“Schutzstaffel” (SS)

Abbreviation for “Schutzstaffel” (Protection Squadron), a formation of the NSDAP founded in 1925 for the purpose of protecting the person of Adolf Hitler and party meetings. The Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, in office from 1929, built up the SS into a National Socialist “elite unit”. After the National Socialist takeover, it was linked to the police apparatus and assumed the central role in state terror as well as in the persecution of opponents of National Socialism. The National Socialist concentration and extermination camps were also under its control. The SS played a leading role in the National Socialist mass crimes, especially in the murder of the European Jews and the Sinti and Romani. At the Nuremberg Main War Crimes Trial, the SS was declared a criminal organization.