1.
Gottlob Berger
–
Serving in the German Army during World War I, he was wounded four times and awarded the Iron Cross First Class. Immediately after the war, he was a leader of the Einwohnerwehr militia in his native North Württemberg and he joined the Nazi Party in 1922, but lost interest in right-wing politics during the 1920s, training and working as a physical education teacher. In the late 1920s, he rejoined the Nazi Party and became a member of the paramilitary Sturmabteilung in 1931 and he clashed with other leaders of the SA, and joined the Allgemeine-SS in 1936. Initially responsible for education in an SS region, he was soon transferred to the staff of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler as head of the sports office. In 1938, he was appointed as head of the office of the SS Main Office. He consistently advocated greater ideological training for the Waffen-SS, but did not view SS ideology as a replacement for religion. He also sponsored and protected his friend Oskar Dirlewanger, whom he placed in command of a unit of convicted criminals, Berger undertook several other roles in the latter stages of the war, while continuing as chief of the SS-HA. He had a key role in the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories from mid-1942, allowing the SS to direct much of the economic activity in the east. In this role he proposed a plan to kidnap and enslave 50,000 Eastern European children between the ages of 10 and 14, under the codename Heuaktion, a plan that was carried out. In response to the Slovak National Uprising in August 1944, Berger was appointed as Military Commander in Slovakia, the following month he was appointed as one of the two chiefs of staff of the Volkssturm militia, and as chief of the prisoner of war camps. In the final months of the war he commanded German forces in the Bavarian Alps and he surrendered to U. S. troops near Berchtesgaden, and was promptly arrested. He was tried and convicted in the Ministries Trial of the U. S. Nuremberg Military Tribunals for war crimes and his sentence was soon reduced to 10 years, and he was released after serving six and a half years. After release he advocated for the rehabilitation of the Waffen-SS and worked in several manufacturing businesses and he died in his hometown in 1975. Described as blustery, cynical, and one of Himmlers most competent and trusted war-time lieutenants, Berger was also an ardent anti-Semite, due to his organisational and recruiting skills, Berger was kept as the chief of the SS-HA throughout the war. Berger was born on 16 July 1896 at Gerstetten in the Kingdom of Württemberg, the son of saw-mill owners Johannes and Christine and he attended Volksschule and Realschule and then teacher training in Nürtingen. He volunteered for service at the beginning of World War I. Wounded four times, he was awarded the Iron Cross First Class, during the war, all three of his brothers died, two killed in action and the other executed as a spy in the United States. Bergers combative temperament and very conservative politics fitted him for a role with the North Württemberg Einwohnerwehr militia in 1918–19
2.
Uniforms and insignia of the Sturmabteilung
–
The uniforms and insignia of the Sturmabteilung were Nazi party paramilitary ranks and uniforms used by SA stormtroopers from 1921 until the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945. The titles and phrases used by the SA were the basis for paramilitary titles used by several other Nazi paramilitary groups, early SS ranks were identical to the SA, since the SS was originally considered a sub-organization of the Sturmabteilung. The brown shirted stormtroopers of the Sturmabteilung gradually come into being within the Nazi Party beginning in 1920, by this time, Adolf Hitler had assumed the title of Führer of the Nazi Party, replacing Anton Drexler who had been known as the more democratically elected Party Chairman. The most common of these were World War I uniforms with full medals, also common were uniforms of the Freikorps as well as uniforms of veteran groups such as the Stahlhelm. Nazi Party members would also mix components from all three types of uniforms with little to no standardization except a swastika armband worn on the left arm. It was at point that the very first SA titles came into being. At the start of the existence, the SA had four primary titles, Oberster SA-Führer SA-Oberführer SA-Führer SA-Mann In 1923. The group was refounded two years later in 1925, from 1923 to 1925, the SA did not officially exist since Adolf Hitler had been imprisoned for his actions in the Munich Putsch and the Nazi Party banned in Germany. Underground cells of SA men did continue to meet in secret, in 1925, the SA was re-founded as part of the new Nazi Party which Hitler had put together following his release from prison. The reborn SA then received its first formal uniform regulations and also using the first recognizable system of rank insignia. Along with a brown uniform, SA members would wear swastika armbands with a kepi cap. Originally, the SA used its pre-1923 rank titles, but this changed in 1926 when local SA units began to be grouped into larger regiment sized formations known as Standarten, each SA regiment was commanded by a senior SA officer called a Standartenführer. At the same time, to differentiate from the SA rank and file, under this system, a Standartenführer wore one oak leaf, an Oberführer two, and the Supreme SA Commander wore three. The lower ranks of SA-Führer and SA-Mann still wore no insignia, in 1928, an expansion of SA enlisted ranks was required in response to the growing rank and file membership of the SA troopers. These new titles and ranks were denoted by a system which consisted of silver pips pinned to a wearers collar. The pip system was adopted from the Stahlhelm veterans group which was connected to the SA both in dual membership and ideological design. A further change in 1928 was the creation of the rank of Gruppenführer and this unit insignia patch was worn by those holding the rank of Sturmbannführer and below, the higher officer ranks wore oak leaf insignia on both collars. Röhms appointment was as the result of Adolf Hitler personally assuming command of the SA as the Oberster SA-Führer
3.
