Army of Evil: A History of the SS (33 page)

In addition to operating in a slightly different manner to the German Army, the Special Purpose Troops looked different. In 1935, when the army assumed responsibility for the initial military training of the armed SS, the latter swapped their black service uniforms for the traditional field grey of the German Army for reasons of convenience and security (Germany was still notionally bound by the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty). But this was anathema to Himmler, who took a peculiarly close interest in uniforms, military heraldry and insignia. He wanted to differentiate
his
soldiers from those of the army, so, for a while, the Special Purpose Troops wore “earth grey” (a kind of muddy khaki) uniforms. However, these had to be abandoned in 1938, when the SS armed units started to take part in live operations with the army. Clearly, in those circumstances, all the soldiers had to wear the same basic uniform for identification purposes, and it was the traditional army one that was adopted.

Nevertheless, the Special Purpose Troops were able to differentiate themselves in another way: through their innovations in the use of camouflage clothing. After the war, credit for this was claimed by Gottlob Berger, the chief of SS recruiting. His story was that he wore a camouflage jacket when hunting bustards in Pomerania, and mentioned the item to Dietrich. The latter then recognised the jacket’s potential application in warfare and ordered a large number for the
Leibstandarte
.
¹³
This was probably a tall tale, but, nonetheless, from 1938 onwards, the Special Purpose Troops sported mottled camouflage smocks—with reversible green (spring and summer) and brown (autumn) patterns—and camouflage helmet covers. These, more than anything else, set them apart from the regular army.

Under Hausser and Steiner’s leadership, a number of other ex–German Army officers flourished in the SS. Herbert Otto Gille served as an artillery officer in the First World War and joined the SS in 1932.
He was made platoon leader of the Political Readiness Unit Ellwangen in 1934, and subsequently commanded the defence company and the machine-gun company under Steiner when these units were incorporated into the
Deutschland
Regiment. Later, he transferred into the
Germania
Regiment, where he was promoted to captain and placed in command of the 2nd Battalion. During the war, he commanded the
Wiking
Division and the IV SS-Armoured-Corps. In the process, he became the most decorated member of the SS, and one of the most highly decorated members of the German armed forces.
¹⁴

Hans Jüttner also began his SS career under Steiner and Hausser. An infantry officer in the First World War, seeing service in Syria and Iraq, he joined the NSDAP in 1931 but did not enter the SS until 1935, when he became a battalion commander in
Deutschland
. The next year he moved to the Inspectorate, where he worked under Hausser. He went on to become chief of the SS-Command Staff (in effect the general staff) of the Waffen-SS in 1943.
¹⁵

These men were forward thinking and progressive, and they presided over an organisation with a novel military ethos. However, the whole set-up remained entirely untested until the Third Reich embarked on the path of military and physical expansion that would ultimately lead to its annihilation.

*
During the course of the war, two further officer schools were opened in Klagenfurt (November 1943) and Prague (July 1944).

A
s we have seen, the German Army initially held the armed units of the SS in thinly disguised contempt. Its leaders were grateful to the SS for helping to eliminate the seemingly much greater threat of the SA; but other than that, they felt the police-type squads and concentration camp guard units were scarcely worthy of their consideration. That attitude changed on 2 February 1935, when Hitler decreed that the SS-Special Purpose Troops would be organised into a division in time of war. The decree caused some perturbation among the German Army’s High Command because Hitler’s accommodation with the army had included the promise that they would remain the sole bearer of arms within the state. This had also underpinned his calculation that the army was a more important ally than the SA. There is no compelling evidence that Hitler, Himmler or anyone else within the National Socialist hierarchy saw the SS as a future replacement for the army, but it was typical of Hitler to keep his options open by creating a force that was entirely at his disposal and need not worry about constitutional niceties.

Some of the military leadership’s concern was assuaged in March
1936, when Hitler decided to reintroduce universal conscription in order to create a standing army of thirty-six divisions. In comparison, the Special Purpose Troops were tiny. Even so, hostility and suspicion remained. Both Minister of Defence von Blomberg and General von Fritsch, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, objected to the formation of an SS division
*
or any further expansion of the armed formations.

At this point, the situation changed again. In January 1938, the sixty-year-old von Blomberg married Erna Gruhn, who was twenty-six. It was a quiet ceremony, even though Hitler acted as a witness and Goering was the general’s best man. A few days later, while the happy couple was on honeymoon, a Berlin Vice Squad detective who was analysing a batch of seized pornographic photographs realised that one of the women in the pictures was the new Frau von Blomberg. Further background checks revealed convictions for prostitution. Seemingly shocked and embarrassed by this revelation, Hitler summoned the Defence Minister when he returned to Berlin and demanded an annulment of the marriage. Much to Hitler’s incredulity, von Blomberg refused, apparently believing that his comrades in the army would rally to his support. When they did not, he resigned all of his posts.
¹

