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An early view of the Dachau concentration camp. Columns of prisoners are visible behind the barbed wire.

SS Police State

The SS began as an elite guard of the Nazi party. It became known for its brutal tactics. After 1933, the SS grew increasingly powerful. It oversaw policing, intelligence, and the concentration camp system.
SS Police State
  • Members of the SS during a parade

    Members of the SS (Schutzstaffel; originally Hitler's bodyguard, later the elite guard of the Nazi state) parade during a rally. Germany, date uncertain.

  • Heinrich Himmler during an inspection of the Dachau camp

    Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, speaks to an inmate of the Dachau concentration camp during an official inspection. Dachau, Germany, May 8, 1936.

  • Police search a messenger for a Social Democratic newspaper

    Police search a messenger at the entrance to the building where Vorwaerts, a Social-Democratic Party newspaper, was published. The building was subsequently occupied during the suppression of the political left wing in Germany that was carried out in response to the Reichstag Fire. Berlin, Germany, March 3–4, 1933.

  • Early view of the Dachau concentration camp

    An early view of the Dachau concentration camp. Columns of prisoners are visible behind the barbed wire. Dachau, Germany, May 24, 1933.

  • Nazi concentration camps, 1933–34

    The first concentration camps in Germany were established soon after Adolf Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933. The Storm Troopers (SA) and the police established concentration camps beginning in February 1933. These camps were set up to handle the masses of people arrested as alleged political opponents. They were established on the local level throughout Germany. Gradually, most of these early camps were disbanded and replaced by centrally organized concentration camps under the exclusive jurisdiction of the SS (Schutzstaffel; the elite guard of the Nazi state). Dachau was the only concentration camp opened in 1933 that remained in operation until 1945, and was the model for the Nazi concentration camp system that replaced the earlier camps.

An important tool of Nazi terror was the Protective Squad (Schutzstaffel), or SS, which began as a special guard for Adolf Hitler and other party leaders. The black-shirted SS members formed a smaller, elite group whose members also served as auxiliary policemen and, later, as concentration camp guards. Eventually overshadowing the Storm Troopers (SA) in importance, the SS became, after 1934, the private army of the Nazi Party.

SS chief Heinrich Himmler also turned the regular (nonparty) police forces into an instrument of terror. He helped forge the powerful Secret State Police (Geheime Staatspolizei), or Gestapo; these non-uniformed police used ruthless and cruel methods throughout Germany to identify and arrest political opponents and others who refused to obey laws and policies of the Nazi regime.

In the months after Hitler took power, the SA and Gestapo agents went from door to door looking for Hitler's enemies. Socialists, Communists, trade union leaders, and others who had spoken out against the Nazi Party were arrested, and some were killed. By the middle of 1933, the Nazi Party was the only political party, and nearly all organized opposition to the regime had been eliminated. Democracy was dead in Germany.

Many different groups, including the SA and SS, set up hundreds of makeshift "camps" in empty warehouses, factories, and other locations all over Germany where they held political opponents without trial and under conditions of great cruelty. One of these camps was set up on March 20, 1933, at Dachau, in an abandoned munitions factory from World War I. Located near Munich in southwestern Germany, Dachau would become the "model" concentration camp for a vast system of SS camps.

Key Dates

February 22, 1933
SS and SA become auxiliary police units 
Less than a month after Adolf Hitler is appointed chancellor of Germany, he calls on elements of the Nazi Party to act as auxiliary police. The SS, initially Hitler's bodyguards, and the SA, the street fighters or Storm Troopers of the Nazi Party, now have official police power. This further increases the power of the Nazi Party in German society.

February 28, 1933
Reichstag Fire Decree empowers police 
An emergency decree following the burning of the Reichstag (German parliament) on February 27, 1933, grants the police almost unlimited power of arrest. This power is known as "protective custody." In National Socialist terminology, protective custody means the arrest of potential opponents of the regime without benefit of a trial or judicial proceedings. Protective custody prisoners are confined not in the normal prison system but in concentration camps. These camps were initially established by the Storm Troopers (SA) and later came under the exclusive authority of the chief of the SS (the elite guard of the Nazi state).

March 20, 1933
Heinrich Himmler announces the opening of Dachau 
The Dachau camp, located near Munich in southern Germany, is one of the first concentration camps established by the Nazis. SS chief Heinrich Himmler announces its opening on March 20, 1933. The first prisoners arrive on March 22. They are mainly Communists and Socialists. Dachau is the only camp to remain in operation from 1933 until 1945.

June 17, 1936
Heinrich Himmler becomes chief of the German police 
Adolf Hitler appoints SS chief Heinrich Himmler chief of all German police units. All police powers are now centralized. The Gestapo (German secret state police) comes under Himmler's control. Responsible for state security, it has the authority to send individuals to concentration camps. Members of the Gestapo are often also members of the SS.

Critical Thinking Questions

  • Research what pressures and motivations might have influenced members of the SS.

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