Heinrich Himmler (Or The Schutzstaffel (SS)

The Schutzstaffel better known as the “SS”, was founded on the 4th of April 1925, by German leader and Fuhrer of the National Socialist German Party (NSDAP), Adolf Hitler. They were established as Hitler’s personal bodyguards and provided protection for him and other Nazi leaders and speakers.

The symbol which represented the SS were two white bolts (pictured on the left) and were seen on all SS officers.

On the 20th of January 1929, Hitler announced Heinrich Himmler (pictured below) as the new Reich leader of the SS. As leader, Himmler was to begin making the SS the most elite and loyal guards in the world. Two years later in the summer of 1931, Himmler created the Security Service of the Nazi Party. In December later that year, Himmler formed

This office would later be in charge of administering the Holocaust.

On the 7th of October, Hitler assigns Himmler as Reich Commissar to advance the German Ethnic Stock. This allowed Himmler to plan and administer the population policy in Poland, which was now occupied by Nazi Germany.

In late 1939, Himmler established an armed SS force known as the Waffen SS.

Two years later, on the 22nd of June 1941, Nazi Germany began major killing operations including the invasion of the Soviet Union. During the invasion, German mobile killing squads/special duty units (also known as Einsatzgruppen), SS and police were authorised to exterminate all Jewish people, including women and children. By 1943, the mobile killing squads would have killed over a million Jews and tens and thousands of partisans, gypsies and political Soviet officers.

On the 17th of July, Hitler widens Himmler’s authority for security and settlement operations to the Soviet Union. The SS had almost complete responsibility for the security behind the front lines of the Soviet

This conference included the key German government officials and high-ranking SS officers. During the conference, Heydrich displayed the plans which answered the “solution to the Jewish question”, this was the “Final Solution” (United States Holocaust Museum, 2016). Heydrich also explained that Hitler authorised the operation and that the process will include the annihilation of 11 million Jews, including Jews from countries such as Sweden, Ireland, Great Britain and Turkey. This became known as the “Final Solution”