SS skull bandages

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The collar tab with the skull - the symbol of the skull associations
Concentration Camp Inmates During Forced Labor in Dachau Concentration Camp (July 20, 1938)
SS-Scharführer with a skull on the right collar tab

The SS-Totenkopfverband was responsible for guarding the concentration camps (KZ) and in this function during the National Socialist era a central executive institution of the NSDAP for the suppression and elimination of political opponents, exploitation through forced labor , medical experiments and the internment of prisoners of war .

In the extermination camps in occupied Poland and Belarus , as part of the so-called “ Aktion Reinhardt ” , the SS-Totenkopfverband were specifically responsible for the mass murder of Jews from all over Europe and other groups of people persecuted by the National Socialists .

Initially, the Dachau concentration camp played an important role as a training center under commandant Theodor Eicke . The SS personnel were housed in an SS barracks located on the premises of the Dachau training camp. On December 10, 1934, the Concentration Camp Inspectorate (ICL) was formed; As an agency of the Gestapo , it became a state institution that became the headquarters of all concentration camp associations. Eicke developed the "Dachau Model" in a short time: It can be described "as an attempt to systematize and centralize terrorism". The early concentration camps were very different from region to region, characterized by a great deal of improvisation, and the public was at least partially informed about the conditions in the camps through press reports. In October 1933, Eicke issued the “ Disciplinary and Penal Code for the Prison Camp ” and a service regulation for guards . They were guaranteed impunity if they shot an inmate trying to escape. By strictly preventing escapes, Eicke sealed off the camp from the outside against both the judiciary and the public.

Between 1935 and 1937, Eicke reorganized the concentration camps under the control of the ICL on behalf of Heinrich Himmler . All existing smaller camps were closed. The only exception was the Dachau concentration camp, which was expanded considerably in the summer of 1937. Instead of the disbanded camps housed in existing buildings, two large new buildings were built, to which the barracks of the SS guard units were attached. The Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Oranienburg was opened in the summer of 1936 . The Buchenwald concentration camp was established near Weimar in the summer of 1937 . With Dachau, Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald there were three large camps for a total of 15,000 to 20,000 prisoners at the end of 1937.

From 1937 Eicke concentrated on his function as leader of the SS-Totenkopfverband, Richard Glücks gradually took over his duties in the ICL . The SS-Totenkopfverbände were reorganized into Totenkopf-Guard tower banners and SS-Totenkopf standards. The Totenkopf Standards VI - XVI (including their reserve units) were officially called "Reinforced SS Totenkopf Standards (Police Reserve)". In 1940 the existing SS skull and crossbones standards were dissolved and transferred as regular SS standards to the Waffen SS , where they were given the SS insignia customary in the Waffen SS as front units. The collar tab with the skull was reserved exclusively for the units of the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf , which was formed from the Totenkopf units, as well as the Totenkopf guard arms used in the concentration camps.

Concentration camp guard and auxiliary police

Establishment of the SS-Sturmbann "Dachau" and assignment to SS-Sonderkommando 1

The later death's head associations emerged from the “SS Sonderkommandos” or, after their reorganization, from the “ political readiness ” and were merged there into so-called “SS guard associations” and later into “SS death's head guard storms”. As barracked units, they were armed from the start and were subordinate to the then SS-Gruppenführer Theodor Eicke . The first official SS guard, the Sturmbann "Dachau", was set up on March 17, 1933 in the Dachau concentration camp by the then SS-Sturmbannführer Hilmar Wäckerle , who ran this camp until his release on June 26, 1933. Wäckerle joined the SS storm "Dachau" as an SS candidate in 1929 , which was disbanded in 1933/34 and converted with parts of the 1st and 34th SS standards to "SS-Sonderkommando 1" of the SS brigade "Süd". The leader of this SS-Sonderkommando was Theodor Eicke, who was promoted to SS-Brigadführer on January 30, 1934 and at the same time transferred to the position of "SS-Brigadführer Süd". As such, all SS units of the regional SS sections were subordinate to him. Wäckerle moved in 1934 as regiment commander to the 2nd SS standard "Germany" and in 1938 to the newly established SS standard "Der Führer" and took over the management of the III. Sturmbannes. During the war, Wäckerle was a regiment commander of the 2nd SS division "Das Reich" (Regiment "Westland") and held the rank of standard leader until his death.

