Abschnitt(Abshnit) - Regional division of the SS organization, also the regional headquarters of the SD.

Abteilung(Abteilung) - A department or subdivision of the main administration, also a military unit of up to a battalion in strength.

Abwehr(Abwehr) - Intelligence agency within the High Command of the Wehrmacht OKW (Obercommando der Vehrmacht - OKW). It was divided into departments: Central Department, Management Group Abroad, Abwehr-1 - intelligence, Abwehr-2 - sabotage and sabotage, Abwehr-3 - counterintelligence. Head in 1935-1944 Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. On February 12, 1944, most of the Abwehr became part of the Main Directorate of Imperial Security - RSHA.

Abzeichen(Abzekhen) - Insignia of ranks or titles.

Allgemeine SS(Allgemeine SS) - The so-called general SS, formed on a permanent or temporary basis, combat or reserve. Local SS units began to form in 1925. In 1934 they became an independent branch of the NSDAP from the SA. On January 6, 1929, Heinrich Himmler became Reichsführer of the SS. The bottom cell of the SS was a squad of 8 people - a ball (commander Scharführer), three squads made up a detachment - troupe (commander Troupenführer), three assault squads (commander Unter- or Obersturmführer), three assault squads made up a Sturmbann led by a Sturmbann or Obersturmbannfuhrer, three or four Sturmbann made up a standarde led by a Standartenführer, several standards made up an Abschnit, several Abschnit formed a group (division) led by a Gruppenführer. All these Fuhrers later became simply ranks in the SS system and organs.

Amt(Amt) - Department or ministry.

Alte Kämpfer(Old fighter) - An honorary title for members of the NSDAP who joined the party before the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933. or in Austria before its Anschluss in 1938, as well as police officers who joined it after 1933 without stopping their service. They enjoyed significant benefits and privileges. AKs wore a special chevron on the upper part of the right sleeve.

Anwarter(Anvarter) - Candidate for membership in the SS or for police service.

Aussendienststelle(Aussendienststelle) - External command of the security police Sipo and SD.

Auslands organization(Auslandsorganization) - NSDAP organization of Germans living abroad. Equated to Gau. The Gauleiter was Ernst Wilhelm Bohle.

Beamter(Beamter) - Functionary.

Beauftragter(Beauftreger) - Commissioner and Commissioner.

Befehl(Bethel) - Order.

Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des Sicherheitsdienstes(Befelsgaber der Ordnungpolizei) - Commander of the Security Police and SD.

Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des Sicherheitsdienstes- Chief of the Security Police and Security Service. The official title of the position of the head of the RSHA Reinhard Heydrich from 1939 to 1942. and Ernst Kaltenbrunner after the assassination of Heydrich in Prague and until May 1945.

Deutsche Arbeitsfront DAF(Deutsche Arbeitsfront) - German Labor Front. A nationwide organization that replaced the trade unions of the Weimar Republic in 1933. Leader with the rank of Reichsleiter Robert Ley.

Eisenes Kreuz(Iron Cross).

In fact, there were eight classes of the order, and the awards were made only sequentially (although there were several exceptions to the rules that Hitler personally allowed himself to make).

After the Iron Cross 1st class they followed accordingly in the following sequence:

• Knight's Iron Cross;
• Knight's Iron Cross with oak leaves (in soldier's vernacular - tops);
• Knight's Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords;
• Knight's Iron Cross with oak leaves, swords and diamonds;
• Knight's Iron Cross with oak leaves, swords and diamonds in gold.

The order itself was never reissued - only the above-mentioned additions were issued.

During the entire war, only 27 people were awarded the Knight's Iron Cross with oak leaves, swords and diamonds, and only Luftwaffe Colonel Hans Ulrich Rudel was awarded the Knight's Iron Cross with oak leaves, swords and diamonds in gold.

On July 19, 1940, for his services in the victory over Poland and France, Hitler awarded Goering the unique title of Reichsmarshal and especially for him established the Great Knight's Iron Cross in a single copy, slightly larger than the usual one with edges edged in gold. An eight-pointed star with an image of the Iron Cross in the center was also attached to the cross.

Iron crosses different classes About thirty women were awarded. The famous pilot Ganna Reich was awarded the Iron Cross of both classes.

Ehrenführer(Ehrenführer) - Honorary SS Fuhrer - a person who does not officially hold any position in the SS, but was awarded a high SS rank by Himmler personally, due to his position in the party or state. SS Ehrenführers, in the rank of Standartenführer to Obergruppenführer, were many Gauleiters , ministers, etc. The only difference from the current Fuhrers is the right silver aiguillette.

Einsatzgruppe(Einsatzgruppe) - Operational command of the SD and Sipo with assigned forces to carry out a special task in the occupied territory, mainly the extermination of the population. Endlözung,die (Endlozung) - The final solution is a euphemism meaning the complete extermination of Jews in Germany itself and in the occupied territories.

Feldgendarmerie(Feldgendarmerie) - Field military police.

Feuerschutz polizei(Feuerschutzpolicei) - Fire police (security).

Fordernde Mitglieder der SS- An informal member of the SS who regularly contributes membership fees to the SS fund.

Fuhrerhauptquartier(Führerhauptkvartir) - The main apartment of the Fuhrer or, more simply, Headquarters.

Geheime Staatspolizei(Geyheime Staatspolitsai) - State secret police, Gestapo, since 1939 Amt-IV RSHA.

Geheime Feldpolizei - GFP(Secret Field Police GUF) - The military equivalent of the Gestapo. GUF teams operated in the occupied territories of the USSR, which, in addition to the Germans, included hundreds of traitors from among the local residents. Officially intended to fight partisans, they actually carried out mass repression against the local population.

Gemeindepolizei(Gemeindepolitsay) - Municipal police.

Gendarmerie(Gendarmerie) - Rural police.

Hauptamt SS(SS Hauptamt) - One of the twelve main SS departments.

Hilfspolizei(Hilfspolitsai; Hipo) - Auxiliary police from members of the SA. In occupied Soviet territory, the local residents are traitors.

Hitler Jugent (Hj)( Hitler Youth - Hitler Youth) - Nazi paramilitary youth organization created in 1926. The leader is Reich Youth Fuhrer (Imperial Youth Leader) Baldur von Schirach, subordinate to Hitler personally. Covered German youth from 10 to 18 years old. The younger group, boys from 10 to 14 years old - Deutsche Jungvolk - German youth, from 14 to 18 years old, the Hitler Youth itself. Girls aged 10 to 14 years - Jungmedelbunde - Girls' Union, from 14 to 18 years - Bund Deutscher Medel - Union of German Girls.

Hoherer SS und Polizeiführer(SS Hoerer und Polizeifuehrer) - Higher SS and Polizeifuehrer - the highest chief of the SS and police of the region.

Hoheitsträder(Hoetstrugger) - Nazi Party functionary.

Kasernierte Polizei(Barracks Police) - Militarized police.

Konzentrationslager (KZ)- Concentration camp, or Kazet.

Kreis(Kreis) - Administrative unit in the Gau.

Kreisleiter(Kreisleiter) - Leader of the NSDAP in the kreis (district).

Criminal police(Criminal police or Kripo) - The criminal police, entered the RSHA as Amt-V, together with the Gestapo formed Zipo, i.e. security police.

Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler(Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler) - Regiment of Hitler's personal bodyguards. At first there was not even a regiment, but 100 people, then a battalion, regiment, brigade, division, even in some cases the 1st SS Tank Corps. Mainly they provided the outer radius and took part in parades.

Militarbefehlshaber(Militarbefehlshaber) - Military governor of the occupied territory.

Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei(NSDAP) - Full name of the Nazi party: National Socialist German Workers' Party, NSDAP.

Ordnungspolizei(Ordnungspolitsai) - Order police.

Organization Todt(Todt Organization) - Militarized organization created in 1933. for the construction of highways, the construction of military structures, etc. It was headed by the Reich Minister of Armaments and Munitions, Dr. Fritz Todt, who died in February 1942. in a plane crash under unclear circumstances. Todt was succeeded by Speer.

Ortspolizei(Ortspolitsay) - Local police.

Personlicher Stab RfSS- The personal headquarters of the Reichsführer SS, headed by SS Obergruppenführer Karl Wolf. He had the rank of SS Main Directorate.

Reichsarbeitsdients,RAD(RAD) - Imperial Labor Service. Compulsory labor service for all able-bodied German citizens aged 19 to 25 years. Twice a year, groups of young Germans were sent to work in labor camps for a period of six months.

Reichskanzler(Reich Chancellor) - Head of government, Hitler's government position.

Reichssicherheitshauptamt, RSHA- Main Directorate of Imperial Security. It consisted of seven departments, of which four were operational. The State Police were represented by the Gestapo and the Kripo, which together formed the Sicherheitspolizei - Sipo, the security police, or Sipo, as Amt-IV and Amt-V respectively, which were headed, also respectively, by SS-Gruppenführer and Police Lieutenant-General Heinrich Müller and SS-Gruppenführer and Police Lieutenant General Artur Nebe. The SD security service in the RSHA was represented by Amt-III (internal SD) led by SD Gruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf and Amt-VI (external SD intelligence) by SS Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg.

