SS is one of the most sinister and frightening organizations of the 20th century. Until now, it is a symbol of all the atrocities of the Nazi regime in Germany. At the same time, the phenomenon of the SS and the myths that circulate about its members is an interesting subject for study. Many historians still find documents of these very “elite” Nazis in the archives of Germany.
Now we will try to understand their nature. The insignia and ranks of the SS will be the main topic for us today.
History of Creation
The SS abbreviation for Hitler's personal paramilitary security unit was first used in 1925.
The leader of the Nazi Party surrounded himself with security before the Beer Putsch. However, it acquired its sinister and special meaning only after it was re-recruited for Hitler released from prison. Then the ranks of the SS were still extremely stingy - there were groups of ten people who were led by the Fuhrer SS.
The main purpose of this organization was to protect members of the National Socialist Party. SS military ranks appearedmuch later, when the Waffen-SS was formed. These were precisely those parts of the organization that we remember most clearly, since they fought at the front, among the ordinary soldiers of the Wehrmacht, although they stood out to many among them. Prior to this, the SS was, although paramilitary, but a "civilian" organization.
Formation and activity
As mentioned above, initially the SS is just the bodyguard of the Fuhrer and some other high-ranking members of the party. However, gradually this organization began to expand, and the first sign of its future power was the introduction of a special SS title. We are talking about the position of the Reichsführer, then just the head of all the Fuhrers of the SS.
The second important moment in the rise of the organization was the permission to patrol the streets along with the police. This made the members of the SS no longer just guards. The organization has become a full-fledged law enforcement agency.
However, at that time, the military ranks of the SS and the Wehrmacht were still considered equivalent. The main event in the formation of the organization can, of course, be called the coming to the post of Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler. It was he, while in parallel as head of the SA, who issued a decree that did not allow any of the military to give orders to members of the SS.
At that time in the German army, this decision, of course, was taken with hostility. Moreover, along with this, a decree was immediately issued, which demanded that all the best soldiers be placed at the disposal of the SS. In fact, Hitler and his closest associates pulled off a brilliant scam.
After all, among the military class, the numberThe number of adherents of the National Socialist labor movement was minimal, and therefore the leaders of the party, who seized power, understood the threat posed by the army. They needed the firm belief that there were people who would take up arms on the orders of the Führer and be ready to die while carrying out the tasks assigned to them. Therefore, Himmler actually created a personal army for the Nazis.
The main purpose of the new army
These people were doing the dirtiest and lowest, in terms of morality, work. Under their responsibility were concentration camps, and during the war, members of this organization became the main participants in punitive cleansing operations. SS ranks appear in every crime committed by the Nazis.
The final victory of the authority of the SS over the Wehrmacht was the appearance of the SS troops - later the military elite of the Third Reich. No general had the right to subjugate a member of even the lowest rung in the organizational ladder of the "security detachment", although the ranks in the Wehrmacht and the SS were similar.
Selection
To get into the party organization of the SS, it was necessary to meet many requirements and parameters. First of all, SS-ranks were received by men with an absolutely Aryan appearance. Their age at the time of joining the organization was to be 20-25 years. They were required to have a “correct” skull structure and absolutely he althy white teeth. Most often, "service" in the Hitler Youth ended with joining the SS.
Appearance was one of the most important selection parameters, sohow people who are members of the Nazi organization were to become the elite of the future German society, "equal among unequals." It is clear that the most important criterion was the endless devotion to the Fuhrer and the ideals of National Socialism.
However, this ideology did not last long, or rather, almost completely collapsed with the advent of the Waffen-SS. During the Second World War, the personal army of Hitler and Himmler began to recruit anyone who would show a desire and prove loy alty. Of course, they tried to preserve the prestige of the organization by assigning only the ranks of the SS troops to newly recruited foreigners and not accepting them into the main cell. After serving in the army, such individuals were supposed to receive German citizenship.
In general, the "elite Aryans" during the war "ended" very quickly, being killed on the battlefield and taken prisoner. Only the first four divisions were fully "staffed" with a pure race, among which, by the way, was the legendary "Dead Head". However, already the 5th (“Viking”) made it possible for foreigners to receive SS titles.