Schutzstaffel
–
The Schutzstaffel was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party in Nazi Germany. It began with a guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz made up of NSDAP volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed, under his direction, it grew from a small paramilitary formation to one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. From 1929 until the collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, surveillance. The two main constituent groups were the Allgemeine SS and Waffen-SS, the Allgemeine SS was responsible for enforcing the racial policy of Nazi Germany and general policing, whereas the Waffen-SS consisted of combat units of troops within Nazi Germanys military. A third component of the SS, the SS-Totenkopfverbände, ran the concentration camps, additional subdivisions of the SS included the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst organizations. The SS was the organization most responsible for the killing of an estimated 5.5 to 6 million Jews. Members of all of its branches committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II, the SS was also involved in commercial enterprises and exploited concentration camp inmates as slave labor. After Nazi Germanys defeat, the SS and the NSDAP were judged by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg to be criminal organizations, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the highest-ranking surviving SS officer at the time, was found guilty of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials and hanged in 1946. By 1923, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler had created a volunteer guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz to provide security at their meetings in Munich. The same year, Hitler ordered the formation of a bodyguard unit dedicated to his personal service. He wished it to be separate from the mass of the party, including the paramilitary Sturmabteilung. The new formation was designated the Stabswache, originally the unit was composed of eight men, commanded by Julius Schreck and Joseph Berchtold, and was modeled after the Erhardt Naval Brigade, a Freikorps of the time. The unit was renamed Stoßtrupp in May 1923, the Stoßtrupp was abolished after the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, an attempt by the NSDAP to seize power in Munich. In 1925, Hitler ordered Schreck to organize a new bodyguard unit and it was tasked with providing personal protection for Hitler at NSDAP functions and events. That same year, the Schutzkommando was expanded to an organization and renamed successively the Sturmstaffel. Officially, the SS marked its foundation on 9 November 1925, the new SS was to provide protection for NSDAP leaders throughout Germany. Hitlers personal SS protection unit was enlarged to include combat units
4.
Uniforms and insignia of the Schutzstaffel
–
Unit, role or rank badges or other insignia are carried on it instead of being stitched into the actual clothing. The term is originally French, deriving from bras meaning arm, brassards worn by military police and Red Cross personnel fall under this category. Brassard is also used to refer to pieces of armour worn to cover the entire arm, the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Military Insignia of the 20th Century. New Jersey, Chartwell Books Inc. p.69
5.
