NationMaster - Encyclopedia: SS and Police Leader

Higher SS and Police Leaders were senior Nazi Party officials that commanded large units of the SS during and prior to the Second World War. The office of SS and Police Leader was one of the most powerful postings in Nazi Germany. The Nazi swastika symbol The National Socialist German Workers Party ( German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), better known as the NSDAP or the Nazi Party was a political party that was led to power in Germany by Adolf Hitler in 1933. ... For other uses of the abbreviation SS, see SS (disambiguation) The Schutzstaffel (Protective Squadron), or SS, was a large paramilitary organization that belonged to the Nazi party. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ...

The first SS and Police Leaders were appointed in 1938 from the existing office of the Allgemeine-SS Oberabschnitt Führer (Senior District Leader). The purpose of the SS and Police Leader was to be a direct command authority for every SS and police unit in a given geographical region with such authority answering only to Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler. By the start of the Second World War, the SS and Police Leaders were divided into three levels those being SS and Police Leaders, Higher SS and Police Leaders, and Supreme SS and Police Leaders. The office of Higher SS and Police Leader (in German: Höhere SS und Polizeiführer) was the most commonly appointed. The Allgemeine-SS was the name for the General SS which consisted of part-time mustering SS formations created under the Nazi Party between 1925 and 1945. ... Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Himmler (October 7, 1900 â€“ May 23, 1945) was the commander of the German Schutzstaffel (SS) and one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany. ... Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 â€“ April 30, 1945) was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 until his death. ...

SS and Police Leaders directly commanded a headquarters staff with representatives from almost every branch of the SS. This typically included the Ordnungspolizei, Gestapo, Concentration Camp service, SD, and certain units of the Waffen-SS. In theory, an SS and Police Leader had authority to command and commandeer any SS unit available in a particular region; however, in practice SS units answered to their immediate chain of command and would only be requisitioned by the SS and Police Leader in the event of an emergency. Flag of the Ordnungspolizei The Ordnungspolizei was the name for the regular German police force that existed in Nazi Germany between the years of 1936 and 1945. ... The Gestapo was the official secret police force of Nazi Germany. ... A concentration camp is a large detention center created for political opponents, aliens, specific ethnic or religious groups, civilians of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, often during a war. ... SD Insignia Patch The Sicherheitsdienst (SD, Security Service) was the intelligence service of the SS. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was considered a sister organization with the Gestapo. ... Waffen-SS recruitment poster; Volunteer to the Waffen-SS The Waffen-SS was the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel. ...

One of the more notorious functions of the SS and Police Leaders was to serve as the Commanding SS General for any Einsatzgruppen that were activiated in the SS and Police Leader’s area. Such duties typically involoved ordering the deaths of tens of thousands of persons and, following the close of the Second World War, nearly every SS and Police Leader, who had served in Poland and Russia, was charged with war crimes. A large number of the SS and Police Leaders, who had been involved with such crimes, committed suicide before capture. A member of Einsatzgruppe D prepares to murder a Jew kneeling before a filled mass grave in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, in 1942. ... Suicide (from Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the act of wilfully ending ones own life; it is sometimes a noun for one who has committed or attempted the act. ...

SS and Police Leaders were also the overseeing authority of the Jewish Ghettos in Poland and, as such, directly coordinated deportations to extermination camps with the administrative help of the RSHA. The SS and Police Leaders were also afforded direct command over Police Battalions and SD Regiments that were assigned to keep order in the ghettos. The classic image of SS troops, storming through a Jewish Ghetto murdering victims at random, can be attributed to troops under the command of the SS and Police Leaders. A ghetto is an area where people from a specific ethnic background or united in a given culture or religion live as a group, voluntarily or involuntarily, in milder or stricter seclusion. ... Majdanek - crematorium Extermination camp (German Vernichtungslager) was the term applied to a group of camps set up by Nazi Germany during World War II for the express purpose of killing the Jews of Europe, although members of some other groups whom the Nazis wished to exterminate, such as Roma (Gypsies... RSHA, or the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, was a subsidiary organization of the S.S. created by Heinrich Himmler on September 22, 1939, through the merger of the Sicherheitsdienst, the Gestapo and the Kriminalpolizei. ...

The grand dream of Heinrich Himmler was to evolve the SS and Police Leader into an SS Lord of the Lebensraum which the SS would rule and control after Germany had won the Second World War. Himmler’s dream envisioned twenty eight SS States, spread throughout the East, each one of which would be ruled by an SS and Police Leader, militarily controlled by the Waffen-SS, and worked and lived on by SS warriors of the Allgemeine-SS. Whether or not Himmler’s vison was plausible, and if the more rational elements of the Nazi government would have permitted an SS nation in the east, remains one of the great “what-ifs” of history. Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Himmler (October 7, 1900 â€“ May 23, 1945) was the commander of the German Schutzstaffel (SS) and one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany. ... Lebensraum (from the German for living space) is an idea that was used to justify the expansionist politics of Nazi Germany. ... The Allgemeine-SS was the name for the General SS which consisted of part-time mustering SS formations created under the Nazi Party between 1925 and 1945. ...

Notable SS and Police Leaders

Categories: Nazi Germany | SS Karl Wolff (right) with Benito Mussolini Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff (May 13, 1900 - July 17, 1984) was a high-ranking member of the Nazi SS. He held the rank of SS-ObergruppenfÃ¼hrer and General of the Waffen-SS. Wolff was born in Darmstadt, Germany and joined the German Army... SS-General Ernst Kaltenbrunner Ernst Kaltenbrunner (October 4, 1903 - October 16, 1946) was a senior Nazi official during World War II. // Early Life Born in Ried im Innkreis, Austria, he was the son of a lawyer. ... Karl Hermann Frank Karl Hermann Frank (January 24, 1898-May 22, 1946) was a prominent Sudeten-German Nazi official in Czechoslovakia prior to and during World War II. Born in Karlovy Vary, Frank was taught by his father (a proponent of Georg Ritter von SchÃ¶nererâ€™s policies) at a... Odilo Globocnik (April 21, 1904 - May 31, 1945) was a prominent Austrian Nazi and later an SS leader. ... Erich von dem Bach, born Erich von Zelewski and also known as Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski (March 1, 1899 - March 8, 1972) was a Nazi official and member of the SS with a rank of SS-Obergruppenführer. ... Friedrich Wilhelm KrÃ¼ger (1894 - 1945) was a Nazi official and high-ranking member of the SA and SS. KrÃ¼ger was born into a military family in Strasbourg, Germany (nowadays France) in 1894; he received elementary school education, but ultimately left school before graduating to begin a military career... JÃ¼rgen Stroop in custody for war crimes JÃ¼rgen Stroop, (September 26, 1895 in Detmold â€“ March 6, 1952 in Warsaw), was an SS-GruppenfÃ¼hrer und Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS und Polizei, who served as the SS and Police Leader of the Poland-Warsaw area during the Warsaw Ghetto... Julian Scherner was a Nazi Party official who served in the Schutzstaffel (S.S.) as an SS-Oberführer. ...