The Himmler's SS (14 page)

A jovial Himmler broadcasts to the nation on ‘German Police Day', 28 January 1939. By this time he had amassed awesome legal powers as head of the police, and his discipline code ensured total obedience from the SS. During the war he was to boast: ‘Thank God – we have not had a single case of treason from our ranks'.

During the war, the various SS und Polizei Gerichte were made competent to try non-SS personnel and civilians, which was a major development in their powers and a particularly efficient weapon in the general security system of the SS. Initially, civilians could be tried and condemned by SS courts only in respect of crimes committed in SS and police buildings or similar establishments, or crimes committed in conjunction with other persons who were themselves subject to SS jurisdiction. As the war progressed, however, this competence to try cases affecting the general interests of the SS was extended and the SS und Polizei Gerichte eventually came to be used for all serious security trials, including cases involving sabotage, illegal propaganda and traffic with an enemy power. The great majority of those tried in this way were sentenced to terms in concentration camps or to death by firing squad.

In common with the other formations and affiliated organisations of the NSDAP, the SS had its own code of honour enforced by special Courts of Honour, or Schiedshofe. This code had two primary objectives: firstly to protect the general repute of the SS against the scandal of internal dissension and quarrels, and secondly to provide its individual members with a formal method of defending their honour with weapons. In dealing with cases which came into the first category, the Courts of Honour had only limited powers, their main function being to reconcile differences by means of arbitration. As regards cases in the second category, their purpose was to see that ‘affairs of honour' were settled according to due form. In principle, all SS men were entitled to demand satisfaction with pistol or sword for affronts to their honour and integrity. However, the Schiedshofe usually intervened to prevent matters proceeding to an actual duel, particularly since Hitler had long set his face against the practice. Minor and Major Courts of Honour (Kleine und Grosse Schiedshofe) could be convened by the Reichsführer and by commanders of the Oberabschnitte, Abschnitte and SS Hauptämter. The minor courts carried out preliminary examinations of disputes and the major courts proceeded to actual adjudications.

A special class of SS legal officers or SS Richter existed to administer SS law. Fulltime officials held their commissions directly from the Führer and their status and independence were guaranteed by the Reichsführer-SS. Their main duty was to prepare cases and conduct proceedings in court. These SS Richter were helped, and on occasion represented, by assistant legal officers or SS Hilfsrichter. SS protocol officers and NCOs (SS Beurkundungsführer und Unterführer) dealt with the preparation of documents, and examining officers (Untersuchungsführer) interviewed witnesses. All of these officers were subordinated to the Hauptamt SS Gericht. Their initial training and subsequent examinations took place at the Hauptamt and all appointments and promotions were issued from there.

As soon as the Special Jurisdiction of the SS and police was legally established, measures were taken to provide the SS organisation with facilities for carrying out sentences imposed by its courts. For this purpose punishment camps for the SS and police (Straflager der SS und Polizei) were set up at Dachau, near to the concentration camp, and at Karlsfeld. Moreover, prison camps (Strafvollzugslager) were instituted at Danzig and Ludwigsfelde. Minor periods of detention were generally completed in the relatively comfortable surroundings of the prison quarters of the SS barracks at Munich. Longer terms of imprisonment were served in one of the Strafvollzugslager. Execution of such sentences might at any time be postponed and the prisoner remitted to a Straflager, which represented an intensification in the severity of the sentence in that conditions at the punishment camps were much worse than those in the prisons, and the period served in the Straflager did not count towards the legal term of imprisonment still pending.

For men dismissed from the SS during the war, and simultaneously sentenced to a term of imprisonment, another possibility was open. They might choose to be handed over to one of the following two special formations of the Waffen-SS, in an attempt to redeem themselves while working out part of their sentence:

1.
The Rehabilitation Detachment (Bewährungs Abteilung) at Chlum in Bohemia. After a period of initial training there, the men were sent to units employed as fighting troops in the front line.

2.
The Labour Detachment (Arbeits Abteilung) based at Debica in Poland. Members of that unit did not normally bear arms but were employed on heavy and dangerous work at the front, including bridge repair and minefield clearance.

For men dismissed from the police there was a similar formation attached to the SS-Police-Division, officially entitled the Sondereinheit der SS-Polizei-Division but colloquially known as the ‘Verlorene Haufen' or VH, the ‘Lost Souls'. Members of these special units did not rank as SS or police men and did not wear SS or police insignia on their uniforms.

While the SS punished its wrongdoers, those who conformed to the ideals of the Black Corps were very well cared for. The Reichsarzt SS und Polizei, or Chief SS and Police Medical Officer, SS-Obergruppenführer Prof. Dr Ernst-Robert Grawitz, was responsible for the general supervision of all the medical services of the SS and police, for medical research and training, and for the control and distribution of medical supplies and equipment. He was assisted by two senior officials, the Chief Medical Quartermaster, SS-Gruppenführer Dr Carl Blumenreuter, and the Chief Hygiene Officer, SS-Oberführer Prof. Dr Joachim Mrugowsky. Grawitz was also Business President of the German Red Cross and used that position to ensure that the SS kept up to date with all the latest international medical developments. Moreover, Himmler purposely gave senior SS rank to many German doctors of renown, including Karl Gebhardt, head of the famous Hohenlychen Orthopaedic Clinic, and Leonardo Conti, the Reich Minister of Health. In this way, the SS was kept at the forefront of medical technology, and the Sanitätsstürme and Sanitätsstaffeln attached to the Abschnitte and Sturmbanne were able to provide the best treatment possible to ailing SS members and their families.

