As Himmler was promoting the SS case for expansion, Hitler was experiencing more fundamental problems with his generals. Once safely in power, Hitler insisted that Germany must regain its pre-1914 territories and dominate central Europe. Field Marshal von Blomberg, the war minister, and his staff were in agreement with such a program but were concerned at the speed with which Hitler wanted to achieve his objectives, believing the army still unready to undertake what might become a full-scale European war. Hitler was profoundly frustrated by the army’s attitude.
In 1938 events were to play into Hitler’s hands as a result of the Blomberg-Fritsch affair. The widowed Blomberg had recently married a young woman, and Göring and Himmler discovered evidence that she had featured in a pornographic film and may have been involved in prostitution. The German high command—with an inflated sense of its own “honor”—considered the army to be tarnished by this revelation. Blomberg was forced to resign. His natural successor would have been the army commander in chief, General von Fritsch, but Himmler’s secret intelligence chief, Reinhard Heydrich, concocted evidence that Fritsch had been involved in a homosexual relationship. This proved to be false, but the damage to Fritsch’s reputation had been done. He too was removed from office.
Hitler then seized the moment, directly taking over as commander in chief of the Wehrmacht, sacking sixteen generals and transferring a further forty-four to other posts. They were replaced by senior officers more amenable to the Nazi worldview. Himmler exploited the affair as an opportunity to argue his case for a larger armed SS.
On 17 August 1938 Hitler issued a further secret decree to define the position of the SS within the wider armed forces and to minimize friction between the two organizations. Hitler made a formal distinction between the General (Allgemeine) SS and the armed SS. The General SS was defined as a political organization of the Nazi Party and was not to be armed or receive military training. He confirmed the already existing definition of the armed SS as the units of the SS-VT (including Leibstandarte), the SS Junkerschulen (officer training schools), and Eicke’s SS Totenkopfverbände and their reserves. They were to receive military training and weapons from the army.
Hitler attempted to encourage better relations between the SS and army by suggesting mutual officer exchanges. He also accepted—for the time being—the army’s refusal to allow membership of Totenkopf units to count against compulsory military service in the Wehrmacht. While the army was prepared to tolerate a modestly sized SS-VT as a military formation, it drew the line at accepting former concentration-camp guards as fellow soldiers. The Totenkopfverbände—ignored by the army and protected from its scrutiny—was allowed to develop largely unnoticed.
The small guard Eicke had assembled at Dachau in 1934 had grown to six battalions by March 1935, one for each of the major concentration camps then in Germany. Eicke was tireless in his transformation of the guards into a capable paramilitary force. Given that he was unable to impose the strict selection criteria of the SS-VT, this success was all the more remarkable. As part of a four-week cycle, one week was spent guarding the prisoners, the other three in training. The training duties were basic when compared to those of the SS-VT, comprising drill, marching, and weapon handling, but they were sufficient to fulfill Eicke’s demand that his men be forged into a cohesive, obedient whole.
