SS - BLACK ORDER
5 (100%) 2 vote [s]« Himmler, and Hitler, needed not just a bunch of brawlers and criminal elements, such as the SA and SS at the first stage, but a combat formation of disciplined soldiers loyal to the Fuhrer, something purely military and at the same time ... not military. The Nazis and their elite did not call themselves soldiers, but fighters, and in 1940 Himmler even said;
"Young Germans, who stand out for their behavior and character, want to be more than soldiers ..."
For Himmler, the SS was more than a clique of fanatical party people who destroyed the enemies of the Third Reich. It was a mysterious brotherhood he extolled, inspired by tales of Teutonic knights and medieval legends.
According to the statements of many SS researchers, it was an order cobbled together on the principle of the Jesuit order. Hitler himself repeatedly called Himmler "my Ignatius Loyola."
The first thing that the creators of the order did was make it extremely difficult to join it. In mid-1933, Himmler stopped admitting new members to the SS altogether. During the period from 1933 to 1935, 60,000 people were expelled from the SS. Himmler himself stated this purge:
“Not a single person was accepted anymore. And from the end of 1933 to the end of 1935, we excluded everyone who did not suit us. "
The selection was based on the racial principle. "Pedigrees" SS men were supposed to be one hundred percent "Clean". The requirement of racial purity also extended to the wives of the SS. In 1931 Himmler issued an order granting permission to marry.
To get into the SS, one had to go through a sieve of "racial selection". Almost everything boiled down to pieces of paper - a questionnaire. Moreover, the requirements for officers and lower ranks were slightly different.
The lower ranks had to submit certificates that their ancestors from 1800 were Aryans; commanders or candidates for commanders were required to certify that their direct relatives since 1750 did not have an admixture of non-Aryan blood. A full-length photograph of the candidate was also presented.
“Dr. Bruno Schulz, SS Hauptsturmführer and professor, based on the research of racial theorists, created a special scale, dividing all possible candidates into five groups:
1) a purely "Nordic" group;
2) the predominantly "Nordic" or "Falic" group;
3) a group "consisting of harmoniously mixed people of both races" with "a slight admixture of Alpine, Dinaric and Mediterranean blood";
4) a group of "hybrids, where alpine or eastern blood predominates";
5) a group of “mestizos of non-European origin”.
Only those people who belonged to the first three groups could apply to join the SS. However, he assured that in a few decades the members of the SS would be exclusively pure Aryans (the Nordic group), and in 120 years the entire German people would turn into blue-eyed and fair-haired Vikings.
In addition, the candidate had to have certain, strictly normalized proportions. The SS man was not supposed to have a disproportionate figure.
If no special physical flaws were found in the candidate, and he passed according to the personal data, this did not mean that this lucky man immediately became a full-fledged SS man.
He still had a long way to go. November 9th, another anniversary beer putsch, the candidate was declared a recruit and allowed to wear a black uniform, but without buttonholes. The next stage came on January 30: the recruit received a preliminary SS certificate. A few months later, on April 20, on Hitler's birthday, the recruit received his buttonholes and a permanent SS certificate, after which he took the oath to Hitler:
"I swear to you, Adolf Hitler,
Führer and Chancellor of the German Reich,
Be faithful and brave
Keeping obedience until death. "
The oath of the SS officers was stricter, for example, the general's oath sounded like this:
“As a lieutenant general of the SS, I pledge with the utmost rigor to ensure that only people who fully respond to it get into the SS. high standards, whatever the merits of their parents or ancestors.
I will not deviate from this rule even if I have to reject my own sons, daughters, or relatives. In addition, I pledge to ensure that every year at least a quarter of the candidates for the SS come from people who are not the sons of SS members.
I swear to abide by these obligations without violating my loyalty to our Fuehrer Adolf Hitler and not shaming the honor of my ancestors, may God help me. "
The initiation into the SS in the "special detachments" of the SS was super solemnly held. It was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the beer putsch - the ceremony was held at 10 pm, that is, in complete darkness, in Munich near Feldhernhalle.
Hitler himself was often present at the ceremony. By the light of torches, thousands of SS men swore an oath.
If the members of the "special detachments" of the SS became full-fledged SS members a year after they passed the first exam, then the members of the "general SS" were subjected to additional processing.
Having sworn an oath of loyalty to the Fuehrer on April 20, they passed the sports standards, because they were obliged to receive a sports badge. Further, the recruit passed a "theoretical course", memorized "questions" and "answers" and passed exams.
On October 1, the recruit went to serve labor service, and then he was drafted for a short time in the Wehrmacht. Only after that, having received a good description from the commanders of the Wehrmacht, he again returned to the SS and on November 9 became already one hundred percent SS.
This time, he took a new oath: he swore that he would choose a life mate for himself "solely on the basis of racial hereditary? Healthy principle", as well as with the consent of the racial affairs department or Himmler himself, and only after that the candidate became a full member of the SS.
The obstacles faced by the candidates were absolutely necessary: \u200b\u200bthe future SS man should have immediately realized that he was entering the holy of holies of the Nazi state - an elite organization. He had to believe that he was ranked not just among the elite, but among the double elite: the Germans were the elite of nations, the SS were the elite of the Germans.
American SS researcher John M. Steiner writes that all SS men “were convinced that they were a racial elite. As a result, the security detachments considered it their duty and their “right” to decide whether the others have the right to exist ... "
The stay in the SS was accompanied by a number of rituals. The existing set of rules placed the SS men in a very special position.
The significance of these rules lay in the fact that even the direct privileges of the SS - they did not undergo compulsory service in the Wehrmacht, they were paid more than all other cadre soldiers - were clothed in the form of a kind of ideological asceticism on the principle: whoever is given more, more will be demanded ...
The SS did not submit to the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts. They had their own courts.
There were other special rules for the SS, which had a purely "decorative" meaning: the SS were allowed to duel,
“Every SS man has the right and duty to defend his honor by force of arms,” Himmler argued. The guilty SS man had the opportunity to commit suicide.
True, in both cases, permission from the authorities and compliance with a lot of bureaucratic formalities were required.
SS men with experience wore a ring with the image of a dead head on the ring finger of their right hand. Especially confidants received a "dagger of honor" and honorary daggers. Who exactly was awarded the honorary weapon depended personally on Himmler. Only SS men who graduated from cadet schools automatically received daggers.
In addition, there were many ceremonies and rituals in which the SS were required to participate. All SS men had special holidays. Even ordinary "soldiers" did not celebrate Christmas, New Year or Easter.
The most important family holidays of the SS were marriage and the birth of a child. The SS men did not get married in the church. Co-workers and always the boss came to the wedding. The chief made a speech, the spouses were presented with bread and salt and a silver cup.
The newborn also received an SS gift — a silver bowl, a silver spoon, and a blue silk bow. At the funeral, the commander of the SS detachment again delivered a speech.
Instead of Christmas, all SS men celebrated the "winter solstice", as well as the "solstice" (the day of the vernal equinox), and then, like the rest of Germany, Hitler's birthday, the anniversary of the beer putsch and the anniversary of the seizure of power.
However, real mysticism began at those levels of the SS hierarchy, where Himmler himself and his closest circle were located.
Himmler believed in black magic, transmigration of souls, easily “communicated with the spirits,” consulted with fortune-tellers and astrologers.
In addition, Himmler identified himself sometimes with the mythical king of the Britons, Arthur, then with King Henry, whose spirit allegedly came to him and gave valuable instructions.
As Arthur, the Reichsfuehrer SS observed a rather complex ritual. There were always exactly 12 people at his table. In the SS, he had 12 Obergruppenführer, who were considered the highest hierarchs of the order. These twelve had their own coats of arms, designed and manufactured by the artists and craftsmen of the Ancestral Heritage Department.
At the same time, Himmler did not forget King Henry I. On July 2, 1936, allegedly on the millennium since the death of Henry I, Himmler vowed in the Quedlinburg Cathedral to his namesake that "he would end his business ... of enslaving the Slavs."
In 1937, the remains of Henry I were transferred to the Quedlinburg Cathedral, and Himmler declared that this cathedral should become a place of pilgrimage for the SS. Himmler himself for several years in a row on the anniversary of his death Henry I went to the cathedral and at midnight went to the crypt under the altar, where he talked with the king's ashes.
The main castle of the Order was Wewelsburg Castle. During the Nazi election campaign in January 1933, Himmler traveled through Westphalia and the romantic Grevenburg castle made a deep impression on him.
He thought about acquiring the same castle for SS purposes. On November 3, 1933, Himmler visited Wewelsburg with members of the SS commission and chose this castle.
In 1934, he rented a crumbling castle in Westphalia for a nominal fee of one stamp a year. The fortress known as Wewelsburg was allegedly built by the Huns. It got its name from a knight named Vevel von Buren. Paderborn bishops hid in the castle during medieval civil strife
In the 17th century, the fortress was rebuilt and took on a modern look.
Himmler intended to turn the castle into a spiritual center of the SS, to open a cadet school for SS officers there. In his headquarters was even formed a department "Wewelsburg" under the leadership of SS Standartenfuehrer Taubert.
The castle was originally used as a museum and college for ideological education for SS officers under the headquarters for race and resettlement, but in February 1935 it came under the control of the Reichsfuehrer SS headquarters.
Wewelsburg castle
Someone Wiligut, who accompanied Himmler on his visits to the castle, pushed the concept towards radicalization. Wiligut predicted that the castle was destined to become a magical place in the future struggle between Europe and Asia. His idea was based on an old Westphalian legend that found romantic expression in a 19th century poem.
It described a vision of an old shepherd about "The battle of the birch", in which a huge army from the East will be finally defeated by the West. Wiligut communicated this legend to Himmler, claiming that Wewelsburg would become a bastion against which the "invasion of the new Huns" would be defeated.
Karl Wolff recalled that Himmler was very moved by Wiligut's idea: it satisfied his own vision of the future role of the SS in defending Europe in the coming confrontation between West and East.
After being rented by Himmler, the castle was rebuilt (the architect Bartels was responsible for the reconstruction and modernization of the castle).
As a result, the private quarters of the SS Reichsfuehrer himself were arranged over the giant dining room in the south wing, including a huge room for a collection of weapons and a library with 12,000 volumes. There was a courtroom and a courtroom nearby.
In the same southern wing, the architect placed Hitler's apartments. The castle housed rooms for twelve of Himmler's close associates, who regularly sat in the main hall - thirty-five meters long and fifteen meters wide - with a round oak table in the middle, sitting in huge chairs upholstered in pigskin and decorated with coats of arms. According to SS researcher Hene, these sessions were very much like seances.
The basement of Wewelsburg was converted into a hall of the highest commanders, in which the coats of arms of the highest SS leaders were to be burned in the event of their death.
