SS

For more information on SS, visit Britannica.com.

SS, abbreviation for Schutzstaffel, designation of a paramilitary force of the NSDAP. The SS, the members of which wore black uniforms, originated in 1925, being formed within the SA to provide a personal bodyguard for Hitler. At first a hundred strong, it was rapidly augmented under H. Himmler, its leader from 1929 on. After the murder of the SA leaders in June 1934 the influence of the élite SS increased at the expense of the mass SA. The SS absorbed the Gestapo, which was originally separate and under H. Göring. As time passed, the SS, in a newly founded branch, the Waffen-SS, furnished the concentration camp guards and ran the systematic racial persecution and eventually the extermination campaign. The SS provided the troops behind the lines who carried out numerous massacres in occupied territory. The Waffen-SS also formed a division of combat troops, Division Leibstandarte. This vast organization became in the end the executive force of National Socialist government.