The training was deliberately tough, extolling the Nazi version of social Darwinism, that only the fittest should be allowed to survive, that pity and mercy were contemptible, while ruthlessness and hardness counted for all. Men who failed to adopt this philosophy were kicked out of the Totenkopfverbände. Set against this nihilistic doctrine, Eicke preached the virtues of comradeship. Rudolf Hoess described his boss’s methods: “He punished any lapse on the part of the guard with great severity. Yet his men loved ‘Papa Eicke,’ as they called him. In the evenings he sat with them in the canteen or in their barracks. He spoke with them in their own language, and he went into all their troubles and worries, and taught them how to become what he wanted, hard, tough fellows who would shrink at nothing he ordered them to do.” According to Hoess, Eicke made a point of speaking to the enlisted ranks without NCOs or officers present so that he could more accurately gauge their mood. He subsequently developed a system where letter boxes were set up in the camps to which he alone had the key. This gave all individuals a “means of communicating reports, complaints and denunciations direct to him. He also had his confidants among the prisoners in every camp, who, unknown to the others, informed him of everything that was worth knowing.”1
Eicke ensured that his men received a comprehensive and well-structured ideological indoctrination, in contrast to the more halfhearted efforts of Hausser and Dietrich. The recruits were expected to know about the Nazi Party and its history, understand the central importance of race and Germanic racial superiority, and be aware of Germany’s enemies. These, according to Eicke, were primarily Jews, Freemasons, communists, and Christians.2
Whereas most other senior officers in the armed SS took a fairly relaxed attitude toward the religious beliefs of their men, Eicke zealously followed official Nazi practice. His hatred of Christianity was enduring, and he persecuted those of his men who refused to renounce their beliefs. “Prayer books are things for women and for those who wear panties,” he ranted. “We hate the stink of incense; it destroys the German soul as the Jews do the race.”3
Whereas the minimum term of service for the SS-VT was four years, for the Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) it was a daunting twelve years. But in the desperate economic conditions of the 1930s, Eicke managed to find sufficient men. One such early volunteer was Gustav Doren, subsequently a soldier in the Totenkopf Division:
The job was quite arduous but the pay reasonable. Our uniform, food and quarters were provided free, we had warm huts with cots and good stoves. We were at Oranienburg, one of the camps formerly run by the SA. I was taken on as a guard but we had no arms at that time except for a short rubber cudgel. Although we lived on camp we were allowed out in free time at the weekends, with one week’s leave every six months. I signed a contract for twelve years; this I later saw as foolish, but at the time when I was out of work and with no particular trade it seemed a very good opportunity.4
According to Charles W. Sydnor, a historian of the Totenkopf Division, Eicke’s achievement lay in “removing, in the minds of his men, the stigma of the SS-TV as jailers or prison guards.” Eicke constantly bombarded his men with the belief that the camps held “the most dangerous political enemies of the State, and since the Führer had given the SS-TV—a racially select band of men—sole responsibility for guarding and running the camps, then the SS-TV constituted an elite within the elite structure.”5 Himmler congratulated Eicke on his work.
In 1937 the growing numbers of Totenkopf units were reorganized to reflect changes in concentration-camp organization, with the construction of much larger, if fewer, camps. The separate battalions were combined into three regiments (Standarten), each three battalions strong. Totenkopfstandarte I “Oberbayern” was stationed at Dachau (Munich), Totenkopfstandarte II “Brandenburg” at Sachsenhausen (Oranienburg), and Totenkopfstandarte III “Thuringen” at Buchenwald (Weimar).
In the lead-up to war in September 1939, other new Totenkopfstandarten were in the process of being raised. One of their functions was to provide a large reservoir of manpower for the armed SS as a whole, so that in time of war men from Totenkopf units could be used to replace losses in the SS-VT.
By the end of 1938 Totenkopf units had grown to a force of more than 10,000 men, while those of the SS-VT (including Leibstandarte and Junker schools) totaled 14,234.6 These numbers clearly exceeded the requirement of the original mission of the armed SS, namely, to protect the Führer and other leading Nazis across Germany. Hitler and Himmler were deliberately vague about the future role of the armed SS.
The decree of 17 August 1938—intended to define the functions of the SS relative to the army—was, in fact, far from precise, wit
h Hitler maintaining that the SS-VT was “a standing armed unit exclusively at my disposal.”7 Although Hitler did not elaborate on how he would “dispose” of the SS-VT, he and Himmler were agreed that a well-armed force (SS-VT and Totenkopfstandarten) was required to maintain internal order in time of war, both within Germany and in any occupied territories.
In light of the social unrest that swept through Germany during 1918–1919, Hitler placed little trust in his own people. His covert reason for the existence of the armed SS was that it would be sufficiently obedient to turn against its fellow countrymen if so ordered. In light of this, Hitler and Himmler insisted that the armed SS must take its part on the front line when war broke out. Himmler argued that through its own “blood sacrifice,” the armed SS would earn the respect of the German people and, in his words, maintain “the moral right to shoot at malingerers and cowards on the home front.”8
Hitler’s ambivalent attitude toward the army encouraged him to develop the armed SS as a parallel military force. He never saw it as taking over from the army but wanted it to be a military vanguard for Nazi Germany, acting as an inspiration and guide for the Wehrmacht. At the same time, he was also reassured by the presence of a powerful and loyal counterweight to the army should the latter prove politically unreliable.