The final plan of Wewelsburg reflects Himmler's SS cult. The main hall of the castle was a huge round vaulted room in the north tower, decorated with the coat of arms of the Reichsfuehrer SS; below, in the hall of the SS Obergruppenführer, the daily ceremonies were held.
In the outbuildings of the castle, study rooms were located, named and decorated in honor of the heroes of "Nordic mythology": Vidukind, King Henry, Henry the Lion, King Arthur and the Grail.
Site plans dating from 1940-1942 envisage moving the surrounding villages a considerable distance and the construction of a grandiose architectural complex consisting of halls, galleries, towers and turrets, fortress walls made in the form of a semicircle on the hillside of the main defense of the original medieval castle.
The project was supposed to be completed by 1960. Himmler apparently dreamed of creating the SS Vatican, the center of the thousand-year-old great Germanic Reich.
13 million marks were spent on the modernization of Wewelsburg.
However, Himmler thought of Wewelsburg only as a beginning: the Reichsfuehrer SS wanted “in every standard to be created cultural Center German greatness and the German past, and to be brought into the order and condition that would be worthy of a people with an ancient culture ... "
Heinz Hene - Black Order of the SS. History of the guard squadsEDUCATION SS
The origins of the SS are inseparable from the history of the birth of the Nazi movement itself in the tumultuous post-war spring of 1919, when volunteer detachments (Freikors) and units of the Reichswehr managed to expel the red leadership of Bavaria.
The unwitting "midwife" of National Socialism was destined to become the Munich historian, Professor Karl Alexander von Müller. He maintained close contacts with the nationalist officers who conquered the Munich political arena at the time. At one of the soldiers' rallies, Müller drew attention to a young orator with an exciting eloquence.
“I saw, - said Mueller later, - a pale thin face, bangs not falling like a soldier on his forehead, short-cropped antennae. What struck me, however, was the unnaturally large blue eyes that glowed with icy fanaticism. "
Muller turned to a former classmate who was standing next to him - the captain general staff Myru.
Do you know that among your charges there is a guy with a born oratorical talent?
Karl Mayr, head of the department responsible for propaganda and work with the press at the headquarters of the IV military district, stationed in Bavaria, instantly knew who was talking about.
This is corporal Hitler from the Liszt regiment ... Hey, Hitler, come quickly to me!
The corporal obediently approached. In his constrained, somewhat awkward movements, Müller felt a peculiar mixture of self-doubt and stubbornness.
This scene clearly illustrates the dependence of the early Adolf Hitler on the officers of the Bavarian Reichswehr, the observance of subordination, his inherent feeling of subservience to the elders military rank, from which the future Fuhrer of the "Great German Empire" for many years could not get rid of.
Since June 1919, the Mayr department, located in the headquarters of the district of the Bavarian War Ministry in Munich Schönfelderstrasse, began to recruit informants in various military units stationed in Bavaria. The surname of Adolf Hitler also appeared on the lists of agents. Wherever Mayr needed support on the ideological front, he sent Hitler's informant there, who was ready to give "the last 'rhetorical' battle." Over time, the corporal became so indispensable that the captain, in correspondence with him, changed his commanding tone to a more polite form, addressing him: "Dear Mr. Hitler!" Soon the Austrian became not only a frequent visitor to the Schönfelderstrasse, but also received the right to be called Captain Mayr's "political officer". When the danger of a soldier's revolt arose in the Lechfeld demobilization camp, he sent Hitler there.
On August 23, 1919, Lorenz Frank, an informant of the Reichswehr, reported with delight to the instance: “Mr. Hitler is a born tribune of the people! With his demeanor and passionate fanaticism, he easily attracted the attention of the protesters. "
The corporal's notable successes prompted the captain to use his agent for more responsible work. In addition to propaganda, the tasks of Mayr's department included coverage of the activities of political parties and organizations operating in Bavaria. As a result, Hitler was introduced into the German Workers' Party (DAP). In fact, this party was a bunch of militant politicians who, in addition to hatred for the republic and the Jews, proclaimed the idea of \u200b\u200ba petty-bourgeois version of socialism based on the struggle against the so-called "interest in wage labor."
The Reichswehr envoy managed to quickly become a "star speaker" at meetings and rallies of the party, capable of plugging any rival in rhetoric into the belt. Already in January 1920, the DAP, with only 64 members in its ranks, elected Hitler as its main propagandist, approved the new party program prepared with his participation, as well as the new name of the party proposed by the Austrian - the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP).
By this time, Karl Mayr, who had retired, had been replaced by a short, stout officer, who stood out for his clean-shaven massive skull, a scarred face and a sunken nose. The crimson complexion betrayed unbridled passions in its owner, a truly explosive thirst for activity. It was this man who was destined to launch Hitler, who had already been fired from the army, into the spheres of big politics. His name was Captain Ernst Rohm.
By nature, Rohm was a strange symbiosis of the hero of the Napoleonic wars - General Scharnhorst and a shopkeeper from the Bavarian hinterland. An unquenchable desire for all kinds of conspiracies and intrigues seethed in his blood. Despite his penchant for homosexuality, Rem was considered among his comrades an honest swordsman, albeit rude, alien to any refinement, but possessing a rare gift of real civic courage.
Many, at first glance, mutually exclusive qualities were combined in the captain's broad nature. For example, he swore to the deposed Bavarian crown bearer Ludwig III "to remain faithful to the oath given to him until his death."
At the same time, being a cold pragmatist, he viewed Bavaria as some kind of last "cell of order", which should have been strengthened in every possible way in order to use it as a springboard for "storming Berlin - the bulwark of the revolution." This Munich condottiere, albeit in the most extreme forms, embodied the aspirations of an entire generation of frustrated frontline officers who were thrown into the mire of a beggarly and squalid life by defeat in the war and the collapse of the monarchy.
Deprived of their former elite status, the former front-line soldiers saw the root of all the troubles that befell their homeland and personally in the shaky, despised by all new social order called democracy generated by the November revolution. They began to seriously think about returning the lost social positions, about recreating the former combat power of the empire, destroyed by the allies in 1918.
And they got such a historic chance. It was in Bavaria, as a result of the victory over the communists, that the military for a short time found themselves at the helm of the government. After the dispersal of the Soviet republic, the status of a person in military uniform rose sharply. As a result, the Bavarian officer corps, heavily battered by the Social Democrats and only verbally supported by the right-wing Catholic Bavarian People's Party (BNP), began to play a leading role on the Munich political scene. Captain Karl Mayr, whom we mentioned, was in charge of the supervision of political parties and movements, his colleague, Christian Roth, headed the justice authorities, and Lieutenant Ernst Pöner was in charge of the Munich Police Presidium. The thirty-two-year-old Captain Ernst Röhm, the former chief of staff of the city military commandant's office, and then the head of the armament and equipment department of the brigade headquarters, headed by Colonel Franz von Epp, was entrusted with a rather delicate task: to organize a system of armed civil self-defense on the territory of Bavaria.
The fact is that according to the conditions Versailles Treaty the number of personnel and armament of the German army was strictly limited. The remaining 7 infantry and 3 cavalry divisions of the Reichswehr practically did not have the reserves necessary in case of war. The military saw a way out of this situation in the formation of an underground army in parallel to the official Reichswehr - the so-called "Black Reichswehr". Ernst Rohm, according to the historian Konrad Hayden, proposed to form a permanent military reserve in the form of a nationwide militia, whose personnel would be "burghers with a rifle in a closet." In the person of a member of the "Land Hunting Council", BNP activist Georg Escherich, the captain found a very inventive assistant to implement his idea. Together they managed to put together the most powerful civilian militia organization in the history of Germany from among local residents - the Bavarian "Ainwonerver".
The indefatigable Rem acquired weapons, took out equipment, equipped underground ammunition depots. He did not forget to carefully cover up the traces of possible bloodhounds of the central government and Western allies. In Munich alone, the enterprising captain managed to assemble an impressive arsenal that even a whole military unit could envy: 169 light and 11 heavy guns, 760 machine guns, 21 351 rifles, carbines and pistols, 300 thousand hand grenades, 8 million cartridges. The scale of Rohm's vigorous activity was such that a third of all the weapons allocated in 1935 to equip the newly formed Wehrmacht came from secret arsenals laid by him.
However, in the summer of 1921, a fat point was put in the history of the Bavarian "civilian militia". Under pressure from representatives of the victorious Western powers, the imperial government outlawed the "Ainwonerver". Ernst Rohm not only lost his own military power, but also lost influential patrons. As a result, his "army" was reduced to a small scattered handful of "fighters" from the fragments of all kinds of freikors and other ultra-right paramilitary formations, who eked out in their mass a miserable existence in Munich pubs and mired in scandals, fights and murders.
Soon the "fighters against democracy" realized that without "the support of the broad popular masses" they would not move further. There was no shortage of commanders of different levels, the main thing was missing - the retinue, which, as you know, makes kings, gives them the opportunity to feel like real leaders. There were no executive subordinates ready for everything - the very crowd, apt definition of which was given by the reactionary poet Bogislav von Zelkov:
I hate the crowd, petty, low, capable, bending their neck, only eat sleep and give birth to children.
I hate the crowd, cowardly, submissive, devoted to me today, and tomorrow sucking my blood.
Rohm, however, did not belong to the category of people capable of leading the masses. At one of the gatherings of the ultra-right group "Iron Fist", of which there were a great many in Munich at that time, he drew attention to the agitator from the NSDAP Adolf Hitler. They were introduced. In the former informant, an experienced captain was able to discern a "passionate tribune" capable of summoning thousands of recruits under the banner of his underground army.
No sooner had Adolf Hitler, elected as the first chairman of the NSDAP in July 1921, to take up his party duties, than Ernst Rohm had already decided for himself: "Together with Hitler - to break through to power!"
While the Austrian demagogue was running around Munich pubs, inviting petty burghers, dissatisfied with inflation, to fight the "November traitors", Rem managed to put together a small mobile group, designed to protect the priceless life of the "passionate tribune." The commander of the 19th mortar company, Captain Shrek, assigned him soldiers who were ready to mutilate anyone who dared to encroach on "order" during Nazi gatherings. It was on the basis of this "mobile group" that the party order service was organized, which was later reorganized into a physical culture and sports department. As a result, an organization was born, without which the history of the Nazi movement itself is inconceivable - the "assault squad" (sturmabtaylung) in abbreviated form - SA.