Role of the storm "Dachau" in the "Röhmputsch"

On June 30, 1934, the storm man "Dachau" actively participated in the murder of the entire SA leadership around Ernst Röhm . Eicke and Michael Lippert shot Röhm on July 1st in his cell in Stadelheim , although it is uncertain today which of the two fired the first shot. Immediately after the so-called " Röhm Putsch ", Eicke was appointed " Inspector of the Concentration Camps ". Thus he was formally the highest “employer” of all “SS guards” and only subordinated to Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler . Since August 1934, the Dachau Guard Association has shared the “honor guard” at the Munich Feldherrnhalle with the SA standard “Feldherrnhalle” . Every day they were there for a few hours and had to be greeted by passers-by (see also “ Drückebergergasserl ”).

Reorganization into the SS guard association "Upper Bavaria" and formation of Germany-wide concentration camp guard associations

On November 29, 1934, the storm spell “Dachau” was officially renamed the SS Guard Association “Upper Bavaria” and was subject to Himmler's exclusive disposal. The Dachau concentration camp was thus withdrawn from the area of ​​responsibility of the SS-Oberabschnittführer "Süd". The external guarding of the camp was now taken over by an equestrian standard of the General SS , whose planned cavalry section - this was where the Dachau concentration camp was located - was also withdrawn from the access of the head section leader. The 15th standard of the Reiter-SS under Hermann Fegelein was now responsible for the external guarding of the camp and wore the uniform of the SS guards . At the same time, all of the concentration camp guards of the General SS and Political Readiness were separated from their parent organizations and Theodor Eicke was assigned as SS special storm bans. As early as December 14, 1934, he reorganized the special storm bans into regular SS guard units and assigned them to a concentration camp. In this way, six guards were created, which were distributed throughout Germany.

In 1935, general conscription was reintroduced in the Reich . Because of its military nature, service in the SS available troops was recognized by the Wehrmacht leadership as completing military service, but service in the SS guard units, which had a police-like character, was not. The guards were now subordinate to the newly created " Command Office of the SS Guards " in Berlin on the one hand and the " Inspection of the Concentration Camps and the Reinforced Skull Standards " in Oranienburg on the other.

Within a few months, Eicke streamlined the organization of the large number of concentration camps that had previously been set up by the SA and SS. He concentrated them on seven larger camps and restructured the guard units into five storm bans , which were organized parallel to the camps: I. "Upper Bavaria" , II. "Elbe" , III. "Saxony" , IV. "Ostfriesland" and V. "Thuringia" .

The guard associations made their first public appearance during the Nazi party rallies in September of the same year. A short time later, by order of Hitler, the budget for the troops was taken over by the Reich budget with effect from April 1, 1936. This was combined with an increase in troops from 1,800 to a total of 3,500 men.

Creation of the skull associations and the SS skull standards

All SS camp guards are grouped together to form skull bandages

On June 1, 1936, all SS guard units of the Third Reich were reorganized into the "SS-Totenkopfverbände", which since autumn of the same year had a skull symbol on their right collar tab. This made the skull and crossbones appear outwardly as a special unit of the SS.

Origin of the skull standards

On 1 July 1937 took Eicke the five skull battalions of the concentration camps to three of the general SS distinct and independent SS Death's Head regiments ( "Upper Bavaria", "Brandenburg" and "Thuringia") along which the now also three main camps Dachau , Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald were assigned. After the " Anschluss of Austria " (March 1938) a fourth skull standard was set up in Mauthausen , which was named "Ostmark".

