The Himmler's SS (12 page)

Throughout the next few months, the SS-Anwärter continued with his civilian occupation or apprenticeship during the day and attended the set musters of his local Allgemeine-SS Trupp or Sturm in the evenings or at weekends. Much of his training at this stage in his service revolved around his qualifying for the SA Military Sports Badge and the German National Sports Badge, both of which he was expected to win. Under normal prewar conditions, the SS-Anwärter was thereafter called up for six months' compulsory full-time duty in the Reichsarbeitsdienst or RAD, the National Labour Service which worked on public building programmes, and then for his two-year term of conscription in the Wehrmacht. During that period, he almost completely severed his active ties with the Allgemeine-SS. Subsequently, his labouring and military duties finished, he returned to civilian life and to the SS, still as an Anwärter, to receive his final intensive training and indoctrination. This included ideological schooling in the fundamental laws and concepts of the SS, marriage orders and the SS code of honour and discipline.

SS-Anwärter take the oath of allegiance in front of the Feldherrnhalle in Munich, 9 November 1934. This ceremony, which took place in the most solemn of circumstances at the ‘holy shrine' of Nazism, was attended by Hitler, Himmler and the rest of the Old Guard.

On 9 November following his return from the Wehrmacht to civilian life, the successful Anwärter was received into the SS as a full SS-Mann. On that solemn occasion he took a second oath, swearing that he and his family would always adhere to the principles of the SS, and was thereafter presented with his SS dagger and given the right to use it to defend his honour and that of the Black Order. The confirmed SS man remained in the active Allgemeine-SS until his thirty-fifth year, at which time he was eligible for honourable discharge from the organisation. However, many elected at that stage to apply for acceptance into their local Reserve-Sturmbann, and at the retirement age of forty-five most of these transferred yet again to the regional Stammabteilung. Long service in this way was recognised by awards of the NSDAP Dienstauszeichnungen, a series of decorations instituted on 20 April 1939 for ten, fifteen and twenty-five years' active membership of any of the Nazi party uniformed bodies.

Recruiting for the Allgemeine-SS, which was the responsibility of the SS Hauptamt, peaked in 1939 then drastically decreased on the outbreak of war. As early as January 1940, Himmler announced that of approximately 250,000 regulars in the Allgemeine-SS at the opening of hostilities, no less than 175,000 had since joined the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS, the majority going to the army. These men retained their Allgemeine-SS membership throughout the war, but due to the commitments of military service were unable to participate in their normal SS duties. By 1944, the total active strength of the Allgemeine-SS had fallen to 40,000, excluding that part of the organisation represented by the police. Even so, while the purely numerical strength of the Allgemeine-SS declined, its domination of the home front steadily increased, highlighted not only by Himmler's personal concentration of power but also by the ever-expanding influence of the SS hierarchy, reinforced by the police and security services and the patron and honorary membership.

In addition to the general military and political training given to Allgemeine-SS men at local level, at the regular musters of Truppe and Stürme, there were a number of selective and specialist training establishments which members could attend. A batch of NCO and officer candidate schools produced and trained leaders for assignment throughout the whole SS system. As well as the Main Cavalry School at Munich and the Helferinnen Reichsschule at Oberehnheim, there was an SS-Ärztliche Akademie, or SS Medical Academy, at Graz, an SS-Verwaltungsschule, or Administration School, at Dachau, a Kraftfahrtechnische Lehranstalt, or Motor Technical Training Establishment, at Vienna, an SS-Musikschule, or Music College, at Brunswick, a Pioneer and Mining School at Gisleben, and a Signals School and Security Police Training College at Berlin. There were also a number of special SS-Berufsoberschulen, or Higher Technical Schools, set up under the auspices of the SS Hauptamt to teach technical skills to candidates for the Allgemeine-SS and Waffen-SS. All German boys who were apprentices or students in business, trade or agriculture and who attended a trade or technical school could apply for entry to an SS-Berufsoberschule as an SS officer candidate. Conditions of acceptance were that candidates had to be between fourteen and seventeen years of age and satisfy the general recruitment standards laid down for the SS. The training given qualified students for the Reifeprüfung, or state leaving certificate, in economics, technical subjects or agriculture. Students successful in law, politics, history, forestry, mining and engineering were encouraged to continue their studies either at one of the SS or SD Administration Schools or at a university. In effect, the SS-Berufsoberschulen were designed as a medium for the recruitment and initial training of suitable candidates for the security and administrative branches of the SS.

