The Himmler's SS Read Online Free PDF

been setting an example of good order. Their incessant brawling, drinking, violence and irresponsible conversation, to say nothing of Röhm’s homosexual antics, provoked profound discontent in public opinion. The confidence ordinary Germans had in the new régime was in danger of collapsing altogether. On 28 June 1934, Hitler took the final decision to eliminate the SA leadership. Two days later he personally directed operations at Munich and Bad Wiessee, where Röhm and his subordinates had peacefully gathered at their Führer’s request. Following a carefully co-ordinated plan, men of the new armed SS formations arrested and executed Röhm and sixteen senior SA commanders. The SS also seized the opportunity to settle its scores with old enemies, such as the former Bavarian Prime Minister von Kahr, Hitler’s adversary during the Munich putsch, who was now found dead in a peat bog with his head smashed in. At least 300 victims paid with their lives for their opposition to the SS in this bloody purge, which came to be known as the ‘Night of the Long Knives’. The SA suffered a loss of power and influence from which it never fully recovered. The new head of the SA, Viktor Lutze, Police President of Hannover, had an ability to get on with the army and SS which was surpassed only by his obsequious loyalty to Hitler. The rank and file of SA members was reduced from 4 million to just over 1 million of the better elements, and they were stripped of their arms.

    SS men prepare to set fire to a collection of placards and flags seized from Berlin communists, March 1933.

    SS-Gruppenführer ‘Sepp’ Dietrich in conversation with Wilhelm Brückner, Hitler’s chief adjutant, at the end of 1933. Dietrich has removed the SS armband from his black service uniform, which was a short-term expedient adopted during this period to set the personnel of the infant Leibstandarte apart from the mass of the Allgemeine-SS.
    T HE SS R OLL OF H ONOUR
Died
 
Unit
Died
 
Unit
16.3.30
Edmund Behnke
1/I/6
2.8.32
Fritz Schulz
2/III/42
5.12.30
Adolf Höh
2/I/30
7.9.32
Josef Lass
3/III/11
7.6.31
Heinz Gutsche
5/III/7
7.9.32
August Assmann
1/II/38
7.6.31
Edgar Steinbach
1/III/7
21.10.32
Johann Cyranka
1/I/28
15.8.31
Heinrich Grobe
2/III/7
22.10.32
August Pfaff
6/I/30
3.9.31
Karl Vobis
1/I/20
1.2.33
Leopold Paffrath
1/II/25
5.10.31
Erich Garthe
1/I/25
5.2.33
Friedrich Schreiber
2/I/20
9.11.31
Karl Radke
1/I/40
12.2.33
Paul Berk
1/I/26
11.11.31
Martin Martens
4/III/40
15.2.33
Franz Müller
2/IV/5
19.1.32
Arnold Guse
2/I/25
20.2.33
Kurt von der Ahe
1/I/6
4.2.32
Fritz Beubler
3/I/14
28.2.33
Josef Bleser
4/II/2
29.2.32
Henry Kobert
1/I/28
28.2.33
Eduard Felsen
1/II/6
8.4.32
Ludwig Frisch
1/III/7
1.5.33
Siegfried Güthling
3/IV/26
20.6.32
Kurt Hilmer
6/II/20
3.5.33
Fritz Kratz
7/I/35
26.6.32
Friedrich Borawski
8/I/30
30.6.33
Gerhard Landmann
1/I/49
24.7.32
Herbert Zimmermann
4/IV/5
28.8.33
Albert Mader
5/II/3
24.7.32
Friedrich Karpinski
4/I/25
 
 
 
    It is noteworthy that eleven (i.e. 33 per cent) of these men were killed after the Nazis had actually come to power. On 30 May 1938, they all received posthumous awards of the Blood Order, the highest decoration of the NSDAP.
    On 20 July 1934, in thanks for its actions during the Röhm putsch, Hitler declared the 200,000-strong SS an independent formation of the NSDAP and removed it completely from SA control. Its position of ascendancy was now assured and it entered a period of consolidation in which it developed a new command structure under Himmler, whose rank as Reichsführer-SS for the first time actually meant what it implied and made him directly subordinate to Hitler. He immediately shed some 60,000 SS men who had been recruited at a time when the SS was competing for members with the SA, but who did not now conform to the SS image of élitism. The Leibstandarte, SS-VT and SS-TV developed their status as separate military branches,