Many years ago I studied German language and literature, and whilst doing so developed an interest into how the people of this rich culture so willingly accepted the Hitler dictatorship which brought about the virtual destruction of its culture and medieval buildings, which I endeared. It also resulted in loss of land mass to 'foreign' countries. The culture has of course been restored to some extent, but will never again be what it was prior to the 1930's. The SS and police of Nazi Germany were instrumental in bringing about this destruction in that the Nazis were the cause and the Allies' actions were the effect!
The biographical information on individual members of the SS and their relationship with the various elements of the SS Organisation is given where it is known. This information has been collected over the years from a number of books and articles written by various authors. Often this information will be seen to conflict with the facts, according to the bios of the writer. Personally, I make no distinction between the various branches of the SS. To me they were the same fingers on the one hand!
Unfortunately, a lot of files were destroyed by the SS themselves just before the end of the war. Other files were destroyed during Allied bombing raids. Still more were stolen by Allied soldiers, some of which have surfaced at various periods since WWII. Some were classified "top secret" by the US and British Authorities "not to be released for 50 years"!
The SS Organisation was very keen to include every last detail about their membership. It gathered such details as dental fillings, the professions, occupations and trades of grandparents, member's characteristic habits etc., all gathered without their knowledge from relatives, friends and informers. Much information was gathered from Heydrich's SD reports, medical & psychological reports, and a myriad of other documents.
From these documents one can read a lot about their SS & NSDAP membership, even more than their own families knew about them!!
Those SS files which survived the bombings etc., are stored in the BDC (Berlin Document Centre), which is located at the end of a shady passage in Zellendorf, Berlin. There is information on some three million members. As stated ealier, many are badly damaged from the bombing raids, and some are scorched by fire. Most are crumbling and faded by time. Some are thick and some are thin with not much in them. A members past life in an old dusty manilla folder!!
Most visitors to the BDC are historians and researchers, but if you would like to visit, you are quite welcome-just make a prior arrangement to get authorisation-they won't let you in without your wriiten authorisation!!
The BDC SS Files T 175 material. "Personnel of the SS Officer Corps-Reichführer-SS, Personal-Kanzlei, Dienstalterliste der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP-Berlin 1936 & later editions.
Prior to WWII, the SS was known as the "Allgemeine-SS", or General SS. From this was formed two separate groups known as the "SS-Verfungungstruppen" (SS-VT), or Special Disposal Troops, and the "SS-Totenkopfverbande", (SS-TV), known as Death's Head Troops.
In the early days, the SS-VT supplied the personal bodyguard (Begleits Kommando) for Hitler and other Nazi leaders. The SS-TV supplied the guards for the Konzentrationslagern (KZ), Concentration Camps.
By late 1939, both the SS-VT & the SS-TV had been merged into one body- the Waffen-SS, (Armed SS).
Until 1939, there were still very many "General" SS members, including those who had so-called "honorary" ranks like diplomats etc., (Ribbontropp was a good example). Prior to the outbreak of WWII in September 1939, these honorary" ranks did not carry any powers of command, but once war had started, the situation changed, because the "General" SS was disolved.
All SS were then "Waffen-SS", and all had powers of command. This power increased as the war dragged on, and after the July 20th 1944 attempt on Hitler's life, these powers were strengthened to overide equivalent Wehrmacht ranks! Hitherto, SS ranks had equated to Wehrmacht and Police ranks in most cases, E.g., an SS Brigadeführer und General-Major der Deutchen Polizei (General-Major of Police was equivalent to General-Major of the Wehrmacht or British Brigadier-General).
All ranks I have shown for the biographies of the members that I have listed, are the last known substantive or acting ranks as at the end of WWII.
Most of these are of Officer rank, but some NCO's have been included where they had "stood out from the rest".Also included are some female KZ staff. Females could not be members of the SS, although they could, and nearly all were, members of the NSDAP or one of its affiliate branches. They were classified as being "KZ Dienst", (in the Concentration Camp Service of the SS)!
NOTE:Most of the 'names' files are in .wri or .doc format. When you click on a letter you will be asked 'Do you want to open or save'? Click 'open'. It is quite safe to do so! You will need Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003 to open old format .wri documents (I wrote these in 1989-1992 with MS DOS 5 and Win 3.1), It can be downloaded free from Microsoft. I will convert these files to .htm in due course, but it will take time-please be patient!.
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Ian Dixon. March 1998.
Update Sept. 2004- Ref:Microsoft Word Viewer 2003 added.