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Managing Mass Murder: The SS and the Economics of Genocide
Significant Events in the History of the SS
1920
February
Formation of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP)
from the original German Workers Party (founded 1919).
1921
July
Adolf Hitler assumes the leadership of the NSDAP.
November
Creation of the Sturmabteilungen (SA or Storm Troops), the original
political combat organization of the NSDAP.
1923
Spring
Hitler creates a Stabswache (headquarters guard) of twelve bodyguards to
provide protection for himself at party functions. Setting them apart from
the brown shirted SA, the Stabswache adopts black ski caps adorned by
the death’s head insignia. In May, Hitler uses the Stabswache as the
foundation for the creation of a larger, mobile guard unit, the Stosstrupp
(Shock Troop). Nazi party lore will point to the Stabswache and the
Stosstrupp as the precursors of the SS.
November
Failure of the Nazi-led Beer Hall Putsch in Munich; Hitler is arrested and
the NSDAP disbanded. Henrich Himmler, a twenty-four year old poultry
farmer and paramilitary nationalist, participates in the putsch and survives
unscathed. During the next two years Himmler becomes one of the most
active members of the now fragmented NSDAP, working as a
propagandist to strengthen the party in Bavaria.
1925
February
Hitler reestablishes the NSDAP. With the SA still in disarray and many of
its members of uncertain allegiance, Hitler establishes a new section of
guard formations of unquestioning loyalty to his leadership of the party.
Hitler designates this new group of party troops as the Schutzstaffel
(Guard Squadron) or SS.
November
Hitler officiates at the ceremonial founding of the SS on November 9, the
second anniversary of the Nazis’ failed putsch. In addition to its protection
duties, the SS is to aid propaganda efforts by selling issues of the party
newspaper and enforce party loyalty by informing on “suspect” members.
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1926
Summer
The SS launches its own fundraising organization, the Fördernde
Mitglieder (FM or Supporting Members). In return for a contribution, an
FM, a non-SS member, received a numbered, tiny silver SS pin. The FM
gave the SS a source of funds separate from the party, which provided
little or no money for the SS during its early years.
1927
September
Himmler, whose propaganda work utilized the fledgling SS, joined the SS
by 1926. His hard work and enthusiasm for the organization made him
deputy commander of the SS in September 1927. Himmler already
envisions the SS as the elite of the NSDAP. He enforces strict regulations
regarding discipline, uniforms, and urges his men to gather intelligence on
the Nazis’ ideological enemies, especially Jews and Freemasons.
1929
January
Hitler promotes Himmler commander of the SS. Although he now has the
imposing title of Reichsführer-SS (RFSS or Reich Leader SS), Himmler
only commands an organization of 280 men. The now reinvigorated SA
exercises its traditional role as the primary militant arm of the NSDAP.
The SS is organizationally subordinate to the much larger SA
(approximately 10,000 men).
1930
September
The NSDAP wins big in the national elections of 1930, claiming 107 seats
in the Reichstag. A deepening economic depression brings large numbers
of unemployed and resentful Germans into the NSDAP. Both the SA and
the SS experience a large growth in recruitment.
November
Hitler appoints Ernst Röhm to command the SA. Röhm was one of
Hitler’s earliest supporters and had been instrumental in the initial creation
of the SA. He was also well known to Himmler, who had served under
Röhm’s command during the Beer Hall Putsch. Although Himmler praises
Röhm’s leadership of the SA, he is determined to make the SS
independent of the SA.
1931
July
Reinhard Heydrich, a dishonorably discharged former German naval
officer, joins the NSDAP and the SS. Ambitious, intelligent, and ruthless,
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Heydrich advances quickly in the SS. Himmler entrusts Heydrich with the
task of creating an SS intelligence service. Heydrich creates the
Sicherheitsdienst (SD or Security Service) to gather information on party
members and external political and ideological opponents. After the Nazis
come to power in 1933, Heydrich will work closely with Himmler to
establish SS control over the German police.