Schutzpolizei(Schutzpolitsai, shupo) - Security police, part of the order police.

Schutzstaffel, S.S.- SS security detachments in the NSDAP system.

Sicherheitsdienst des RfSS,SD- Security Service of the Reichsführer SS SD. Internal and external intelligence of the SS. Unlike the Gestapo and the Kripo, she did not have executive (executive) powers.

Sicherheitspolizei, Sipo- The security police, Zipo, included the Gestapo and the Kripo. Sigrunen - Runic designation for the SS.

Stahlhelm- (Steel Helmet) - Nationalist organization of veterans of the First World War, formed at its end. In 1933 she joined the assault troops (SA).

Sturmabteilungen SA- SS assault troops, founded in 1921 on the wave of national humiliation after defeat in the war and the enslaving conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, mass unemployment, monstrous inflation, etc. Masses of people, former soldiers, workers and minor employees, then succumbed to Nazi demagoguery , which promised the establishment of social justice and other benefits. Realizing that after coming to power, discontent was brewing in the ranks of the SA, caused by the Fuhrer’s obvious reluctance to fulfill these obviously impossible promises for him, Hitler, with the help of the SS, organized the so-called on June 30, 1934. night of long knives. Then the SS men, under the pretext of suppressing a non-existent conspiracy of traitors, without trial, shot several hundred prominent stormtroopers, including the chief of staff of the SA, formerly Hitler’s personal friend Ernst Röhm.

Totenkopfverbande, TV(Totenkopfverbande, or TV) - Special SS units that guarded concentration camps. Images of the death's head (skull and crossbones) were worn not only as a cockade on a cap, but also in buttonholes. Not to be confused with the SS tank division Death's Head.

Verfügungstruppe(Verfugunstruppe) - The original militarized SS units, transformed on 06/01/1940 into the Vaffen CC - SS troops.

Vertauensmann, V-mann- Secret agent or informant for the police or SD.

Waffen SS(Waffen SS) - SS military formations, especially well equipped and armed. They obeyed only the Reichsführer SS. When at the front, they were subordinate to military command only in strategic terms. They were not part of the Wehrmacht. The service life for privates was 4 years, for non-commissioned officers 12 years, for officers 25 years. They wore a general army gray uniform with two shoulder straps (on the general black SS uniform there was only one shoulder strap, on the right shoulder, indicating not the rank, but only the category of the composition). On the shoulder straps there were general army insignia, but in the buttonholes there were insignia of the general SS. The national emblem - an eagle with a swastika in a wreath in the claws of a special design - unlike the Wehrmacht, was sewn not above the right pocket of the jacket, but in the upper part of the left sleeve. Treatment between military personnel in accordance with military regulations (for example, not Untersturmführer, but Herr Lieutenant). Divisions, regiments, and brigades of SS troops were initially formed only from Germans and were called SS divisions, but later, due to the situation changing not in favor of Germany, formations began to be formed from foreign volunteers who shared Nazi views. These formations were already called SS divisions.

The most famous SS troops are the SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adol Hitler, SS Panzer Division Reich, SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugent, 14th (1st Ukrainian) SS Division Galicia (from Ukrainians, formed in Lvov), 15th SS Grenadier Division Latvia (from Latvians), SS Grenadier Division Charlemagne (from the French), 1st and 2nd Grenadier Divisions of Hunyadi (from the Hungarians). In the autumn of 1944, there were over a million people in the SS troops.

Wehrmacht(Wehrmacht) - The armed forces of Nazi Germany were formed after Hitler actually tore up the Treaty of Versailles in 1935. The latter allowed Germany to have only a 100,000-strong army, which was called the Reichswehr. The armed forces of the Weimar Republic did not have the right to possess heavy weapons, tanks, submarines, military aviation and so on.

The first head of the Main Reich Security Office was SS-Obergruppenführer and Police General Reinhard Heydrich, officially called Chief of the Security Police and SD. A political portrait of this man, whom so many people feared, would be incomplete without touching on his past. After the First World War, in 1922, Heydrich entered the Navy and served with the rank of naval cadet on the cruiser Berlin, which was commanded at that time by Canaris (this circumstance would play a fatal role in the fate of the admiral in 1944). In his military career, Heydrich reached the rank of chief lieutenant, but due to his dissolute life, especially various scandalous stories with women, he was eventually brought before an officer's court of honor, which forced him to resign. In 1931, Heydrich found himself thrown onto the street without a livelihood. But he managed to convince friends from the Hamburg SS organization that he was a victim of his commitment to National Socialism. With their assistance, he comes to the attention of Reichsführer SS Himmler, at that time the head of Hitler's security forces. Having become better acquainted with the young retired chief lieutenant, the Reichsführer SS, as eyewitnesses testify, one fine day instructed him to draw up a project for the creation of the future security service of the National Socialist Party. According to Himmler, Hitler then had reasons to arm his movement with a counterintelligence service. The fact is that the Bavarian police at that time showed themselves to be too knowledgeable about all the secrets of the Nazi leadership. Soon Heydrich was lucky enough to discover a “traitor” - he turned out to be an adviser to the Bavarian criminal police. Heydrich convinced the Reichsfuehrer. that it is much more profitable to spare the “traitor” and, taking advantage of this, try to turn him into a source of information for the SD. Under pressure from Heydrich, the adviser really quickly went over to the side of his new bosses and began to regularly supply Himmler’s service with information about everything that was happening in the political police of Bavaria. Thanks to this “success,” the young Heydrich, who had demonstrated high professional qualities, had the opportunity to enter the immediate circle of the increasingly powerful Reichsführer SS, and this circumstance largely determined his position in the future.

After the Nazis came to power, Heydrich's dizzying career began: under the leadership of Himmler, he created the political police in Munich and formed a selected corps within the SS, which was based on security officers. In April 1934, Himmler appointed Heydrich head of the secret state police department of the largest German state - Prussia. Until that time, political police institutions in the states were subordinate to the Reichsfuehrer SS only on an operational basis, but not administratively. Prussia was for Himmler and Heydrich, as it were, the first step towards possessing full power in the system of state police bodies. The immediate goal they set for themselves was to include the political police of other lands in this system and thus extend their influence to a body that already had “imperial significance.” When this goal was achieved, Heydrich, using his position, “extended his tentacles” to all the key posts of the administrative and managerial apparatus of the Nazi Reich. With the help of the security service he headed, he was able to monitor government and party officials, right up to those occupying the highest positions, and also exercise control over public life in Germany, resolutely suppressing any dissent.

The ambition, ruthlessness, prudence, and ability to turn the slightest opportunity to his advantage, characteristic of Heydrich and appreciated by Himmler, helped him immediately move forward and get ahead of many of his colleagues in the Nazi Party. “A man with an iron heart” - this is how Hitler called Reinhard Heydrich, who later became the head of the police of all German lands and, in addition, the chief of the SD (the next post in the party hierarchy after Hess and Himmler).

According to Schellenberg's testimony, one of Heydrich's characteristics was the gift of instantly recognizing the professional and personal weaknesses of people, recording them in his phenomenal memory and in his own “card index.” Already at the very beginning of his career, appreciating the importance of maintaining a file, he systematically collected information about all figures of the Third Reich. Heydrich was convinced that only knowledge of other people's weaknesses and vices would provide him with a reliable connection with the right people. With the conscientiousness of an accountant, wrote G. Buchheit, Heydrich accumulated incriminating materials on all influential representatives of the highest echelon of power and even his closest assistants.

According to the testimony of people who knew Heydrich closely, he knew in every detail the “dark spots” in the genealogy of Hitler himself. Not a single detail of the personal life of Goebbels, Bormann, Hess. Ribbentrop, von Papen and other Nazi bosses did not escape his attention. Better than anyone, he knew how to put pressure on a person and direct the development of events in the right direction. He never experienced a shortage of informers and informants.

Heydrich's rare ability to make everyone around him - from the secretary to the minister - dependent on himself thanks to the knowledge and use of their vices worked to strengthen Heydrich's power and spread his influence. More than once he confidentially informed his interlocutor that he had heard rumors that clouds were gathering over him, threatening him with official or personal troubles. Moreover, he, as a rule, invented these rumors himself, putting them into practice in order to induce his interlocutor to tell everything what he would like to know about this or that person.

“The closer I got to know this man,” Schellenberg wrote about Heydrich, “the more he seemed to me like a predatory beast, always on the alert, always feeling danger, never trusting anyone or anything. In addition, he was possessed by insatiable ambition, the desire to know more than others, to be the master of the situation everywhere. To this goal he subordinated his extraordinary intellect and the instinct of a predator following the trail. One could always expect trouble from him.” Not a single person with an independent character from Heydrich’s entourage could consider himself safe. Colleagues were his rivals.