Rem not only personally selected the fighters for the first "assault squad", but also sought out commanders. He found the future SA Fuhrer among the remnants of the headquarters of the 2nd Naval Brigade, headed at one time by the extremely radical 3rd rank captain Hermann Erhardt. The brigade was disbanded for participating in the Kapp coup in March 1920, directed against the imperial government. Its officers are scattered throughout the country. In Munich, Erhardt's henchmen took refuge behind the walls of a semi-underground group known as the Consul organization. At first, the intractable Erhardt flatly refused to deal with Hitler. Hearing the name of the Nazi Fuhrer, the sailor exclaimed: "Oh, Lord, what else did this idiot need ?!" However, Rohm put forward his argument: the brigade somehow needs an officer replenishment, and with the help of the SA, there will be no problems with personnel. Then Erhard gave his consent and singled out his best associates for the SA. As a result, Lieutenant Joachim Ulrich Clinch began training the command staff of attack aircraft, and his namesake, Lieutenant Commander Joachim Hoffmann, headed the SA headquarters. Later, they were joined by Lieutenant Commander Baron Manfred von Killinger, who was on the police wanted list for his complicity in the sensational murder of Matthias Erzberger. After passing under the flag of the SA, the sailors had to change their battle anthem. Instead of the previously accepted words: "Erhardt's brigade", now it was necessary to sing - "Hitler's assault detachment." The music remained the same, but the anthem began to sound like this:
A swastika on a helmet and black-white-red in full face.
Assault squad
Hitler is calling us.
On August 3, 1920, on the day the first assault detachment was founded, its leaders solemnly vowed that the SA - an "iron organization", would faithfully serve the NSDAP and "gladly obey the Fuehrer." However, very soon Hitler became convinced how formal this oath was, as well as his general rule over the SA. Unquestioningly, the stormtroopers obeyed only their commanders - protégés of Rohm and Erhardt. They did not share Hitler's views on the purpose and functions of the storm troops. The NSDAP Fuehrer, for example, saw in the SA only a convenient tool for political propaganda: stormtroopers could quickly paste over the entire city with Nazi election posters, easily win the "beer battles", charm impressionable fellow citizens with their parades and formations. The leaders of the SA wanted their offspring to be perceived as a real military formation. And in fact, the Bavarian military authorities began to treat the SA with all seriousness, taking into account the assault troops in their mobilization plans. So, the 7th Sapper Battalion and the 19th Infantry Regiment were entrusted with the military training of attack aircraft, and the Munich SA regiment, whose strength in 1923 reached 1,150 people, was given cavalry and artillery units.
To counterbalance Erhardt's grouping, Hitler appointed Captain Hermann Goering, a hero pilot of the First World War, Commander of the Order of the Pur-le-Merit (For Merit), to the post of Commander of the SA. At the beginning of 1923, the new head of the attack aircraft established the main command of the SA, formed in the image and likeness of the headquarters of the army division and included the positions of infantry and artillery commanders.
However, Hitler intuitively felt that a force was being formed within the party, obeying the orders of others. For example, retired Lieutenant Colonel Hermann Kriebel, military leader of the so-called "Union of Patriotic Unions of Frontline Soldiers", which included the NSDAP on an equal basis with other right-wing radical groups, put forward a tough demand: "Politicians should shut up!" In the newsletter No. 2, published by the main command of the SA, the following passage was printed: "The Ortsgruppenführer (leaders of the local assault detachments) are ready to fully support the leader of the SA, if he assumes only the functions of a" tribune. " I learned that the assault detachments are "a special organization of the National Socialist movement, independent of the party leadership and local party organizations."
This is how the conflict was designated, which was destined to shake the Nazi movement up to the physical elimination of Ryom and his associates. A period of merciless struggle between the SA leaders and the partocrats began. Even then, Hitler managed to anticipate the impending danger: he decided to create his own Praetorian Guard, capable of protecting him from wayward stormtroopers.
In March 1923 a structure appeared, which became the embryo of the future "black order". And it all started like this: several "old fighters" swore to Hitler to protect him from external and internal enemies, even at the cost of their own lives. They called themselves "headquarters" - "headquarters security".
It was then that for the first time on the Nazi party uniform, the black colors of the future SS appeared. The Fuhrer's guards decided to add elements to their uniforms that distinguish them from the general mass of attack aircraft. In addition to gray-green front uniforms, civilian khaki windbreakers, they began to wear black ski caps with a silver image of a "dead head", and the red field of the armband with a swastika was trimmed along the edges with a black ribbon.
The life of the headquarters guard was not long: after two months, Captain Erhardt broke with Hitler and took his people. Then the Fuhrer created a new security structure, calling it "shtosstrupp" ("shock squad") "Adolf Hitler". The new division was headed by the dwarf-like Joseph Berchtold, a stationery dealer and treasurer of the party, Julius Schrek was appointed his deputy.
Every day, the members of this detachment met in the Munich beer hall "Torbroy", which is at the Isar Gate. There, in the smoky bowling alleys, their first operations were discussed. It should be noted that they belonged to a different social groupthan the stormtroopers of Rohm and Erhardt, originating for the most part from the petty-bourgeois quarters and working-class outskirts of Munich and its suburbs and trades mainly in handicrafts. If there were officers among them, it was only reserve lieutenants. The first and chief bodyguard of the Fuhrer, Ulrich Graf, previously worked as a butcher and became famous as an amateur wrestler. A personal friend of Hitler, watchmaker Emile Maurice, was wanted for embezzlement. Another security guard, former groom Christian Weber, earned a meager tip in Munich's "Zum Blauen Brock" inn as a sex worker.
These people were united by a common task to protect the life of Hitler and other top Nazi leaders. Wherever the Fuhrer went, his "guards" immediately appeared there, armed with "erasers" and "lighters" (as they called their rubber clubs and pistols), to protect the leader from possible opponents. In 1942, Hitler enthusiastically recalled these "people, constantly ready for a revolutionary feat, who knew that there was a fierce struggle ahead."
In November 1923, dramatic changes took place in the political life of Bavaria: the head of the government, State Commissioner General Gustav von Kar and the commander of the local Reichswehr, Major General Hermann Loessov, both convinced monarchist separatists, quarreled with Berlin to such an extent that the question arose on the agenda on the secession of Bavaria from the republic All forces that have grouped in the postwar years around the Bavarian military government - this "cell of order" on the territory of Republican Germany, united by a mortal hatred of democracy and progress, began to prepare for a decisive battle.
Hitler decided to use the situation for his own purposes. As soon as von Kar announced the convening of a meeting of honorary citizens on November 8, which was to take place in Munich's Bürgerbreukeller beer hall on Rosenheimerstrasse, the Nazi leader set about preparing a coup. He guessed that at the meeting Kar would try to proclaim the independence of Bavaria. However, it seemed to the Austrian that this was not enough. He wanted to push the separatists to take more decisive actions - to march on Berlin to eliminate the "November Republic".
Hitler urgently sent messengers to his nationalist allies, who decided to join him in the conspiracy. He did not forget to notify the former Quartermaster General of the Reichswehr Erich Ludendorff, who agreed to the coup, not even suspecting that he was invited only as a "wedding general". Raising the alarm for 50 of his guards, Hitler, dressed in a black ceremonial suit with a 1st degree Iron Cross on his chest, headed to Rosenheimerstrasse. At about 8 pm he was already standing in front of the entrance to the Bürgerbräukeller, awaiting the start of events.
After 45 minutes, the chief of security Berchtold delivered a machine gun to the beer machine and placed it at the entrance. Without wasting a second, Hitler, surrounded by his guardsmen, burst into the crowded hall, took out a pistol and fired into the air. Climbing onto the table, he shouted:
A national revolution broke out! The hall is surrounded by six hundred well-armed people! Everyone stay in their places! The Bavarian government and the government of the republic have been deposed! A provisional imperial government is being formed!
Taken by surprise, the Bavarian military and politicians decided to listen to his speeches and agreed in words to support Hitler. However, the very next day Kar and Loess sent troops under their command against the “national revolutionary”. The hapless strategist himself sat chained at the Bürgerbräukeller, waiting for good news, which never came.
The only message was hopeful: Captain Rohm, at the head of the Reichskrigsflagge (Imperial War Flag) paramilitary unit he created, had infiltrated and held the War Office building.
In the middle of the afternoon of November 9, Hitler, his associates and allies, formed in columns of eight, headed along the narrow Residenzstrasse to the War Office. On the Odeonplatz square, they stumbled upon a detachment of land police, numbering 100 people, located on the steps of the building of the Munich "Feldherrnhalle" (palace of commanders). The putschists did not slow down. Seeing this, the officers of the order blocked their way. Pale Hitler and Ludendorff approached the line of police step by step. The Count ran to the police ranks and shouted:
Do not shoot! Their Excellencies Ludendorff and Hitler are coming!
But then shots rang out.
The result of the failed coup: 16 National Socialists were killed, including five from Hitler's personal bodyguards. Three police officers were also killed. Almost all the leaders of the Nazi movement ended up behind bars. Only the chief of security Berchtold and the badly wounded Goering managed to escape and flee to Austria.
Hitler's obsession virtually destroyed the NSDAP. The party, the SA and "shtosstrupp" were outlawed. The handfuls of Nazis who remained at large quarreled among themselves. At first, the ultra-right tried to unite under the salutary flag of Ludendorff, but then they began to disintegrate into new groups and factions. Only the indefatigable Ernst Rohm, arrested and then released on bail, did not lose hope of continuing the struggle. In the prison cell of the Landsberg Prison, Hitler appointed him the commander of an underground assault force.
Very soon Rohm realized that the Bavarian government was not going to lift the ban on the SA. The fact is that Kar, with the help of von Epp, united all the paramilitaries into the "Notban" detachment (emergency alliance), completely controlled by the government. Then, from the remnants of the defeated SA, Rem formed a new structure - "Frontban" (an association of front-line soldiers), which he formally subordinated to Ludendorff.
Before the "beer coup" in 1923, the geography of the Hitlerite movement hardly went beyond the borders of Munich and its surroundings. Thanks to the creation of the "Front Ban", Remu for the first time managed to attract new supporters throughout the country to himself and the ideas of the Austrian sitting behind bars. The “fighters” of the former Freikors and other underground paramilitary formations, the Nazis from Northern Germany, who were left without commanders, in a word, bandits, who made robbery a lifestyle of the future SA, pulled into the newly created structure. Such types as Captain Peter von Heidebreck and Count Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorf gathered under Rohm's standards. And with the former lieutenant Edmund Haynes - a bully, mired in all imaginable and inconceivable vices, Rem, always interested in meeting men, according to his own memoirs "decided to get to know better."
IN better times Hitler managed to gather a maximum of two thousand people in the SA. Now Rem could report to the prisoner of the Landsberg Prison about the "Front Ban" of 30 thousand soldiers. However, Hitler, learning about the growing army of the captain, felt somewhat uncomfortable. The fact is that Rohm was not going to give up the complete independence of his "military" organization and its independence from the party elite, about which he openly declared: "I am a soldier today, and only a soldier."
