by J. Lee Ready
In the early morning darkness of June 30 Hitler, escorted by members of his bodyguard [SS LAH] and some of Eicke’s SS Totenkopfverbaende, drove in a vehicle convoy to the Hanselbauer holiday lodge at Bad Wiessee. There before dawn the black uniformed SS men charged into the hotel rooms with guns and arrested Ernst Roehm, Edmund Heines and several other high-ranking SA generals, most of whom were caught in bed with other men.
At this very same moment members of the Allgemeine SS, the SD and the various state political police departments began to arrest local SA leaders all over the nation. For good measure they also arrested Nazis who were known or suspected to be against Hitler or against Goering or against Himmler. Some SS officers took the opportunity to arrest personal enemies. One party murdered ex-Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and his wife in their home. Reinhard Heydrich personally shot Gregor Strasser, Himmler‘s old boss. Gruppenfuehrer Udo von Woyrsch and the staff of his Higher Region Southeast [of the Allgemeine SS] were particularly virulent in their arrests. Theodore Eicke asked Ernst Roehm to commit suicide, but he refused, so Eicke ordered his aide to shoot him. Many SA leaders were shot by Gruppenfuehrer Walter Buch’s execution squad at Stadelheim Prison in Munich. Buch, perhaps a bit clairvoyant, had recently transferred to the SS from the SA.
Brigadefuehrer von dem Bach Zelewski sent an assassination squad chosen from his Higher Region Northeast [of the Allgemeine SS] to kill Anton the Baron of Hohberg and Buchwald, who was a fellow SS officer and a rival for Himmler’s affections.
Thus another lie was exposed, the one about there being a spiritual brotherhood amongst SS men.
In all perhaps two hundred people were murdered within a couple of days during the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ as it has become known and thousands were arrested and taken to concentration camps. Many an SA stormtrooper that had guarded a concentration camp now found himself sharing a hut with the prisoners. Standartenfuehrer Sepp Dietrich, commander of the SS LAH, was loyal to Hitler, and he expected his troops to obey unquestioningly. After all these orders came from the chancellor himself, the legal head of the government. In other words the government said these men had to die, so die they would. This was really no different than prison guards in the USA or Britain during this period of history that performed executions of inmates according to their laws. In both countries traitors were executed, as were foreign spies. In the USA some types of robbery warranted the death penalty.
These SS LAH members, men such as Scharfuehrer Karl Kreutz and Rottenfuehrer Juergen Peiper were not lawyers and for all they knew the killings were perfectly legal. Whether or not they were moral is a matter of personal conscience.
Either way the German people applauded the move. They saw Hitler getting rid of the lowest life forms in the Nazi hierarchy. The German Army also supported the move.
On 20 July 1934, in payment for their loyalty during the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler granted independence to Himmler’s SS. At last Himmler was free of the SA. Though still subject to the government and the party, Himmler was nonetheless ecstatic. To celebrate he promoted several people. Heydrich reached the exalted rank of gruppenfuehrer [equivalent to army generalleutnant].
The SA remained in being and would now be led by Viktor Lutze, but its ranks were combed for those who had shown a lack-luster performance or doubtful political loyalty, and any that failed the test were dismissed. Naturally many of the ex-Communists were fired. Seeing which way the wind was blowing many stormtroopers transferred to the SS. The SA soon shrank to a harmless band of ceremonial guards and disgusted old men who cried in their beer for the ‘good old days’. However, the SA Feldjaegerkorps had proven its worth, and Goering confiscated the unit for the Prussian police.
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Himmler could now expand the SS at whim. He increased the size of the various branches: SD, SS KZL, SS RuSHA, SS LAH and Allgemeine SS. The latter contained several sub-departments. For example he created SS-owned businesses including a publishing house to bring in some profits, and to kick start these entrepreneurial enterprises he confiscated businesses, buildings and goods from Jewish owners. He established the Lebensborn maternity homes where an unmarried girl of the best racial characteristics, who did not wish to marry, could mate with an SS member until she bore a child who would be adopted by SS families. This was in keeping with Himmler’s intention to treat all humans like cattle.