Everyone who knew Heydrich closely or who had to communicate with him noted that this prominent representative of Nazism, like other leading figures of the Third Reich, was characterized by cruelty, a thirst for unlimited power, the ability to weave intrigue, and a passion for self-praise. And one more thing: possessing the qualities of a major organizer and administrator, who had no equal in the Reich in matters of management, he was at the same time an adventurer and a gangster by nature. These personal qualities of Heydrich left an imprint on all the activities of the RSHA. The representative of the League of Nations in Danzig, Carl Burckhardt, in his book “Memoirs” characterizes Heydrich as a young evil god of death, whose pampered hands seemed created to strangle. From 1936 to 1939, and especially after 1939, the mere mention of Heydrich’s name, much less his appearance anywhere, caused horror.

One of the innovations Heydrich introduced into the practice of agent work of the RSHA was the organization of “salons”. In an effort to obtain more valuable information, including about the “powers that be,” as well as about prominent foreign guests, he decided to open a fashionable restaurant for a select public in one of the central districts of Berlin. In such an atmosphere, Heydrich believed, a person would more easily than anywhere else blurt out things from which the secret service could draw a lot of useful information for themselves. The execution of this task, approved by Himmler, was entrusted to Schellenberg. He got down to business by renting the appropriate building through a figurehead. The best architects were involved in the redevelopment and decoration. After this, specialists in technical means of eavesdropping got down to business: double walls, modern equipment and automatic transmission of information over a distance made it possible to record every word spoken in this “salon” and transmit it to central control. The technical side of the matter was handled by reliable employees, and the entire staff of the “salon” - from the cleaners to the waiter - consisted of secret SD agents. After the preparatory work, a problem arose in finding “ beautiful women" The decision was taken by the chief of the criminal police, Arthur. Sky. From major cities Europe were ladies from the demimonde were invited, and in addition, some ladies from the so-called “good society” expressed their readiness to provide their services. Heydrich gave this establishment the name "Kitty's Salon".

The salon provided interesting data that significantly expanded the dossier of the security service and the Gestapo. The creation of the Kitty Salon was operationally successful. As a result of eavesdropping and secret photography, the security service was able, according to Schellenberg, to significantly enrich its files with valuable information. She was able, in particular, to reach hidden opponents of the Nazi regime, and also to reveal the plans of representatives of foreign political and business circles arriving in Germany for negotiations.

Among the foreign visitors, one of the most interesting clients was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy, Count Ciano, who, while on a visit to Berlin at that time, widely “walked” in the “Kitty Salon” with his diplomatic staff.

At the beginning of March 1942, by order of Hitler, Heydrich was appointed Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia while retaining his duties as chief of the RSHA and promoted to Obergruppenführer. This decision of the Fuhrer surprised no one. In fact, the scope and nature of the powers with which Heydrich was vested went beyond the functions usually performed by the Deputy Reich Protector. Heydrich's tenure in this post was nominal; practically, it was he who owned the leadership of the protectorate. From a purely external perspective, it seemed as if the Imperial Protector, Baron Constantin von Neurath, had asked Hitler for a long leave for health reasons. The government message said that the Fuhrer could not refuse the request of the Reich Minister and appointed the chief of the RSHA, Reinhard Heydrich, as acting Imperial Protector in Bohemia and Moravia. Hitler needed a determined, ruthless Nazi in this protectorate. Von Neurath was no good. Under him, the underground movement “raised its head.”

Heydrich did not hide from his entourage that he was extremely attracted to the new appointment, especially since in a conversation with him on this matter, Bormann hinted that it meant a big step forward for him, especially if he managed to successfully solve the political and economic problems of this area, “ fraught with the danger of conflicts and explosions.”

Having taken over the leadership of the protectorate, Heydrich, who was distinguished by extreme cruelty, immediately introduced a state of emergency and signed the first death sentences. The terror he unleashed affected many innocent people. In response to Heydrich's policy of genocide, Czechoslovak patriots and members of the Resistance movement organized an assassination attempt on him.

Assassination attempt on Reinhard Heydrich

Let us recall in general terms, on the basis of firmly established facts, how this assassination attempt was prepared and carried out and what role Czechoslovak intelligence, whose center was at that time in London, played in this.

In the first years of the war, several dozen reconnaissance groups were sent from England to the protectorate with the task of collecting military-economic and political information and establishing contacts with underground groups of the internal Resistance. Sometimes single agents were sent, who were entrusted only with the transfer of money, spare parts for walkie-talkies, poison, and encryption keys.

In the autumn of 1941, communication between London and the internal Resistance was seriously disrupted, and both sides set about restoring it.

The Czechoslovak government, while in exile, trying to strengthen its position in the international arena, revive the activities of the national Resistance movement and strengthen its own influence in it, sought to increase activity in sending agents to different parts of the country. The core of each dropped group consisted of a senior and a radio operator; each of them received approximately three underground addresses.

Previously, the agents underwent special training under the guidance of English instructors. The training program was short-term, but very intense. It included grueling physical training day and night, special theoretical classes, exercises in shooting from personal weapons, mastering self-defense techniques, parachute jumping, and studying radio technology.

In August 1941, London received a request to send paratroopers to the protectorate from a survivor of the defeat in the underground group of Staff Captain Vaclav Moravek, which successfully continued its activities. After discussing this request at a special meeting, which was attended by a narrow circle of high-ranking officers from the intelligence service and the general staff, a decision was made to send five paratroopers to the Czech Republic. Three of them were supposed to collect information about the deployment of military units, trains traveling to the front, and the products of military factories; create strongholds in the form of safe houses and safe houses to receive new groups. The task of Captain Gabchik and Senior Sergeant Svoboda (both of them were present at the said meeting) was to prepare and carry out an assassination attempt on the acting Imperial Protector Reinhard Heydrich. Gabchik and Svoboda were assigned to one of the British War Office training camps to practice parachute jumping at night.

By this time, as Colonel Frantisek Moravec, the then head of Czechoslovak intelligence, testifies in his memoirs, the London center had developed and brought to the attention of both participants in the operation a detailed tactical plan for the assassination, codenamed “Anthropoid”. As envisaged by this plan. Gabčík and Kubiš were supposed to parachute about 48 kilometers southeast of Prague, in a hilly area covered with dense forests. They were to settle in Prague, where they had to thoroughly study the situation, acting independently in everything, without the involvement of outside forces.

As for the technical details of the operation, the time, place and method of its implementation, they had to be clarified on the spot, taking into account specific conditions.

Before the deployment, Gabčík and Kubing were briefed on what they had to do, how to avoid mistakes and hold on, especially in dangerous situations, by Colonel Frantisek Moravec personally.

The first flight on November 7, 1941 was unsuccessful - heavy snowfall forced the pilot to return to England. The second attempt on November 30, 1941 also failed: the crew of the plane lost their orientation and was forced to return to base. The third attempt was made on December 28, 1941.

Having landed near Prague, in the cemetery area, Gabčík and Kubiš buried their parachutes and settled for a while in an abandoned lodge near a pond. Then, using the addresses obtained from the center, they moved to Prague with the help of underground workers. Here, having become somewhat accustomed to the situation, we began to develop possible options plan for the operation.

Three options for the assassination attempt on Heydrich

According to the first option, it was planned to raid the interior car of the protector on the train. Having carefully examined the railway track and the embankment in the place where they were supposed to ambush, Gabchik and Kubis came to the conclusion that it was of little use. The second option involved committing an assassination attempt on the highway in Panenske-Brezany. They intended to string a steel cable across the road in the hope that as soon as Heydrich's car bumped into it, there would be confusion, which the group would take advantage of to strike. Gabčík and Kubiš purchased such a cable, held a rehearsal, but in the end they had to abandon this option as well - it did not guarantee complete success. The fact is that there was nowhere to hide near the chosen place and nowhere to run, and this meant certain suicide for the performers.

We settled on the third option, which was as follows. On the Panenske-Brezany - Prague road - Heydrich usually took this route - there was a turn in the Kobylis area, where the driver, as a rule, had to slow down. Gabčík and Kubiš decided that this section of the road best met the requirements of the plan.

Having scrupulously carried out all the preparatory work, Gabchik and Kubis set the date of the assassination attempt - May 27, 1942, and distributed among themselves the responsibilities in the upcoming operation: Gabchik was supposed to shoot Heydrich with a machine gun, Kubis was to remain in ambush for backup, carrying two bombs. To carry out this plan, it was necessary to involve another person in the operation (his task was to use a mirror to signal Gabchik that Heydrich’s car was approaching the turn). They settled on the candidacy of Valchik, who at one time was abandoned in Prague and firmly settled here.

On the day of the assassination, early in the morning, Gabchik and Kubis rode bicycles to the appointed point. On the way, Valchik joined them.

On May 27 at 10.30, when the car was approaching a turn, Gabchik, at a signal from Valchik, opened his raincoat and pointed the muzzle of the machine gun at Heydrich, sitting next to the driver. But the machine suddenly misfired. Then Kubis, who is not far from the car, throws a bomb at it. After this, the paratroopers disappear in different directions.

Having changed several places of their stay in connection with general searches, Gabchik and Kubis accept the offer of the underground to move for several days to the dungeon under the Church of Cyril and Methodius. Five other paratroopers were already there.