The whole relationship between the SS and most medical men came to be soured during the war, however, when Himmler was persuaded by his hard-pressed Waffen-SS battlefield surgeons and certain military scientists to allow live research to take place among condemned inmates of concentration camps. Those inmates who agreed to take part in potentially fatal experiments, and who survived them, would have their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment, albeit ‘life' in a concentration camp after 1942 probably meant a few months at most. The Luftwaffe doctor Sigmund Rascher was one of those ‘researchers' with the most sinister reputation. He carried out meaningless medical experiments at Dachau on the effects of decompression on prisoners, and thereafter turned his attention to the problems of survival in cold conditions, then survival in extreme heat. Rascher was continually ‘sucking up' to Himmler. The following extracts from letters give an indication of the spirit of these times:

Dr Rascher to Camp Commandant Weiss, Dachau, 10 October 1942

The Russian prisoner of war Chonitsch, born 24 May 1920, was transferred to me on 28 September for experimental purposes. Chonitsch is a Russian who was to be executed. As the Reichsführer-SS had ordered me to use persons sentenced to death for dangerous experiments, I wanted to conduct an experiment on this Russian which I was absolutely sure he would not survive. I reported at the time that you could be assured that the Russian would certainly not survive the experiment and would be dead by the time of his scheduled execution date. Contrary to all expectations, the Russian in question survived three experiments which would have been fatal for any other person. In accordance with the Reichsführer's order that all test subjects who are sentenced to death but survive a dangerous experiment should be pardoned, I beg to take the appropriate steps. I regret that the wrong assumption on our part has given rise to extra correspondence work. With many thanks and Heil Hitler! R
ASCHER
.

Camp Commandant Weiss, Dachau, to the Reichsführer-SS, 20 October 1942

Highly esteemed Reichsführer! Will you please clarify the following case as soon as possible. In your letter of 18 April 1942, it is ordered that if prisoners in Dachau condemned to death live through experiments which have endangered their lives, they should be pardoned to lifelong concentration camp imprisonment. I respectfully ask if this order applies to Poles and Russians, as well as to non-Slavs. Heil Hitler! W
EISS
.

SS-Obersturmbannführer Brandt, Reichsführung-SS, to Weiss, 21 October 1942

Weiss. Please inform SS-Untersturmführer Dr Rascher that the instruction given some time ago by the Reichsführer-SS concerning the pardoning of experimental subjects does not apply to Poles and Russians. Heil Hitler! B
RANDT
.

It can be assumed, therefore, that the unfortunate Chonitsch was duly killed. Eventually, the SS concluded that Rascher was nothing more than a dangerous charlatan evading front-line service, and sentenced him to death in April 1945.

However, not all medical studies carried out at the camps were of such a fantastic nature. One of the benefits others provided was the development of haemostatic and coagulant products which did much to help wounded men in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War and, indeed, injured soldiers of all nations thereafter. Nevertheless, even the ordinary doctors of the Allgemeine-SS, whose only concern was the welfare of their men and who had nothing whatsoever to do with these matters, eventually came to be tarred with the same brush as Rascher and his accomplices in the minds of the postwar public.

Medicine apart, the main welfare activities of the Allgemeine-SS were administered by the Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt and financed from the private funds of the SS. The concept of the SS as ‘one big family' resulted in considerable care being devoted to the provision of financial help for those members in need of it. Even in the early days of the organisation, before the profits of office and established position put the finances of the SS on a sound footing, a special Economic Assistance Section was set up under the auspices of Himmler's headquarters to provide help to SS men who had suffered material loss during the struggle for power. In November 1935, the Reichsführer put the matter on a more businesslike basis by instituting a savings fund to which all future SS recruits in employment and all serving full-time officers and men were to contribute according to their means. In this way, the SS was able to build from its own resources the necessary financial reserve from which assistance could be given or loans made to its members.

All commanders of Oberabschnitte, Abschnitte, Standarten and Sturmbanne had a general duty to look after the welfare of their subordinates and particularly of the widows and orphans of deceased SS men. Each Abschnitt and Standarte had a welfare official or Fürsorgereferent, usually an NCO, who was the primary local authority to which SS men and their relatives could appeal. Questions outside his competence were referred to the Sippenpflegestelle (Family Welfare Office) of the Oberabschnitt and, if required, could be passed on up yet again to the Sippenamt, or Family Office, of the Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt for a decision. Where an SS man died or was killed on active service and left a widow and children, the Oberabschnitt appointed a suitable SS man as Berater, or family adviser. He gave as much personal advice and help as was possible, assumed responsibility for the education of the children and, when necessary, called in the assistance of the welfare official.

In addition to the private SS welfare system, members of the Allgemeine-SS serving in the Wehrmacht also enjoyed all the advantages of the statutory welfare system established for the armed forces. Moreover, the SS Hauptamt controlled a number of rest homes for SS and police servicemen and provided mobilised SS units with light entertainments such as films, concert parties, radio sets, books and magazines.

Since it had long been recognised that the prevention of illness was as important as curing it, sport and physical fitness were given great emphasis in the day-to-day training programmes of the Allgemeine-SS, and there were many local SS sports clubs. Members were eligible to win not only the SA Military Sports Badge and the German National Sports Badge, which they strove for during their term as SS-Anwärter, but also the Achievement and Championship Badges of the National Socialist Physical Training League, the Heavy Athletics Badge, the German Motor Sports Badge, ski competition badges, and the various national equestrian awards. Many of these decorations had to be competed for annually, i.e. holders had to pass the set qualification tests at least once every year in order to retain the right to wear the badges concerned, so training was a continual and ongoing process.