One of the less well known but important educational offshoots of the SS were the SS Mannschaftshäuser, or SS Men's Halls. These institutions formed a Dienststelle, or branch, of the Allgemeine-SS whose function was to train young officers intending to take up civil and non-political professions. They differed, therefore, from the specialist schools of the SS and police and from the Waffen-SS Junkerschulen in that they were designed for SS men who proposed to make their careers in walks of life that had no official connection with the SS, such as the Civil Service, medicine, the law, art, science, engineering and the academic field generally. The acknowledged object of their training was to infuse the SS spirit into the higher professions.

The SS Mannschaftshäuser originated in 1935 when small groups of ten to fifteen ordinary students, who were united only by their common SS membership, began to live together in a few university and high school towns. As their numbers increased a more careful system of membership selection was practised, qualities demanded being good character, National Socialist beliefs and proven academic or scientific talent. When the number of permanent residents reached 350, Himmler appointed SS-Oberführer Kurt Ellersiek as Chief of the Mannschaftshäuser, with the status and disciplinary powers of a Standarte commander. Life in the Men's Halls before the war included, besides the usual academic studies, an organised series of social occasions at which the students could acquire the ease and conventional courtesies necessary for success in public life. To prevent them from attaching an exaggerated value to the academic and social side of things, however, participation in team sports and athletics, and regular service in an Allgemeine-SS Sturm, was made compulsory for all residents. Each winter the members of all the halls throughout Germany attended a special course at the SS-Junkerschule at Bad Tölz where, for a fortnight, they studied and exercised along with regular SS-Verfügungstruppe officer cadets. In summer, during vacation periods, long marches were organised in northern Germany or in the Alps, during which the students camped out in the open.

The outbreak of war severely checked the growth of the Mannschaftshäuser, as most members were almost immediately conscripted into the Wehrmacht. Only a few discharged or reserved men continued their studies in some of the halls. An official list of Mannschaftshäuser drawn up in May 1944 comprised the following:

Of these, however, only four (Berlin II, München, Prag and Wien) were still fully active at that late date.

General propaganda and political education within the SS was the responsibility of the SS Hauptamt, which issued or supervised the issue of a number of related publications. In addition to special pamphlets such as the SS recruiting handbook
Dich ruft die SS (The SS Needs You)
and a series of SS Schulungshefte, or educational booklets, the SS-HA put out two periodicals, the
SS Informationsdienst
, a news magazine for the SS and police, and the
SS Leitheft
, an illustrated magazine with stories and articles for more general consumption. The theme of the ideal German family was used extensively throughout this type of publication, and was inevitably slanted to draw comparisons with less favoured ethnic groups. Another much documented subject was the Externsteine, the German equivalent of Stonehenge, which became enshrined in SS mythology. The SS-HA also held political education courses for SS officers and men and, in addition, was responsible for the appointment of Schulungsoffiziere, or Education Officers, to the staffs of the various SS training schools.

So far as advancement for the ordinary SS man was concerned, the sky was the limit. In stark contrast to the imperial army, promotion in the SS depended upon personal commitment, effectiveness and political reliability, not class or education. ‘Das Schwarze Korps' continually denounced the old reactionary military system as typifying that ‘middle-class arrogance which excluded the worker from society and gave him the feeling of being a third class citizen'. Consequently, the SS cadet schools consciously offered something which those of the Wehrmacht never did – an officer's career for men without a middle- or upper-class background or formal educational qualifications. The SS always encouraged self-discipline and mutual respect rather than a brutally enforced discipline, and its general working atmosphere was more relaxed than that of the army, the relationship between officers and men being less formal. Officers were termed ‘Führer', or ‘leaders', not ‘Offiziere', which had class connotations. On duty, the old military rank prefix ‘Herr', implying superiority and dominance, was strictly forbidden and even the lowliest SS-Bewerber would address Himmler himself simply as ‘Reichsführer', not ‘Herr Reichsführer'. Off duty, junior ranks referred to their seniors as ‘Kamerad' (Comrade), or ‘Parteigenosse' (Party Colleague) if both were members of the NSDAP.

The SS-Führerkorps or officer corps of the Allgemeine-SS comprised a number of different categories, mainly dependent upon the nature of the officer's employment. Those below the rank of Sturmbannführer were generally Nebenamtlich, or part-time, and unpaid, while higher ranks were usually Hauptamtlich, or full-time, and salaried. The main categories of SS officer were as follows:

Any Allgemeine-SS officer who joined the Waffen-SS during the war retained his Allgemeine-SS status and rank, but usually received a lower Waffen-SS rank until such time as he had gained sufficient military experience to warrant promotion. Thereafter, any promotion he achieved within the Waffen-SS resulted in a simultaneous and level upgrading of his Allgemeine-SS rank.