SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV), Rendered in English As: From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV), Rendered in English As: From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV), Rendered in English As: From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
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1 Formation
2 Development
2.1 Invasion of Poland
3 Camp organization
4 Operations
5 SS KZ personnel
6 Combat formations
SS-TV
SS-Totenkopfverbnde
June 1934
Dissolved
8 May 1945
Type
Paramilitary Organisation
Jurisdiction
Nazi Germany
Occupied Europe
Minister
responsible
Heinrich
Himmler1934-1945,
Reichsfhrer-SS
Agency
executives
SS-Obergruppenfhrer
Theodor Eicke (1934-1940),
Commander, SS-TV
SS-Gruppenfhrer Richard
Glcks (1940-1945),
Commander, SS-TV
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7 See also
8 Notes
9 References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-Totenkopfverbnde
Parent agency
Schutzstaffel
After taking national power in 1933, the Nazi state needed a system for incarcerating enemies of the state.
Originally there was only a loose mixture of prisons and camps for detention. The SA ran the detention camps.
However, following the fall of that party branch from power with the purge known as the Night of the Long
Knives (30 June to 2 July 1934), the SS took control of the "fledgling system".[7] On 26 June 1933,
Reichsfhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler appointed SS-Oberfhrer Theodor Eicke the Kommandant of the first Nazi
concentration camp at Dachau.[8] Eicke requested a permanent unit that would be subordinate only to him and
Himmler granted the request; the SS-Wachverband (Guard Unit) was formed.[8] Promoted on 30 January 1934
to SS-Brigadefhrer (equivalent to Major-general in the army), Eicke as commander of Dachau began new
reforms. He reorganized the SS camp, establishing new guarding provisions, which included blind obedience to
orders, and tightening disciplinary and punishment regulations for detainees, which were adopted by all
concentration camps of Nazi Germany on 1 January 1934. Following the Night of the Long Knives, Eicke, who
had played a role in the affair, was again promoted to the rank of SS-Gruppenfhrer and officially appointed
Inspector of Concentration Camps and Commander of SS guard formations. Thereafter, the remaining SA-run
camps were taken over by the SS.[9][10][11] In his role as the Concentration Camps Inspector, Eicke began a
large reorganisation of the camps in 1935. The smaller camps were dismantled. Dachau concentration camp
remained, then personnel from Dachau went on to work at Sachsenhausen and Oranienburg, where Eicke
established his central office.[2]
In 1935 Dachau became the training center for the concentration camps service. Many of the early recruits came
from the ranks of the SA and Allgemeine SS. Senior roles were filled by personnel from the German police
service. On 29 March 1936, concentration camp guards and administration units were officially designated as
the SS-Totenkopfverbnde (SS-TV).[12] In the summer of 1937, Buchenwald became operational, followed by
Ravensbrck (near Lichtenburg) in May 1939. There were other new camps in Austria, such as
Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp which opened in 1938.[2] All SS camps' regulations, both for guards
and prisoners, followed the Dachau camp model.[13]
In 1935, as the concentration camp system within Germany expanded, groups of camps were organized into
Wachsturmbanne (battalions) under the office of the Inspector of Concentration Camps who answered directly
to the SS headquarters office and Heinrich Himmler. When the SS-Totenkopfverbnde was formally established
in March 1936, the group was organized into six Wachtruppen situated at each of Germany's major
concentration camps. In 1937, the Wachsturmbanne were in turn organized into three main
SS-Totenkopfstandarten (regiments).
By 1936, Eicke had also begun to establish military formations of concentration camp personnel which
eventually became the Totenkopf Division and other units of the Waffen-SS. In the early days of the military
camp service formation, the group's exact chain of command was contested since Eicke as Fhrer der
Totenkopfverbnde exercised personal control of the group but also, being a military SS formation, authority
over the armed units was claimed by the SS-Verfgungstruppe which had been first formed in 1934 as combat
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troops for the Nazi Party.[14] But at this time Eicke and Himmler
envisioned the armed SS-TV not as combat soldiers, but as troops for
carrying out what were euphemistically described as "police and security
operations" behind the front lines. Thus Eicke's men were trained by a
cadre of camp personnel without outside intervention; the first major
training exercise in 1935 resulted in the clearing of the entire Dachau
camp for several weeks while the Totenkopf military formation was
organized.
Heinrich Himmler (front right, beside
prisoner) visiting the Dachau
Concentration Camp in 1936
By April 1938, the SS-TV had four regiments of three storm battalions
with three infantry companies, one machine gun company and medical,
communication and transportation units.[15] On 17 August 1938 Hitler
decreed, at Himmler's request, the SS-TV to be the reserve for the
[16]
SS-Verfgungstruppe;
this would over the course of the war lead to a constant flux of men between the
Waffen-SS and the concentration camps. Himmler's intention was simply to expand his private army by using
the SS-TV (as well as the police, which he also controlled) as a manpower pool. Himmler sought and obtained a
further decree, issued on 18 May 1939, which authorized the expansion of the SS-TV to 50,000 men, and
directed the army to provide it with military equipment, something the army had resisted.[12]
Invasion of Poland
By the outbreak of war on 1 September 1939, Eicke's SS-TV field
forces numbered four infantry regiments and a cavalry regiment,
plus two battalions clandestinely placed in independent Danzig.