Divisions
The most famous and sinister is, of course, the 3rd Panzer Division "Totenkopf". Many times it completely disappeared, being destroyed. However, it has been reborn again and again. However, the division gained notoriety not because of this, and not because of any successful military operations. "Dead Head" is, first of all, an incredible amount of blood on the hands of military personnel. It is on this division that the greatest number of crimes both against the civilian population and against prisoners of war lies. ranks andranks in the SS did not play any role during the tribunal, since almost every member of this unit managed to "distinguish itself."
The second most legendary was the Viking division, recruited, according to the Nazi wording, "from peoples close in blood and spirit." Volunteers from the Scandinavian countries entered there, although their number was not off scale. Basically, SS titles were still worn only by the Germans. However, a precedent was created, because the Viking became the first division where foreigners were recruited. For a long time they fought in the south of the USSR, the main place of their "exploits" was Ukraine.
"Galicia" and "Rhone"
A special place in the history of the SS is the division "Galicia". This unit was created from volunteers from Western Ukraine. The motives of people from Galicia who received German SS titles were simple - the Bolsheviks came to their land just a few years ago and managed to repress a considerable number of people. They went to this division rather not out of ideological similarity with the Nazis, but for the sake of the war with the communists, whom many Western Ukrainians perceived in the same way as citizens of the USSR - the German invaders, that is, as punishers and murderers. Many went there out of a thirst for revenge. In short, the Germans were seen as liberators from the Bolshevik yoke.
This view was typical not only for the inhabitants of Western Ukraine. The 29th division of "RONA" gave the ranks and shoulder straps of the SS to the Russians, who had previously tried to gain independence from the communists. They got there for the same reasons as the Ukrainians - a thirst for revenge and independence. For many people, joining the SS was a real salvation after a life broken by Stalin's 30 years.
At the end of the war, Hitler and his allies were already going to extremes, just to keep people connected with the SS on the battlefield. The army began to recruit literally boys. A striking example of this is the Hitler Youth division.
Besides, on paper there are many uncreated divisions, for example, the one that was supposed to become Muslim (!). Even blacks sometimes got into the ranks of the SS. Old photographs testify to this.
Of course, when it came to this, all elitism disappeared and the SS became just an organization run by the Nazi elite. The set of "imperfect" soldiers only testifies to the desperation that Hitler and Himmler were in at the end of the war.
Reichsführer
The most famous head of the SS was, of course, Heinrich Himmler. It was he who made a "private army" out of the Fuhrer's guard and held out as its leader for the longest time. This figure is now largely mythical: it is impossible to clearly say where the fiction ends and where the facts from the biography of the Nazi criminal begin.
Thanks to Himmler, the authority of the SS was finally strengthened. The organization became a permanent part of the Third Reich. The SS title he carried effectively made him commander-in-chief of Hitler's entire personal army. It must be said that Heinrich approached his position very responsibly - he personally inspected concentration camps, conducted inspections in divisions, and participated in the development of military plans.
Himmler was a truly ideological Nazi and considered serving in the SS his true calling. The main goal of life for him was the extermination of the Jewish people. Probably the descendants of the victims of the Holocaust should curse him more than Hitler.
Due to the looming fiasco and Hitler's increasing paranoia, Himmler was charged with high treason. The Fuhrer was sure that his ally had entered into an agreement with the enemy in order to save his life. Himmler lost all high posts and titles, and the well-known party leader Karl Hanke was to take his place. However, he did not have time to do anything for the SS, since he simply could not take the office of the Reichsfuehrer.
Structure
The SS army, like any other paramilitary formation, was strictly disciplined and well organized.
The smallest unit in this structure was the Shar-SS squad, consisting of eight people. Three similar army units formed the SS troupe - according to our concepts, this is a platoon.
The Nazis also had their own analogue of the Sturm-SS company, consisting of about one and a half hundred people. They were commanded by an Untersturmführer, whose rank was the first and lowest among the officers. Three of these units formed the Sturmbann-SS, headed by the Sturmbannfuehrer (the rank of major in the SS).
And, finally, the SS standard is the highest administrative-territorial organizational unit, analogous to a regiment.