During these days, the underground developed a plan to take the paratroopers out of the church outside of Prague: Gabčík and Kubiš were supposed to be taken out in coffins, and the rest in a police car. However, on the eve of the implementation of this plan, the Gestapo, due to the betrayal of one of the agents sent by Colonel Moravec to Prague, manages to reveal the whereabouts of Gabčík and Kubiš. Significant SD and SS forces were drawn to the church, and a blockade of the entire block was organized.

The assault on the church lasted several hours. The paratroopers bravely defended themselves. Three of them were killed, and the rest fought, the bale did not run out of cartridges, leaving one cartridge for themselves.

Reporting to his superiors on the completion of the operation, SS Standartenführer Czeschke, head of the Gestapo headquarters in Prague, noted that ammunition, mattresses, blankets, linen, food and other items found in the church indicate that a wide range of people assisted the paratroopers, including including church ministers.

Consequences of the assassination attempt on Reinhard Heydrich

The price for the assassination attempt turned out to be very high: out of 10 thousand hostages, on the very first night, 100 “the main enemies of the Reich” were shot. 252 Czech patriots were sentenced to death for harboring or assisting paratroopers. However, there were many more of them. In the first weeks, over 2 thousand people were executed.

Despite the fact that the Resistance forces suffered heavy losses, the Nazis were unable to break the will of the Czech people, whose greatness, modesty and heroism became a high moral guideline for subsequent generations.

After Heydrich's death, the post of head of the PCXA, transformed thanks to his efforts into one of the most sinister departments of the Third Reich, was taken by the chief of police and SS in Vienna, Dr. Ernest Kaltenbrunner. So in the hands of this fanatical Austrian Nazi are the levers of control of a machine of murder and terror unprecedented in history.

Until 1926, Kaltenbrunner practiced as a lawyer in Linz. In 1932, at the age of 29, he joined the local National Socialist Party, a year later he became part of the semi-legal SS organization, which actively advocated the subordination of Austria to Nazi Germany. He was arrested twice (in 1934 and 1935) and spent six months in prison. Shortly before his second arrest, he took command of the SS forces banned in Austria and established close relations with Berlin, in particular with the leaders of the SD. On March 2, 1938, he received the “portfolio of Minister of Security” in the puppet Austrian government.

Using his official position and connections, relying on the SS organization he headed. Kaltenbrunner launched active preparations for the capture of Austria by the Nazis. Under his command, 500 Austrian SS thugs surrounded the State Chancellery on the night of March 11, 1938 and carried out a fascist coup with the support of German troops entering the country. The next day, the Anschluss became a fait accompli. Soon after the Anschluss he makes a rapid career. Thanks to his executioner activities in annexed Austria as the top leader of the SS and Security Police, Kaltenbrunner becomes an assistant to Reichsführer Himmler, who was amazed by the effectiveness of the powerful intelligence network he had created, covering areas southeast of the Austrian border. Entrusting the “old fighter” Kaltenbrunner with the post of head of the Reich Main Security Office, the Fuhrer was convinced, writes Schellenberg, that this “strong guy has all the qualities necessary for such a position, and the decisive factors were unconditional obedience, personal loyalty to Hitler and the fact that Kaltenbrunner was his fellow countryman, a native of Austria."

Kaltenbrunner's work as head of the Gestapo

As head of the SD and Security Police. Kaltenbrunner not only managed the activities of the Gestapo, but also directly supervised the concentration camp system and the administrative apparatus involved in the implementation of the Nuremberg racist laws adopted in September 1935, in accordance with which the so-called final solution to the Jewish question was carried out. According to reviews from his colleagues, Kaltenbrunner was less interested in the professional details of the work of the organization he headed. For him, the main thing was, first of all, that the leadership of internal and external intelligence gave him the opportunity to influence the most important political events. The tools needed for this were in his charge.

In addition to his position, Kaltenbrunner was given importance, as SD employees noted, by his appearance: He was a giant, with slow movements, broad shoulders, huge hands, a massive square chin and a bullish nape. His face was crossed by a deep scar, received during his stormy student years. He was an unbalanced, deceitful and eccentric man, who drank a lot of alcohol. Dr. Kerster, who, on the instructions of the Reichsführer SS, checked all high-ranking SS and police officials to find out which of them was more suitable for a particular position, told Schellenberg that such a stubborn and tough “bull” as Kaltenbrunner had rarely fallen into his hands. “Apparently,” the doctor concluded, “he is only able to think when drunk.”

Kaltenbrunner's attention was most drawn to the methods of execution used in the concentration camps, and especially the use of gas chambers. With his arrival at the RSHA, which united all the terror and intelligence services in Germany, first of all, the Gestapo and the security service began to use even more sadistic torture, and weapons of mass extermination of people began to work at full capacity. According to one of the SD employees, almost daily meetings were held under the chairmanship of Kaltenbrunner, at which the issue of new methods of torture and killing techniques in concentration camps was discussed in detail. Under his direct leadership, the main imperial security department, on the direct orders of the rulers of the Reich, organized a hunt for people of Jewish nationality and killed several million. The same fate befell the paratroopers of the Allied powers and prisoners of war.

Thus, personally connected with Hitler and having direct access to him and, obviously, thanks to this receiving from Himmler such rights and powers that no one else from his circle had, Kaltenbrunner played the most monstrous role in the general criminal conspiracy of the Nazi clique. Shortly before his suicide, Hitler, who treated Kaltenbrunner as one of his closest and especially trusted people, appointed him commander-in-chief of the troops of the mystical “National Redoubt”, the center of which was supposed to be Salzkammergut, a mountainous region in northern Austria, characterized by rugged terrain and inaccessibility. According to Hoettl, the myth of “an impregnable Alpine fortress, protected by nature itself and the most powerful secret weapon that man has ever created,” was invented in order to try to negotiate better terms of surrender from the Western Allies. Kaltenbrunner and other Nazi war criminals hid in the mountains of this area when the Third Reich was defeated.

Companions of Heydrich and Kaltenbrunner in the SS

The end of the chief of the main imperial security department is known: he was sentenced to death by hanging in 1946 by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg.

Also characteristic are the figures of Heydrich and Kaltenbrunner's closest associates - Müller, Naujoks and Schellenberg, who played a leading role in organizing the secret war against the USSR.

Heinrich Müller, Gestapo chief, SS Gruppenführer and police general, was born in Munich in 1900 into a Catholic family. Remaining behind the scenes of events from 1939 to 1945, he was practically the head of the state police of the entire Reich and Kaltenbrunner's deputy. He began his career in the Bavarian police, where he held a modest position, specializing primarily in spying on members of the Communist Party. And if Goering gave birth to the Gestapo, and Himmler accepted it into his fold, then Müller brought this service to full maturity as a deadly weapon, the tip of which was directed against anti-fascist protests and all manifestations of opposition to the Nazi regime, which he sought to nip in the bud. This was achieved through such monstrous methods as were widely used, such as making fakes, slandering those who opposed the Nazi dictatorship and the policy of aggression, weaving imaginary conspiracies, which were then exposed in order to prevent real conspiracies, and finally, bloody massacres, torture, secret executions. “Dry, stingy with his words, which he pronounced with a typical Bavarian accent, short, squat, with a square peasant skull, narrow, tightly compressed lips and prickly brown eyes, which were always half-closed with heavy, constantly twitching eyelids. The sight of his massive, wide hands with short, thick fingers seemed particularly unpleasant,” as Schellenberg describes Muller in his memoirs. True, just in case, he retrospectively presents the matter in such a way that since 1943 he had been Schellenberg’s mortal enemy. constantly plotted against him and was almost ready to destroy him. This is hardly reliable. But one thing is absolutely clear: both rivals knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses thoroughly and, in their service to the Nazi elite, acted with the greatest caution, fearing to stumble somewhere and thereby give a trump card to the enemy.

According to Mueller's henchmen, who knew him for many years, he was a cunning, merciless man who knew how to take revenge. The habit of lying and the desire for irrepressible power over his victims left the imprint of treachery and rudeness, hidden and convulsive cruelty on him.

It was no coincidence that Heydrich chose Müller. He found in this “stubborn and arrogant” Bavarian, who had high professionalism and the ability to blindly obey, an ideal partner, who stood out for his hatred of communism and “always ready to support Heydrich in any dirty business” (such as the destruction of generals disliked by Hitler, reprisals against political opponents, surveillance of colleagues). Müller was distinguished in that, acting according to the usual standard, he “like an experienced artisan pursued his victim straightforwardly, with the tenacity of a watchdog, driving him into a circle from which there was no way out.”

As head of the Gestapo, Müller created a pyramid of cells that spread from top to bottom, penetrating literally every German home. Ordinary citizens became honorary employees of the Gestapo, acting as neighborhood guards. The renovator of a residential building was supposed to, like a quarterly overseer, monitor the members of all families living in this house. Quarterly supervisors reported political misconduct and inflammatory conversations that had occurred. In the summer of 1943, the Gestapo had 482 thousand neighborhood guards.

Initiative denunciation on the part of other citizens was also widely promoted and encouraged as a manifestation of patriotism. Volunteer informants usually acted out of envy or a desire to curry favor with the authorities, and the information received from them was, as a rule, according to Gestapo officials, useless.