December
Himmler establishes the Rassenamt (Racial Office) within the SS and
places Richard Walter Darré at its head. Darré is a racist philosopher who
preaches the superiority of the Nordic race (Germans and associated
peoples) and the virtues of Blut und Boden (Blood and Soil). His ideas
complement those of Himmler, who together with Darré envisions the SS
as the new racial elite of Germany and the future conquerors of a
Germanic empire in Eastern Europe and Russia. Darré’s office is
responsible for ensuring that all SS marriages conform to strict “Aryan”
racial standards.
1932
Spring
The SS reaches a strength of over 41,000 while the SA totals some
400,000.
1933
January
Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933.
February
The Nazis begin a campaign to take control of Germany’s police.
Hermann Göring, the new Prussian minister of the interior, enrolls 40,000
SA and SS men as auxiliary police. The SA and SS infiltrate the
commands of police forces throughout Germany.
Burning of the Reichstag on the night of February 27. The next day, Hitler
begins to rule by presidential emergency decree. The emergency powers
allow the Nazis to arrest thousands of Communists and other political
opponents. The SA and SS establish the first informal or “wild”
concentration camps for the detention and punishment of political and
ideological (e.g., Jews) enemies.
March
Formation of the Liebstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler (SS Bodyguard Regiment
Adolf Hitler or LSSAH) under the command of Josef Sepp Dietrich, one
of Hitler’s early bodyguards. The LSSAH is the original unit of the
Waffen-SS (Military SS), the military SS formations that will later fight
alongside the German army during the Second World War. The WaffenSS will establish a history as fanatically ruthless soldiers with a reputation
for committing atrocities against prisoners of war, civilians, communists,
and Jews.
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The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act, allowing Hitler to continue to rule
by emergency decree. The SS participates in the process of
Gleichschaltung (Coordination), which rapidly brings all aspects of
German political, social, and economic life under Nazi control.
In March, Himmler, as police president of Munich, establishes Dachau as
the site of the first concentration camp in Bavaria. Himmler puts the SS in
charge of the camp, which under Commandant Theodor Eicke becomes
the model for the SS’s future management of the camp system throughout
Germany.
April
The Gestapo (Secret State Police) is recognized as a separate political
police force within Prussia, the largest of the German states.
May
The SS has 100,000 members; the SA, 500,000.
1934
February
SS membership reaches over 200,000. The large numbers overwhelms the
SS’s small and amateur administrative staff. Himmler appoints Oswald
Pohl chief administrative officer of the SS. Pohl, a former naval paymaster
and veteran Nazi, joined the SS in 1933 after Himmler urged him to take
up the challenge of creating a professional financial and administrative
system for the Nazi organization.
April
Göring turns over control of the Gestapo to Himmler, who places
Heydrich in command of the secret police force. The SS also assumes
control of all concentration camps.
June
Hitler purges the SA, ordering the arrest and execution of Röhm and
several top SA leaders. Himmler deploys the SS against the SA. SS men
kill Röhm, SA leaders, and dozens of other “enemies” of the regime. The
SS replaces the SA as the dominant militant arm of the NSDAP.
July
Himmler makes Theodor Eicke inspector of concentration camps and
commander of all camp guards. Eicke organized the original camp guard
units at Dachau. Known as the Totenkopfverbände-SS (Death’s Head
Squads SS), the guard units served under Eicke in a separate chain of
command. Several Death’s Head units eventually deployed as a WaffenSS regiment (later a division) during the war.
August
President Hindenburg dies. Hitler consolidates his power by combining
the offices of president and chancellor with his position as leader of the
NSDAP becoming the Führer of the German state and people. All
members of the armed forces are required to take an oath of allegiance to
Hitler. All SS members had long been required to take a similar oath.
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December
The SS acquires the Nordland-Verlag publishing firm. Nordland-Verlag
will publish Nazi political tracts, SS manuals, and racist literature. The
publishing house will be the first of many SS controlled enterprises.
1935
June
Himmler places Oswald Pohl in charge of a separate Verwaltungsamt
(Administrative Office) within the Reichsführer’s personal staff. Pohl’s
office has responsibility over the budget, economic enterprises,
construction tasks, housing, clothing and administrative matters within the
SS. As the SS’s top financial officer, Pohl manages all party (NSDAP)
funds that go to the SS.
