 HIAG leadership denied that there was any connection between the Waffen-SS and Nazi atrocities.In 1957, Paul Hausser wrote an open letter in "Der Freiwillige" to West Germany's minister of defence, stating that the concentration camp guard units (SS-Totenkopfverbände) served on external detail only, "without the possibility of interfering with the internal procedure".He did not mention that the guards accompanied prisoners to labour sites and that the commanders of concentration camps generally came from the Waffen-SS.