SS Main Economic and Administrative Office
The SS Main Economic and Administrative Office was a Nazi organization responsible for managing the finances, supply systems and business projects of the Allgemeine-SS. It also ran the concentration camps and was instrumental in the implementation of the Final Solution through such subsidiary offices as the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and SS camp guards.
Heinrich Himmler at an SS construction site, 1940.
US troops, while liberating Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945, found thousands of wedding rings that had been taken from victims during The Holocaust.
Structure of the WVHA, according to an exhibit presented at the WVHA trial
Oswald Pohl, former Chief of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Dept, standing, is indicted on war crimes charges in connection with the operation of concentration camps at the Nuremberg Trials in 1947. After making numerous appeals, he was executed in Landsberg Prison on June 7, 1951.
The Allgemeine SS was a major branch of the Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany; it was managed by the SS Main Office (SS-Hauptamt). The Allgemeine SS was officially established in the autumn of 1934 to distinguish its members from the SS-Verfügungstruppe, which later became the Waffen-SS, and the SS-Totenkopfverbände, which were in charge of the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps. SS formations committed many war crimes against civilians and allied servicemen.
Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler leads an SS ceremony on the anniversary of the death of Heinrich I at Quedlinburg, July 1938
1939 photograph; shown from left to right are Franz Josef Huber, Arthur Nebe, Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Müller. According to the archival caption, these men are planning the investigation of the bomb assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler of 8 November 1939 in Munich.
Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia arriving at Auschwitz concentration camp, 1944