Document Analyst's Report

During January I completed the analysis of the defense documents of the SS and one file of prosecution documents entered in rebuttal. Much of the defense case involved sorting out which Nazi organizations under Himmler were part of the SS and which were not, and whether certain SS departments were involved in criminal activities committed by others. In the end, the tribunal ruled that the SS was a criminal organization.

The organizational puzzle: The SS (Schutzstaffel) began as a small NSDAP unit within the SA serving as bodyguards for Hitler and other Nazi leaders. Hitler made Himmler the SS leader in 1929, and he expanded the force from 300 to 50,000 by 1933, and then to 240,000 men by 1939 as the SS served the regime, and finally nearly one million men served in the military branch, the Waffen SS, during the war. The extent of Himmler’s institutional empire caused considerable confusion. His new title in 1936 as Reichsfuehrer SS and chief of police was not unitary: the SS was a party organization and the police were government services. Hitler also appointed Himmler as the commissar for the consolidation of German nationhood, in charge of racial programs, and minister of the interior in 1943. The SS defense tried to isolate the SS itself from Himmler’s other activities, and to separate the Waffen SS from Himmler’s SS since it had operated under the command of the armed forces. One obstacle for these arguments was Himmler’s many declarations that the SS did whatever he and Hitler asked it to do, regardless of bureaucratic boundaries.

SS as family and clan: In the 1930s Himmler promoted the SS “the elite of our best and purest Germanic blood,” “the kinship of the SS.” SS men were expected to marry and have children, but they could only marry with Himmler’s approval. Part of the process was a review of the couple’s family histories going back to 1750. Himmler noted that the rules had provoked “ridicule, scorn and misunderstanding,” but insisted that the criticisms “do not affect us; the future belongs to us!”

Borrowed honor: In building the SS empire Himmler often selected groups that were glamorous or impressive in some way. He argued that he was giving them the honor of an SS designation, but it is clear that he was trying to use the prestige of the groups to enhance the reputation of the SS. Early on, rural equestrian clubs were required to affiliate with the SS if they wanted to continue competing; some of these horsemen were later used as honor guards at major events. During the war, women who worked in police offices were made members of the SS “female helpers corps” (but not SS members, since only men could be full members). As late as January 1945, fire protection units, who tried to control the damage done by Allied bombing, were told to wear the SS emblem.

The code: In a speech in 1943 Himmler declared that the essential trait of SS men was loyalty, which had to be absolute. Any member who proved to be disloyal would first be removed from the SS and then “removed from life.”

Who controlled the camps?: The most compelling evidence against the SS concerned the concentration camps, including the extermination camps. The defense did not dispute the facts of the crimes, and instead tried to either deflect the responsibility or to confine it to a small group and not the SS as a whole. One SS judicial officer, Georg Morgen, stated that he had begun his own investigation of the camps and had wanted to prosecute some of the officers for crimes—an effort that was suppressed by SS leaders. (Some of his evidence was used by the Allies in their public education program about the camps.) He argued that only a few hundred men managed the extermination operation, and that it was controlled by Bormann, not Himmler. Another expert claimed that he had traced the sequence of the extermination order: “Hitler to Himmler to Heydrich to Kaltenbrunner to Mohler [i.e. Mueller?] to Eichmann,” and that Eichmann had managed the operation in secret with a small network of agents.

The sponsors and their goal: When the SS was an unfunded group within the party, it recruited “sponsors” to support and donate to its operations (like a “Friends of the SS” group). Himmler offered a slogan to encourage them:

“Everyone continues to do his duty,
We SS-men and you sponsors,
Everyone at his place
And Germany will become great again.”

Matt Seccombe, 25 February 2025