September
The promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws officially ends civil rights for
Jews in Germany.
Himmler begins his association with the “Circle of Friends,” a group of
big business benefactors of the Nazis. Eventually known as the “Himmler
Circle” or “Circle of Friends of the Reichsführer-SS,” the group provided
funds for SS projects that operated outside the official Reich and party
budgets of the SS. These projects included pseudo-scientific research into
Germany’s ancient past as well as horrendous medical experimentation on
concentration camp prisoners. The Himmler Circle provided some 1
million Reichsmark annually to the SS from 1936-1944.
1936
June
Himmler and the SS take official control of the German police forces,
which includes the Gestapo, criminal, and ordinary police. Heydrich will
run a central security office that includes the Gestapo, criminal police, and
the SS intelligence service, the SD.
August
The SS establishes Sachsenhausen, a large concentration camp outside of
Berlin. Sachsenhausen and the opening of Buchenwald near Weimar in
1937 are the result of Himmler and Eicke’s plan for an organized system
of concentration camps throughout Germany. The SS chose the sites of
these new camps especially for their proximity to population centers and
clay deposits for brick making. Brick making will become one of the SS’s
largest industrial enterprises.
1937
Pohl’s administrative office assumes responsibility for the management of
the budgets and administration of the concentration camps. Eicke was a
poor administrator and more interested in commanding his Death’s Head
units. Pohl’s engineers and economic managers will run all concentration
camp economic enterprises, supervising the deployment of prison labor
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within the camp system. The camps become part of the overall Nazi effort
to build up the German economy in preparation for war.
1938
The SS establishes two new concentration camps (Flössenburg and
Mauthausen) sited for their proximity to large stone quarries. Himmler and
Pohl plan for the SS to profit from Hitler’s desire for monumental building
projects. In cooperation with Albert Speer, Hitler’s favored architect,
Himmler and Pohl arrange for the SS to supply bricks and stone (formed
and quarried by camp slave labor) for the massive new buildings. The SS
creates the Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke (German Earth and Stone
Works or DEST), a company, to manage the brick and stone supply
operations.
March
Germany occupies Austria. Hitler gives the SS responsibility for Jewish
affairs in Austria. The SS begins forced “Aryanization” of Jewish
businesses and property in Austria. Heydrich gives Adolf Eichmann
authority to force the emigration of Jews from Austria.
November
Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass): Nazis attack Jewish shops and
synagogues throughout Germany. The SS begins the final stages of forced
Aryanization in Germany proper.
1939
April
Himmler raises Pohl’s administrative office to the status of a Hauptamt
(Main Office) within the SS high command. At the same time, Himmler
makes Pohl the head of a separate, new main office responsible for all SS
budget and building administration. In addition to his management of
party funds for the SS, Pohl has authority for all Reich (national
government) funds provided for the SS.
September
Germany invades and conquers Poland. The Second World War begins.
SS Einsatzgruppen (Special Action Squads) carryout mass killings of
Polish civil and religious leaders as well as many Polish Jews. Himmler
places Heydrich in charge of a new security main office
October
Hitler puts Himmler in charge of the resettlement of those regions of
Poland that are to be annexed to the Reich. Himmler’s task is to remove
Poles and Jews from the annexed areas and replace them with ethnic
German settlers. Himmler views this mission as an opportunity to begin
the SS-led Germanic colonization of Eastern Europe. By the end of 1939,
the SS expels 90,000 Poles and Jews from western Poland to the General
Government, the region of central Poland not annexed to the Reich.
Thousands of Poles and Jews die during the resettlement operations. The
Germans begin the confinement of Polish Jews within ghettos in major
cities within the General Government.
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Pohl’s office takes over many formerly Jewish owned business enterprises
in Poland for the SS.
1940
April
Himmler orders the establishment of a concentration camp at Auschwitz, a
former Polish village in what is now German territory.