"The political and military movements must be completely independent of each other," he wrote to Ludendorff.
When in December 1924, released from prison, Hitler instructed the captain to form new SA, the case between the old partners almost came to open conflict. Hitler did not want to hear anything about independent assault troops. Remus firmly stood his ground, arguing that a party member cannot command a soldier, and Hitler's business is to remain a "tribune"
“I will not tolerate politics either in the Front Banner or in the SA! .. I strictly forbade the SA personnel from any interference in party affairs. In turn, I also strictly forbade the SA Fuehrer to follow the instructions of the party functionaries, ”Rohm announced his unobjectionable position in a special memorandum addressed to the former corporal.
However, Rohm did not understand that Hitler had already made a decision - not to allow the creation of the SA, until he was completely sure that people in the form of stormtroopers would never impose their will on him. In the end, he broke up with Rem.
The former founder of the SA had no choice but to send a farewell note to Hitler on April 30, 1925:
"In memory of the difficult and wonderful hours spent together, I sincerely thank you for your companionship and ask you not to deprive me of your friendship." Only a month later, Hitler deigned to answer him, and in a very peculiar way. He instructed his secretary to inform Ryom the following:
“Mr. Hitler does not intend to create any military organization in the future. And if at one time he took such a step, it was only at the insistence of some gentlemen, who eventually betrayed him. Today, he only needs the protection of party meetings, as before 1923. "
The hour of the birth of the "black order" was approaching. The old assault detachments of the Remov-Erhardt style were replaced by the SS. Their task was to be constantly next to Hitler, to strengthen the authority of the party, to unquestioningly carry out all the orders of the Fuhrer.
“I told myself then,” Hitler recalled later, “that I need such a personal guard, which, even if it is small, must be unconditionally loyal to me, so that the guards, if necessary, were ready to go for me even against their own brothers. It is better to have only 20 people, provided, of course, that you can rely on them completely than a useless crowd. "
Naturally, rank-and-file party members received a different version of the reasons for the formation of the SS, which eventually became part of all history textbooks of the Third Reich. It consisted in the following: due to the fact that the SA was still banned, in February 1925, the newly re-established party formed a self-protection service, designed to protect it from terror from political opponents. There was, of course, no mention of the fact that Hitler deliberately delayed the reconstruction of the assault detachments. The fact is that the ban of the SA did not apply to the entire territory of Germany, on the contrary, in the northwestern part of the country, the SA units grew and grew stronger. Another thing is that they refused to recognize the dubious Munich Fuhrer as their leader.
It was then that Hitler decided to take advantage of the current situation to create his own "Life Guards". In April 1925, he ordered the veteran of the Stosstrupp Julius Schreck, who by that time had also become the personal driver of the Fuehrer, to form a new guard at the headquarters. A few weeks later this group received its new name - "Schutzstaffel" ("security detachment"). Shrek found the first SS men in the same place where he had previously recruited personnel for the "headquarters" and "shtosstrupp" - among the regulars of the "Torbroy" pub. Initially, the security detachment consisted of only eight people, partly already served in the "shtosstrupp". The old uniform has also been preserved. An innovation was the all-party brown shirt, which replaced the gray-green jacket, as well as the black tie (the SA units wore brown ties with a brown shirt).
Soon Shrek began to create security units outside Bavaria. On September 21, 1925, he sent his circular number 1 to the regional branches of the NSDAP, in which he called for the organization of SS units in the field. Party organs were asked to form small combat-ready elite groups (commander and 10 subordinates), only Berlin was allocated an increased quota - 2 leaders and 20 people.
Shrek made sure that only specially selected people who fit the Nazi idea of \u200b\u200bthe superman got into the SS. Mostly young people were recruited, that is, persons aged 23 to 35 years. The recruits were supposed to have "excellent health and strong physique." Upon admission, they had to submit two recommendations, as well as a police certificate of residence for the last 5 years in the area. "The candidacies of chronic drunkards, weaklings, as well as persons weighed down with other vices, are not considered," read the "SS Rules".
When in November 1925 the party organ of the NSDAP "Völkischer Beobachter" published a note that in the Munich district of Neuhausen a certain Daub formed a security detachment from 15 former stormtroopers and appointed himself its Fuhrer, Julius Schreck went into a rage. On November 27, he sent a letter to the party's board with the following content:
“This so-called formation is nothing more than the renaming of the former SA detachment into a security detachment. In this regard, the SS leadership asks the party's board to demand from these gentlemen not to use the name "security detachment" for their unit. This kind of monkeying should not harm a well-built, healthy organization. "
Shrek tirelessly called for accelerating "the unification of the best and most reliable party members for the protection and selfless work for the good of the movement." He declared the main tasks of the SS to be "the protection of assemblies, the attraction of subscribers and sponsors for the newspaper Völkischer Beobachter, as well as the recruitment of new party members."
Alois Rosenwick, the head of the department of the newly created higher SS organ, the so-called main leadership, declared in purely Nazi jargon:
“On our black caps we wear skulls and bones as a warning to our enemies and as a sign of our readiness to defend the ideas of our Fuhrer at the cost of our own lives.”
Meanwhile, victorious reports from the field began to arrive in Munich. So, in Dresden, the SS men managed to prevent an attempt at an explosion at a Nazi meeting, allegedly prepared by the communists.
"After the combined SS troops from Dresden, Plauen, Zwickau and Chemnitz not only beat the communists thoroughly, but also threw some of them out of the windows in the Marble Palace, no Marxist in Saxony would dare to disturb our gatherings again!" Rosenwick reported.
As early as December 1925, the main leadership of the SS could report to the party that it had "a centralized security organization of about 1,000 people at its disposal." Although this number soon dropped to 200, the SS became the first structural organization of the NSDAP to take significant positions in virtually all of Germany.
In April 1926, Berchtold, the former commander of the "Stoststrupp", who arrived from the Austrian emigration, replaced Shrek as head of the SS. After the return of the amnestied participants in the "beer putsch" Hitler elevated the security forces to the rank of an elite organization. On July 4, 1926, at the Second Party Congress in Weimar, the Fuehrer handed the SS the so-called "banner of blood" - the very banner under which his columns marched along the Residenzstass to assault democracy on November 9, 1923.
The SS grew and gained strength. Now Hitler could repeat the attempt to create "his" SA: he understood perfectly well that without such an instrument he would not be able to break through to power in Germany, a country obsessed with party armies and marching columns.
However, the leaders of most of the assault detachments outside the borders of Bavaria and Austria continued to mistrust the former corporal. Therefore, the need arose for a sufficiently authoritative person capable of uniting the regional Fuhrer, scattered by civil strife. And Hitler managed to find such a person in the person of the former leader of the North German Freikor, retired captain Franz Pfeffer von Zalomon. On July 27, 1926, Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary: “12 o'clock: I was with the chief. First meeting. Pfeffer is appointed Reich Fuehrer SA. "
There was a rather delicate situation: Pfeffer - confidant Nazi leaders of Northern Germany, who had not yet recognized the national leader in the Munich Fuhrer, joined the NSDAP board as an intelligence officer and at the same time an overseer.
Needless to say, Hitler had to endow Zalomon with significant powers. From November 1, 1926, as the supreme leader of the SA, all assault detachments in Germany were subordinated to him. Although Pfeffer had to unconditionally fulfill all the directives of the party leader, he could, at his discretion, organize and build a structure subordinate to him.
The alliance with the Nazis of Northern Germany seemed so important to Hitler that he decided to reduce the power ambitions of his favorite brainchild - the SS. As a result, the security detachments came under the jurisdiction of Pfeffer, but their leader received a consoling gift - from now on he began to be called the Reichsfuehrer SS.
The commander of the "Shtosstrupp" Berchtold soon sensed danger. His elite unit could well have become dependent on the SA and party bureaucrats. This problem began to crystallize even before his appointment. The fact is that his predecessor Shrek was rejected by the members of the main leadership of the SS themselves. The chef's compliant behavior reminded them of a soccer ball flying between crafty party apparatchiks like Franz-Xavier Schwarz and SA.
"We came to the conclusion," Ernst Wagner, a member of the SS leadership, wrote to Hitler, "that Shrek does not have the qualities necessary for a leader and organizer, and also does not have the weight that can guarantee the SS the position of the elite party unit."
Berchtold tried to rectify the situation.
"The SS obey both local and regional party organs," said the Reichsfuehrer directive. Another order stated: "The security detachments occupy a completely independent position within the movement." But Berchtold also failed to defeat the party apparatus. A quiet war between the SS and the party began bureaucracy that lasted until the fall of the Third Reich.
On May 11, 1926, during a regular party meeting, SS member Wagner said that some "bonzes" should be "smoked" out of the hall. Bowler and Schwartz, named by him, immediately reacted to this: they forbade Wagner from entering the premises of the main leadership of the SS, which was then located in the back of house 50 on the Munich Schellingstrasse, and the Reichsfuehrer SS Berchtold had to personally sign an order about this.
"P / g (partaigenosse) Berchtold made me understand that Messrs Bowler and Schwartz forced him to take this step!" - complained indignant Wagner to Adolf Hitler.
By his order, Pfeffer forbade the leaders of the security detachments to create their own units in settlements where the SA was not well represented. They were allowed to keep units in the communities of only 10 percent of the payroll of local SA units. In this regard, by 1928 the number of the SS had reached some pitiful 280 people. Increasingly, the "supermen" had to obey the orders of the Fuehrer stormtroopers: carry out their current assignments, hand out propaganda materials, distribute the newspaper "Völkischer Beobachter", carry support service... And they were content with only such "victorious reports" as:
"In October, individual SS units managed to attract 249 new members to the NSDAP; subscribe 54 new readers to the Völkischer Beobachter newspaper, 169 readers to the Sturmer magazine, 84 readers to the National Socialist magazine, 140 readers to the newspaper "Südwestdeutscher Beobachter" and to recruit 189 more readers for other National Socialist publications. In addition, 2000 issues of the magazine "Illustrirter Beobachter" were sold out.
The title of this report, dated November 1926, read "This is how we work!"
Only the belief in its exclusivity allowed "this army, perhaps at the limit of its strength, thanks to ambition" (Konrad Heiden) march forward. The password for the SS was: "The aristocracy is silent!" The security detachments became the silent companions of the brown columns of stormtroopers, striking a step along the pavements of German cities. Only stricter admission conditions and discipline brought to automatism maintained a sense of belonging to the elite in the SS.
