The Allgemeine-SS

The most notorious for the heinous deeds were the Schutzstaffel, or the SS. This paramilitary branch of Nazis, who were highly regarded by Hitler, treated the Jewish race with no respect for their own livelihood, or had any sympathy for what they were going through. As Elie describes his time in the concentration camp of Auschwitz, he mentions one of the SS officers who came into their barracks, “...with crime inscribed upon his brow and in the pupils of his eyes. He looked us over as if we were a pack of leprous dogs hanging onto our lives.” (Wiesel 47). This excerpt from the novel displays the sincere hatred he had for the malnourished and weak Jews who stood before him. These special soldiers slaughtered Jews by the thousands, without making any sort of attempt to stop what was occurring. The SS had one goal during World War II, and that was to exterminate the Jewish race from the Earth. At any moment, someone could be killed, no matter the reason. The Germans didn't care, all they wanted was the Jews

Finally, there were Army leaders to be dealt with. They were to be taken into consideration for the army was one of the potential groups who was powerful enough to over through Hitler. These, however, were at the moment quite pleased with Hitler’s actions so far, for they shared conservative, antidemocratic and authoritarian views; but still a matter for their concern and distrust was the SA, a paramilitary army run by the Nazi Party which had a bad reputation for being badly disciplined, and particularly their leader being a heavy drinker, openly homosexual who was in charge of an army over 4 million men, and who was presumed to intend to make the SA a second German army and, what’s more, he was also believed to have plotted to over trough Hitler. To grant full support by the army leaders, Hitler sent the SS on a mission to kill Röhm and arrest SA leaders on what was known as the Night of the Long Knives. He made it look as if he had sacrificed a personal friend of his own

The Nazis used different methods to control the German population. The SS became the main means of terrorising and intimidating Germans into obedience. The SS had almost unlimited power to arrest and imprison people without trial, search houses or confiscate property. The SS had undercover agents in every town to snoop on political suspects and potential troublemakers. The SS also ran the concentration camps.

The SA was initially formed to provide security in Nazi gatherings and campaign speeches against disruptions and assaults by members of rival parties. Its activities quickly changed to include assaults on the activities of other parties. SA men would attempt to disrupt the gatherings and campaign speeches for rival political parties, particularly left wing. They would also attack leftist marchers when they were demonstrating or attempt to generate a confrontation. At times they invaded party reading rooms and newspaper offices. SA’s terrorist activities were not just limited to secular and political violence; they played an important role in terrorizing and capturing Jews and other groups that did not fit Hitler’s ideology of a racially pure German state.

They would use harsh words, beat, and even kill Jews. These were clear actions of immorality shown by the SS officers. Furthermore, in the memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel states, “An icy wind was blowing violently. But we marched without faltering. The SS made us increase our pace. ‘Faster, you tramps, you flea-ridden dogs!’”(Wiesel 85). This shows the lack of sympathy they had; the SS officers were in high command, allowing them to abuse their power and show nothing but immorality towards Jews. Therefore, possessing great amounts of power had lowered the SS officers’

In the pre-war years, the Nazi Party wanted to find a solution to the “Jewish question” – meaning what to do with them (“Final Solution” Learning). On July 31, 1941, Heydrich submitted the “draft of the measures he proposed to undertake ‘to implement the desired final solution of the Jewish Question’” (“SS”). In the fall of 1941, the Nazi soldiers implemented the plan and began to effectuate it by experimental gassings in the Auschwitz extermination camp and then moving forth to surrounding camps (“Final Solution” Learning). Between then and 1945, the top SS soldiers continued to give the orders to torture, mass shoot, gas (especially in constructed extermination camps), enforce murderous labor, and other means (“Holocaust”). The ideas, which were thought of by Himmler, Eichmann, and Heydrich, are what allowed for this brutality to cause such a large scale genocide. Despite the eleven million

The Nazis weren’t the only people who treated Jews like inferior beings; anybody who has the power can treat anything lower than themselves. “…a present whose abnormality suddenly becomes routine.”(Langer 6). The gypsy considered himself as the superior of the group so he could strike anybody he wants (Wiesel 39). When the gypsy’s life becomes too important for him, he has adopted to the way of the Nazis. As the Allied forces advanced, the Nazis led death marches as their last resort because they had concerns about their own lives. “...life becomes too much for man and death assuming the throne in the human imagination” (Langer 6). S.S made Jews run for hundreds of miles nonstop (Wiesel 85). They, the SS, were frightened that their cruel ways dug up, decided they had to bury the evidence which explained that they could not believe what the inhumane actions they engaged in with other people. People had the potential to manipulate other people in mass numbers but the second they think for themselves, they will find out what is right and what is not.

