The SS stands for Schutzstaffel or protective echelon. Hitler founded the SS to serve as his protection and personal bodyguards throughout the war. The SS soon expanded to the most powerful military groups in all of Germany. The first SS consisted of only eight people who Hitler fully trusted. The SS went through three leaders before getting to the infamous leader Heinrich Himmler. Himmler became the leader of the SS and was influential in the expansion of this organization. He became leader in 1929 after being the Nazi party for six years. Himmler evolved the SS into a paramilitary unit. The organization grew to over a thousand members by 1932 and 50,00 by 1933. Also in 1933, Himmler opened the first concentration camp in Dachau Germany. In the mid 1930s the SS was separated into two subdivisions the first was the SS-VT, members would be quartered in barracks, the second was called Death’s Head Unit, members would work in the concentration camps and have a skull on their uniforms.The SS soon had another subdivision that was called the Waffen SS. This group was formed by men who specialized in the brutality and killing of prisoners in the concentration camps. Within six months of the new group starting it had 150,000 members. Only five years later in 1945, the German defeat seemed inevitable.Himmler was captured that year by Allied soldiers, but was able to commit suicide by taking a cyanide capsule. The SS soon fell apart …show more content…
The first group was the SS. The main leader was Heinrich Himmler and this group was famous for their role in the concentration camps. The next group was the Gestapo. This was created so Germany could have a secret police to suppress any form of opposition against the Nazis. The last group was the doctors of the holocaust. The main doctor was Mengele, who was famous for his experiments on hundred of patients. As one can see the holocaust was a huge part of the world 's history and the people who started it were very influential to the