Nevertheless, as the Gestapo believed, a person’s awareness that literally anyone could inform on him created the desired atmosphere of fear. Not even a single member of the National Socialist Party felt at ease, fearing the “all-seeing eye” of the Gestapo.

With the help of the idea implanted in people’s heads that everyone was being watched all the time, it was possible to keep an entire people in check and undermine their will to resist. Another advantage of such a fully state-owned network of honorary and voluntary informers was that it was free for the government.

As an expert in the field of torture, Müller surpassed all his colleagues in organizing it. Those who fell into the hands of the Gestapo were “worked” in strikingly identical ways. The technology of torture used was so identical both in Germany and on the territory of the occupied countries that this clearly indicated that the Gestapo men were guided by a single operational manual mandatory for all Gestapo bodies.

Before the interrogation began, the suspect was usually severely beaten to put him into a state of shock. The purpose of such malicious arbitrariness was to stun, humiliate and remove the arrested person from a state of mental balance at the very beginning of the fight against his torturers, when it is necessary to gather together all his mind and will.

The Gestapo believed that every person they captured had at least some information about subversive activities, even if they were not personally directly involved in it. Even those against whom there was no evidence of involvement in subversive activities were tortured “just in case” - maybe they would tell something. The arrested person was interrogated “with passion” on issues about which he knew absolutely nothing. One “line of questioning at random” was replaced by another. Once started, this process became literally irreversible. If the arrested person did not testify during interrogation using “soft” torture, they became increasingly cruel. The man could die before his torturers were convinced that he really knew nothing.

It was common practice to beat off the kidneys of the person being interrogated. He was beaten until his face was a shapeless, toothless mass. The Gestapo had a set of sophisticated instruments of torture: a vice with which to crush the testicles, electrodes for transmitting a shock electric current from the penis to the anus, a steel hoop for squeezing the head, a soldering iron for cauterizing the body of the person being tortured.

Under the leadership of Müller, all the SS executioners underwent bloody “practice” in the Gestapo, who subsequently committed atrocities in the occupied countries of Europe and on temporarily occupied Soviet territory.

Müller's fix idea was to create a centralized record, which would have a dossier on every German with information about all the “dubious moments” in the biography and actions, even the most insignificant ones. Müller classified anyone who was suspected of resisting the Hitler regime, even “only in thought,” as an enemy of the Reich.

Müller was directly involved in the “final solution to the Jewish question,” which meant the mass physical extermination of Jews. It was he who signed the order requiring the delivery of 45 thousand people of Jewish nationality to Auschwitz by January 31, 1943 for their extermination. He was also the author of countless documents of similar content, once again testifying to his unusual zeal in carrying out the directives of the Nazi elite. In the summer of 1943, he was sent to Rome to put pressure on the Italian authorities due to their hesitations in “resolving the Jewish question.” Until the very end of the war, Müller tirelessly demanded that his subordinates intensify their activities in this direction. During his leadership, massacres became an automatic procedure. Mueller showed the same extremism towards Soviet prisoners of war. He also gave the order to shoot British officers who escaped from custody near Breslau at the end of March 1944.

Just like the head of the RSHA himself. Heydrich, Müller was aware of the most intimate details concerning all the leading figures of the regime and their inner circle. In general, he was one of the most knowledgeable persons of the Third Reich, the highest “bearer of secrets.” Müller also used the power of the Gestapo for his personal interests. They say that when one of the members of the rich and noble Heredorf family fell into the clutches of the secret police, his relatives offered a ransom of three million marks, which Müller put in his pocket.

Mueller's disappearance without a trace

After fleeing defeated Germany, Müller left virtually no traces. He was last seen on April 28, 1945. Although his official funeral took place twelve days earlier, after the exhumation the body was not identified. There were rumors that he had gone to Latin America.

The list of the closest accomplices of Chief Executioner Himmler, key figures of the imperial security service, would not be complete without mentioning Alfred Naujoks, who was skilled in major political provocations, and above all against the USSR. Among the SS men, Naujoks was popular as “the man who started the second world war", leading a false "Polish" attack on a radio station in Gliwice on August 31, 1939, as detailed above.

The famous amateur boxer Naujoks's friendship with the Nazis began with his participation in street brawls organized by them with their political opponents.

In 1931, at the age of 20, he joined the SS troops, who were in need of “young thugs,” and three years later he was recruited to work in the SD, where over time he attracted the attention of Heydrich with his ability to make quick decisions and desperate risks and became one from his confidants. Initially, he was assigned to head a unit involved in the production of counterfeit documents, passports, identity cards and counterfeiting of foreign banknotes. In 1937, as already mentioned, he rendered a service to Heydrich by successfully coping with the production of a fake in order to compromise prominent Soviet military leaders led by Marshal M. N. Tukhachevsky. At the end of 1938, Naujoks, together with Schellenberg, participated in the kidnapping of two British intelligence officers on the German-Dutch border, which will be discussed further. As in the case of Poland, it was he who was tasked with finding a reason for the treacherous invasion of Nazi troops into the territory of the Netherlands in May 1940. Finally, Naujoks had the idea to organize economic sabotage (Operation Bernard) against England by distributing counterfeit money on its territory.

In 1941, Naujoks was fired from the SD for challenging Heydrich’s order, which strictly punished the slightest disobedience. At first he was assigned to one of the SS units, and in 1943 he was sent to the Eastern Front. During the year, Naujoks served in the occupation forces in Belgium. Formally listed as an economist, this one of the “successful and cunning intelligence officers” of the Third Reich was from time to time involved in carrying out “special tasks”, in particular, he organized several large terrorist attacks that ended in the murder of a significant group of active participants in the Dutch Resistance movement.

Naujoks surrendered to the Americans in 1944 and ended up in a war criminals camp at the end of the war, but somehow managed to escape from custody before he was due to stand trial at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg.

In the post-war years, this specialist on special assignments headed an underground organization of former SS members, relying on the help of Skorzeny, who supplied passports and money to the Nazis who fled from Berlin. Naujoks and his apparatus, under the guise of “tourists,” sent Nazi war criminals to Latin America, ensuring safety. He subsequently settled in Hamburg, continuing to do the same until his death in April 1960, without ever being brought to justice for the heinous atrocities committed during the war.

As facts and documents irrefutably confirm, Walter Schellenberg, the son of the owner of a piano factory from Saarbrücken and a lawyer by training, was also among the zealous executors of Hitler’s will and his convinced supporters. In 1933, he joined the National Socialist Party and at the same time the organization for the elite - the SS (Hitler's security forces). At first, he was content with the position of a freelance Gestapo spy and a foreign agent of the SD, while making every effort to attract the attention of his bosses with the thoroughness and thoroughness of the details of the reports regularly submitted to them. At the same time, by Schellenberg’s own admission, after he became a National Socialist, he did not have to experience any mental discomfort from the fact that he accepted the responsibility of simply being an informer, collecting information about his own comrades and university professors. Schellenberg received his first assignments from the secret service in green envelopes addressed to a Bonn professor of surgery. Instructions for him came directly from the central security department in Berlin, which required information about the state of mind in the Rhineland universities, the political, professional and personal connections of students and teachers.

A typical upstart, with ambitions that were not supported by a material base, Schellenberg sought to “get out among the people” at any cost. Prone to achieve goals through adventures and behind-the-scenes maneuvers, he had a special predilection for dubious romance. The world, located on the other side of the established order, on the other side of “boring prudence,” as he liked to put it, attracted him with magical force. Admiring the power of the “triumphant will of heroic individuals,” he sought to turn the accidents in his life into a rule, and to consider the unusual in the order of things.

Fighting with humiliating zeal for his own life at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, Schellenberg tried with all his might to whitewash himself, to distance himself from the monstrous crimes of his colleagues - the sinister executioners of the Hitlerite empire, to present himself as just a “modest armchair theorist” standing above the fray as a priest of the “pure” intelligence art. However, the British officers who interrogated him contemptuously told him that he was nothing more than an undeservedly overrated favorite of the Nazi regime, who did not meet either the tasks facing him or the historical situation. Such an assessment by the enemy of his abilities was a severe blow to Schellenberg’s pride. The last years of his life, which he spent in Italy, after he was expelled from Switzerland, where he initially settled, also turned out to be “poisoned” for him. The fact is that the Italian authorities, who not without hesitation provided him with asylum, did not pay any attention to him, content with a very superficial observation of a man who not only did not pose any danger, but was unlikely to cause any concern. Such an attitude was perceived by Schellenberg as extremely painful, since it revealed complete disdain for the person of yesterday’s “super-star” of Hitler’s intelligence.

Returning to the period when Schellenberg, having become close to circles associated with intelligence, began to take his first steps in the field of “secret war,” it should be noted that his abilities in this activity were especially highly appreciated during the long trip he took across countries Western Europe as a foreign agent of SD. The efforts and undeniable professionalism that Schellenberg discovered while performing a difficult task that required obtaining up-to-date information of the “broadest profile” could not go unnoticed: having recognized the right figure in him, he was soon enrolled in the secret service staff of the SS leadership apparatus. In the mid-30s, he was sent to Frankfurt am Main to undergo a three-month training course in the departments of the police presidium. From there he was sent to France for four weeks with the task of collecting accurate information about political views one famous professor at the Sorbonne. Schellenberg completed the task, and after returning from Paris he was transferred to study “management methods” in Berlin to the Reich Ministry of the Interior, from where he moved to the Gestapo.