Sturmabteilung
–
The Sturmabteilung, literally Storm Detachment, functioned as the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitlers rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s, the SA have been known in contemporary times as Brownshirts from the color of their uniform shirts, similar to Benito Mussolinis blackshirts. The SA developed pseudo-military titles for its members, the SA ranks were adopted by several other Nazi Party groups, chief amongst them the Schutzstaffel, which originated as a branch of the SA before being separated. The SA became disempowered after Adolf Hitler ordered the purge of 1934. This event became known as the Night of the Long Knives, the SA was effectively superseded by the SS, although it was not formally dissolved until after the Third Reichs final capitulation to the Allied powers in 1945. The term Sturmabteilung predates the founding of the Nazi Party in 1919, originally it was applied to the specialized assault troops of Imperial Germany in World War I who used Hutier infiltration tactics. Instead of large mass assaults, the Sturmabteilung were organised into small squads of a few soldiers each, on 2 October 1916, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff ordered all German armies in the west to form a battalion of stormtroops. They were first used during the 8th Armys siege of Riga, wider use followed on the Western Front in the Spring Offensive in March 1918, where Allied lines were successfully pushed back tens of kilometers. The DAP was formed in Munich in January 1919 and Adolf Hitler joined it in September of that year. His talents for speaking, publicity and propaganda were quickly recognized, and by early 1920 he had gained authority in the party, the precursor to the SA had acted informally and on an ad hoc basis for some time before this. Some 70 people attended, and a second meeting was advertised for 13 November in the Eberlbrau beer hall. Some 130 people attended, there were hecklers, but Hitlers military friends promptly ejected them by force, the next year, on 24 February, he announced the partys Twenty-Five Point program at a mass meeting of some 2000 people at the Hofbräuhaus. Protesters tried to shout Hitler down, but his former companions, armed with rubber truncheons. The basis for the SA had been formed, a permanent group of party members who would serve as the ruffian Saalschutzabteilung for the DAP gathered around Emil Maurice after the February 1920 incident at the Hofbräuhaus. There was little organization or structure to this group, the group was also called the Ordnertruppen around this time. More than a later, on 3 August 1921, Hitler redefined the group as the Gymnastic and Sports Division of the party. It was by now recognized as an appropriate, even necessary. By September 1921 the name Sturmabteilung was being used informally for the group, Hitler was the official head of the Nazi Party by this time
6.
Adolf Hitler
–
Adolf Hitler was a German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party, Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and Führer of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. As dictator of the German Reich, he initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and was central to the Holocaust, Hitler was born in Austria, then part of Austria-Hungary, and raised near Linz. He moved to Germany in 1913 and was decorated during his service in the German Army in World War I and he joined the German Workers Party, the precursor of the NSDAP, in 1919 and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923 he attempted a coup in Munich to seize power, the failed coup resulted in Hitlers imprisonment, during which he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto Mein Kampf. Hitler frequently denounced international capitalism and communism as being part of a Jewish conspiracy, by 1933, the Nazi Party was the largest elected party in the German Reichstag, which led to Hitlers appointment as Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Hitler aimed to eliminate Jews from Germany and establish a New Order to counter what he saw as the injustice of the post-World War I international order dominated by Britain, Hitler sought Lebensraum for the German people in Eastern Europe. His aggressive foreign policy is considered to be the cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe. He directed large-scale rearmament and on 1 September 1939 invaded Poland, resulting in British, in June 1941, Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union. By the end of 1941 German forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of Europe, failure to defeat the Soviets and the entry of the United States into the war forced Germany onto the defensive and it suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time lover, on 30 April 1945, less than two days later, the two killed themselves to avoid capture by the Red Army, and their corpses were burned. Hitler and the Nazi regime were also responsible for the killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians, in addition,29 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European Theatre of World War II. The number of civilians killed during the Second World War was unprecedented in warfare, Hitlers father Alois Hitler Sr. was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. The baptismal register did not show the name of his father, in 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Aloiss mother Maria Anna. Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedlers brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, in 1876, Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed by a priest to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Aloiss father. Alois then assumed the surname Hitler, also spelled Hiedler, Hüttler, the Hitler surname is probably based on one who lives in a hut. Nazi official Hans Frank suggested that Aloiss mother had been employed as a housekeeper by a Jewish family in Graz, and that the familys 19-year-old son Leopold Frankenberger had fathered Alois. No Frankenberger was registered in Graz during that period, and no record has been produced of Leopold Frankenbergers existence, Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, a town in Austria-Hungary, close to the border with the German Empire. He was one of six born to Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl
7.
