R & A No. 3113.7 / Principal Nazi Organizations Involved in the ...

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a utrict separation of functions. The SS Supreme Command, in feet, was so
organized that various offices would share automatically in responsibility
for the efficient operation of various branches of the SS. The Central
Office recruited, tho Operational Main Office commanded, and the- Economic
and Administrative .Main Office supplied units of the Waffen-SS and of the
Allgemeine SS. Furthermore, the heads of all Main Offices, at least at one
tine, were automatic-lly attached to the Personal Staff of the Keichsfuhrer-
SS..
The Reichsf Ihrung-SS developed ever the years from a small group of
administrative offices with restricted and heterogenous functions to a
bureaucracy which, in power and scope, matched, if not surpassed, the com­
bined functions of government and milit ry authorities. It even commanded
eccnomic resources of considerable size whic':, to no small degree, contributed
to the autarchic character of the SS as a state within, if not above, the
State.
On the other hnnd,the haphazard way in which the SS accumulated its
functions is clearly discernible in the structure of its Supreme Command.
The growth of the SS called for frequent radical changes in the top command.
In consequence, there was a total lack of administrative tradition, a wide
use of discretion by individual officeholders anxious to revise and reorganize
the offices under their control, and, finally, duplication of offort and
overlapping functions. This may account for the apparent absence of rules
determining the Jurisdiction of individual Main Offices and the repsated re­
currence of similar titles and functions in different offices. The latest
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