Some of Himmler’s SS sub-departments bordered on the bizarre, such as the astrology section, and the team led by Brigadefuehrer Weisthor that studied the esoteric, and there were small detachments of doctors, psychiatrists and quacks that performed medical experiments on concentration camp inmates. The SS archaeology department sent teams all over the world looking for such things as the holy grail, the ark of the covenant and the spear that stabbed Jesus. Whenever the recruiting standards stood in the way of someone Himmler wanted, or one of his cronies wanted, they were invariably waived.
Thus the fact that someone wore the black uniform of the SS gave no indication as to that person’s job, though certain piping colors and emblems were used to differentiate the various departments. [e. g. white for infantry, black for engineers, light blue for finance, orange for military police, green for panzergrenadiers, red for artillery etc.]
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The Austrian Empire had been totally emasculated at the end of the Great War, losing most of its terrain: Sudetenland, Slovakia, Ruthenia, Bohemia and Moravia going to the Czechs; Hungary going to the Hungarians; Trient, Gorizia and the South Tyrol to Italy; Galicia to the Poles; Transylvania to the Romanians; Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia to Serbia. Naturally over the centuries Austrians had moved to the outer limits of their empire, and their descendants now found themselves under the control of these various new nations. The original ethnic Austrian portion of the empire was left intact as the new Republic of Austria, but its armed forces were much reduced, forcing the Austrians to imitate the Germans by creating their own Freikorps 1919-21, in order to aid the army in putting down Communist revolutions and to fend off encroachments by Polish, Czech and Serb soldiers, who tried to grab more land than the treaties gave them. Oddly though, the new republic of Austria did retain a slice of its old empire, namely Carinthia, where most of the population was Slovene-speaking. Hitler felt it was a tremendous injustice for those Austrians left out in the cold, who now had to live as Czech or Romanian or Hungarian or Italian or Polish citizens etc, but he was oblivious to the plight of the Carinthian Slovenes who remained under Austrian rule, because he grew up in Austria as an Austrian, thinking like most Austrians that it was their right to rule others, but not to be ruled. In fact even the tiny province of Carinthia had its Austrian nationalists who wanted to kick out their Slovene neighbors. It is noteworthy that this minority of German-speaking Austrians in Carinthia produced many of the leading Nazis, men such as Franz Kutschera, Hans Albin Rauter, Friedrich Rainer and Peter Feist-Ritzer.
Hitler had been funding a Nazi party inside Austria for years. Indeed if things had not gone his way in Germany in 1933, Austria may well have been the first country to acknowledge Hitler as Fuhrer!
Himmler, not one to miss an opportunity, had created an SS in Austria commanded by Ernst Kaltenbrunner. This man had grown up in the Austrian region known as the South Tyrol, which since 1919 had been under Italian occupation. Kaltenbrunner refused to live under the Italians and moved to Austria proper. This is understandable, especially as these South Tyrolese had fought the Italians for three years during the Great War and were now expected to pay taxes to their conquerors and become reservists in the Italian Army! However, Kaltenbrunner, a lawyer, was often imprisoned by the Austrian government for his Nazi beliefs.
Many of the Austrian Nazis did jail time owing to their extremist ideology, especially if they left the safety of their rural right wing Catholic communities and entered the cutthroat politics of left wing liberal Vienna. Anton Wintersteiger, a veteran of the Great War and professional engineer, was imprisoned four times. Walther Obe
rhaidacher, who like Kaltenbrunner had come from the South Tyrol, was also imprisoned.
This was not lost on Mussolini. Surely Kaltenbrunner and Oberhaidacher would one day ask Hitler to liberate their home from Mussolini’s Italians. What would Hitler’s decision be?
In 1934 the Austrian chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss, a moderate, ordered the Austrian Army to destroy the Communists in his country, which they did in a bloody week-long civil war. If lucky, Communists were only beaten and imprisoned. If not, they were shot down in the street.
The Austrian Nazis praised the crackdown, but feared Dollfuss would attack them next, so they struck first. Their revolt failed, but on 25 July 1934 they did manage to assassinate Dollfuss.
Probably the Austrian Nazis had acted without Hitler’s approval. If he had planned the affair, it would have taken place on a different date, because Dollfuss’ wife and kids were currently on vacation with Mussolini! The Italian dictator was furious. Hitler had claimed he wanted a joint Rome-Berlin alliance [Mussolini called it an axis], but this was not the way for Hitler to seduce Mussolini to his cause.
