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

Hiatorioal Background
-5«
ÜS22S
a. Reyiej: Rise of the Ss to a *&,,lin£ Group. In the i;wenty-fcwo years
of ita existanoo the SS grev from a more Stabswaohe (HQ, Guarrt) for the proteo-
*
tion of Hitler to the most poT?erful organization within the föaxi system.
{Fithin the Party structure the SS was a eo-called Q^i?^«rung (formation)
of the Party, equal ir. status to the 8k, tha HJ (Hitler Youth), the JJ5XK
(national Socialist Motor Corps), etc» Actually, the SS, in 1944«19453 had
become not only r. state within the state«, but a Party superior to the Kaci
Party, tiie Oovernment, and the Armed Forms. As a super-Hnsi party, the SS
curried the ideology of the Party» specifically the racial principle, to
extremes? as a super-stato? the SS had w legal and moral coda of its own, an
executive apparatus of its own, and a judiciary of its own? is a super-ar?cys
the SS had ita own ailitsary Ȁi-hine which, even at an aivancod stage of the
war, could still boast of having the oroaa of the Mazi youtli within ita roakc»
Its privileged status was in harmony with Himmler*s definition of the SS as
a "Hational Socialist, soldierly Order >f Rordio men and as a pledged oannjuni-i^'
of its clana" ("ein nfctio:-aalfio/.ialist:'.s-shor, soldatischer Orien nordisch
1
boBtinaator Tfe-rmor und als eine geaohwor?n.a Genroinaehaft ihrer Sippen"), i,»e.w
a new aristocracy dedioatad to the defeisa of Teutonic pagan "em and Prusslar
author!tarianitan with an ample sprinkliog of anti-bourgeois prejudices*
However, the excluaivoness of the SS, while maintained in principle,
was modified in /iew of ths growing tendency to expand and to infiltrate into
the official ruling groups o£ the reg:jii3r high bureaucracy, supreme command
of the Armed Forces* and industry. To back up their political demands with
1. " Heinrich Hiaailer, in Dia Sohutzataffel als antlVolaohowistische
Kampforgani •ation A' Zentral ver lag der JlfenaP, T&ftV"" SECHST