Kurt Daluege
–
Kurt Daluege was the chief of the national uniformed Ordnungspolizei of Nazi Germany. Following Reinhard Heydrichs assassination in 1942, he served as Deputy Protector for the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Daluege directed the German measures of retribution for the assassination, including the Lidice massacre. After the end of World War II, he was extradited to Czechoslovakia, Daluege, son of a Prussian state official, was born in the small Upper Silesian town of Kreuzburg on 15 September 1897. He entered the Prussian Army in 1916 and served with the 7th Guards Infantry Regiment and he served on the Eastern Front. In October 1917, attended officer training in Doberitz, during his service on the Western Front, he was severely wounded in the head and shoulder. He was hospitalised and declared 25% disabled, Daluege was awarded the Iron Cross, second class and the Wound Badge in Black. After World War I, Daluege became leader of Selbstschutz Oberschlesien - Upper Silesian Self Defense — an Upper Silesian veterans organization engaged in combat with the Poles in that region. In 1921, he became active in the Freikorps Rossbach while studying engineering at the Technical University in Berlin. Two years later he joined the Nazi Party and was assigned Party number 31,981, from 1924, he helped to organize the Berlin Frontbann, largely a front organization for the Nazi Sturmabteilung, since it and the Nazi Party were banned in Prussia at the time. In 1926 he joined the SA directly, eventually becoming the leader of Berlins SA and Goebbels deputy Gauleiter, or Party leader, throughout the period 1926—1929, Daluege led the Berlin-Brandenburg division of the SA. In July 1930, in accordance with Hitlers wishes, Daluege resigned from the SA and joined the SS with the rank of SS-Oberführer and his main responsibility was to spy on the SA and political opponents of the Nazi Party. Berlin SS headquarters was placed at the corner of Lützowstrasse and Potsdamerstrasse. In August 1930, when Berlin SA leader Walter Stennes had his men attack the Berlin Party headquarters, it was Dalueges SS men who defended it and put the attack down. Sometime afterwards in an letter to Daluege, Adolf Hitler proclaimed SS Mann, deine Ehre heißt Treue. At the same time, Hermann Göring moved Daluege to the Prussian Interior Ministry, thus neutralising the SA and shifting the balance of power within the party to the SS. Evidence of Dalueges ruthlessness goes beyond his intrigue against his former SA comrades and are discernible in his remarks concerning anyone he considered a threat to society. He once argued that, the consciously asocial enemies of the people must be eliminated by state intervention if it hopes to prevent the outbreak of moral degeneration. By November 1934, Dalueges authority over the police was extended beyond Prussia to encompass all of Germany
8.
Berlin
–
Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world, following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all-Germany. Berlin is a city of culture, politics, media. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations. Berlin serves as a hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination, significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras, museums and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts. Since 2000 Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene, the name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of todays Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. All German place names ending on -ow, -itz and -in, since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city. It is therefore a canting arm, the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920, the central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document,1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, in 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln
9.
Bavaria
–
Bavaria is a free state and one of 16 federal states of Germany. Located in the German southeast with an area of 70,548 square kilometres and its territory comprises roughly a fifth of the total land area of Germany, and, with 12.9 million inhabitants, it is Germanys second most populous state. Munich, Bavarias capital and largest city, is the third largest city in Germany, the Duchy of Bavaria dates back to the year 555. In the 17th century CE, the Duke of Bavaria became a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Bavaria existed from 1806 to 1918, when Bavaria became a republic. In 1946, the Free State of Bavaria re-organised itself on democratic lines after the Second World War, Bavaria has a unique culture, largely because of the states Catholic majority and conservative traditions. Bavarians have traditionally been proud of their culture, which includes such as Oktoberfest. The state also has the second largest economy among the German states by GDP figures, modern Bavaria also includes parts of the historical regions of Franconia, Upper Palatinate and Swabia. The Bavarians emerged in a north of the Alps, previously inhabited by Celts. The Bavarians spoke Old High German but, unlike other Germanic groups, rather, they seem to have coalesced out of other groups left behind by Roman withdrawal late in the 5th century. These peoples may have included the Celtic Boii, some remaining Romans, Marcomanni, Allemanni, Quadi, Thuringians, Goths, Scirians, Rugians, the name Bavarian means Men of Baia which may indicate Bohemia, the homeland of the Celtic Boii and later of the Marcomanni. They first appear in written sources circa 520, a 17th century Jewish chronicler David Solomon Ganz, citing Cyriacus Spangenberg, claimed that the diocese was named after an ancient Bohemian king, Boiia, in the 14th century BCE. From about 554 to 788, the house of Agilolfing ruled the Duchy of Bavaria and their daughter, Theodelinde, became Queen of the Lombards in northern Italy and Garibald was forced to flee to her when he fell out with his Frankish overlords. Garibalds successor, Tassilo I, tried unsuccessfully to hold the frontier against the expansion of Slavs. Tassilos son Garibald II seems to have achieved a balance of power between 610 and 616, after Garibald II little is known of the Bavarians until Duke Theodo I, whose reign may have begun as early as 680. From 696 onwards he invited churchmen from the west to organize churches and his son, Theudebert, led a decisive Bavarian campaign to intervene in a succession dispute in the Lombard Kingdom in 714, and married his sister Guntrud to the Lombard King Liutprand. At Theodos death the duchy was divided among his sons, at Hugberts death the duchy passed to a distant relative named Odilo, from neighbouring Alemannia. He was defeated near Augsburg in 743 but continued to rule until his death in 748, saint Boniface completed the peoples conversion to Christianity in the early 8th century. Bavaria was in ways affected by the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century
10.