“The SS never participates in any discussions at party meetings or lectures. The fact that every member of the SS, attending such events, does not allow himself to smoke or leave the premises until the end of a lecture or meeting, serves the political education of the personnel, - read Order No. 1, signed by SS Reichsfuehrer Erhard Heiden on September 13, 1927. - Ordinary SS men and commanders are silent and do not interfere in reports and discussions (of the local party leadership and the SA), since this does not concern them "
According to the orders, each unit before the start of the party event had to line up "in a column of two in height" and get ready to check the documents; each SS man was obliged to have the following documents with him: a membership card of the NSDAP, an SS certificate and a songbook of security detachments. Order No. 8, which prohibited the carrying of weapons, had to be carried out especially clearly. Hitler was going to "legally" seize power, so the party officially broke with all kinds of dubious organizations and illegal military associations. The SS officers had to search the personnel every day at the line and pick up the weapons they found.
The iron discipline that reigned in the security detachments made an impression even on political opponents. In the secret report of the Munich Police Department for May 7, 1929, one could read a message bordering on admiration: “What strict requirements are presented to members of the SS! At the slightest deviation from the rules enshrined in current orders, the offender is expected to receive monetary fines, the removal of the armband for a certain time, or suspension from service. Particular attention is paid to the behavior in the ranks and the condition of the uniform of each SS man. "
Any appearance of the security detachments was to demonstrate that the SS was the aristocracy of the party. "The SS man is the most exemplary party member you can imagine," - said one of the instructions of the leadership of the security detachments. And in the detachment song, with which SS events usually ended, faith in SS exceptionalism should have sounded:
Even if everyone changes
We'll be faithful to the end
To forever above the planet
Our guiding star shone.
"If the SA is the infantry, then the SS is the guard," one of the SS men proudly declared. Everybody had a guard: the Persians and the Greeks, Caesar and Napoleon, “old Fritz” (King of Prussia Frederick II the Great) - and so on throughout history, right up to World War II. Guard units of the new Germany will be guards. On January 6, 1929, Hitler appointed Heinrich Himmler as the new SS Reichsfuehrer.
From now on, the history of the SS became his history, the chronicle of their deeds - his chronicle, the list of crimes of the security detachments - his crimes.
From the book Third Rome author Skrynnikov Ruslan GrigorievichChapter 4 Formation of the Moscow kingdom Ivan III achieved the unification of the Russian lands within the framework of a single state. But the structure and appearance of this state were finally determined only under his grandson Ivan IV Vasilievich, nicknamed the Terrible. Ivan was born on August 25
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From the book of Confucius. The first teacher of the Middle Kingdom author Kaizuka ShigekiChapter 4 The Education of Confucius Confucius recalled that at the age of fifteen (538 BC) he set his will toward learning. However, in the "Sayings" and in other sources available to us, almost nothing is said about who his teacher was, what and how he taught Confucius. Maybe,
From the book Notes of an officer "SMERSH" author Ivanovsky OlegChapter 9 EDUCATION "SMERSH" The small town of Dergachi, which is fifteen kilometers from Kharkov. The next morning ... It would be better not to remember that terrible morning ... I left the hut, and that town was in a hollow and surrounded by rather high hills, at least on one side, and
From the book 38th SS Grenadier Division "Nibelungen" author Ponomarenko Roman OlegovichChapter 6 Cultural Education An interesting feature of the SS Junker School in Bad Tölz was that in curriculum great attention was paid to the cultural, "aesthetic" education of the cadets. The development of this direction began at the end of 1943, and reached its peak
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author Commission of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) From the book Catherine the Great. (Empress's novel) author Walishevsky KazimirChapter 2 Mind. Wit. Education I Catherine had a great character, but she did not have a great mind. She herself admitted that there was no "creative mind" in her. Nevertheless, she believed that she was thinking in a completely original way. “Never in my life have I tolerated imitation,” she wrote to Ms.
From the book A short course in the history of the CPSU (b) author Commission of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b)5. February revolution. The fall of tsarism. Formation of Soviets of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies. Formation of the Provisional Government. Dual power. 1917 began with a strike on January 9. During the strike, demonstrations took place in Petrograd, Moscow, Baku, Nizhny Novgorod,
From the book Bysttvor: the existence and creation of the Rus and Aryans. Book 1 author SvetozarThe formation and death of Etruria. Formation and rise of Rome After the death of Troy, part of the Rus (Trojans), led by Aeneas, went west and settled on the Apennine Peninsula. The local peoples of the Apennine Peninsula belonged to the gray people, and in the 12th century BC.
From the book Reluctant Friends. Russia and Bukharian Jews, 1800-1917 author Kaganovich AlbertChapter 6 Education and Acculturation
Black Order of the SS
The modern Russian reader interested in the history of the Third Reich is captivated by numerous delusions created by soviet propaganda... So, SA stormtroopers are perceived as a rabble, consisting of dark, poorly educated shopkeepers, drunks and fighters who were enemies of any intelligentsia. At the same time, members of the SS guard detachments (largely thanks to the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring") appear as the elite of society - an alliance of well-trained and highly educated people of noble origin, the Order of Blue Blood.
In fact, everything was exactly the opposite. Young officers with higher education and students with military experience went to the assault detachments of the SA - among them there were enough people from the most noble and ancient families of Bavaria. But the SS guard detachments began their history with a group of small Munich shopkeepers who rallied around Hitler because of their sincere adoration and desire to save the "beloved Fuhrer" from dangers and hardships.
This structure appeared in March 1923. Several "old fighters" vowed personally to Adolf Hitler to protect him from external and internal enemies, even at the cost of their own lives. They called themselves "Stabswache" - "Headquarters Guard".
It was then that black appeared for the first time in Nazi party uniforms. The Fuhrer's guards decided to add elements to their uniforms that would distinguish them from the general mass of attack aircraft. In addition to gray-green front uniforms and khaki windbreakers, they began to wear black ski caps with a silver image of the "dead head", and the red field of the armband with a swastika was trimmed around the edges with black ribbon.
Figure: 35. The emblem of the SS guard units
By the way, the “headquarters guard” (Totenkopf) was borrowed from the hussars of the old Kaiser's army - it was supposed to indicate a threat to enemies and a willingness to sacrifice for the sake of the Fuhrer (during the First World War, the sign of a dead head was also worn by German flamethrower units).
The life of the "Headquarters Guard" was not long: after two months, Captain Erhardt broke with Hitler and took his people. Then the Fuehrer created a new security structure, calling it the strike force (Stosstrupp) "Adolf Hitler".
The new division was headed by the stationery dealer and party treasurer Joseph Berchtold, and Julius Schrek was appointed his deputy. Every day, the members of this detachment met in the Munich beer hall "Torbroy", which is at the Isar Gate. There, in the smoky bowling alleys, their first operations were discussed. The members of the strike detachment belonged to a different social group than the stormtroopers of Röhm and Erhardt, originating in their mass from the petty-bourgeois quarters and working-class outskirts of Munich and traded mainly in handicrafts. If there were officers among them, it was only reserve lieutenants.
The first and chief bodyguard of the Fuhrer, Ulrich Graf, previously worked as a butcher and became famous as an amateur wrestler. A personal friend of Hitler, the watchmaker Emile Maurice, was wanted for embezzlement. Another security guard, former groom Christian Weber, worked in a Munich inn as a sex worker.
It was these illiterate, but physically strong people who took it upon themselves to protect the life of Hitler and the highest Nazi leaders. Wherever the Fuhrer went, his "guards" immediately appeared there, armed with "erasers" and "lighters" (as they called their rubber clubs and pistols). In 1942, Hitler enthusiastically recalled these "people who were constantly ready for revolutionary exploits, who knew that there was a fierce struggle ahead."
After the "beer" putsch, imprisonment in the fortress and liberation, the roads of Hitler and the SA parted for a while. The Nazi Fuhrer had to reconsider his attitude to personal protection - now she was supposed to become the fighting core of the NSDAP, replacing the attack aircraft.
“I told myself then,” Hitler later recalled, “that I need such a personal guard, which, even if it is small, must be unconditionally loyal to me, so that the guards, if necessary, were ready to go for me even against their own brothers. It is better to have only 20 people, provided, of course, that you can fully rely on them. "
Naturally, rank-and-file party members received other information about the reasons for the formation of the SS, which eventually became part of the history textbooks of the Third Reich. It looked like this: due to the fact that the SA was still banned, in February 1925 the newly re-established party formed a self-protection service designed to protect it from "terror from political opponents." There was, of course, no mention of the fact that Hitler deliberately delayed the reconstruction of the assault detachments. The fact is that the ban of the SA did not apply to the entire territory of Germany, on the contrary, in the northwestern part of the country, the SA units grew and grew stronger. Another thing is that they refused to recognize the Munich Fuhrer as their leader.
It was then that Hitler decided to take advantage of the current situation to create his own "Life Guards". In April 1925, he ordered the Stoosstrupp veteran Julius Schrek, who by that time had also become the Fuehrer's personal driver, to form a new headquarters guard.
So, in April 1925, the security units of the Nazi party appeared, known under the abbreviation "SS" ("SS" - short for Schutzstaffel).
Shrek found the first SS men in the same place where he had previously recruited personnel for "Shtabsvache" and "Stosstrupp" - among the regulars of the "Torbroy" pub. Initially, the security detachment consisted of only eight people, who had already partly served in the "Stosstrupp". The old form has also been preserved. An innovation was the all-party brown shirt, which replaced the gray-green jacket, as well as the black tie (the SA units wore brown ties with a brown shirt).
Soon, Shrek began to form guard troops outside Bavaria. On September 21, 1925, he issued a circular in which all local NSDAP organizations were instructed to create SS units, consisting of 10 local units, and in Berlin - 20 people.
Shrek made sure that only specially selected people who fit the Nazi idea of \u200b\u200ba "Nordic superman" were included in the SS. The security detachments were recruited mainly by young people, that is, persons aged 23 to 35 years. The recruits were supposed to have "excellent health and strong physique." Upon admission, they had to present two recommendations, as well as a police certificate of residence for the past five years in the area.
"The candidacies of chronic drunkards, weaklings, as well as persons weighed down with other vices are not considered," the "SS Rules" read.
When in November 1925 the party organ of the NSDAP "People's Observer" published a note that in the Munich district of Neuhausen a certain Daub formed a security detachment from 15 former attack aircraft and appointed himself its Fuehrer, Julius Schreck was furious. On November 27, he sent a letter to the party's board with the following content: “This so-called formation is nothing more than the renaming of the former SA detachment into a security detachment. In this regard, the leadership of the SS asks the party's board to demand from these gentlemen not to use the name "security detachment" for their unit. This kind of monkeying should not harm a well-built, healthy organization. "
Shrek tirelessly called for accelerating "the unification of the best and most reliable party members for the protection and selfless work for the good of the movement." The main tasks of the SS, he announced "the protection of meetings, the attraction of subscribers and sponsors for the newspaper" Narodny Observer ", as well as the recruitment of new members of the party." That is, in fact, the SS were entrusted with the duties that the SA had been doing before the "beer" putsch.
