<p>Members of the SS and police speak among themselves during a roll call at the Buchenwald concentration camp. Buchenwald, Germany, 1938-1940.</p>


The SS


SS and Police Commanders such as Friedrich Jeckeln and Hans-Adolf Prützmann and Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing unit) commanders such as Arthur Nebe, Karl Jäger, Walter Stahlecker, Emil Rasch, and Otto Ohlendorf directed the ruthless and systematic shooting of men, women, and children in the killing fields of the occupied Soviet Union. In occupied Poland, SS men including Odilo Globocnik, Wilhelm Koppe, Christian Wirth, Franz Stangl, Oswald Pohl, Richard Glücks, and Rudolf Höss established killing centers equipped with gas chambers to facilitate assembly line mass murder.

Other Key Players


SS chief Heinrich Himmler (left) and Hans Frank, head of the Generalgouvernement in occupied Poland.Mass deportation operations required the cooperation of Adolf Eichmann of the Reich Security Main Office work with Albert Ganzenmueller of the German State Railways and Joachim von Ribbentrop of the German Foreign Office. SS killing or deportation operations in occupied Poland and the occupied Soviet Union required the cooperation of civilian occupation authorities under Hans Frank, Erich Koch, Hinrich Lohse, and others.

The Wehrmacht (German armed forces), under the direction of Wilhelm Keitel and Alfred Jodl, provided the Einsatzgruppen with transportation and supplies. On the orders of Army commanders such as Walter von Reichenau and Erich Manstein, the Wehrmacht also participated in the mass murder of Jews and other Soviet civilians and especially of Soviet prisoners of war.

The Reichsbank, the German central bank headed by Walther Funk, served as a depository for stolen currency and gold and helped to finance the SS killing operations.

Nazi physician Karl BrandtGerman physicians and other healthcare professionals implemented the Euthanasia Program, murdering tens of thousands of people with mental and physical disabilities living in institutional settings. Other physicians conducted unethical and cruel medical experiments, and determined in “selections” at killing centers which prisoners should live and which should die.

German industrialists such as Gustav Krupp and private German industrial concerns such as I.G. Farben and Krupp used laborers from the forced-labor programs directed by Albert Speer and Fritz Sauckel. A subsidiary of I.G. Farben provided the Zyklon B gas used to kill in the gas chambers.

Discussion Questions

Critical Thinking Questions

  • In what ways did the SS coordinate the activities of German and foreign police agencies to promote the systematic persecution and mass murder of Europe's Jews?
  • Consider all of the occupations, staff, and workers who participated in the movement of millions of people on the railroad system. What pressures and motivations might have influenced their choices and actions?

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