Himmler always had greater ambitions for the armed SS, although he kept his thoughts largely to his immediate circle. Even before the outbreak of war in 1939, he was showing a quiet interest in expanding the SS from a solely German institution to one that would transcend state boundaries and forge a Pan-European Aryan racial community.9
AT DAWN ON 7 March 1936 a company of Leibstandarte marched into the Rhineland, leading a German force that assumed authority over the formerly demilitarized area to the west of the River Rhine. While this action was a breach of the Versailles and Locarno Treaties, the Western powers did nothing to oppose Hitler’s move. Although of seemingly little consequence at the time, the remilitarization of the Rhineland represented the first step in Germany’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy that would lead to war in 1939.
Hitler’s next target was the country of his birth. Austria was a sovereign state created at the end of World War I, yet on coming to power Hitler had tried to impose a union (Anschluss) on Germany and Austria. The takeover attempt in 1934 had been thwarted, but by 1938 Hitler felt sufficiently confident to force the issue. Pro-Nazi Austrians campaigned vociferously for union, supported by a significant minority of the population. The Austrian government rejected the idea—despite Hitler’s bullying—although in 1938 it proposed a plebiscite to settle the issue either way. Fearing that a majority of Austrian voters would reject Anschluss, Hitler decided to invade Austria before the plebiscite could be held.
On 12 March 1938 mobile forces of General Guderian’s XVI Army Corps crossed the border without resistance. Among them was Sepp Dietrich’s motorized regiment, Leibstandarte SS “Adolf Hitler.” To the relief of the Germans, not only was the advance unopposed, but Nazi supporters lined the route, cheering the advancing troops. The trucks of Leibstandarte entered Linz—the city of Hitler’s youth—on the twelfth, and two days later they followed the remainder of XVI Corps in a triumphal entry into Vienna.
The SS-VT “Deutschland” Regiment crossed into Austria just behind the German Army motorized units, arriving at the town of Kufstein on the twelfth. For the regiment’s II Battalion—formed from Austrian Nazis who had fled to Germany in 1934—it was an emotional reunion. The divisional history records how the regiment “marched into Kufstein among the roaring jubilation of enormous crowds” and how a “number of former Imperial Austrian officers reported to the regimental commander in their old, traditional uniforms and offered to be sworn into the German Reich.”10 Those who opposed Anschluss kept away.
The incorporation of Austria into the Nazi Reich as Ostmark supplied a new pool of manpower. An SS-VT regiment was raised without delay, receiving the title “Der Führer” in September. Commanded by Oberführer Georg Keppler, it was based around “Deutschland’s” old Austrian battalion. The cadres for the other two battalions were supplied from the “Germania” Regiment and Leibstandarte, although Dietrich begrudged surrendering experienced officers and NCOs to the new unit. Inundated with local volunteers, “Der Führer” was soon up to strength.
Keppler, a former senior police officer from Hanover, made a point of emphasizing to his recruits the regiment’s Imperial Austrian background, which included the adoption of the “Prinz Eugen” regimental march. Along with the other SS-VT units, “Der Führer” was upgraded as a motorized unit. In the words of the divisional history, “The horses were given up and the stables were rebuilt into garages.”11
Theodor Eicke also made good use of the Reich’s extra territory, establishing a concentration camp at Mauthausen, outside Linz, and raising a new regiment, Totenkopfstandarte IV “Ostmark,” in September 1938.
While these new SS units were being formed, Hitler was already preparing the destruction of Czechoslovakia. Exploiting the grievances (real and imagined) of German-speaking Czechs in the Sudetenland region, Hitler demanded the incorporation of these border regions into Germany. In the ensuing Munich Agreement of October 1938, the Czech government was forced to accept the German ultimatum. The vehicles of the SS-VT successfully negotiated the mountain passes into the Sudetenland, the Czech Army withdrawing without a fight. In March 1939 the remainder of Czechoslovakia would fall to Hitler.