The SS and Gestapo (secret police) acting under the orders of Himmler, made terror a regular occurrence and a matter of state policy. Any sort of opponents were beaten and regularly thrown

In 1933, when Adolf Hitler rose to power he set out to have world domination and to have the whole world fall under his control. He thought that he would be creating the Third Reich that would last a thousand years. And on September 1, 1939 he invaded Poland and was about to conquer the rest of Europe and have them fall to his feet and he made sure Germans had enough living space and make sure that the entire German race was taken care of. But Hitler couldn 't do it alone, he needed the help of the SS and Gestapo. Which had more power than modern military forces.

Even though war had been declared, Germany was still overthrowing countries. After the army was invade a section of land or a city, a few days after they had left the SS would follow and whipe out the rest of the undesirables within the estate. Mass shootngs would have a deep mental effect of the shoulders killing all these people day after day. Soon it lead to other ways of destroying the jewish and other hated races.

They killed indiscriminately sometimes. Those who fell in the march were immediately shot without an afterthought. They also are given the authority to not only kill and torture for sport but for no reason whatsoever. They kill Elie’s only reason for life, his father, right before the former’s eyes. Elie states, “The officer came closer… The officer wielded his club and dealt him a violent blow to the head” (111). No human being with any sense of morals or intrinsic kindness would kill a man in front of his son. They tortured innocent human beings and disregarded life in every way possible. The SS are also desensitized by propaganda during and before the Holocaust. Constantly hearing about Hitler and how well he is doing doesn't help one to oppose him. In addition, it is nearly impossible to say anything bad about him in the country for fear of being persecuted, thus one could not have done anything even if one had wanted

The SS have complete control over the prisoners. Countless times, the Jews are trained to think that they are less than human. Elie witnesses the brutality of the camps and how replaceable they are when he sees “th[e] children in the flames” (Weisel 24). The Germans have no empathy towards the Jews and make that very clear. Along with the SS emotionally hurting them, they also constantly threaten them with death.

Like hitter the top SS was a group that you volunteered to do, “In either case Himmler found means of enlisting all who volunteered”["The SS Himmler's SchutzStaffel -Www.HolocaustResearchProject.org." The SS Himmler's SchutzStaffel - Www.HolocaustResearchProject.org. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.].The top SS knew everything that was going on with the Holocaust. The officers in the top SS knew about the unfairness and cruelty of the millions of people being murdered every day. They had the freedom to kill who they wanted for the reason they wanted to kill them. They used scare tactics to scare the Jewish people to leave their belongings behind, “The incarceration of around 30,000 German,Austrian, and Sudeten Jews in concentration camps, where hundreds of them died,was intended to accelerate their will to emigrate and reduce their inhibitions about leaving their assets behind.”["SS and the Holocaust." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 20June 2014. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.].The fact that the top SS had the capability to do something so vile and know what they were doing and choose to do it anyway. The top SS also would test and experiment on the Jews, trying to see if they could change their eye color by adding a dye to the eyes, and other experiments that a mostly ended with the victim dying. The top SS has a big responsibility for the holocaust because of the

Germany occupied 16 countries at this time. This made Eichmann one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich. His office was the headquarters for creating all ghettos, transportation , death camps, and killing techniques of the Jews [ (Wistrich) ]. At the beginning of World War II, many SS officials began murdering aristocracy, professionals, clergy, political commissars, suspected saboteurs, Jewish males and anyone deemed a security threat (The History Place). This marked the beginning of the senseless killing of European Jewry.

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning is an insightful book that provides information as to how ordinary people may be susceptible to committing heinous, evil acts. Browning explains this through analyzing judicial interrogations, which occurred in the 1960’s, of about 125 men of the Reserve Police Battalion 101 (Browning, pg. xviii). The Reserve Police Battalion 101 was a unit of the German Order Police formed in Hamburg, Germany, under the control of the SS which was under Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party (Browning, pg. xvi-xvii). They consisted of German police and sheriffs who were middle-aged men of working and lower middle class. The Reserve Police Battalion 101 was formed as the