With the Fuehrer's Decree of August 17, 1938, the skull associations, which had previously covered their personnel needs from Wehrmacht reservists , were allowed to recruit volunteers before they were discharged from the Wehrmacht. Their service time in the army was counted towards their total service time in the skull and crossbones associations.

The Totenkopfverband now took over the military training of active members of the General SS . The reserve standards and main units of the General SS (older, no longer active members of the SS over 45 years of age) received military training from them. The training took place in one of the SS training camps attached to the Dachau , Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen concentration camps and was directed by former officers of the imperial army . These professional officers, however, regularly clashed with Theodor Eicke, who, as is well known, strictly rejected the old “professional military” and their training methods. Eicke 1937 in an "SS order for the death's head associations" on their legal status:

“We belong neither to the army nor to the police, nor to the available force. (...) The units of the SS-Totenkopfverband are consciously counted as part of the General SS and can therefore not be led by officers or NCOs. From now on I will begin to transfer SS leaders who behave like officers, Unterführer who only behave like NCOs, SS men who only behave like musketeers, into the General SS. "

- Theodor Eicke, 1937; quoted from Heinz Höhne : "The Order under the Skull", p. 423

Expansion of the death's head associations through the incorporation of Danzig SS associations and integration into the Waffen SS

With the later Waffen-SS , the SS-Totenkopfverband had in common the descent from the Political Readiness, but they differed from these mainly in their tasks. In contrast to the other armed units of the SS, from which the Waffen-SS emerged, the skull and crossbones were not initially a fighting force, but were expressly intended by Hitler for "police services" or for "auxiliary police activities".

Location of the skull associations at the outbreak of war

In November 1939, the skull associations comprised four foot standards and one equestrian standard . The foot standards comprised about 9,000 men. They were mainly used for the concentration camp guard service and occasionally also in the road service. A decree of May 18, 1939 stipulated that in the event of mobilization, the Totenkopfverband would have to provide compensation for the absence of relatives in the SS army. This not only made the available troops, but also the skull and crossbones, a military instrument of the SS beyond their police duties. At the beginning of the war, an expansion phase began, during which the armed SS's staffing levels had tripled by the end of 1939 compared to the previous year. Because the OKW's recruitment quota for the plans of the Reichsführung SS to expand the Waffen-SS was too low, the skull standards, which were beyond the control of the army, were first brought to maximum strength. At the end of 1940 there were already 15 skull standards, including 2 equestrian standards, a total of 34,325 men.

Incorporation of the “Eimann” guard and the Danzig Home Guard

On June 3, 1939, SS Brigadefuhrer Johannes Schäfer set up the notorious "Eimann" guard in Danzig , which was officially formed as a reinforced SS police reserve for special tasks . This was subordinate to the commander of the SS standard "D" ("D" for Danzig, the 36th standard of the General SS ) Kurt Eimann and in Berlin Heinrich Himmler had SS-Obersturmbannführer Hans-Friedemann Goetze the III. Set up the Sturmbann of the Totenkopfstandard IV (Totenkopfstandard "Ostmark"). Hidden on ships like the Schleswig-Holstein, this storm spell came to Danzig, more precisely to the Westerplatte . There Goetze succeeded in uniting with the guard guard "Eimann". On August 18, 1939, the SS Heimwehr Danzig was formally set up on Gdansk territory . After September 1, the Heimwehr was able to bring the Westerplatte under its control and, in agreement with the Supreme Wehrmacht leadership and the SS Reich leadership, was used for coastal protection. At the same time, they also operated the Stutthof concentration camp near Danzig . Among other things, the members of this unit shot 3,400 disabled people in the Piasnitz forest from September 1939 to December 1939.

The Heimwehr was disbanded in September 1939, and its members were actively taken over and incorporated into Theodor Eicke's death's head division.