Therefore, Hitler publicly denounced the revolt and ordered the Austrian Nazis to lay low for a while. Indeed some were called to Germany, as much to keep an eye on them as to rescue them. Hans von Feil transferred to the German SS and became a staff officer at Dachau. Hans Albin Rauter arrived and was told to help run an SA department in Germany giving assistance to his fellow Austrian refugees. Max de Crinis, a veteran of the Austrian Freikorps, joined the SS and SD when he arrived in Germany. One of those in need of aid was Amon Goeth a twenty-six year old SS member and fanatic anti-Semite. Though he fancied himself an intellectual his career in the SS was marred by insubordination. Other refugees from Austria included Walther Oberhaidacher, Robert Knapp, Andreas Bolek, Richard Kaaserer, Josef Fitzhum and August von Meyszner. [see Meyszner above] For some Austrians this was the second time they had been forced to flee their home. At the end of the Great War Bolek’s home near Lemberg [Lwow] had been conquered by the Poles, and Knapp’s home in Budweis had been overrun by the Czechs, and Oberhaidacher’s home in Bozen and Kaaserer’s home in Trieste had been annexed by the Italians. It had been Bolek that had recruited Adolf Eichmann into the SS.
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On 2 August 1934 President von Hindenburg died. Hitler appeared in public in top hat and tails looking suitably solemn for the newsreels, but behind the scenes he was dancing with glee. The only man in Germany who could fire him was dead. Now Hitler announced that he would ask the people if he could be president as well as chancellor.
On 19 August 1934 Hitler received a resounding 90 per cent ‘Yes’ vote from German voters approving his new powers. Of course the results were rigged, but in truth many a German voted for him in the belief that, now that the brutal SA had been decimated, things could only get better.
Based upon this approval rating Hitler demanded an oath of allegiance from all government employees including the police and armed forces to be taken to him personally. Moreover it was a religious oath invoking God. A few refused, and their names were put on the SD’s hit list. The vast majority took the oath. Oaths in Germany at this date in history were sacrosanct. They were as binding as legal contracts and to many they were as sanctified as a church wedding.
In September 1934 Himmler received a major boon to his ego. With a little prodding from Hitler, the German Army reluctantly acknowledged Himmler’s right to set up a military unit of light infantry. Like most boys of his generation Himmler had always wanted to command his own army. He would name them the SS Verfuegungstruppe [special troops], and would divide them into three standarte [regiments]. Sepp Dietrich’s SS LAH was now elevated to the status of one of these standarte, which meant their role in protecting Hitler took a back seat. Of course the fuehrer still required protection - someone was always trying to kill him - so another SS department was created to guard him, the SS RSD - Reichssicherheitsdienst [Reich Security Service] commanded by Gruppenfuehrer Hans Rattenhuber. It would be part of the Allgemeine SS.
The second of the new standarte was named SS Deutschland [Germany] and the third was named SS Germania [Greater Germany]. Both were recruited from existing SS members and also from civilians who were attracted to the idea of soldiering in an elite military unit. Everyone knew it would be elite because Himmler’s publicity department said it would. These soldiers would serve full-time.
To command the SS Verfuegungstruppe Himmler chose Paul Hausser. It was a brilliant move. Hausser had served his whole adult life as an army officer, earning a host of decorations in the Great War, and had seen action in the Polish War that followed while attached to the border police. He retired as a generalleutnant in 1932 aged fifty-two. He was not a Nazi, but supported the German National People’s Party, and its Stahlhelm soon recruited him as a trainer. But in spring 1933 Hitler banned this political party, and Roehm confiscated the Stahlhelm for his SA. Hausser was not happy as an SA stormtrooper, and when Himmler offered him a chance to run the SS officer’s academy with the rank of Standartenfuehrer, he took it. Hausser was an honorable man, at least within the context of the environment of the day, and he preached that officers should lead by example and be chivalrous at all times. He was a thin grandfatherly figure, and the officer cadets called him Papa or Opa.
