Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel (SS; also stylized as
with Armanen runes; German pronunciation: [ˈʃʊtsˌʃtafəl]; literally "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP; Nazi Party). It began with a small guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz ("Hall-Protection") made up of NSDAP volunteers to provide security for Nazi Party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name. Under Himmler's direction (1929–45), it grew from a small paramilitary formation to one of the most powerful organizations in the Third Reich. From 1929 until Nazi Germany's collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of surveillance and terror within Germany itself and the occupied territories in Europe.
The main two constituent groups were the Allgemeine SS ("General SS"), and Waffen-SS ("Armed SS"). The Allgemeine SS concerned itself with police and racial matters within the German Reich, whereas the Waffen-SS consisted of combat units of troops within Nazi Germany's military. A third component of the SS, the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV), ran the concentration camps and extermination camps. Additional subdivisions of the SS included the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) organizations tasked with policing the German people for their commitment to Nazi ideology and providing domestic and foreign intelligence.