The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression
Volume II
Criminality of Groups and Organizations
The Schutzstaffeln (SS)
(Part 15 of 16)


E. Defendant's Membership in the SS.

In the course of its development from a group of strong armed bodyguards, some 200 in number, to a complex organization participating in every field of Nazi endeavor, the SS found room for its members in high places. Persons in high places moreover, found for themselves a position in the SS. Of the defendants charged in the indictment at least 7 were high ranking officers in the SS. They are the defendants Ribbentrop, Hess, Kaltenbrunner, Bormann, Sauckel, Neurath, and Seyss-Inquart. The vital part that Kaltenbrunner played in the SS, the SD, and the entire Security Police system is discussed in Section 6 on the Gestapo.

With respect to the other six defendants, the facts as to their membership in the SS are to be found in two official publications. The first is the membership list of the SS as of 1 December 1936. On line 2, page 8, of that publication, there appears the name "Hess, Rudolf," followed by the notation, "By authority of the Fuehrer the right to wear the uniform of an SS Obergruppenfuehrer." In the 1937 edition of the same membership list, line 50, page 10, there appears the name "Bormann, Martin," and in line with his name on the opposite page, under the heading "Gruppenfuehrer," appears the following date "20 April 1937." In the same edition, line 56, page 12, is the name "von Neurath, Konstantin" and on the opposite page, under the column headed "Gruppenfuehrer," the date "18 September 1937."

The second publication is "Der Grossdeutsche Reichstag" for the Fourth Voting Period, edited by E. Kienast, Ministerial Director

[Page 235]

of the German Reichstag an official handbook containing biographical data as to members of the Reichstag. On page 349 the following appears: "von Ribbentrop, Joachim, Reichsminister des Auswaertigen, SS Obergruppenfuehrer"; and on page 360 the following: "Sauckel, Fritz, Gauleiter and Reichsstalthalter in. Thuringen, SS Obergruppenfuehrer"; and on page 389 the following: "Seyss-Inquart, Arthur, Dr. Jur., Reichsminister, SS Obergruppenfuehrer."


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