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Essay On Schutzstaffel

656 Words3 Pages

Ethan Chung
Write On!
6-26-15

Schutzstaffel(SS)
Have you ever wondered who was behind the concentration camp system during World War 2? Well, the answer in part, is Adolf Hitler. However, there was a special task force that managed the camps themselves. The Schutzstaffel was an organization, that brought millions of people to their knees. The sight of their double lightning bolt insignia brought fear to people’s eyes.
The SS was fighting not only on the front lines of the war, but also against its own citizens, its “lesser beings”. Their many branches were escorting people to camps to make them to forced labor, and then later on, kill them. They had the Gestapo, which was the Nazi police force that brought the prisoners to the camps, as well as the Totenkopfverbände, which guarded the camps. The Schutzstaffel or the SS, was originally meant to be a bodyguard force. It was formed in 1925 by Hitler as a …show more content…

They were in charge of the day to day camp life. They were trained to harden their hearts to human suffering, so that they would be able to administer beatings and killings with no hesitation. They were nicknamed the “Death’s Head Squadron” for their horrible deeds.
Now the Allgemeine-SS was the administering part of the SS. They had the infamous Gestapo in their branch, which was instrumental in the slaughter of the Jews. The Gestapo was the Nazi police force that rounded up the Jews to be sent off to the concentration camps. They used ruthless methods of transportation, either making them walk hundreds of miles, or putting to many people in one train. Their would be so many people that their would soon be no oxygen left in the train.
The Gestapo was the unit that gave the execution orders. The Totenkopfverbände would kill people on a day to day basis, and even kill people by putting them in the ovens, but they couldn’t give a kill order. It was the Gestapo that delivered the kill order for the Jews in

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