The Himmler's SS (13 page)

The undernoted regulations governed promotion within the Allgemeine-SS:

1.
Promotion to SS-Gruppenführer and above was decided by Hitler himself, in his technical capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the SS, on the recommendation of the Reichsführer-SS.

2.
Promotion to officers below the rank of Gruppenführer was decided by the Reichsführer-SS at the instance of the SS Personalhauptamt. The heads of the SS Hauptämter, acting as Himmler's representatives, could carry out promotions up to and including SS-Hauptsturmführer.

3.
Promotion to SS-Hauptscharführer was effected by Oberabschnitte commanders.

4.
Promotion to SS-Oberscharführer was carried out by Abschnitte commanders.

5.
Other NCOs were promoted by the commanders of the various SS Standarten.

6.
Nominations for appointment as SS-Mann, Sturmmann and Rottenführer were made by delegated officers of the Standarten concerned.

Technical, administrative and medical personnel were bound by the same regulations as regards promotion and appointment but, in addition, had to be approved by the SS Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt or the Reichsarzt SS und Polizei, whichever was appropriate.

It is noteworthy that, during the early days of the SS, it was not uncommon for some officers to enter the organisation at a high rank, or to skip ranks. For example, ‘Sepp' Dietrich enrolled in the SS as a Standartenführer with membership no. 1177 on 18 November 1929, while Julius Schreck, with membership no. 5, skipped from Sturmführer straight to Standartenführer, missing out all ranks in between, on 30 January 1933. Others had a meteoric rise through the ranks, a good example being Karl Wolff, who was promoted in the following way:

The SS maintained a thorough system of personnel records, based on cards filled out in triplicate in respect of each member. The cards were reddish-brown in colour and contained a host of personal details including date and place of birth, physical measurements, marriage particulars, names and ages of children, SS and NSDAP membership numbers, promotions, decorations and history of RAD and military service. All fixed information was entered in ink and variable information in pencil. Every Sturm maintained a file holding the original cards made out for each officer and man assigned to it. Duplicate cards, which had broad red diagonal stripes on the reverse, were kept at the HQ of the Standarte to which the Sturm belonged. The third set of cards, with dark-green stripes on the back, were filed at the SS Personalhauptamt if they related to officers or at the SS Hauptamt if they referred to NCOs and lower ranks. It was the responsibility of all personnel to ensure that they reported timeously any information relevant to the updating of their records.

Several times a year, the SS Personalhauptamt produced a Seniority List covering all officers in all branches of the SS. As the SS grew so did the List, and by the end of 1944 it comprised several volumes. Known as the
Dienstaltersliste der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP
, it was printed by the government publishers in Berlin and was intended for administrative use only within the offices of the SS. Being classified, it was not for personal issue or distribution to non-SS bodies. Above all, it was not to be made available to the general public. The
Dienstaltersliste
went into great detail about each officer listed. Not only did it state his full name and date of birth, it also gave his SS rank, position of seniority, NSDAP and SS membership numbers, current posting, decorations, and any governmental, military, political or police rank held. It even mentioned if he was on long-term sick leave. In relation to Heinrich Himmler, for example, the 1944 List read as follows:

1.
Overall seniority no: 1.

2.
Heinrich Himmler. Holder of the Golden Party Badge and Blood Order. Reichsminister. Reichsleiter. Reichskommissar. City Councillor. Member of Parliament.

3.
Holder of the SS Sword of Honour and the SS death's head ring.

4.
Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police.

5.
NSDAP membership no: 14,303.

6.
SS membership no: 168.

7.
Date of birth: 7 October 1900.

8.
Appointed to present position: 6 January 1929.

The SS Officers Seniority List, produced in several volumes between 1934 and 1944.

Further down the first page of the List, the following details were recorded in respect of a member of German royalty, Josias Erbprinz zu Waldeck und Pyrmont:

1.
Overall seniority no: 10.

2.
Josias, Hereditary Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont. Holder of the Golden Party Badge, 1914 Iron Cross 1st Class, Cross of Honour 1914–1918, First World War state combat awards, 1918 Wound Badge in Black, 1939 Bar to the 1914 Iron Cross 1st Class, and Second World War combat awards. Member of Parliament.

3.
Holder of the SS Sword of Honour and the SS death's head ring.

4.
Commander of Oberabschnitt Fulda-Werra and Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer in that Region. General of the Waffen-SS. General of the Police.