Their role in the invasion of Poland was not military; unlike the
Leibstandarte and the SS-VT they were not under Army High
Command (OKH) control, but Himmler's. "Their military
capabilities were employed instead in terrorizing the civilian
population through acts that included hunting down straggling
Polish soldiers, confiscating agricultural produce and livestock,
and torturing and murdering large numbers of Polish political
leaders, aristocrats, businessmen, priests, intellectuals, and
Jews."[17] The behavior of these Standarten in Poland elicited
disgust and protests from officers of the army, including 8th Army
commander Johannes Blaskowitz who wrote a lengthy
memorandum to von Brauchitsch detailing SS-TV atrocities; to no
avail.
In the wake of the Polish conquest the three senior Totenkopf-Standarten were combined with the SS Heimwehr
Danzig and some support units transferred from the Army to create the Totenkopf-Division, with Eicke in
command. From fall 1939 to spring 1940 a massive recruitment effort raised no fewer than twelve new
TK-Standarten (four times the size of the SS-VT) in anticipation of the coming attack on France. By now,
Eicke's ambition had aroused Himmler's suspicion, and Hausser's and Dietrich's resentment, especially his
designation of TK-Standarten as reserves for his Totenkopf-Division alone, and his appropriation of
Verfgungstruppe military supplies which were stored at Eicke's concentration camps. After the TK-Division,
and Eicke personally, performed poorly during Fall Gelb Himmler resolved to curb his subordinate. Cynically
using as justification several well-publicized atrocities committed by the Division in France, on 15 August 1940
he dissolved Eicke's Inspectorate of SS-Totenkopfstandarten and transferred the Totenkopf-Division, the
independent TK-Standarten, and their reserve and replacement system to the newly formed Waffen-SS high
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command.[18] In February 1941 the Totenkopf designation was removed from the names of all units other than
the TK-Division and the camp Totenkopfwachsturmbanne, and their personnel exchanged the Death's-Head
collar insignia for the Waffen-SS Sig-runes. The camp system expanded greatly after the invasion of the Soviet
Union in 1941, when large numbers of Soviet soldiers were captured. Some were transferred to the camps,
where their inhumane treatment became normal.
The Totenkopf Division still had close ties to the camp service and its members continued to wear the
Death's-Head as their unit insignia. They were known for brutal tactics, a result of the original doctrine of "no
pity" which Eicke had instilled in his camp personnel as far back as 1934, together with the fact that the original
Totenkopfstandarte had "trained" themselves. The Division's ineffectiveness in France, as well as its war crimes,
can in part be explained by its personnel who were more thugs than soldiers. However, over the course of the
savage fighting in the East (during which the Division was twice effectively destroyed and recreated), the
Totenkopf became one of the crack combat units of the German military. Very few of the men who were part of
the 1939 Standarten in Poland were still in the Division by 1945.
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charge of the prisoner Sonderkommando and was also the person who would physically gas victims in the
camp's gas chambers. The Jewish Sonderkommando workers in turn, were terrorised by up to a 100 Trawniki
men called Wachmannschaften.[24]
The camp perimeter and watch towers were overseen by a separate
formation called the Guard Battalion, or the Wachbattalion. The guard
battalion commander was responsible for providing watch bills to man
guard towers and oversaw security patrols outside the camp. The
battalion was organized on typical military lines with companies,
platoons, and squads. The battalion commander was subordinate directly
to the camp commander.
Concentration camps also had supply and medical personnel, attached to
Sonderkommando men working at the
the headquarters office under the camp commander, as well as a security
Crematorium at Dachau
office with Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst (SD) personnel attached
temporarily to the camp. These security personnel, while answering to
the camp commander, were also under direct command of Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo) and RSHA commanders
independent of the camps. As a result, SD and Gestapo personnel within the concentration camps were seen as
"outsiders" by the full-time camp personnel and frequently looked down upon with distrust by the regular
SS-TV members.
In addition to the regular SS personnel assigned to the Concentration Camp, there also existed a prisoner system
of trustees known as Kapos who performed a wide variety of duties from administration to overseeing other
groups of prisoners. The Sonderkommando were special groups of Jewish prisoners who assisted in the
extermination camps with the disposal of bodies and other tasks. The duty of actually gassing prisoners was,
however, always carried out by the SS.
Eicke in his role as the commander of the SS-TV, continued to reorganize the
camp system by dismantling smaller camps. By August 1937 only Dachau,
Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Ravensbrck remained in Germany. In 1938
Eicke oversaw the building of new camps in Austria following the Anschluss,
such as Mauthausen.