As you can see, the Germans did not start reinventing the wheel and looking for original structural solutions for their new army for too long. They are onlypicked up analogues of conventional military units, endowing them with a special, excuse me, “Nazi flavor”. The same situation has developed with the titles.
Ranks
The ranks of the SS Troops were almost identical to the ranks of the Wehrmacht.
The youngest of all was a private, who was called a schütze. Above him stood an analogue of a corporal - a sturmmann. So the ranks rose to the officer's untersturmführer (lieutenant), while continuing to be modified simple army ranks. They walked in this order: Rottenführer, Scharführer, Oberscharführer, Hauptscharführer and Sturmscharführer.
After that, the officers began their work. The highest ranks were the general (Obergruppeführer) of the armed forces and the colonel general, who was called Oberstgruppefuhrer.
All of them were subordinate to the commander-in-chief and the head of the SS - the Reichsfuehrer. There is nothing complicated in the structure of the SS ranks, except perhaps for pronunciation. However, this system is built logically and understandably in an army way, especially if you add up the ranks and structure of the SS in your head - then everything in general becomes quite simple to understand and remember.
Insignia
Ranks and ranks in the SS are interesting to study on the example of shoulder straps and insignia. They were characterized by a very stylish German aesthetics and really reflected in themselves everything that the Germans thought about their achievements and mission. The main theme was death and ancient Aryan symbols. And if the ranks in the Wehrmacht and the SS practically did not differ, then this cannot be said about shoulder straps andstripes. So what's the difference?
The shoulder straps of the rank and file were nothing special - the usual black stripe. The only difference is the patches. The junior officers did not go far, but their black epaulettes were edged with a strip, the color of which depended on the rank. Starting with the Oberscharführer, stars appeared on shoulder straps - they were huge in diameter and quadrangular in shape.
But a truly aesthetic pleasure can be obtained if we consider the insignia of the Sturmbannführer - in shape they resembled Scandinavian runes and were woven into a fancy ligature, on top of which stars were placed. In addition, green oak leaves appear on the patches, in addition to the stripes.
General's epaulettes were made in the same aesthetics, only they had a golden color.
However, of particular interest to the collector and those who want to understand the culture of the Germans of that time are a variety of stripes, including the badges of the division in which the SS member served. It was both a "dead head" with crossed bones, and a Norwegian hand. These patches were not mandatory, but were part of the SS army uniform. Many members of the organization proudly wore them, confident that they were doing the right thing and that fate was on their side.
Shape
Initially, when the SS first appeared, it was possible to distinguish a "security squad" from an ordinary member of the party by the ties: they were black, not brown. However, due to the "elitism", the requirements for appearance and standing out from the crowd increased more and more.
SWith the advent of Himmler, black became the main color of the organization - the Nazis wore caps, shirts, uniforms of this color. To them were added stripes with runic symbols and a "dead head".
However, from the moment Germany entered the war, it turned out that black stood out extremely on the battlefield, so a military gray uniform was introduced. It did not differ in anything except color, and was of the same strict style. Gradually, gray tones completely replaced black. The black uniform was considered purely formal.
Conclusion
SS military ranks do not carry any sacred meaning. They are just a copy of the military ranks of the Wehrmacht, one might even say a mockery of them. Like, “look, we are the same, but you cannot command us.”
However, the difference between the SS and the conventional army was not at all in buttonholes, shoulder straps and the name of the ranks. The main thing that the members of the organization had was endless devotion to the Fuhrer, which charged them with hatred and bloodthirstiness. Judging by the diaries of German soldiers, they themselves did not like the "Hitler dogs" for their arrogance and contempt for all the people around.
The same attitude was towards the officers - the only thing for which the members of the SS were tolerated in the army was for the incredible fear of them. As a result, the rank of major (in the SS it is a Sturmbannfuehrer) began to mean much more for Germany than the highest rank in a simple army. The leadership of the Nazi Party almost always took the side of "their own" during some internal army conflicts, because they knew that they could only rely on them.
BUltimately, not all SS criminals were brought to justice - many of them fled to South American countries, changing their names and hiding from those to whom they are guilty - that is, from the entire civilized world.