The obvious replacement as Defence Minister was von Fritsch. But there were question marks about his propriety, too. In 1935, a criminal named Otto Schmidt admitted to blackmailing a number of closet homosexual establishment figures, including a “General Fritsch.” Recognising the name, the police passed details of the case on to the Gestapo, who investigated further and concluded that Schmidt’s story may well have been true. Himmler showed Hitler the von Fritsch file in August 1936. At that moment, Hitler was entirely uninterested. Von Fritsch was a key figure in the expansion of the Army, and Hitler needed him. Consequently, just as he had done previously with Röhm,
Hitler put aside any qualms about von Fritsch’s homosexuality and ordered Himmler to destroy the file. By the end of 1937, though, von Fritsch was exhibiting a distinct lack of support for Hitler’s proposed war of conquest in Europe. In November, the investigation into the Schmidt/von Fritsch affair was quietly reopened; and, if anything, Hitler was looking to get rid of him, rather than hand him the Defence Ministry.

The only other serious candidate was Goering, Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, and he was prepared to put a lot of effort into securing the job. It seems that it was Goering who informed Hitler of Frau von Blomberg’s past, and then, twenty-four hours later, presented him with an updated version of the von Fritsch file.
²
Von Fritsch was summoned to Hitler’s office, where he found the blackmailer Schmidt waiting for him. Von Fritsch gave his word of honour that he had not met Schmidt before, but Hitler refused to accept his assurances.

Clearly, von Fritsch would not now be succeeding von Blomberg, but at this point Goering’s plan unexpectedly unravelled, too. Von Blomberg, embittered by the lack of support he had been given by his colleagues within the armed forces, suggested during his farewell interview with Hitler that the Führer should take control of the Defence Ministry himself. Hitler agreed, although with one small adaptation: he gave it a new name. On 4 February, he dissolved the ministry and created the
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht
(OKW—High Command of the Armed Forces), with himself as Supreme Commander and
Generaloberst
(“colonel general”—a rank roughly equivalent to a four-star general in the UK or US Army) Wilhelm Keitel as his chief of staff. This did not remove all of the obstacles to further SS expansion, but it certainly undermined them. Obviously, Hitler hoped to maintain a balance between the
Wehrmacht
and the SS, to keep his senior military commanders on side, but he now had much more freedom to do as he wished in respect to Germany’s armed forces.

The von Fritsch affair had an appropriately squalid end. Although von Fritsch retired and was replaced as Commander-in-Chief of the
Army by the more malleable Walther von Brauchitsch, he demanded an opportunity to clear his name. A court martial was duly convened, presided over by none other than Hermann Goering. Before it started, Heydrich and Himmler already knew the truth. The Gestapo’s enquiries had revealed that Schmidt had actually blackmailed a retired
captain
called von
Frisch
. However, they had kept quiet about what was clearly a case of mistaken identity in order to oust von Fritsch. Heydrich, in particular, had allowed the accusations to continue long after he had known they were groundless. This could have caused a great deal of trouble between the army and the SS security apparatus, but ultimately nobody seemed to care too much. While the court martial fully exonerated von Fritsch, no senior army officer emerged from the woodwork to demand his reinstatement. A number of middle-ranking Gestapo officials were disciplined and demoted, while most of the blame fell on Schmidt, who was shot on Himmler’s orders.
³
Von Fritsch remained a broken man, but he was made honorary commander of the 12th Artillery Regiment. He fell in action in Poland on 22 September 1939, with many believing that he had actively sought an honourable battlefield death.

T
HE VON
F
RITSCH
court martial coincided with—and was briefly interrupted by—the German annexation of Austria. This saw the first major combat use of the SS-Special Purpose Troops under army command. The
Leibstandarte
, the SS-Engineer Battalion and the SS-Signals Battalion were mobilised under General Guderian’s XVI Army Corps; the
Germania
Regiment was attached to VII Army Corps, with two battalions of the Death’s Head
Oberbayern
Regiment providing security on lines of communication; while the
Deutschland
Regiment and a further battalion of the
Oberbayern
Regiment were attached to Infantry Regiment 61 and Mountain Infantry Regiment 98, respectively, for the occupation of the Austrian Tyrol.
⁴
There seems to have been no friction between the SS and army soldiers on the ground, although
there were some logistical difficulties. SS units reportedly caused traffic congestion because of their lack of training and experience in large-scale road moves, and some of their commanders were disgruntled because they were assigned purely supporting roles. This prompted an immediate order from Hitler to Keitel to motorise the hitherto horse-drawn Special Purpose Troops. But a little later, on 17 August, he issued a much more significant decree. This clarified the position of the armed SS and, in effect, created what soon became known as the Waffen-SS.

The decree began by stating that the General-SS was a political formation of the NSDAP and therefore did not require military training or arms. However, “for special internal political tasks…or for use within the wartime army in the event of mobilisation,” the Special Purpose Troops, the officer cadet schools, the Death’s Head units and the police reserves of the SS were to be organised, armed and trained as military formations. In peacetime, these forces would be commanded by Himmler as National Leader of the SS and Chief of the German Police, and they would carry out internal political tasks. The SS would pay for their weapons and equipment, which would be supplied by the
Wehrmacht
as and when required.

The order went on to state: