The double-Sig Rune SS insignia.The Schutzstaffel (German for "Protective Squadron"), abbreviated (Runic) or SS (Latin), was a large security and military organization of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) in Germany. The SS was established in the 1920s as a personal guard unit for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler between 1929 and 1945, the SS grew from a small paramilitary formation to become one of the largest and most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. The Nazis regarded the SS as an elite unit, the party's "Praetorian Guard," with all SS personnel selected on the principles of racial purity and unconditional loyalty to the Nazi Party. In contrast to the black-uniformed Allgemeine-SS, the political wing of the SS, the military wing, the Waffen-SS evolved into a second German army within the Wehrmacht, operating in tandem with the regular German army, the Heer. The Waffen-SS compiled a record of fierce fighting, but also for notorious brutality against civilians and prisoners of war. Its units helped wipe out resistance by Polish Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and slaughtered a number of U.S. prisoners of war near the Belgian town of Malmedy during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. Nazism Nazi organizations Nazi Party Sturmabteilung Schutzstaffel Hitler Youth Lebensborn Nazism in history Early Nazi Timeline Hitler's rise to power Nazi Germany Night of the Long Knives Nuremberg Rallies Kristallnacht The Holocaust Nuremberg Trials Ex-Nazis and Neo-Nazism Nazi concepts Glossary of the Third Reich Hitler's political beliefs National Socialist Program Gleichschaltung Racial policy of Nazi Germany Führerprinzip Lebensraum Positive Christianity Volk Nazi political parties and movements outside Germany Canadian National Socialist Unity Party German-American Bund Nasjonal Samling Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging National Socialist Bloc National Socialist League Nazi Eugenics Nazi eugenics Aryan race Doctors' Trial German Blood Certificate Lebensborn Life unworthy of life Mischling Nazi physicians Nazi human experimentation Nazism and race Nordic theory Nuremberg Trials Racial policy of Nazi Germany Racial purity Reich Citizenship Law Scientific racism T-4 Euthanasia Program Related subjects Nazism and religion Nazi propaganda Nazi mysticism Nazi architecture Hitler salute Mein Kampf Swastika Völkisch movement Antisemitism Führer Neo-Nazism Fascism Lists Nazi Party leaders and officials Fascists Adolf Hitler books Adolf Hitler speeches SS personnel Living Nazis Former Nazis influential after 1945 Politics Portal v • d • e The SS was distinguished from the German military, Nazi party, and German state officials by its own SS rank structure, SS unit insignia, and SS uniforms. As the Nazi party monopolized the political power in Germany, key government functions such as law enforcement were simply absorbed into the SS, while many SS organizations became the de facto government agencies. To maintain the political power of the Nazi party, the SS was given authority to establish and run the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the security and intelligence service, and the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo), the secret police, effectively putting the SS above the law. Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS, was one of the chief architects of the Final Solution. The SS Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) murdered civilians, mostly Jews, in the countries occupied by Germany during World War II. The SS was responsible for establishing and operating concentration camps and extermination camps in which millions of inmates died of inhumane treatment, overwork, malnutrition, systematic mass gassing, or medical experiments. After the war, the judges of the Nuremberg Trials declared the SS a criminal organization responsible for the implementation of racial policies of genocide and committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The SS was established in the 1920s as a personal guard unit for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler between 1929 and 1945, the SS grew from a small paramilitary formation to become one of the largest and most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. The Nazis regarded the SS as an elite unit, the party's "Praetorian Guard," with all SS personnel selected on the principles of racial purity and unconditional loyalty to the Nazi Party. # http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS The SS grew out of the Nazi party and originally had primarily party and police functions, though it expanded to include a massive fighting arm (Waffen SS) which technically fought under the control of the Wehrmacht. # http://motlc.learningcenter.wiesenthal.org/pages/t073/t07343.html