The SS was different from the German military , Nazi party , and German state officials because it had its own SS rank structure , SS unit insignia , and SS uniforms . Within the SS , early divisions also developed between the `` General SS '' and the SS under the command of Sepp Dietrich which would eventually become the Waffen-SS . The early military SS was kept quite separate from the regular SS and Dietrich introduced early regulations that the military SS answered directly to Hitler , and not Himmler , and for several months even ordered his troops to wear the black SS uniform without a swastika armband to separate the soldiers from other SS units once the black uniform had become common throughout Germany .