Task force during the attack on Poland and formation of the "Totenkopf" division

Members of a task force in Poland (September 1939)

The skull standards "Upper Bavaria", "Thuringia" and "Brandenburg", which were under Eicke's command, were used in the rear of the 10th and 8th Army during the attack on Poland in 1939 . As SS task forces independent of the army , they carried out “pacification”, “cleansing” and “security measures” and thus became the first to implement a systematic extermination policy.

In October 1939, the units of the SS disposal troops were used to set up the VT division. At the same time, Eicke grouped Totenkopf standards to form the SS Totenkopf Division , which later committed numerous war crimes . A special feature of the SS “Totenkopf” division was that Eicke viewed the concentration camp guards as “personal” reserve personnel. SS leaders and crews were regularly removed from active concentration camp service and sent to the fighting units, such as Richard Baer , who was sent to the front and wounded in the Demyansk pocket. Like most of the others, Baer returned to the concentration camp service after recovery and was assigned to a higher post there. As a rule, for members of the concentration camp guards, a return to active and administrative concentration camp service also meant a promotion. Others decided to return to the front lines after their recovery.

Organizational integration of the death's head associations into the Waffen SS

In the occupied territories, the higher SS leaders of the Totenkopf associations made up the majority of the "Higher SS and Police Leaders ", while the teams and subordinates of the Totenkopf associations were deployed as "police forces" there. On April 22, 1940, the daily order No. 1481 was issued by the SS Leadership Main Office to all departments of the available troops: “On the orders of the RfSS, all SS units under arms are united in the Waffen-SS. (...) The designations 'SS disposal troops' and 'SS-Totenkopfverbände' are no longer to be used. ”With this order, the Totenkopfverbände were finally incorporated into the Waffen-SS.

On February 25, 1941, all of the skull and crossbones standards of the skull associations were organizationally assigned to the Waffen SS . Within this, the former Totenkopf standards formed SS infantry regiments . At the same time, the Totenkopf equestrian standard became an SS cavalry regiment . As such, their relatives wore the usual SS runes instead of a skull on the right collar tab of their field uniform. Only the three regiments of the 3rd SS Panzer Division were allowed to continue the concept of the SS skull standard as a "traditional concept", as these were derived from the first three skull standards "Upper Bavaria", "Brandenburg" and "Thuringia". This gave the members of the SS Totenkopf Division pay books and current Waffen-SS uniforms, while their "SS watch tower", ie the guards of the concentration camp, continued to be subordinate to the SS headquarters. Only they, the SS “Totenkopf” division and the guards from the concentration camps , were still allowed to use the collar tab with the skull as a “traditional badge”. The only difference between the uniforms of the soldiers of the division and members of the guard units was the sleeve stripe with the words “Totenkopf”, as this was reserved for members of the SS division.

In 1942, the former independent command offices of the “disposal troops” and “guard units” were merged to form the new “command office of the Waffen SS”. At the same time, the last (reinforced) police reserves of the SS Police Division were dissolved and officially transferred to the Waffen SS.

The regular staff of the Totenkopfverband provided numerous cadres of later Waffen SS units: The 6th SS Mountain Division "North" and 8th SS Cavalry Division "Florian Geyer" are examples. The latter emerged from the SS equestrian standard "Totenkopf", ie from parts of the equestrian SS . Its commander was the then SS Brigadefuhrer Hermann Fegelein , who married Gretel Braun, Eva Braun's sister, in 1944 .

Foreign volunteers in the death's head associations and their deployment as security guards

Trawniki ("Askari") 1943 as auxiliary troops in the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, illustration in the "Stroop Report"

After the occupation of Denmark (1940), the Waffen-SS recruited Danish nationals to join the Waffen-SS. However, while ethnic Danes were assigned to the SS Panzer Division Wiking along with the related Norwegians, the Danish ethnic Germans were generally assigned to the SS Totenkopf Division.