In April 1938, Schellenberg was given a special trust: to accompany Hitler on his trip to Rome. He used his stay in Italy to obtain as much information as possible about the mood of the Italian people - it was important for the Fuhrer to know how strong Mussolini’s power was and whether Germany could fully count on an alliance with this country when implementing its military program. In preparation for this mission, Schellenberg selected about 500 SD employees and agents who knew Italian, who would go to Italy under the guise of harmless tourists. By agreement with various travel agencies, some of which secretly collaborated with Nazi intelligence, these people traveled by train, plane or ship from Germany and France to Italy. In total, about 170 groups of three each had to perform the same task in different places, without knowing anything about each other. As a result, Schellenberg managed to collect important information about the “undercurrents” and the mood of the population of fascist Italy, which was highly appreciated by the Fuhrer himself.

Thus, rising higher and higher up the steps of the SS hierarchical ladder, Schellenberg, who was a protege of SD chief Heydrich, soon finds himself at the head of the headquarters office of the security service, and then, after the creation of the main imperial security department, he is appointed head of the counterintelligence department in the state secret police department ( Gestapo). Schellenberg achieved such a high status in the intelligence structure when he was less than 30 years old...

In connection with the visit of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V.M. Molotov to Germany on November 13, 1940, Schellenberg was given responsibility for ensuring the security of the Soviet delegation on the way from Warsaw to Berlin. Along the railway along the entire route, especially on the Polish section, double posts were set up, and comprehensive control was organized over the border, hotels and trains. At the same time, relentless covert surveillance was carried out on all the companions of the head of the delegation, especially since, as Schellenberg later explained, the identity of three of them could not be established. In June 1941, Schellenberg was placed at the head of the VI Directorate (foreign policy intelligence), first as deputy chief, and from December 1941 as chief. Everything was shaping up in such a way that he was turning into one of the central figures of the SD. They looked at him as a new, rising star at that time in the horizon of German espionage. He was 34 years old when he... Having made a dizzying career and seized the right to dispose of an organization that served as a support for the fascist regime, he found himself in the inner circle of Hitler, Himmler and Heydrich. In a word, “the goal I was striving for,” Schellenberg writes about himself, “was achieved.” At that time, as he put it, he made a commitment to the “full-throttle organization” of the Nazi regime not to let this machine stop, and to keep the people at the control levers in a magical state of ecstasy with power. As head of foreign policy intelligence, Schellenberg demanded that any of its employees develop and maintain correct intuition - this quality was decisive for him when assessing their professional qualities. They had to take care to know things that might only become relevant weeks or months later, so that when management needed the information, it would already be available. “I myself,” Schellenberg concludes, “as far as my position allowed (and it allowed, we note from ourselves, very, very much. - Note ed.), did everything to ensure the victory of National Socialist Germany."

Rank insignia
German Security Service (SD) officers
(Sicherheitsdienst des RfSS, SD) 1939-1945.

Preface.
Before describing the insignia of security personnel (SD) in Germany during the Second World War, it is necessary to provide some clarification, which, however, will further confuse readers. And the point is not so much in these signs and uniforms themselves, which were repeatedly amended (which further confuses the picture), but in the complexity and intricacy of the entire structure of government bodies in Germany at that time, which was also closely intertwined with the party bodies of the Nazi Party , in which, in turn, the SS organization and its structures, often beyond the control of party bodies, played a huge role.

First of all, as if within the framework of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party) and as if being the militant wing of the party, but at the same time not subordinate to party bodies, there was a certain public organization Schutzstaffel (SS), which initially represented groups of activists who were engaged in the physical protection of rallies and meetings of the party, the protection of its senior leaders. This public, I emphasize, public organization after numerous reforms of 1923-1939. transformed and began to consist of the SS public organization itself (Algemeine SS), SS troops (Waffen SS) and concentration camp guard units (SS-Totenkopfrerbaende).

The entire SS organization (both the general SS, and the SS troops and camp guard units) was subordinate to the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, who, in addition, was the chief of police for all of Germany. Those. In addition to one of the highest party posts, he also held a government position.

To manage all structures involved in ensuring the security of the state and the ruling regime, law enforcement issues (police agencies), intelligence and counterintelligence, the Main Directorate of State Security (Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA)) was created in the fall of 1939.

From the author. Usually in our literature it is written “Main Directorate of Imperial Security” (RSHA). However, the German word Reich is translated as "state", and not at all as "empire". The word "empire" in German looks like this - Kaiserreich. Literally - "state of the emperor." There is another word for the concept of “empire” - Imperium.
Therefore, I use words translated from German as they mean, and not as is generally accepted. By the way, people who are not very knowledgeable in history and linguistics, but have an inquisitive mind, often ask: “Why was Hitler’s Germany called an empire, but there was not even a nominal emperor in it, like, say, in England?”

Thus, the RSHA is a state institution, and by no means a party institution and not part of the SS. It can be compared to some extent with our NKVD.
Another question is that this state institution is subordinate to the Reichsführer SS G. Himmler and he, naturally, first of all recruited members of the public organization CC (Algemeine SS) as employees of this institution.
However, we note that not all RSHA employees were members of the SS, and not all departments of the RSHA consisted of SS members. For example, the criminal police (5th department of the RSHA). Most of its leaders and employees were not members of the SS. Even in the Gestapo there were quite a few senior officials who were not members of the SS. Yes, the famous Müller himself became a member of the SS only in the summer of 1941, although he had led the Gestapo since 1939.

Let's move on now to SD.

Initially in 1931 (i.e., even before the Nazis came to power) the SD was created (from among members of the general SS) as the internal security structure of the SS organization to combat various violations of order and rules, identify government agents and hostile political parties, provocateurs among SS members, renegades, etc.
in 1934 (this was after the Nazis came to power) the SD extended its functions to the entire NSDAP, and actually left the subordination of the SS, but was still subordinate to the SS Reichsführer G. Himmler.

In 1939, with the creation of the Main Directorate of State Security (Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA)), the SD became part of its structure.

The SD in the structure of the RSHA was represented by two departments (Amt):

Amt III (Inland-SD), who dealt with issues of nation-building, immigration, race and public health, science and culture, industry and commerce.

Amt VI (Ausland-SD), who was engaged in intelligence work in Northern, Western and Eastern Europe, the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and in countries South America. It was this department that Walter Schellenberg led.

And also many of the SD employees were not SS men. And even the head of subdivision VI A 1 was not a member of the SS.

Thus, the SS and SD are different organizations, although subordinate to the same leader.

From the author. In general, there is nothing strange here. This is a fairly common practice. For example, in today's Russia there is a Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), which is subordinate to two quite different structures - the police and the Internal Troops. And in Soviet times The structure of the Ministry of Internal Affairs also included fire protection and prison management structures

Thus, to summarize, it can be argued that the SS is one thing, and the SD is something else, although among the SD employees there are many SS members.

Now you can move on to the uniforms and insignia of SD employees.

End of the preface.

In the picture on the left: A soldier and an SD officer in service uniform.

First of all, SD officers wore a light gray open jacket with a white shirt and a black tie similar to the uniform of the general SS mod. 1934 (the replacement of the black SS uniform with a gray one lasted from 1934 to 1938), but with its own insignia.
The piping on the caps of officers is made of silver flagellum, while the piping of soldiers and non-commissioned officers is green. Only green and nothing else.

The main difference in the uniform of SD employees is that there are no signs in the right buttonhole(runes, skulls, etc.). All SD ranks up to and including Obersturmannführer have a purely black buttonhole.
Soldiers and non-commissioned officers have buttonholes without edging (until May 1942, the edging was still black and white striped); officers have buttonholes edged with a silver flagellum.

Above the cuff of the left sleeve there is always a black diamond with white letters SD inside. For officers, the diamond is edged with a silver flagellum.

In the photo on the left: the sleeve patch of an SD officer and the buttonhole with the insignia of an SD Untersturmfuehrer (Untersturmfuehrer des SD).

On the left sleeve above the cuff of SD officers serving in headquarters and departments, it is obligatory a black ribbon with silver stripes along the edges, on which the place of service is indicated in silver letters.

In the photo on the left: an armband with an inscription indicating that the owner is serving in the SD Service Directorate.

In addition to the service uniform, which was used for all occasions (official, holiday, day off, etc.), SD employees could wear field uniforms similar to the field uniforms of the Wehrmacht and SS troops with their own insignia.

In the photo on the right: field uniform (feldgrau) of an SD Untersharfuehrer (Untersharfuehrer des SD) model 1943. This uniform has already been simplified - the collar is not black, but the same color as the uniform itself, the pockets and their valves are of a simpler design, there are no cuffs. The right clean buttonhole and a single star in the left, indicating rank, are clearly visible. Sleeve emblem in the form of an SS eagle, and at the bottom of the sleeve there is a patch with the letters SD.
pay attention to characteristic appearance shoulder strap and green edging of a police-style shoulder strap.