5.
NSDAP membership no: 160,025.

6.
SS membership no: 2,139.

7.
Date of birth: 13 May 1896.

8.
Appointed to present position: 30 January 1936.

In April 1945, the SS made concerted attempts to destroy all existing copies of the
Dienstaltersliste
, but a few volumes fell into Allied hands and these proved invaluable reference material during the postwar de-Nazification process. Many prominent Germans who were by then vigorously denying all associations with the NSDAP and its affiliated organisations were suddenly confronted with their names appearing on the
Dienstaltersliste
and were forced to admit their intimate involvement in the Nazi régime. One of those was none other than the aforementioned Prince Josias, the only member of a German royal house to be tried for war crimes. As commander of the Oberabschnitt in which Buchenwald concentration camp was situated, he was held to be directly responsible for the conditions which prevailed there and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Such accountability for their actions was something totally alien to the SS. One of the most important factors to be taken into account when considering the swingeing powers and activities of the various SS and police forces in their role as supreme guardians of law and order during the Third Reich is that they were themselves placed outside and above the normal German legal system. With the foundation of the SS- und Polizeigerichtsbarkeit (Special Jurisdiction of the SS and Police) during 1939–40, SS men were made responsible only to SS disciplinary officers and SS courts for all crimes and offences committed both inside and outside Germany. The very nature of their work meant that SS members frequently had to infringe the common law in the execution of their duties, and so to achieve its ends the SS hierarchy demanded and ultimately achieved the legal independence necessary to ensure that SS men should not be answerable to the civil courts for unlawful acts committed in the line of duty. The significance of this position cannot be overemphasised, as it guaranteed the whole SS organisation immunity from normal prosecution and hence the legal right, according to its own code, to arrest, imprison, ill-treat and ultimately exterminate its political and racial opponents. This was the basis for the often repeated argument after the war that SS men had ‘only been obeying orders'. Not only were they simply obeying orders, but they had also been given the legal right to kill, endorsed by the highest courts in the Reich. It was the refusal to obey such orders which was illegal and punishable.

The original decrees and regulations establishing the Special Jurisdiction of the SS and Police continued to be enlarged and supplemented in the years after 1940. On 1 September 1943, the final and definitive SS Disciplinary and Penal Code (Disziplinarstraf- und Beschwerdeordnung der SS, or DBO) came into effect. It was valid for every member of the SS without exception. All SS officers, NCOs and other ranks, male and female, whether Allgemeine-SS, Waffen-SS, full-time, part-time, trainee, auxiliary, inactive or honorary in status, were liable to trial and punishment only by SS courts for all disciplinary and criminal offences they might commit. Where the offences were military ones, they were tried according to military procedures. In the case of criminal offences, the SS legal officials tried the accused by normal German criminal procedure. The jurisdiction of the DBO extended right across Germany and the occupied territories, and the scale of punishment which might be imposed ranged from simple disciplinary measures and expulsion from the SS to penal servitude and death by hanging, shooting or beheading. Himmler was given the same powers of pardon and commutation of sentences as those held by the Reich Supreme Judge and the commanders of the three branches of the Wehrmacht, and the only course of appeal, and then in very special circumstances, was to the Führer himself.

Only one general exception to this policy of bringing all members of the SS under the stringent penalties of independent SS jurisdiction was ever allowed. By agreement with the Reichsführer-SS, a Wehrmacht regulation published in June 1940 laid down that individual members of the SS and police would become liable to normal military law if they were serving in the armed forces. This exception applied solely to Allgemeine-SS and police men conscripted for regular service in the Wehrmacht, and did not affect independent units and formations of the Waffen-SS, SD and police serving alongside the armed forces. With the advent of the DBO, however, the Wehrmacht regulation ceased to be valid and from 1943 the SS included under its jurisdiction even those of its members temporarily serving in the armed forces.

While in practice most disciplinary matters were disposed of by the competent senior SS disciplinary officers by direct action or courts martial, and most criminal matters by the duly appointed SS courts, full disciplinary powers were attached to Himmler personally, as Reichsführer-SS. He was competent to impose all disciplinary penalties allowed by the DBO, although Hitler usually took a personal interest in rare cases of the punishment of officers from Gruppenführer upwards. In particular, the Reichsführer reserved to himself the rights of:

1.
dismissal from the SS, together with demotion or reduction to the ranks, of any SS officer

2.
dismissal from the SS of any SS personnel with membership numbers below 10,000 (i.e. the Old Guard)

3.
prescribing disciplinary punishments in addition to penal sentences passed by the SS courts

In order to exercise these powers and also for the purpose of considering appeals against disciplinary sentences passed by the heads of the SS Hauptämter, Himmler could order the setting up of a special court, or Disziplinarhof, to hear any particular case and report back to him. In times of absence, he could delegate his disciplinary authority to the Chief of the Hauptamt SS Gericht. In addition, a special legal officer was permanently attached to the Persönlicher Stab RfSS to assist Himmler in dealing with legal matters which came to him for disposal.

The ordinary SS courts were of two types:

1.
the Feldgerichte, or Courts-Martial, convened in the normal way by the divisions and higher formations of the Waffen-SS

2.
the SS und Polizei Gerichte, or SS and Police Courts, established in Germany and the occupied territories

By 1943 there were over forty of these SS und Polizei Gerichte. Outside the Reich they were set up in the capitals and larger towns of conquered countries. Inside Germany there was one in every Oberabschnitt, normally but not invariably at the seat of the Oberabschnitt HQ. They were numbered in Roman figures which, unlike the Oberabschnitte, did not follow Wehrkreis numbering but corresponded to the chronological order in which they were set up. Each SS and Police Court was competent to try all cases which occurred within its area. In addition, there were two other special courts, both based in Munich, which deserve mention. The first of these was the Oberstes SS und Polizei Gericht, the Supreme SS and Police Court, presided over by SS-Oberführer Dr Günther Reinecke. It tried cases of particular gravity, for example treason, crimes against the state and espionage. It was also the only competent tribunal for the trial of SS and police generals of the rank of Brigadeführer and above. The second of the special courts was the SS und Polizei Gericht z.b.V., or Extraordinary SS and Police Court. It was attached directly to the Hauptamt SS Gericht and was a secret tribunal which dealt with delicate and difficult cases which it was desired to keep from the general knowledge even of the SS itself.