Rudolf Hess
–
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess, was a prominent politician in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, he served in this position until 1941 and he was taken prisoner and eventually was convicted of crimes against peace, serving a life sentence, until his death by suicide. Hess enlisted in the 7th Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment as an infantryman at the outbreak of World War I and he was wounded several times over the course of the war, and won the Iron Cross, 2nd class, in 1915. Shortly before the war ended, Hess enrolled to train as an aviator and he left the armed forces in December 1918 with the rank of Leutnant der Reserve. Hess joined the NSDAP on 1 July 1920, and was at Hitlers side on 8 November 1923 for the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed Nazi attempt to seize control of the government of Bavaria. Whilst serving time in jail for this coup, Hess helped Hitler write his book, Mein Kampf. After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Hess was appointed Deputy Führer of the NSDAP and he was the third most powerful man in Germany, behind only Hitler and Hermann Göring. Hess continued to be interested in aviation, learning to fly the advanced aircraft that were coming into development at the start of World War II. On 10 May 1941 he undertook a flight to Scotland, where he hoped to arrange peace talks with the Duke of Hamilton. During much of the trial, he claimed to be suffering from amnesia, Hess was convicted of crimes against peace and conspiracy with other German leaders to commit crimes and was transferred to Spandau Prison in 1947, where he served a life sentence. Repeated attempts by members and prominent politicians to win him early release were blocked by the Soviet Union. Still in custody in Spandau, he died by suicide in 1987 at the age of 93, after his death the prison was demolished to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine. Hess, the oldest of three children, was born on 26 April 1894 in Alexandria, Egypt, into the ethnic German family of Fritz Hess, a merchant from Bavaria. His brother, Alfred, was born in 1897 and his sister, the family lived in a villa on the Egyptian coast near Alexandria, and visited Germany often from 1900, staying at their summer home in Reicholdsgrün in the Fichtel Mountains. Hess attended a German language Protestant school in Alexandria from 1900 to 1908, after a year there, Hess took an apprenticeship at a trading company in Hamburg. Within weeks of the outbreak of World War I, Hess enlisted in the 7th Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment and his initial posting was against the British on the Somme, he was present at the First Battle of Ypres. On 9 November 1914 Hess transferred to the 1st Infantry Regiment and he was awarded the Iron Cross, second class, and promoted to Gefreiter in April 1915. After additional training at the Munster Training Area, he was promoted to Vizefeldwebel, returning to the front lines in November, he fought in Artois, participating in the battle for the town of Neuville-Saint-Vaast
11.
