestapo, ran concentration and extermination camps, fielded its own military divisions, and was the organisation most responsible for the Holocaust, which killed an estimated six million Jews and millions of other victims.
When was the Schutzstaffel founded and who led it?
The SS officially marked its foundation on the 9th of November 1925. Heinrich Himmler became Reichsführer-SS in January 1929 and led the organisation until the end of the war in 1945, transforming it from a 280-member unit into an organisation numbering 209,000 by the end of 1933.
How many people did the SS kill during the Holocaust?
The SS was responsible for the murder of more than 20 million people during the Holocaust, including approximately 5.2 to 6 million Jews and 10.5 million Slavs. Historian Raul Hilberg estimates that the Einsatzgruppen alone, between 1941 and 1945, murdered more than two million people, including 1.3 million Jews.
What were the Einsatzgruppen and what did they do?
The Einsatzgruppen were mobile killing units drawn from the SS, SD, and police, deployed to murder Jews, Romani people, communists, and others in occupied territories. The largest single operation they carried out was at Babi Yar outside Kyiv, where 33,771 Jews were massacred on the 29th and the 30th of September 1941.
How did the SS profit from concentration camp prisoners?
The SS sold prisoner labour to outside factories at three to six Reichsmarks per prisoner per day, confiscated inmates' property and investment portfolios, and after death sold their hair and melted their dental work for gold. The total value of assets looted during Operation Reinhard alone was documented at over 178 million Reichsmarks.
What happened to SS leaders after World War II?
At the Nuremberg trials, the SS and the Nazi Party were both judged to be criminal organisations. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the highest-ranking surviving SS main department chief, was found guilty of crimes against humanity and hanged in 1946. Twenty-four Einsatzgruppen commanders were also tried for war crimes following the war.