May
Waffen-SS units participate in the German conquest of France. Himmler
offers a proposal to Hitler that all Jews in German controlled Europe be
removed to Africa. Himmler’s proposal coincides with ideas within the
German foreign office to ship Jews to the African island of Madagascar.
The “Madagascar Plan” is shelved, however, when Germany fails to
defeat Britain. In July 1940, Hitler orders his generals to prepare plans for
an invasion of the Soviet Union.
1941
June
Operation Barbarossa: Germany invades the Soviet Union. Himmler,
following Hitler’s order for a campaign of annihilation against
Communists and Jews, tasks Heydrich with the operation of expanded
Einsatzgruppen in occupied Russia. The Einsatzgruppen begin mass
killings of Jews in Russia, murdering some 1 million Jews by 1942.
Summer
The Nazis move towards a “Final Solution of the Jewish question” in
Europe. With German forces seemingly victorious in Russia, Hitler and
Himmler reached a decision in favor of the physical annihilation of
Europe’s Jews. The SS expands the killing operations begun by the
Einsatzgruppen to include the murder of Jews by gas. SS men formerly
employed in the Euthanasia Program in Germany turn their “expertise” to
organizing the mass gassings of Jews.
November
The SS begins construction of extermination camps in Poland having
already carried out experimental gassings of Soviet POWS at Auschwitz.
December
The first transports of Jews are gassed in Poland. Hitler declares war on
the United States.
1942
January
The Wannsee Conference: Heydrich chairs a meeting of top Nazi officials
to work out the implementation of the “Final Solution” in Europe.
February
Pohl’s economic and administrative main offices are combined to create
the SS Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (Economic and Administrative
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Main Office or WVHA). In March, the Inspectorate of Concentration
Camps under Richard Glücks is incorporated into the WVHA. The
organization of the WVHA came in response to the SS’s increasing
involvement in the German war economy, especially the use of SS
supplied slave labor from the concentration camps in the production of
German armaments. The WVHA negotiated the deployment of slave
laborers to German industry. Hundreds of thousands concentration camp
prisoners died as a result of overwork, poor nutrition, ghastly sanitation,
and abuse by SS guards.
May
Assassination of Heydrich by British run Czech commandos in Prague.
July
Himmler orders the extermination of all Jews in the General Government.
1943
February
Russians defeat the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad.
April
Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The SS puts down the Jewish uprising after a
month of fighting. WVHA engineers demolish the ghetto.
July
The SS begins to supply concentration camp prisoners for the construction
of V-2 rocket factories. Hans Kammler, Pohl’s top engineer in the
WVHA, will supervise the building of underground V-2 factories.
Thousands of prisoners die in the process.
August
Hitler appoints Himmler Minister of the Interior.
1944
April
Adolf Eichmann begins the deportations of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz.
Over 400,000 Hungarian Jews are killed at Auschwitz during the next
three months. The WVHA supervises the confiscation of Jewish personal
property at Auschwitz and other extermination camps.
June
Allied forces invade Normandy.
July
German officers make an unsuccessful attempt to kill Hitler. Himmler
orders the Gestapo to crush the anti-Nazi resistance.
1945
January
The SS evacuates Auschwitz as the Russians approach the camp. Tens of
thousands of Jews die in forced marches as the SS retreats from the
concentration camps.
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April
Allied forces liberate concentration camps across Germany. Hitler
commits suicide. Berlin falls to the Russians.
May
End of the war in Europe. The SS and their allies have murdered over six
million Jews. Himmler falls into British hands and kills himself. Oswald
Pohl is captured by British troops.
November
Beginning of the Nuremberg Trial of twenty-two major German
defendants accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The SS is
represented by the defendant, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who succeeded to the
command of the Gestapo after Heydrich’s death. The International
Military Tribunal sentences Kaltenbrunner to death. He is hanged along
with nine other defendants on October 16, 1946.
1947
April
The United States puts Pohl and seventeen other former WVHA men on
trial in Nuremberg for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The trial
ends in November 1947. Pohl and three other defendants receive the death
sentence. Only Pohl’s sentence is carried out. He is executed on June 7,
1951.