Meanwhile, victorious reports from the regional SS began to arrive in Munich. So, in Dresden, the SS men managed to prevent an attempt at an explosion, allegedly prepared by the communists.
"After the combined SS detachments from Dresden, Plauen, Zwickau and Chemnitz not only beat the communists thoroughly, but also threw some of them out of the windows in the Marble Palace, no Marxist in Saxony would dare to disturb our gatherings again!" - the local commander of the security detachment reported.
Already in December 1925, the SS leadership reported to the party that it had "a centralized security organization of about 1,000 people at its disposal."
In April 1926, the former commander of the "Stosstrupp" Berchtold, who arrived from the Austrian emigration, replaced Shrek as head of the SS. After the return of the amnestied participants in the "beer" putsch, Hitler elevated the security detachments to the rank of an elite organization. On July 4, 1926, at the Second Party Congress in Weimar, the Fuehrer presented the SS with the so-called "banner of blood" - the very same banner under which his columns marched across Munich to storm democracy on November 9, 1923.
The SS grew and gained strength. Now Hitler could repeat the attempt to create his own SA: he knew perfectly well that without such an instrument he would not be able to break through to power in Germany, a country obsessed with party armies and marching columns.
However, the leaders of most of the assault detachments outside the borders of Bavaria continued to mistrust the former corporal. Therefore, the need arose for a sufficiently authoritative "mediator" who was supposed to reconcile the two wings of the Nazi military organization. And Hitler managed to find such a person in the person of the former leader of the North German volunteer corps, retired captain Franz Pfeffer von Zalomon, who temporarily led all the assault units in Germany, including the SS. Although von Zalomon had to unconditionally fulfill all the party's directives, he could, at his discretion, be engaged in organizing and building a structure subordinate to him.
The commander of the Stosstrupp Berchtold, who was promoted to Reichsfuehrer SS, felt nevertheless that his plans to create an elite unit of the NSDAP were under threat: the SS could become dependent on the SA and party bureaucrats. He tried to rectify the situation.
"Both local and regional party organs are subordinate to the SS," said the Reichsfuehrer's directive.
Another order stated: "The security detachments occupy a completely independent position within the movement."
But Berchtold failed to defeat the party apparatus. A quiet war between the SS and the party bureaucracy began, which continued until the fall of the Third Reich.
By his order, von Zalomon forbade the leaders of the security detachments to create their units in settlements where the SA was not well represented. They were allowed to create units, the number of which should not exceed only 10 percent of the payroll of local SA units. As a result, by 1928 the SS had dropped to a pitiful 280. Increasingly, the "supermen" had to obey the stormtroopers: carry out their current orders, distribute propaganda materials, distribute the newspaper "Narodny Observer", and carry out an auxiliary service.
Only the belief in their own exclusivity allowed this army of shopkeepers to go forward. This was facilitated by tougher conditions of admission and discipline brought to automatism - those who grumbled were immediately expelled from the ranks.
“The SS never participates in any discussions at party meetings or lectures. The fact that every member of the SS, attending such events, does not allow himself to smoke or leave the premises until the end of the lecture or meeting, serves the political education of the personnel, reads Order No. 1, signed by SS Reichsfuehrer Erhard Heiden on September 13, 1927. - Ordinary SS men and commanders are silent and do not interfere in reports and discussions (of the local party leadership and the SA), since this does not concern them.
According to his orders, before the start of the party event, each unit had to line up "in a column of two in height" and get ready to check the documents? a real SS man was obliged to have the following documents with him: a membership card of the NSDAP, an SS certificate and a songbook of security detachments. Order No. 8, which prohibited the carrying of weapons, had to be carried out especially clearly. Hitler, nicknamed Adolf the legalist, was going to legally seize power, so the party officially broke with all kinds of dubious organizations and illegal military associations. The SS officers had to search the personnel every day at the formation and pick up the weapons they found.
The iron discipline that reigned in the security forces made an impression even on political opponents. In the secret report of the Munich Police Department, one could read a message bordering on admiration: “What strict requirements are imposed on members of the SS! At the slightest deviation from the rules enshrined in the current orders, the offender is expected to receive monetary fines, the removal of the armband for a certain time, or suspension from service. Particular attention is paid to the behavior in the ranks and the condition of the uniform of each SS man. "
And yet it was necessary to decide on the prospects: without the possibility of increasing the size of the SS, they were doomed to stagnate in the shadow of the SA. The task of reforming the SS was entrusted to a young party member, Heinrich Himmler. On January 6, 1929, Hitler appointed him as the new Reichsfuehrer SS.
Himmler drove into one of the offices of house number 50 on the Munich Schellingstrasse (here the headquarters of the NSDAP was located) and began to create a knightly order within the National Socialist Party. At first, the assertiveness of a certified agronomist made the party bosses a condescending smile. It is said that the usually gloomy Rudolf Hess, upon learning of the appointment, clapped his thighs, gasping for breath in a fit of laughter.
Himmler seemed to many to be an eccentric. He was seen as a sectarian trying to cross-breed his chicken farm notions of elite selection with the racial tenets of party ideology. However, soon there was no time for jokes.
First of all, Himmler developed an ambitious program of action aimed at rapidly increasing the number of security forces, as well as creating an image of the SS as an elite organization. In April 1929, he sent a draft resolution to Hitler for approval, in fact, designed to give the security detachments the status of an order.
From that day on, only a person who met the most serious selection criteria could become a member of the SS. It is clear that for the diligent follower of the mystical doctrine of "Soil and Blood" there was no other selection than the racial, other male ideal, except for the lubok image of the Nordic warrior.
“Just as a seed breeder takes an old good variety of plants, contaminated with impurities, and, to clean it, plants it in the ground, and weeds unsuccessful seedlings,” Himmler wrote later, signs. "
However, if such strict principles were strictly observed, Himmler would have had to expel half of the personnel from the SS, since most of the members of the organization, who came from the petty bourgeoisie, did not in any way resemble the Ario-German ideal. But Himmler was not going to destroy his brainchild and found a way out. According to the orders of the Reichsfuehrer SS, the new selection principles did not apply to the "old fighters" - veterans of the First World War. However, after that he began to tighten the selection nuts.
"At first I made a requirement for the height of the candidates (1 meter 70 centimeters)," Himmler said later and added with the confidence of an oracle: "People whose height is a certain number of centimeters must undoubtedly have the right blood."
The Reichsfuehrer SS ordered photographs of all SS candidates to be delivered to him, studied them for hours with a magnifying glass, until he was convinced that the candidate fits what he, a "racial breeder", considered "good blood."
Himmler explained to his subordinates: “I argue as follows. If the candidate has pronounced signs of someone else's blood, for example, too wide cheekbones, I start to think: does the student look too Mongolian or Slavic. And why? I would like to draw your attention to my own experience. Remember, please, the faces of the members of the soldiers' councils of 1918 and 1919. Each of you who was then an officer should remember those people. Each of you must come to the conclusion that most of them looked rather unusual for our German eyes, their facial features betrayed something strange, betrayed someone else's blood.
This remark by the Reichsfuehrer SS proves that his adherence to biological selection, oriented towards "good blood", was based not only on racial obsession. Subtle calculation was also present here. He beat on feelings former officers? veterans of the First World War, who could not forget and forgive the torn off shoulder straps and taken away privileges. For many of them, it was the soldiers' councils that became a symbol not only of their humiliation, but also of shame. The Reichsfuehrer SS did not tire of reminding the veteran officers of the troubles of the past associated with revolutionary events.
The idea of \u200b\u200bthe "blood elite", which became the basis of the SS Order ideology, quickly captured the minds of former military men, students interrupted by inflation, unemployed officials rushing between paramilitary unions and hoping to find a way out of the dead end in some new social formation. According to Himmler's concept of the racial elite, these people were promised to find a homeland, they were guaranteed salvation from spiritual turmoil, and the return of social prestige.
Both in the pre-war and post-war years, elitism was a purely social concept. The elite belonged to one who possessed property, education, or noble birth. For the "lost generation" of front-line attack aircraft, the path to the elite of Republican Germany was closed forever. The inability to adapt to the new conditions of existence and the syndrome of military defeat pushed them to the sidelines of public life. Therefore, Himmler's proposal to create an aristocracy of the race instead of the traditional estate elite found a wide response among the neophytes of the NSDAP. The SS were supposed to become a haven for all the "humiliated and insulted" party members. These people expected from the SS and a well-thought-out system of hierarchy, and the organization of rituals, and the cultivation of a sense of the elite. The aggressiveness of the new aristocracy also resonated with young people, since in the German national character, romance was always combined with cruelty. Young people from the middle strata also willingly went to the SS, rightly hoping that a quick career could be made there.
Recalling the skills of a political agitator, Himmler tirelessly traveled throughout the country, recruiting new members for his order and not paying attention to the protests of party leaders, dissatisfied with the fact that the Reichsführer was taking away their subordinates. When Himmler announced his intention to create a 500-strong security detachment in Hamburg, Gauleiter Krebs objected, stating that there were not even that many NSDAP members in his city.
The security detachments grew by leaps and bounds. In January 1929, they included 280 people, in December 1929 - 1000, in December 1930 - 2727 people.
To support this trend, Himmler allowed his recruiters to start campaigning in the SA. His efforts did not go unnoticed. Stennes, the head of the SA of the eastern regions of the country, complained: "It is noteworthy that the formation of new SS units and, in particular, the recruiting work associated with this is carried out by unscrupulous means."
Hitler reconciled the two party armies and even helped Himmler in his aspirations by dividing the SA and SS at the end of 1930. At the same time, he gave the order: "No one from the SA command has the right from now on to give orders to the SS." The security squads have finally become independent.
Their dress code had also changed by that time: the black color was fixed for the SS, while for the SA it remained brown. The SS men now wore black caps, black ties, black trousers, and armbands with a swastika in black edging. On the left sleeve there was a number indicating the number of the corresponding unit.
At first, Himmler took the organizational structure of the SA and its titles as a basis. The smallest SS unit was a squad (ball) of eight people with a commander (Scharführer) at the head. Three squads made up a platoon (troupes) headed by a troupeführer. It could have from 20 to 60 people. Three platoons formed a company (assault), which was the main unit of the SS. Its number could vary from 70 to 120 people. The Sturmführer became the company commander. The next unit, the battalion (navigator), led by the navigator, encompassed from 250 to 600 people. Three or four battalions were reduced to a regiment (standard) with the number of personnel from 1000 to 3000 people. The regiment commander is the standartenführer. Several standards formed a subgroup - something like a brigade led by an oberführer. Subsequently, several subgroups formed a territorial group corresponding to the division commanded by the Gruppenführer.
