Germany: The Story of the SS
Each of us should remind himself daily that the power of his body, soul and mind belong to the Führer, to the Movement and thus to the Nation. May each of us endure the good days as bravely as the bad days.
HEINRICH HIMMLER, Reichsführer of the SS
In 1923 the „Stoßtrupp Hitler“ was founded and on the 9th of November 1923 it was banned along with the entire National Socialist Movement. When in 1925 the NSDAP was founded again, the sheltering organization of the Movement, the SA, remained prohibited in the entire Reich. The Führer commanded that a small mobile fighting and protecting organization be formed in order to safeguard the meetings of the party and the Schutzstaffel was formed. In most cases the units consisted of one leader and 10 men only. In those days even Berlin had but one SS unit, numbering two leaders and 20 men. In 1926 the ban on the SA was lifted so that the SA could again take on its responsibility to safeguard the meetings. The SS was then made responsible for the personal safety of Adolf Hitler. In the same year – at the second Reichs Party Day of the NSDAP in Weimar – the Führer handed over to this formation the sacred symbol of the Movement: the blood flag of the 9th of November 1923. On the 6th of January 1929 the Führer designated Heinrich Himmler as Reichsführer of the SS and made it his responsibility to form a reliable and constantly combat ready elite out of the SS members who then numbered approximately 280 men.
Out of this small troop grew the tough, uncompromising political combat group of the Movement. Entrusted with the responsibility to form such an organization the Reichsführer SS succeeded because he integrated and clearly enforced the theoretical knowledge of the National Socialist Weltanschauung in all racial matters. Distinct physical, personal and racial requirements for SS-men were extended to the future wives of all SS members as well. Therefore, Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler enacted family laws of the SS which were a signpost of the knowledge we have of our racial value and a signpost for the belief we put in our destiny and in the binding heritage of our blood. From the 1st of January 1932 engagement and marriage permission was required for all SS members. This permission is only granted or denied after all aspects of character, race and a healthy stock are carefully considered.
This procedure serves the purpose of founding a German elite aiming at a purification of blood in the entire German nation, in hard years of combat the SS earned the Führer’s motto: „SS members, your honor is loyalty”. Together with their comrades of the SA, SS-men stopped the red and black (communist) terror. The list of those brave SS-men who gave their lives as a token of loyalty is long. On the 30th of January 1933, the day of the Assumption of Power, the SS numbered 52,000 men who built the basis and hard core of today’s domestic SS of the young Reich. On the 20th of July 1934 the SS became an independent subdivision of the NSDAP under the direct command of the Führer. On the 17th of June 1936 the Reichsführer SS, who is also Chief of the German Police, was entrusted by the Führer with the responsibility to unite the 16 county police forces into a National Police. The Reichsführer SS then picked out all useful men, filled the rows up with SS members and streamlined the entire police according to SS standards.
After the 30th of January 1933 the SS could freely develop within the Reich and take on important national responsibilities. Outside the former borders of the Reich however, lines of SS-men struggled for power. Those 23 brave SS-men who fought for a Greater Germany in the former Austria sacrificed their lives on the gallows as heroes and martyrs. No jail or concentration camp, (Wollersdorf was a well known one) could break the courage and belief of the SS-men in the former country of Austria.
The Armed SS developed out of the General SS in 1933, when the Führer commanded that active barracked troops should be selected out of the SS . In this elite, only those teams serve which are trained the best in all military and political matters. Service with the Armed SS meets the requirement of obligatory military service. The minimum period of service is 4 years. In times of war, volunteers are recruited for the reserves. The SS Junker Schools (in Tolz and Braunschweig) educate the coming generation of leaders.
The Armed SS was first brought into action when Austria and Sudetenland returned to the Fatherland. When the war started in the autumn of 1939 the regiments of the Militarized SS and the SS Deathshead Standarte were ready for combat and complete enough to be united into divisions.
Ever since the outbreak of the war in the autumn of 1939 soldiers of the Armed SS that grew out of the SS have fought on all European battlefields and their immortal heroic actions already fill many pages of honor in the book of history of this biggest of all wars. The flowering generation of Flanders, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway join our rows, fighting for a renaissance of a united Germanic future.
The SS is a military order of hereditary nordic men and a blood brotherhood of their families. Our essential belief is the following: „We do not only want to be called the descendants of those who knew how to fight better, but we also want to be the ancestors of coming generations, necessary for the eternal existence of the German-Germanic nation”.