The first concentration camps were under the direct command of SS – Polizei-führer Globocnik, and operated by SS Police battalions and Trawnikis — volunteers from Eastern Europe ; whereas the SS-Totenkopfverbände managed the Nazi Concentration Camps such as Dachau and Ravensbrück.

Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of SS national leader, Heinrich Himmler who in 1936 was appointed Chief of German Police ( Chef der Deutschen Polizei ) by Hitler.

Himmler also gained authority over all of Germany's uniformed law enforcement agencies, which were amalgamated into the new Ordnungspolizei ( Orpo: Order Police ), which became an agency of the SS under Kurt Daluege.

However Himmler, who had been appointed Chef der Deutschen Polizei ( Chief of German Police ) by Hitler, controlled the SS, the Gestapo, the Orpo ( uniformed police ) and all investigation units.

The local offices of the Gestapo, known as Stapostellen and Stapoleitstellen, answered to a local commander known as the Inspekteur der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (" Inspector of the Security Police and Security Service ") who, in turn, was under the dual command of Referat N of the Gestapo and also his local SS and Police Leader.

The Gestapo also maintained offices at all Nazi concentration camps, held an office on the staff of the SS and Police Leaders, and supplied personnel as needed to formations such as the Einsatzgruppen.

He died alongside the body of Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Rediess, SS and Police Leader and commander of all SS troops in Norway, who had shot himself earlier.

In mid-1939 Heydrich created the Stiftung Nordhav Foundation to obtain real estate for use of the SS and Security Police as guest houses and vacation spots.

During the Second World War, the most powerful men in the SS were the SS and Police Leaders, divided into three levels: Regular Leaders, Higher Leaders, and Supreme Leaders.

Thus, SS and Police Leaders bypassed all other chains of command.

In Himmler's grand dream of the SS, the SS and Police Leaders were eventually to become SS-Governors of the Lebensraum which would be ruled by SS-Lords, protected by SS-Legions, and worked and lived in by SS-Yeoman Warriors overseeing Slavic serfs.

Approximately 25, 000 men served in the Estonian SS division ( with thousands more conscripted into the " Police Front " battalions and border guard units ).

In addition, by 1939 the SS had complete control over the German Police, with many police member serving as dual SS members.

Heinrich Müller became Gestapo Chief, Arthur Nebe, chief of the Criminal Police ( Kripo ), and the two branches of SD were commanded by various SS officers such as Otto Ohlendorf and Walter Schellenberg.

** Wilhelm Rediess, SS and Police Leader of Nazi-occupied Norway ( suicide ) ( b. 1900 )

SD-SiPo led battalions were typically placed under the command of the SS and Police Leaders, reporting directly to the RSHA in Berlin.

All SD offices answered to a local commander known as the Inspektor des Sicherheitspolizei und SD who, in turn, was under the dual command of the RSHA and local SS and Police Leaders.

It was carried out by Sonderkommando 4a soldiers, along with the aid of the SD and SS Police Battalions.

On September 26 Maj. Gen. Kurt Eberhard, the military governor, and SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, the SS and Police Leader at Rear Headquarters Army Group South, made the decision to exterminate the Jews of Kiev, claiming that it was in retaliation for guerrilla attacks against German troops.

Category: SS and Police Leaders

Category: SS and Police Leaders

Category: SS and Police Leaders

Category: SS and Police Leaders

Category: SS and Police Leaders

Category: SS and Police Leaders

Heydrich acted under orders from Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler who supplied security forces on an " as needed " basis to the local SS and Police Leaders.

Many SS and Police Leaders who had overseen activities in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union simply disappeared, were executed for war crimes, or committed suicide prior to their capture.

The RSHA also supplied security forces on an " as needed " basis to local SS and Police Leaders.

Category: SS and Police Leaders

SS-Obergruppenführer was also the standard rank for SS and Police Leaders as well as corps commanders of the Waffen-SS.

Early in 1939, Odilo Globocnik, the Gauleiter of Vienna, established SS headquarters for all of Poland.

The SS-Totenkopfverbände ( SS-TV ) was the SS organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps for the Third Reich.

In 1957 Harry Trask was a young staff photographer at the Traveler when he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his photo sequence of the sinking of the SS Andrea Doria in July 1956.

Although the Bizerte ( Type PR 48 large patrol craft ) class L ' Audacieux is fitted for SS 12M missiles these are not embarked and its operational status is in some doubt, having not been reported at sea since 1995.

* SS Columbus ( 1924 ), a transatlantic ocean liner for the North German Lloyd steamship line

On 17 February 1875 the SS Gothenburg left Darwin en route for Adelaide.

He is also responsible for three other extant works: a collection of letters, On the Translations and the Miracles of SS.

As early as September 1942, Dr. Johann Paul Kremer, M. D., an SS physician, witnessed a gassing of prisoners, and in his diary wrote: " They don't call Auschwitz the camp of annihilation Lager der Vernichtung for nothing!

He visited Rome with his parents for the first time in 1933, the year of the maiden voyage of the transatlantic ocean liner SS Rex ( which makes an appearance in Amarcord ).

During 1942, Dr. Joseph Goebbels authorized relocation of SS Cap Arcona to Gotenhafen Harbour as a stand-in for RMS Titanic during filming of the German produced movie TITANIC directed by Herbert Selpin.

The Gestapo maintained police detective ranks which were used for all officers, both those who were and who were not concurrently SS members.

The SS, initially part of the much larger SA, was formed in 1923 for Hitler's personal protection, and was re-formed in 1925 as an elite unit of the SA.

Applicants were vetted for Nordic qualities — in Himmler's words, " like a nursery gardener trying to reproduce a good old strain which has been adulterated and debased ; we started from the principles of plant selection and then proceeded quite unashamedly to weed out the men whom we did not think we could use for the build-up of the SS.

SS men were carefully vetted for their racial background and were required to get racial certificates of any prospective spouses.

He told Heydrich that he was concerned for the mental health of the SS men.

By November 1944 Himmler had merged the army officer recruitment department with that of the Waffen-SS and had successfully lobbied for an increase in the quotas for recruits to the SS.

The Totenkopf ( death's head ) symbol, used by German military units for hundreds of years, had been chosen for the SS by Schreck.

As second in command of the SS and then Reichsführer-SS, Himmler was in regular contact with Hitler to arrange for SS men as bodyguards ; Himmler was not involved with Nazi Party policy-making decisions in the years leading up to the seizure of power.

Margarete saw it as her duty to invite the wives of the senior SS leaders over for afternoon coffee and tea on Wednesday afternoons.

Albert Speer notes that though Himmler seemed pedantic and insignificant on the surface, he was a good decision maker, had a talent for selecting highly competent staff, and successfully inserted the SS into every aspect of daily life.