Special attention deserves the rank system in the SD. SD officers were named after their SS ranks, but instead of the prefix SS- before the name of the rank, they had the letters SD behind the name. For example, not "SS-Untersharfuehrer", but "Untersharfuehrer des SD". If the employee was not a member of the SS, then he wore a police rank (and obviously a police uniform).

Shoulder straps of soldiers and non-commissioned officers of the SD, not army, but police type, but not brown, but black. Please pay attention to the titles of the SD employees. They differed both from the ranks of the general SS and from the ranks of the SS troops.

In the photo on the left: SD Unterscharführer's shoulder straps. The lining of the shoulder strap is grass green, on which are superimposed two rows of double soutache cord. The inner cord is black, the outer cord is silver with black highlights. They go around the button at the top of the shoulder strap. Those. In terms of its structure, it is a shoulder strap of a chief officer type, but with cords of other colors.

SS-Mann (SS-Mann). Black police-style shoulder straps without edging. Before May 1942, the buttonholes were edged with black and white lace.

From the author. Why the very first two ranks in the SD are SS, and the ranks of the general SS, is not clear. It is possible that SD officers for the lowest positions were recruited from among ordinary members of the general SS, who were assigned police-style insignia, but were not given the status of SD officers.
These are my conjectures, since Böchler does not explain this incomprehensibility in any way, and I do not have the primary source at my disposal.

It is very bad to use secondary sources because errors inevitably arise. This is natural, since a secondary source is a retelling, an interpretation by the author of the primary source. But in the absence of anything, you have to use what you have. It's still better than nothing.

SS-Sturmmann (SS-Sturmmann) Black police style shoulder strap. The outer row of double soutache cord is black with silver highlights. Please note that in the SS troops and in the general SS, the shoulder straps of the SS-Mann and SS-Sturmmann are exactly the same, but here there is already a difference.
On the left buttonhole there is one row of double silver soutache cord.

Rottenfuehrer des SD (Rottenfuehrer SD) The shoulder strap is the same, but the usual German one is sewn at the bottom 9mm aluminum braid. The left buttonhole has two rows of double silver soutache cord.

From the author. Interesting moment. In the Wehrmacht and the SS troops, such a patch indicated that the owner was a candidate for non-commissioned officer rank.

Unterscharfuehrer des SD (Unterscharfuehrer SD) Black police style shoulder strap. The outer row of double soutache cord is silver or light gray (depending on what it is made of, aluminum or silk thread) with black linings. The lining of the shoulder strap, forming a sort of edging, is grass-green. This color is generally characteristic of the German police.
There is one silver star on the left buttonhole.

Scharfuehrer des SD (SD Scharfuehrer) Black police style shoulder strap. Outer row double soutache cord, silver with black highlights. The lining of the shoulder strap, forming a kind of edging, is grass-green. The lower edge of the shoulder strap is closed with the same silver cord with black piping.
On the left buttonhole, in addition to the star, there is one row of double silver soutache lace.

Oberscharfuehrer des SD (Oberscharfuehrer SD) Shoulder strap black police type. The outer row of double soutache cord is silver with black linings. the lining of the shoulder strap, forming a sort of edging, is grass-green. The lower edge of the shoulder strap is closed with the same silver cord with black piping. In addition, there is one silver star on the shoulder strap.
On the left buttonhole there are two silver stars.

Hauptscharfuehrer des SD (Hauptscharfuehrer SD) Shoulder strap black police type. The outer row of double soutache cord is silver with black linings. The lining of the shoulder strap, forming a kind of edging, is grass-green. The lower edge of the shoulder strap is closed with the same silver cord with black piping. In addition, there are two silver stars on the chase.
The left buttonhole has two silver stars and one row of double silver soutache cord.

Sturmscharfuehrer des SD (SD Sturmscharfuehrer) Shoulder strap black police type. The outer row of double soutache cord is silver with black linings. In the middle part of the shoulder strap there is weaving from the same silver with black lining and black soutache laces. The lining of the shoulder strap, forming a kind of edging, is grass-green. On the left buttonhole there are two silver stars and two rows of double silver soutache cord.

It remains unclear whether this rank existed since the creation of the SD, or whether it was introduced simultaneously with the introduction of the rank of SS-Staffscharführer in the SS troops in May 1942.

From the author. One gets the impression that the rank of SS-Sturmscharführer mentioned in almost all Russian-language sources (including in my works) is erroneous. In fact, obviously, the rank of SS-Staffscharführer was introduced in the SS troops in May 1942, and Sturmscharführer in the SD. But this is my speculation.

The rank insignia of SD officers is described below. Let me remind you that their shoulder straps were similar to those of Wehrmacht and SS troops.

In the photo on the left: shoulder straps of an SD chief officer. The lining of the shoulder strap is black, the piping is grass green and there are two rows of double soutache cord that wrap around the button. Actually, this soutache double cord should be made of aluminum thread and have a dull silver color. At worst, from light gray shiny silk yarn. But this example of a shoulder strap dates back to the final period of the war and the cord is made of simple, harsh, undyed cotton yarn.

The buttonholes were edged with a silver aluminum band.

All SD officers, starting with the Unterschurmführer and ending with the Obersturmbannführer, have an empty right buttonhole, and insignia on the left. From Standartenführer and above, rank insignia is in both buttonholes.

The stars in the buttonholes are silver, and the stars on the shoulder straps are golden. Note that in the general SS and in the SS troops the stars on the shoulder straps were silver.

1. Untersturmfuehrer des SD (Untersturmfuehrer SD).
2.Obersturmfuehrer des SD (Obersturmfuehrer SD).
3.Hauptrsturmfuehrer des SD (Hauptsturmfuehrer SD).

From the author. If you start looking through the list of the SD management staff, the question arises what position “Comrade Stirlitz” held there. In Amt VI (Ausland-SD), where, judging by the book and film, he served, all leadership positions (except for the chief V. Schelenberg, who had the rank of general) by 1945 were occupied by officers with a rank no higher than Obersturmbannführer (that is, lieutenant colonel). There was only one Standarteführer there, who occupied a very high position as head of department VI B. A certain Eugen Steimle. And Müller’s secretary, according to Böchler, Scholz could not have a rank higher than Unterscharführer.
And judging by what Stirlitz did in the film, i.e. ordinary operational work, then he could not possibly have a rank higher than non-commissioned officer.
For example, open the Internet and see that in 1941 the commandant of the huge Auschwitz concentration camp (Auschwitz, as the Poles call it) was an SS officer with the rank of Obersturmührer (senior lieutenant) named Karl Fritzsch. And none of the other commandants was above the captain level.
Of course, both the film and the book are purely artistic, but still, as Stanislavsky used to say, “there must be the truth of life in everything.” The Germans did not throw away ranks and appropriated them sparingly.
And even then, rank in military and police structures is a reflection of the officer’s qualification level and his ability to occupy the relevant positions. The title is assigned based on the position held. And even then, not right away. But it is by no means some kind of honorary title or reward for military or service success. There are orders and medals for this.

The shoulder straps of senior SD officers were similar in structure to the shoulder straps of senior officers of the SS and Wehrmacht troops. The lining of the shoulder strap was grass-green in color.

In the picture on the left are shoulder straps and buttonholes:

4.Sturmbannfuehrer des SD (Sturmbannfuehrer SD).

5.Obersturmbannfuehrer des SD (Obersturmbannfuehrer SD).

From the author. I deliberately do not provide information here about the correspondence of the ranks of the SD, SS and Wehrmacht. And I certainly don’t compare these ranks with the ranks in the Red Army. Any comparisons, especially those based on the coincidence of insignia or the consonance of names, always carry a certain deceit. Even the comparison of titles based on positions that I proposed at one time cannot be considered 100% correct. For example, in our country a division commander could not have a rank higher than major general, while in the Wehrmacht the division commander was, as they say in the army, a “fork position,” i.e. the division commander could be a major general or a lieutenant general.

Starting with the rank of SD Standartenführer, rank insignia was placed on both buttonholes. Moreover, there were differences in lapel insignia before May 1942 and after.

It's interesting that the shoulder straps
The Standarteführer and Oberführer were the same (with two stars, but the lapel insignia were different. And please note that the leaves before May 1942 were curved, and after that they were straight. This is important when dating the photographs.

6.Standartenfuehrer des SD (SD Standartenfuehrer).

7.Oberfuehrer des SD (Oberfuehrer SD).

From the author. And again, if the Standartenführer can somehow be equated to an Oberst (colonel), based on the fact that there are two stars on his shoulder straps like the Oberst in the Wehrmacht, then to whom can the Oberführer be equated? The shoulder straps are of a colonel, and there are two leaves in the buttonholes. "Colonel"? Or “Under General”, since until May 1942 the Brigadeführer also wore two leaves in his buttonholes, but with the addition of an asterisk. But the brigadeführer’s shoulder straps are those of a general.
Equate to a brigade commander in the Red Army? So our brigade commander clearly belonged to the senior command staff and wore in his buttonholes the insignia of senior, not senior command staff.
Or maybe it’s better not to compare and equate? Simply proceed from the existing scale of ranks and insignia for a given department.

