his influence on both civil and foreign policy became marked, as the Reichsführer reported directly to Hitler and his actions were not tempered by checks and balances. This meant the office holder could implement broad policy, such as the Nazi plan for the Genocide or extermination of the Jews, or order criminal acts such as the Stalag Luft III murders, without impediment. It is difficult to separate the office from the duties assigned to the individual. As of 20 April 1934, Himmler in his position of already controlled the SD and the Gestapo. On 17 June 1936 Himmler was named chief of all German police, thereby placing all uniformed police (Orpo) and criminal police (Kripo) in Germany under his control. In the latter role, he was nominally subordinate to the Interior Minister, Wilhelm Frick. It is not clear how much of this power would technically reside in the office of the Reichsführer-SS were those duties to be split up. These questions became moot by the time Himmler became the Interior Minister in 1943. It is difficult to define precisely the full detailed duties and responsibilities of the beyond that of leader and senior member of the SS, since, in the words of historian Martin Windrow, "by the outbreak of the (Second World) war it would have been impossible to define exactly the role within the state" of the entire SS itself. Relationship with the Waffen-SS The rank of was defined in the SS hierarchy as the highest possible rank of the . The exact position of the rank within the military Waffen-SS (Armed SS) evolved over many years, ranging from clearly defined to vaguely associated. The Waffen-SS was originally a small armed SS unit called the , and in the 1930s was under the command of Himmler who, in his position as , issued directives and orders to SS-VT commanders. Hold-outs existed for some aspects of the armed SS however, as well as within the special bodyguard unit known as the . Although the unit was nominally under Himmler, Sepp Dietrich was the real commander and handled day-to-day administration. The Waffen-SS eventually grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions and served alongside the German Army, but was never formally part of it. During World War II, the authority of the over the Waffen-SS was mainly administrative in that certain General-SS offices controlled supply and logistics aspects of the Waffen-SS.