Walter Friedrich Schellenberg was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. He rose through the ranks of the SS, becoming one of the highest ranking men in the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and eventually assumed the position as head of foreign intelligence for Nazi Germany following the abolition of the Abwehr in 1944.
Schellenberg as an SS-Oberführer in 1943
Georg Wilhelm Müller (front row, to the left) and Reinhard Heydrich and SS-Oberführer Heinrich Fehlis (leader of SD and SiPo in Norway) to the right. Also SS-Hauptsturmführer Hermann Kluckhohn, SS-Sturmbannführer Walter Schellenberg, Rudolf Schiedermair, and other SS police officers at Ekeberg cemetery for German soldiers in Oslo during Heydrich's visit to Norway, 3–6 September 1941.
Himmler, 1942
Sicherheitsdienst, full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization and the Gestapo was considered its sister organization through the integration of SS members and operational procedures. The SD was administered as an independent SS office between 1933 and 1939. That year, the SD was transferred over to the Reich Security Main Office, as one of its seven departments. Its first director, Reinhard Heydrich, intended for the SD to bring every single individual within the Third Reich's reach under "continuous supervision".
Reinhard Heydrich in 1940
German passport extended by the SD in Norway, March 1945
Follow-up letter from Reinhard Heydrich to the German diplomat Martin Luther asking for administrative assistance in the implementation of the Final Solution genocide, 26 February 1942
SD personnel during a łapanka (random arrest) in occupied Poland