The Waffen-SS recruited numerous members of so-called “inferior foreign peoples” to serve in the concentration camps in Eastern Europe. These were used as security guards within the framework of the death's head associations. These so-called “Trawniki men”, also known as “ Askaris ”, were Ukrainians, Balts and Poles who were trained by the SS in the Trawniki forced labor camp to perform guard duties in concentration and extermination camps. A battalion of the Trawniki men became notorious for its cruelty in the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising .

List of SS skull standards

The SS-Totenkopf standards (status: 1941)
SS skull standard Main camp / founding seat
I "Upper Bavaria" Dachau
II "Brandenburg" Sachsenhausen
III "Thuringia" Weimar-Buchenwald
IV "Ostmark" Mauthausen
V "Dietrich Eckhardt" Oranienburg
VI Prague
VII Brno
VIII Krakow
IX Danzig
X Weimar-Buchenwald
XI Radome
XII Poses
XIII Vienna
XIV Weimar-Buchenwald
XV Plock
XVI Dachau
"Kirkenes" Kirkenes
"Upper Bavaria" (reserve) Dachau

Known members of the skull associations

See also

literature

  • Dermot Bradley, Markus Rövekamp (ed.): Germany's generals and admirals. Volume 5: Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The generals of the Waffen SS and the police. Volume 3: Lammerding - Plesch. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 2008, ISBN 3-7648-2375-5 .
  • Bernd Wegner : Hitler's Political Soldiers. The Waffen-SS 1933–1945. Concept, structure and function of a National Socialist elite. 5th edition. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 1997, ISBN 3-506-77502-2 ( Schöningh collection on past and present ). (At the same time: Hamburg, University, dissertation, 1980 under the title: The Führer Corps of the armed SS 1933–1945. )
  • Mark C. Yerger : Allgemeine SS. The Commands, Units and Leaders of the General SS. Schiffer, Atglen PA 1997, ISBN 0-7643-0145-4 ( Schiffer Military History ).

References and comments

  1. ↑ Hilde Kammer, Elisabet Bartsch: Youth Lexicon National Socialism. Terms from the period of tyranny 1933–1945 , entry “SS-Totenkopfverbände”, pp. 206–208.
  2. ↑ the quotation from: Orth, System , p. 28. On the details of the “Dachau Model”, ibid., P. 28 ff., P. 40; Tuchel, Concentration Camp , pp. 143–150.
  3. ↑ Tuchel, Concentration Camp , pp. 315–342.
  4. ^ Robin Lumsden : The Allgemeine-SS , Ian Allan Publishing 1991, ISBN 1-85532-358-3 , p. 17.
  5. ↑ Hans Buchheim: The SS - the instrument of rule, command and obedience. Munich 1967, p. 164.
  6. ↑ Common designation in militaria registers: SS-T -... plus size, i.e. -Bandarte, -Standarte etc., also in one word, e.g. B. "Totenkopfverband" etc., as an abbreviation SS-TV u. Ä.
  7. ↑ Bernd Wegner : Hitler's Political Soldiers. The Waffen-SS 1933–1945. Concept, structure and function of a National Socialist elite. 5th edition. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 1997, ISBN 3-506-77502-2 ( Schöningh collection on past and present ). (At the same time: Hamburg, University, dissertation, 1980 under the title: The Führer Corps of the armed SS 1933–1945. ), P. 273 ff.
  8. ↑ Bernd Wegner : Hitler's Political Soldiers. The Waffen-SS 1933–1945. Concept, structure and function of a National Socialist elite. 5th edition. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 1997, ISBN 3-506-77502-2 ( Schöningh collection on past and present ). (At the same time: Hamburg, University, dissertation, 1980 under the title: The Führer Corps of the armed SS 1933–1945. ), P. 126.
  9. ^ Federal Archives (ed.): Europe under the swastika: The occupation policy of German fascism (1938–1945); Heidelberg 1996; Vol. 8, p. 159, ISBN 3-326-00411-7 .
  10. ↑ Note: The skull standards from number 6 onwards were also officially referred to as "Reinforced SS skull standards" or "SS police reserve".