Now in September 1934 Hausser was given command of the SS Verfuegungstruppe with the rank of brigadefuehrer. Hausser actually set about creating a real army [albeit a small one], and he fully intended to raise a true army of dedicated combat soldiers. To this end he tried as much as possible to distance the SS Verfuegungstruppe from the other departments of the SS – to whit the Gestapo and Heydrich’s nosey SD, and the Allgemeine SS Bereitschaften, who spent their time marching and singing, and Eicke’s wanna-be soldiers of the SS Totenkopfverbaende, and the sadistic inner perimeter camp guards of the KZL.
One of Hausser’s early recruits was Georg Keppler. A Great War veteran, he had since been a policeman, but had joined the army again in 1934, not liking the direction that police work was moving towards since Himmler had taken over. Yet he was now convinced to join the SS Deutschland, because of Hausser’s reputation.
Another recruit was Felix Steiner. A veteran of the Great War and of the Freikorps in the Polish War, he had then rejoined the army, and had recently been a trainer in the SA.
Some other very promising ‘soldiers’ entered the SS Verfuegungstruppe at this time, such as Walter Harzer, who came from an Allgemeine SS Bereitschaften sturmbann [battalion] and who had done a few months army training as a gefreiter. Karl Gesele, who had come from the Bereitschaften. Walter Krueger was from Alsace. Johannes Muehlenkamp was from Lorraine and a famous motorcycle racer. Indeed Muehlenkamp was soon assigned to a motorcycle reconnaissance company. Herbert Gille, a veteran of the Great War, who had joined the Stahlhelm, and had been forced into the SA. Himmler particularly liked the fact that Gille’s profession was farmland inspector.
Because of Hausser’s insistence, Eicke’s SS Totenkopfverbaende of the SS KZL was not placed within the SS Verfuegungstruppe.
Himmler dropped his intention to create an air force owing to his success in creating his own army and owing to his pact with Goering [who also wanted his own air force], thus Hauptsturmfuehrer Willi Bittrich was out of a job, but Himmler offered him the command of an Allgemeine SS sturmbann [battalion] in Hamburg. He accepted.
Thus the SS now had five branches: the SS KZL, the SD, the SS Verfuegungstruppe, the SS RuSHA and the Allgemeine SS.
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The Versailles Treaty did not allow Germany to fully rule its province of the Saar. In January 1935 Hitler demanded that this clause be expunged, and to everyone’s surprise, including his, the British and French agreed. German civil servants took over the administration of the Saar at once, and the citizens of the Saar welcomed their ‘liberation’, not realizing they were leaping from the dessert dish into the frying pan. Himmler installed Willy Schmelcher an SS officer as the local p
olice chief.
However, unknown to the world’s politicians Hitler was the greatest opportunist ever. He seized the initiative following his Saar ‘victory’ and in March 1935 he formally repudiated the Treaty of Versailles and announced that the armed forces of Germany would be expanded into a real army and a real navy and furthermore that Germany would have an air force again, the Luftwaffe. The leaders of the world spared no words to denounce this, but they did not actually do anything but wring their hands and hope for the best. Indeed the British gave approval for Germany to expand its Kriegsmarine [Navy] by fixing it as a percentage of their Royal Navy!
Goering got his wish. He would command the new Luftwaffe. Indeed everyone in Germany cheered the bold move, except Heinrich Himmler. His SS, including the SS Verfuegungstruppe, was still nominally a civilian organization, and the swift expansion of the German armed forces could only be accomplished by a new conscription law, ordering all nineteen-year old males into uniform for a few months active duty. This meant that any boy leaving school that wished to join the SS would have to do his military service first, and before that he would have to perform government labor for six months under the Reichsarbeitsdienst - RAD [Reich Labor Service].
As if this was not bad enough for Himmler, Hitler allowed the armed forces to conscript all men aged twenty to forty-five into the reserves, meaning they were liable to call up if there was a war. Furthermore they would each have to be trained [or retrained in the case of veterans]. Naturally there would be exemptions for those whose civilian job was essential, such as munitions worker or shipbuilder, but could Himmler get by with claiming that everyone in the SS was performing an essential service? He thought they were, but he would have to convince the army generals of this, and the army generals already hated him and everything he stood for. The generals would love to see the SS disbanded, he knew, and one way they could do it would be by calling up every SS member under the age of forty-six into the army on an individual basis. Why even thirty-four year old Himmler himself could be drafted!