Eicke's reorganization and the introduction of forced labor made the camps one
of the SS's most powerful tools, but it earned him the enmity of RSHA chief,
Reinhard Heydrich, who wanted to take over control of Dachau. Himmler
wanted to keep a separation of power so Eicke remained in command of the
SS-TV and camp operations. This kept control of the camps out of the hands of
the Gestapo or the SD.
In September 1939, Eicke became the commander of the SS Totenkopf Division.
In 1940, the Concentration Camps Inspectorate became part of the Amt D of the
Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt under SS-Obergruppenfhrer Oswald
Pohl. Eicke was replaced by his Chief of Staff, SS-Gruppenfhrer Richard
Glcks who continued to manage the camp administration until the end of the
war.
Concentration Camp
Inspector Theodor Eicke
In 1942 Glcks was increasingly involved in the administration of the Endlsung, supplying personnel to assist
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in Aktion Reinhardt (although the death camps of Belzec, Treblinka and Sobibor were administered by SS-und
Polizei-fhrer Odilo Globocnik of the General Government).[25] In July 1942, Glcks met Himmler to discuss
medical experiments on concentration camp inmates. All extermination orders were issued from Glcks' office
to SS-TV commands throughout Nazi Germany and occupied Europe. He specifically authorized the purchase
of Zyklon B for use at Auschwitz.
In 1945 SS-TV units began to receive orders to conceal as much of the
evidence of The Holocaust as possible. Camps were destroyed, sick
prisoners were shot and others were marched on death marches away
from the advancing Allies. The SS-TV were also instrumental in the
execution of hundreds of political prisoners to prevent their liberation.
By April 1945 many SS-TV had left their posts. Due to their notoriety,
some removed their death head insignia to hide their identities. Camp
duties were increasingly turned over to so-called "Auxiliary-SS",
soldiers and civilians conscripted as camp guards so that the Totenkopf
men could escape. However, many were arrested by the Allies and stood
trial for war crimes at Nuremberg between 1946 and 1949.
From its inception, Eicke fostered an attitude of "inflexible harshness" in the SS-TV. This core belief continued
to influence guards in all concentration camps even after Eicke had taken over command of the SS Totenkopf
Division. Recruits were taught to hate their enemies through tough training regimes and Nazi indoctrination.
SS-TV personnel lost any compassion for camp inmates. Within camps, guards created an atmosphere of
controlled, disciplined cruelty that subjugated prisoners. This brutal ethos influenced some of the SS-TV's most
infamous members including Rudolf H, Franz Ziereis, Karl Otto Koch, Max Kgel and Amon Gth.
In the last days of World War II, a special group called the "Auxiliary-SS" (SS-Mannschaft) was formed as a
last-ditch effort to keep concentration camps running and allow regular SS personnel to escape. Auxiliary-SS
members were not considered regular SS personnel, but were conscripted members from other branches of the
German military, the Nazi Party, and the Volkssturm. Such personnel wore a distinctive twin swastika collar
patch and served as camp guard and administrative personnel until the surrender of Germany.
1st TK-Standarte 'Oberbayern'. Formed 1937 at Dachau. During the Polish invasion conducted "security
operations" behind the lines. Redesignated 1. SS-Totenkopf-Infanterie-Regiment,[26] and assigned to the
Totenkopf Division 10/39.
2nd TK-Standarte 'Brandenburg'. Formed 1937 at Oranienburg. During the Polish invasion conducted
"security operations" behind the lines. Redesignated 2. SS-Totenkopf-Infanterie-Regiment,[26] and
assigned to the Totenkopf Division 10/39.
3rd TK-Standarte 'Thringen'. Formed 1937 at Buchenwald. During the Polish invasion conducted
"security operations" behind the lines. Redesignated 3. SS-Totenkopf-Infanterie-Regiment[26] and
assigned to the Totenkopf Division, with some men forming the cadre of the 10. TK-Standarte, 11/39.
4th TK-Standarte 'Ostmark'. Formed 1938 at Vienna and Berlin. III Sturmbann Gtze detached to form
the core of SS Heimwehr Danzig 7/39. Garrison duty at Prague 10/39 and in the Netherlands 6/40.
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Evans, Richard J. (2005). The Third Reich in Power. New York: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-303790-3.
Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
ISBN 978-0-393-06757-6.
McNab, Chris (2009). The SS: 19231945. Amber Books Ltd. ISBN 978-1-906626-49-5.
Padfield, Peter (2001) [1990]. Himmler: Reichsfhrer-SS. London: Cassel & Co. ISBN 0-304-35839-8.
Stein, George H. (1984). The Waffen SS: Hitler's Elite Guard at War, 1939-1945. Cornell University
Press, ISBN 0-8014-9275-0.
Sydnor, Jr., Charles W. (1990). Soldiers of Destruction: the SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945.
Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-00853-1.
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