Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler salutes a passing SS formation at the third Nazi Party congress (Reichsparteitag) in 1927. Nuremberg, Germany, August 1927.
The SS (Schutzstaffel, or Protection Squad) was an elite Nazi Party paramilitary unit. It was originally established as Adolf Hitler’s personal bodyguard unit. In the 1930s and 1940s, the SS was led by Heinrich Himmler. It became an increasingly powerful organization in Nazi Germany. It became closely intertwined with the German police. The SS was responsible for administering concentration camps and for many aspects of the mass murder of Europe’s Jews.
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