Schutzstaffel

Schutzstaffel 

The Schutzstaffel was a small detachment was formed in 1925 to provide security for Hitler. Beginning in 1929, under the tutelage of Heinrich Himmler, the SS was enlarged and became an independent entity (1944-07) within the Nazi Party. In 1934, it effectively eliminated its rival, the SA, during the Night of the Long Knives. The SS was composed of the Gestapo, Kriminalpolizei, Waffen-SS,and Totenkopfverbaende. All police agencies were brought under the control of the SS in 1936. The Nuremberg Tribunal declared the SS to be a criminal organization for the ‘persecution and extermination of Jews’, brutality and murder of inmates in concentration camps, excesses in their administration of occupied territories, exploitation of slave labor, and mistreatment of POWs.