Sepp Dietrich
–
Josef Sepp Dietrich was an Oberst-Gruppenführer in the Waffen-SS, the armed paramilitary branch of the Schutzstaffel, who commanded units up to army level during World War II. He later commanded 6th Panzer Army during the Battle of the Bulge, after the war he was imprisoned by the United States for war crimes and later by West Germany for his involvement in the 1934 purge. Sepp Dietrich was born on 28 May 1892 in Hawangen, near Memmingen in the Kingdom of Bavaria, in 1911 he joined the Bavarian Army with the 4. In the First World War he served with the Bavarian Field artillery, He was promoted to Gefreiter in 1917, in 1918 he was promoted to Unteroffizier. Last Bavarian army record lists Dietrich as recipient of Iron Cross 1st class, after the Great War Dietrich worked at several jobs, including policeman and customs officer. He joined the Nazi Party in 1928, got a job at Eher Verlag, the NSDAP publisher and his NSDAP number was 89,015 and his SS number was 1,117. Dietrich had been introduced to Nazism by Christian Weber, who was his employer at the Tankstelle-Blau-Bock filling station in Munich and he accompanied Hitler on his tours around Germany. Later Hitler arranged other jobs, including various SS posts, on 5 January 1930 Dietrich was elected to the Reichstag as a delegate for Lower Bavaria. By 1931 he had become SS-Gruppenführer, when the Nazi Party seized power in 1933, he rose swiftly through the hierarchy. He became the commander of Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and member of the Prussian state council, as one of Hitlers intimates, Dietrich was often able to disregard his SS superior, Heinrich Himmler, at one time even banning Himmler from the Leibstandarte barracks. The LSSAH eventually grew into a division of the Waffen-SS. Although the unit was nominally under Himmler, Dietrich was the real commander, in the summer of 1934 Dietrich played a key role in the Night of the Long Knives. Hitler, along with Dietrich and a unit from the Leibstandarte, later at around 17,00 hours, Dietrich received orders from Hitler for the Leibstandarte to form an execution squad and go to Stadelheim prison where certain SA leaders were being held. There in the courtyard, the Leibstandarte firing squad shot five SA generals. Additional alleged traitors were shot in Berlin by a unit of the Leibstandarte after Hitler told him to six men. Shortly thereafter, Dietrich was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer, Dietrichs role later earned him a 19-month sentence from a postwar court. After World War II began, Dietrich led the Leibstandarte during the German advance into Poland, after the Dutch surrender, the Leibstandarte moved south to France on 24 May 1940. They took up a position 15 miles southwest of Dunkirk along the line of the Aa Canal and that night the OKW ordered the advance to halt, with the British Expeditionary Force trapped
12.
Philipp Bouhler
–
Philipp Bouhler was a senior Nazi Party official who was both a Reichsleiter and Chief of the Chancellery of the Führer of the NSDAP. Bouhler was captured and arrested on 10 May 1945 by American troops and he committed suicide on 19 May 1945 while in the U. S. internment camp at Zell am See in Austria. Bouhler was born in Munich, to a colonel. He took part in the First World War and was badly wounded, from 1919 to 1920, he studied philosophy for four semesters and in 1921 became a contributor in the publishing house that put out the newspaper Völkischer Beobachter. He joined the Nazi Party in July 1922 with membership number 12, by autumn 1922 he had become deputy manager of the NSDAP. After the failed Beerhall Putsch in Munich and the subsequent refounding of the party in 1925, after the seizure of power in 1933, he became a Reich Leader and Member of the Reichstag for Westphalia. He joined the SS in the rank of Gruppenführer on 20 April 1933 with membership number,54,932, on 30 January 1936, Bouhler was promoted to the rank of Obergruppenführer. He held that position until 23 April 1945, in this job, for instance, secret decrees might be prepared, or internal business managed, before being brought before Adolf Hitler. Bouhlers office was responsible for all correspondences for Hitler which included private and his personal adjutant was SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Freiherr Michel von Tüßling. By 1944, much of the functions of the Kanzlei des Führers were absorbed by the Party Chancellery under Martin Bormann, Bouhler was responsible for the killing of disabled German citizens. By order of Hitler, Bouhler with Karl Brandt developed the Nazis early euthanasia program, Aktion T4 in which mentally ill, the actual implementation was supervised by Bouhler. Various methods of killing were tried out, the first killing facility was Schloss Hartheim in Upper Austria. The knowledge gained from the program was later applied to the industrialized annihilation of other groups of people. In 1941 Bouhler and Heinrich Himmler initiated Aktion 14f13, Bouhler instructed the head of the Hauptamt II of Hitlers Chancellery, the Oberdienstleiter Viktor Brack to implement this order. Brack was already in charge of the various front operations of T4, the scheme operated under the Concentration Camps Inspector and the Reichsführer-SS under the name Sonderbehandlung 14f13. Sonderbehandlung was the term for execution or killing. In 1942, Bouhler published the book Napoleon – Kometenbahn eines Genies and he had also published a National Socialist publication Kampf um Deutschland in 1938. Bouhler and his wife, Helene, were arrested by American troops at Schloss Fischhorn in Bruck near Zell-am-See on 10 May 1945 and his wife Helene jumped from a window at Schloss Fischhorn