The new SS army remained on paper so far: Himmler lacked people who could breathe life into it. However, Hitler assisted the SS in this matter, instructing the SA in each locality to allocate up to half of the staff strength to the newly formed SS units, and the best people... The SS leadership received the right to send back those who did not fit in their personal and business qualities. Thus, the need for propaganda work of SS recruiters among the SA personnel disappeared.
The SA leadership amused itself with the hope that henceforth a barrier would be put up against the SS intervention in the SA affairs. But they were wrong, not considering the main idea of \u200b\u200bHitler, formulated by him in the order of November 7, 1930: "The task of the SS will henceforth include the police service within the party."
Meanwhile, the split between the nationalist wing and the supporters of the socialist part of the NSDAP program, led by Ernst Rohm, was growing rapidly. In August 1930, it came to clashes between SA and SS militants. In mid-March 1933, having received information from the head of the SS about the impending assassination attempt, the Fuehrer ordered Himmler to form another personal security unit, which later received the name "Leibstandart SS Adolf Hitler". In addition, Himmler created new SS units in different regions of Germany called the Sonderkommando-SS, whose task was to protect the highest representatives of the Nazi government on the ground and to fight political opponents.
The "moment of truth" was the appointment of Hitler to the post of Chancellor of Germany. Ryom's stormtroopers considered this as their victory and demanded revolutionary changes. Although they had a free hand against the Jews, and Goering, using the SA as auxiliary police units, allowed them to kill enemies, the stormtroopers expressed noticeable displeasure, for they wanted much more. The SA leaders behaved truly like medieval mercenaries who did not receive the expected share of the booty.
Ernst Roehm and other leaders of the assault detachments insisted on a second revolution, after which all power should have passed to them. Rohm and his entourage wanted the SA to replace the army and become a kind of state within the state. They declared: "The gray cliff must be inundated with a brown stream!"
The highest financial circles and generals made it clear to Hitler that he would lose their support if he did not pull down the stormtroopers. Hitler was faced with a choice between the nationalist and socialist directions of his movement. And he survived only because he had a tool at hand to solve such problems. Accusing the SA of treason and preparing a coup, the SS dealt a crushing blow to the leadership of the assault detachments. It happened on June 30, 1934 - in the "Night of the Long Knives".
Rem was arrested. Two days later, Hitler invited him to commit suicide. Remus, who did not believe such a proposal, refused, after which he was shot dead in his cell.
In Berlin alone, the SS men arrested about 150 top SA leaders, most of them were immediately executed? they were shot in groups. The exact number of those killed that night is still unknown.
Hitler praised the bloody "work" done by the SS. On July 20, 1934, he issued the following order: “Considering the outstanding services of the SS forces, especially during the events of June 30, 1934, I raise the SS to the rank of independent organization within the framework of the NSDAP ".
From that moment on, the "Black Order" of the SS received undivided power in Germany.
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They wore black uniforms. They kept the nation at bay and pledged eternal loyalty to their Fuehrer. The cockades depicted a skull - the "death's head", which their divisions carried across Europe. Their highest symbol was the double ancient German victory sign "zig". They killed millions of people.
All spheres of life of the German people were under their vigilant control. They commanded the police and intelligence services, guarded the Reich Chancellery and concentration camps, and held key positions in agriculture and in health care, in science and in national politics. They managed to infiltrate the traditional stronghold of diplomacy and seize commanding heights in the bureaucratic hierarchy.
Their official name is the guard units of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Schutz-staffel, abbreviated as SS. They felt themselves, as SS Hauptsturmführer Dieter Wiesliceny put it, "a sect of a new type, with its own norms and customs."
It was not given to the uninitiated to look into inner world secret sect of the SS. For ordinary citizens, it remained as frightening and incomprehensible as the Jesuit order, against which the SS bodies officially fought, but at the same time they imitated it to the smallest detail. The leaders of the black order deliberately cultivated the fear of themselves among the people. "The secret state police, the criminal police and the security services are shrouded in a mysterious halo of political crime novels," said Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the security police, SS Ober Gruppenfuehrer, with pleasure. The very same grandmaster of the black order Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler said not without satisfaction: "I know that in Germany there are people who feel bad when they see our black uniform, we understand this and do not expect to be loved."
People felt that some secret organization scattered over the Reich a huge, thinnest net, but they were not able to make out it. The Germans could only hear the chased step of black columns on the asphalt and slogan songs bursting out of hundreds of sips:
SS on the march, out of the way!
They will sweep away the tyrants. Freedom is ahead!
And again, and again in a marching rhythm: “We are black units! And death is everywhere! Ready to take the fight! "
Thousands and thousands of invisible eyes watched every step of the compatriots. A giant police octopus held the nation tightly in its tentacles. 45 thousand officials and employees of the Gestapo, scattered in 20 head offices (Leitstellen) and 39 offices (Stellen) of the Reich, as well as in hundreds of border police commissariats, recorded any seditious manifestations. 30 top SS and police leaders, at the head of an army of 65,000 Security Police (Zipo) and 2.8 million Order Police (Orpo) officers, were responsible for state security. 40 thousand guards and wardens terrorized in 20 concentration camps and 160 labor camps hundreds of thousands of imaginary and real enemies of the dictatorship. 950 thousand SS soldiers, including 310 thousand so-called "Volksdeutsche" - ethnic Germans living in South-Eastern Europe, and 200 thousand foreigners, along with the Wehrmacht, were constantly on alert, without forgetting about the surveillance of their military counterparts-rivals.
A hundred thousand shadow horde of agents and informants of the security service (SD) hourly monitored the affairs and thoughts of fellow citizens. In universities and in industry, on peasant farms and in the public service, any information of interest was caught and then pumped over to the Berlin Center.
But about what was happening inside the SS, especially about the thoughts that hovered in the empire of Heinrich Himmler, not a word could penetrate into the outside world. The Reichsfuehrer was careful to ensure that members of his order did not enter into close contact with the inhabitants. Himmler forbade the SS Fuhrer from participating in civil legal disputes with private individuals in order to prevent the court from looking into the inner life of the SS. The Reich Ministry of Economics was denied information about the economic activities of SS-owned enterprises. For those units of the "Death's Head", which was entrusted with the protection of the concentration camps, Himmler issued a special order: "First: not a single unit can serve at the place of formation. The Pomeranian company is strictly forbidden to serve in Pomerania. Second, each unit must be transferred to a new duty station after three months. Third: the parts "The head of the death" are prohibited to use during city patrols. "
Even the most prominent leaders of the Third Reich could not afford to look behind the scenes of the black sect. “I knew nothing about the activities of the SS. It is unlikely that an outsider is generally capable of telling anything about the Himmler organization, "Hermann Goering said in 1945.
Only the fall of the Third Reich removed the veil of secrecy from the empire of the black order. Then, as accused of preparing for war and committing other unthinkable crimes, the dock of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg was taken by people who for many years led the security detachments.
The records of the military tribunals of the allies included data carefully hidden by the SS apparatus. From the testimony of the witnesses and the evidence presented by the prosecution, a picture of apocalyptic racial madness emerged. The Black Order appeared to the world as a guillotine ruled by psychopaths - fanatics of racial purity. A terrible bill was presented: from 4 to 5 million Jews were killed, 2.5 million Poles were liquidated, 520 thousand Roma were killed, 473 thousand Russian prisoners of war were executed, 100 thousand terminally ill were killed in the framework of the program of euthanasia in gas chambers.
On September 30, 1946, Allied judges sentenced the Himmler SS as a criminal organization on the grounds that “the SS were used for purposes that are criminal and include the persecution and extermination of Jews, atrocities and murders in concentration camps, brutality in the administration of the occupied territories, implementation slave labor programs, mistreatment and murder of prisoners of war. " Conclusion: All persons are suspected of crimes "who were officially accepted as members of the SS ... who became members of this organization or remained so, knowing that this organization is used to commit acts defined as criminal in accordance with Article 6 of the Charter." (This refers to the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, adopted on August 8, 1945 in London.- Note. per.)
The Nuremberg verdict transformed the SS emblem into a symbol of political crime, into the Cain seal, which henceforth stood on everyone who ever wore a black uniform. Security detachments - until recently, the collective image of the self-styled national elite - turned into an "army of lepers", as SS General Felix Steiner said in a fit of self-pity. However, the Allied verdict had one serious drawback: it did not specify how more than a million people could collectively and in one fell swoop turn into mass murderers. Nor did he explain the source of the SS's power that enabled them to make the racial fantasies of the Nazi regime a nightmare fact of reality.
The former SS men could not or did not want to reveal this secret. Some found a way out in pretending that they did not know about anything at all, while others blamed all the responsibility on those who were no longer alive. The first timid attempt at self-critical understanding of the problem before the general public can be considered the book "The Great Chimera", written in 1948 by the former SS Untersturmfuehrer Erich Kernmayr under the pseudonym Kern. However, then in West Germany, in a fertile atmosphere of "rehabilitation" and restoration of life, justifying literature began to appear. The former SS Fuhrer firmly believed in the short memory of their contemporaries. For example, SS veteran Oberstgruppenführer Paul Hausser at the Nuremberg trials spoke of Himmler as a "completely non-military" man and could not recall a case that Himmler ever appeared in the location of military units. SS Sturmbannfuehrer Brill said that he always perceived the so-called "Allgemeine (general) SS" as a voluntary association, to which the SS troops had nothing to do. The SS men never tired of claiming that they had never learned racial hatred.
Most historians agree that the activities of the German SS were not caused by any political or military necessity. The SS troops were needed for other purposes. About what these goals are, Hitler himself said: I am creating an order. A man will emerge from this order, who will be the measure and center of the world, a man-god!
Hitler officially banned the activities of Masonic lodges and occult societies in Germany, but this order did not apply to astrologers and occultists who surrounded himself and his closest associate, Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler.
Himmler, as the historian V. Konovalov writes, for many years collected literature about the Jesuits and borrowed a lot from their General Ignatius Loyola when organizing the SS troops. The Fuehrer even called Himmler my Ignatius.
In a speech in 1940 in front of his comrades-in-arms, the Reichsfuehrer announced that his goal was to create the “order of purebreds,” the elite of the Reich.
The SS was built like a real monastic order. The highest, leading stage consisted of initiates. Most of the SS Order was made up of warrior monks of the dead, who took initiation in schools - ordersburg. Only Aryans of the pure Nordic type could get here after passing the qualifying tests. Opening one of these special schools, Himmler formulated the secret doctrine in the shortest formula: Believe, obey, fight! Dot! It's all!