As Hitler became increasingly belligerent in his territorial demands over central Europe, so the armed SS moved toward an active military role in support of the army. But participation in the suppression of the Reich’s internal enemies was not forgotten. During the attacks on German Jews and Jewish properties on 9 November 1938—“Kristallnacht”—at least one unit of the SS-VT was involved in the pogrom, as witnessed in this teleprinter report to Heydrich from SS headquarters in Vienna: “Mobile detachments of the Verfügungstruppe drove up to the synagogues and placed stocks of hand grenades in position preparatory to setting fire to the buildings.”12
When Hitler turned his attention toward Poland in 1939—demanding the return of former German territory lost at Versailles—he was met by a stonewall refusal from the Polish government. War seemed inevitable, and the German armed forces prepared for action. Since 1938 relations between the army and armed SS had been improving, and with the prospect of serious fighting now an actuality, cooperation increased further, with the army freely supplying equipment and expertise. The SS-VT was developing into a fully motorized infantry division. As well as the three infantry regiments—“Deutschland,” “Germania,” and “Der Führer”—and the signals and pioneer battalion, new units were added. The old motorcycle battalion was transformed into a powerful reconnaissance battalion, joined by antitank and antiaircraft units.
The army’s former opposition to an artillery regiment faded, so that in May 1939 Major Peter Hansen and other army staff were transferred to the SS to begin the formation of the regiment. Three battalions of light artillery were established, with a heavy battalion to follow. Some 2,000 soldiers from the infantry-gun and machine-gun companies of Leibstandarte, “Deutschland,” and “Germania” provided the regiment’s manpower. Progress was rapid, sufficiently so for batteries to be committed to action in September.
Leibstandarte—increasingly separate from the SS-VT—was augmented by a fourth battalion, ready to fulfill ceremonial duties at the Reich Chancellery and at Hitler’s Alpine retreat, the Berghof. This left the other three battalions and their support companies free for a purely operational role.
On the eve of war, Leibstandarte and SS-VT had a strength of 18,000 soldiers, with a further 22,000 in the Totenkopfstandarte and other reserve units.13 Although an impressive figure, it would grow further once war was declared. Himmler drew upon his resources within the General SS and the police to provide a reserve for the frontline units.
The post-1918 loss of German territory to Poland—notably the “Pol
ish Corridor” that separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany—rankled most Germans. The German high command considered it a personal affront and was determined to exact revenge. But this war would not be a simple military operation to restore the 1914 boundaries—as Hitler publicly proclaimed in justification of his demands—but was, instead, a racial war against the Slavic population of Poland. The Polish state would be eliminated, its elites destroyed, its people enslaved. General Franz Halder, the army chief of staff, echoed the Führer’s views when he told fellow officers that “Poland must not only be struck down, but liquidated as quickly as possible.”14
The attack on Poland provided new opportunities for all elements of the SS, which Himmler was determined to exploit. Leibstandarte and SS-VT were to operate alongside the army at the head of the invasion force, while Totenkopf units would follow and be responsible for behind-the-lines security. They would be assisted by Heydrich’s secret security service and Gestapo, along with other police units deployed in Einsatzgruppen (deployment groups).
During the summer of 1939 Heydrich and his officers dutifully assembled a wanted-persons list (Sonderfahndungsliste) that totaled 61,000 Polish individuals. These consisted of known or presumed enemies of Germany and included military officers, Catholic clergy, intelligentsia, nobility, and other leading members of the establishment. Poland’s large Jewish population was also a target. When discovered, those on the list were to be arrested or killed.
In order to justify the invasion of Poland, a series of “provocations” along the border were set in motion on 31 August, immediately before Hitler’s order to attack Poland was given. Agents donned Polish uniforms and “seized” a German radio station at Gleiwitz to broadcast—in heavy Polish accents—that Germany was being invaded. Elsewhere, six corpses in Polish uniforms were dumped at a customs post, the victims helpfully supplied by Eicke from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Another sham attack was made on a border forestry station, complete with pools of ox blood. Hitler then broadcast to the world that Germany was in danger and that military action against Poland was his only option.
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