The SS men, who were honored to be admitted to the burghi, learned there, among other things, the secret knowledge that death for them is a conscious act of self-denial in order to serve the Black Order. Initiates took vows and embarked on the path of superhuman destiny, found themselves on the side of life where the hierarchy of the sect reigned - from coded zombie automata to the great magician. Here they prepared for the god-man, who would be sent to the Land of Power after the initiates changed the balance of spiritual forces, destroying the lower races.
According to the historian D. Rusin, there was no turning back for those who entered the school. If an SS man stumbled, ran away from school, he was destroyed along with his family, wife, children. These were the inexorable laws of the SS.
At the end of school, the SS man received initiation through a mysterious magical ceremony of thick air. It resembled a black mass in the satanic tradition.
Colonel Wolfram Sievers was one of the prominent figures of the SS. He was the executor, priest, donor and ritual killer of the order. In concentration camps, Sievers conducted initiation classes in Nazi magic. Bloody human sacrifices were made there in order to gain the favor of the secret masters in the SS cause.
At the Nuremberg Trials, Sievers limited himself to a formal defense. And before going to the execution, he asked for permission to send his cult one last time and offer secret prayers.
Initiation into the ranks of the SS
In spite of the truth, poor physical characteristics - poor eyesight, undeveloped muscles, chronic intestinal diseases, etc. - Himmler was a formidable leader of his organization. He developed whole system requirements to be met by candidates to join the SS. Later, some of them were canceled or rather significantly softened so that candidates for joining the SS from the conquered countries could meet them and join the ranks of the organization.
So, in order to prove his exceptional heredity and purity of blood, an SS officer had to submit a pedigree from at least 1750. It was enough for the lower ranks to prove that there were no Jews in their family tree since 1900. Exceptions were made only for the favorites of Himmler, for example, for Reinhard Heydrich, who was said to have Jewish ancestors. Himmler said about him: "He overcame the Jew in himself with the power of his mind." In general, the whole Nazi concept of the purity of the Aryan nation was thoroughly false - as much as, in fact, tragic - after all, even Himmler was forced to admit that he had family ties with the Jews on the part of his wife.
Recruited into the ranks of the SS, the typical 18-year-old recruit who had successfully passed the "racial" selection had to undergo extensive training, both physical and moral, which included training in Nazi doctrine. During this period, recruits were allowed to wear SS uniforms, but without distinctive features. The insignia were awarded to young SS men annually on November 9, the day of the celebration of the anniversary of the Munich putsch of 1923. It was on this day that recruits received ranks and nominally became full members of the SS. After, on January 30, the day of the celebration of the anniversary of Hitler's rise to power, they received an interim SS ID card. But they had to wait until April 20, the Führer's birthday, for this card to be replaced with a real SS membership card.
In addition to physical training, which Himmler said should have taught each soldier “how to kill and how to die,” the young fighters took a course of initiation into the philosophy of the organization. The main credo of the SS was a question borrowed from the Catholic Church and paraphrased by the Nazis, on which every member of the SS should know a clear light. "Why do we believe in Germany and the Fuehrer?" The answer had to be as follows: "We believe in Germany because we believe in the God who created it and in the Fuhrer whom he sent to us."
After the recruit had mastered all the necessary dogmas, he underwent a neo-pagan initiation ceremony, or dedication, into the ranks of the SS. The culmination of the ceremony was the taking of an oath by him, which linked his fate with that of Hitler until his death.
It was thanks to this principle of unquestioning obedience to the Nazis that many young people were involved in their bloody crimes. Submission was equated with religious obedience, and worship of authority was like worship of divine will. It was sacrilege to ask questions of the authorities or to contradict the state regime - it was like going against the will of God.
For a long time, it was believed that such oaths were introduced into everyday life by the Nazis, but Emperor Wilhelm II also resorted to similar rituals. For example, on December 10, 1891, he gave a speech to the volunteers in which he stated:
“You took an oath to me before God, in the presence of his servant, in front of this sacred altar. You have sworn allegiance to me. You gave me your body and soul. Now there is only one enemy for you - the one who is my enemy ... I can order you to shoot your own relatives, your brothers, even your parents - God forgive me! - but even then you must obey my order without question! "
Only after completing compulsory service in labor detachments, and then in the army, a successful candidate was given permission to wear all SS regalia, and above all, they were issued a ceremonial dagger, engraved with runes, protecting its owner and surrounding him with magical powers. The sign of the SS was not two lightning bolts, as is commonly believed, but the image of the double Zig rune - a symbol of power and victory. Since ancient times, the dagger was considered a sacred weapon and was used in ceremonial magic rituals. In such rituals, he was a conductor of divine power, just as lightning is a source of electricity. Until 1939, the highest ranks of the SS received another distinctive feature - a silver ring with the image of a skull. During World War II, such rings began to be issued only to SS officers who had served in the highest rank for more than three years. And again we see that the Nazis borrowed another typical symbol of magic - similar rings were worn by pagan priests in ancient times. In Germany they were called Goths.
After serving a mandatory period in a labor detachment or in the army, a newly-made SS member was assigned to one department or another of the organization, depending on his abilities and inclinations and what his commanders considered best for him. The SS had its own armed unit, the Waffen SS, which was considered Hitler's personal guard. In concentration camps, SS soldiers performed the functions of overseers and executioners.
In addition, they collaborated with the Gestapo, assisting in the encirclement and destruction of members of the resistance in the occupied countries.
One of the most feared units of the SS was the Einsatzgruppen squad, a deadly group whose main task was to carry out "ethnic cleansing", or, more simply, genocide.
"Children of Hitler" gave birth to the SS
A book was published in Germany, which caused not only sad memories, but also lively controversy. These are the confessions of a sixty-year-old woman, Gisela Heidenreich, one of the "children of Hitler", who was born in "Lebensborn" - a center where single mothers gave birth to future representatives of the pure Aryan race.
Nazi ideologist Heinrich Himmler believed that not a single drop of Aryan blood should be lost. Under strong patronage and with the assistance of the SS, this idea began to be implemented.
The fruit of such a political action was "tall, blond, with regular features", as she was described, Gisela Heidenreich. The "Aryan" girls, Gisela specifies, did not end up in brothels, but "provided services" by giving birth to children and giving them up for adoption to those who could not have them. 8 thousand of these children were born in clinics.
But that was just the beginning. In 1935, initially only in Germany, Operation Lebensborn - the source of life began. " Soon, ten Lebensborn centers were operating in Norway, where more than 12 thousand children were born, hybrids of blond northern Valkyries with German supermen. 90 percent of these "children of Hitler" never knew who gave birth to them.
Himmler raved about the dream of creating an Aryan superman with the help of insane experiments. The backbone of this tribe was supposed to be 11 thousand babies, conceived by carefully selected Norwegian women from the SS, called upon to "fulfill their patriotic duty." Then mothers gave their babies to orphanages. The fathers never saw their children and knew nothing about their fate.
And their fates were tragic. These little Aryan homunculi subsequently had a very high suicide rate. Many suffered from mental and personality disorders. But Gudrun Himmler, daughter of the chief of the Gestapo and the founder of the SS, many years after the war, still stubbornly insisted that her father was a kind person and loved children very much ...
Thule's mystical power
The SS ideology was entirely based on a new black cult. So, for example, in the spring of 1942, three SS alpinists climbed Elbrus, the sacred mountain of the Aryans. There they performed a series of magical rituals and hoisted a swastika banner. All this was carried out with only one purpose - to establish power over the elements. The ritual on Elbrus was a magical preparation for the Battle of Stalingrad, where the cold was the main enemy for the Nazis.
Basically, the "Black Order" was based on the belief in the existence of supernatural forces that possess cosmic energy. Perceiving himself as a demonic person, the Fuhrer, according to V. Konovalov, seems to have never doubted the actual existence of the so-called island of Thule, the legend of which goes back to the origins of Germanic traditions. This island, located somewhere in the north and now disappeared from human eyes, was considered the legendary center of a magical civilization.
But not all the secrets of Thule have been lost, the Hitlerite occultists assured. Special beings, mediators between people and "That That Is There", have a storehouse of energy forces available only to initiates. It was Thule who was supposed to give Germany power over the world and make her a prophet of the coming superhumanity.
According to occultists, the internal forces of the members of the "Black Order" form a common energy chain. But you can use such energy for the purposes of the group only through a medium who accumulates strength. In the created "Thule society" Adolf Hitler was considered a medium. He constantly returned to the idea of \u200b\u200ba "decisive turn of the world" or, as he also put it, to the "hinge of time." Himmler, in turn, believed in the transmigration of souls () and often "communicated" with the ghosts of long-dead geniuses of the past. He himself considered himself either a new incarnation of the mythical Briton King Arthur, who gathered around him the knights of the "round table", or King Henry I, whose spirit allegedly came to him and gave instructions.
The Reichsfuehrer saw the connection of his activities, giving his owner power over the world, and in search of which King Arthur went in his time.
Himmler was inspired by the ancient German legend that hidden treasures appear on the surface of the earth every 700 years. And in 1944, when he was already, in essence, doomed, he even equipped an expedition in search of the Grail. And on March 16, 1944, he even sent Alfred Rosenberg on an expedition, who raised a huge flag with a Celtic cross over the remains of the Cathar castle - the last owners of the Holy Grail. This date was not chosen by chance: it was on this day in 1244 that the keepers of the mystical shrine were destroyed by enemies. The Nazis, in fact, performed an ancient magic ritual, asking the higher powers for help and protection.
Herald of the Apocalypse
In creating the Black Order, plans were drawn up for the complete life-long isolation of dead heads from the humanoid world. The Fuehrer even wanted to create cities and villages of the SS all over the world. Their territory was supposed to be like states, subordinate only to the SS Order and governed by it.
The newly minted rulers of the world derived their ancestry from the legendary giants - the ancestors of the Aryan peoples. To search for traces of these giants, the Wolfram Sievers Institute sent expeditions to Ethiopia and Tibet.
And even when the collapse of Nazi Germany was already inevitable, the Fuhrer continued his magical activity. He gave the order to flood the Berlin subway along with living people, believing that he is bringing a human sacrifice to his gods, and believing that the collective surge of bioenergy of people drowning in the subway will shift the earth's axis by several degrees and then the icing of Europe will begin - as a payment for the defeat of the Nazis in the war.
In May 1945, by the way, the world was stunned by the news that Soviet troops, fighting their way to the Fuehrer's bunker, found dead Tibetans dressed ... in SS uniforms at its very approaches. In those hot days, no one even thought about investigating a strange phenomenon, and only decades later it turned out that last hopes the Fuhrer entrusted the magicians specially exported
Hitler longed for a great flood, he longed for the Apocalypse. And before getting poisoned, he wrote the last appeal to the world, stating that its end will be the end of the Universe. As you know from history, the Black Order sank into oblivion along with its leader, but after that it did not come at all ...