Well, then there are ranks and insignia, which can definitely be considered general ones. The weaving on the shoulder straps is not made from double silver soutache cord, but from a double cord, and the two outer cords are golden, and the middle one is silver. The stars on the shoulder straps are silver.

8.Brigadefuehrer des SD (SD Brigadefuehrer).

9. Gruppenfuehrer des SD (SD Gruppenfuehrer).

The highest rank in the SD was that of SD Obergruppenführer.

This title was awarded to the first head of the RSHA, Reinhard Heydrich, who was killed by agents of the British secret services on May 27, 1942, and to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who held this post after Heydrich's death and until the end of the Third Reich.

However, it should be noted that the vast majority of the SD leadership were members of the SS organization (Algemeibe SS) and had the right to wear SS uniforms with SS insignia.

It is also worth noting that if members of the Algemeine SS of general rank who did not hold positions in the SS, police, or SD troops simply had the corresponding rank, for example, SS-Brigadefuehrer, then “... and general of the SS troops” was added to the SS rank in the SS troops. . For example, SS-Gruppenfuehrer und General-leutnant der Waffen SS. And for those who served in the police, SD, etc. “..and the police general” was added. For example, SS-Brigadefuehrer und General-major der Polizei.

This general rule, however, there were many exceptions. For example, the head of the SD, Walter Schelenberg, was called SS-Brigadefuehrer und General-major der Waffen SS. Those. SS-Brigadeführer and major general of the SS troops, although neither one day did not serve in the SS troops.

From the author. Along the way. Schelenberg received the rank of general only in June 1944. And before that, he led “the most important intelligence service of the Third Reich” with the rank of only Oberfuhrer. And nothing, I managed. Apparently, the SD was not such an important and comprehensive intelligence service in Germany. So, like our today's SVR (foreign intelligence service). And even then of a lower rank. The SVR is still an independent department, and the SD was just one of the departments of the RSHA.
Apparently the Gestapo was more important, if its leader from 1939 was not a member of the SS or a member of the NSDAP, Reichskriminaldirector G. Müller, who was accepted into the NSDAP only in 1939, was accepted into the SS in 1941 and immediately received the rank of SS-Gruppenfuehrer und Generalleutnant der Polizei, that is, SS-Gruppenführer und der Generalleutnant of Police.

In anticipation of questions and queries, although this is somewhat off topic, we note that the Reichsführer SS wore insignia that were slightly different from everyone else. On the gray all-SS uniform introduced in 1934, he wore his previous shoulder straps from the previous black uniform. Only there were now two shoulder straps.

In the picture on the left: shoulder strap and buttonhole of SS Reichsführer G. Himmler.

A few words in defense of filmmakers and their “film blunders.” The fact is that uniform discipline in the SS (both in the general SS and in the SS troops) and in the SD was very low, unlike the Wehrmacht. Therefore, it was possible in reality to encounter significant deviations from the rules. For example, a member of the SS somewhere in a provincial town, and not only, and in 1945 he could join the ranks of the city’s defenders in his black preserved uniform of the thirties.
This is what I found online when I was looking for illustrations for my article. This is a group of SD officials sitting in a car. The driver in front holds the rank of SD Rottenführer, although he is dressed in a gray uniform jacket. 1938, but his shoulder straps are from an old black uniform (on which one shoulder strap was worn on the right shoulder). The cap, although gray arr. 38, but the eagle on it is a Wehrmacht uniform (on a dark fabric flap and sewn on the side, not the front. Behind him sits an SD Oberscharführer with buttonholes of the pre-May 1942 pattern (striped edging), but the collar is trimmed with galloon in the Wehrmacht style. And shoulder straps not the police type, but the SS troops. Perhaps, there are no complaints only about the Untersturmführer sitting on the right. And even then, the shirt is brown, not white.

Literature and sources.

1. P. Lipatov. Uniforms of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht. Publishing House "Technology for Youth". Moscow. 1996
2. Magazine "Sergeant". Chevron series. No. 1.
3.Nimmergut J. Das Eiserne Kreuz. Bonn. 1976.
4.Littlejohn D. Foreign legions of the III Reich. Volume 4. San Jose. 1994.
5.Buchner A. Das Handbuch der Waffen SS 1938-1945. Friedeberg. 1996
6. Brian L. Davis. German Army Uniforms and Insignia 1933-1945. London 1973
7.SA soldiers. NSDAP assault troops 1921-45. Ed. "Tornado". 1997
8.Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. Ed. "Lockheed Myth". Moscow. 1996
9. Brian Lee Davis. Uniform of the Third Reich. AST. Moscow 2000
10. Website "Wehrmacht Rank Insignia" (http://www.kneler.com/Wehrmacht/).
11.Website "Arsenal" (http://www.ipclub.ru/arsenal/platz).
12.V.Shunkov. Soldiers of destruction. Moscow. Minsk, AST Harvest. 2001
13.A.A.Kurylev. German Army 1933-1945. Astrel. AST. Moscow. 2009
14. W. Boehler. Uniform-Effekten 1939-1945. Motorbuch Verlag. Karlsruhe. 2009

Schutzstaffel, or security detachment - so in Nazi Germany in 1923-1945. called SS soldiers, paramilitary forces the main task a combat unit at the initial stage of formation is the personal guard of the leader, Adolf Hitler.

SS soldiers: the beginning of the story

It all started in March 1923, when A. Hitler’s personal security guard and driver, a watchmaker by profession, together with a stationery dealer, and part-time politician of Nazi Germany, Joseph Berchtold, created a headquarters guard in Munich. The main purpose of the newly formed combat formation was to protect the NSDAP Fuhrer Adolf Hitler from possible threats and provocations from other parties and other political formations.

After humble beginnings as a defense unit for the NSDAP leadership, the combat unit grew into the Waffen-SS, an armed defense squadron. The officers and men of the Waffen-SS constituted a formidable fighting force. The total number was more than 950 thousand people, in total 38 combat units were formed.

Beer Hall Putsch by A. Hitler and E. Ludendorff

"Bürgerbräukeller" is a beer hall in Munich at Rosenheimerstrasse 15. The area of ​​the drinking establishment could accommodate up to 1830 people. Since the Weimar Republic, thanks to its capacity, the Bürgerbräukeller has become the most popular venue for various events, including political ones.

So, on the night of November 8-9, 1923, an uprising took place in the hall of a drinking establishment, the purpose of which was to overthrow the current government of Germany. The first to speak was A. Hitler's comrade in political convictions, Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff, outlining the general goals and objectives of this gathering. The main organizer and ideological inspirer of the event was Adolf Hitler, the leader of the NSDAP, the young Nazi party. In his, he called for the ruthless destruction of all enemies of his National Socialist Party.

The SS soldiers, led at that time by the treasurer and close friend of the Fuhrer J. Berchtold, undertook to ensure the safety of the Beer Hall Putsch - this is how this political event went down in history. However, the German authorities reacted in time to this gathering of Nazis and took all measures to eliminate them. Adolf Hitler was convicted and imprisoned, and the NSDAP party was banned in Germany. Naturally, the need for the protective functions of the newly created paramilitary guard also disappeared. The SS soldiers (photo presented in the article), as a combat formation of the “Shock Detachment”, were disbanded.

The restless Fuhrer

Released from prison in April 1925, Adolf Hitler orders his fellow party member and bodyguard Yu. Schreck to form a personal guard. Preference was given to former fighters of the Shock Squad. Having gathered eight people, Yu. Shrek creates a defense team. By the end of 1925, the total strength of the combat formation was about a thousand people. From now on they were given the name “SS soldiers of the National Socialist German Workers' Party.”

Not everyone could join the SS NSDAP organization. Strict conditions were imposed on candidates for this “honorary” position:

• age from 25 to 35 years;
• living in the area for at least 5 years;
• the presence of two guarantors from among the party members;
• good health;
• discipline;
• sanity.

In addition, in order to become a party member and, accordingly, an SS soldier, the candidate had to confirm his belonging to the superior Aryan race. These were the official rules of the SS (Schutzstaffel).

Education and training

SS soldiers had to undergo appropriate combat training, which was carried out in several stages and lasted for three months. The main objectives of the intensive training of recruits were:

• excellent;
• knowledge of small arms and impeccable possession of them;
• political indoctrination.

The training in the art of war was so intense that only one of three people I could go the whole distance. After the basic training course, the recruits were sent to specialized schools where they received additional education, corresponding to the selected type of military.

Further training in military wisdom in the army was based not only on the specialization of the branch of service, but also on mutual trust and respect between candidates for officer or soldier. This is how the Wehrmacht soldiers differed from the SS soldiers, where strict discipline and a strict policy of separation between officers and privates were at the forefront.

New chief of the combat unit

Adolf Hitler attached special importance to the newly created own troops, which were distinguished by their impeccable devotion and loyalty to their Fuhrer. The main dream of the leader of Nazi Germany was to create an elite formation capable of performing any tasks that the National Socialist Party set for them. This required a leader who could handle this task. So, in January 1929, on the recommendation of A. Hitler, Heinrich Luitpold Himmler, one of A. Hitler’s faithful assistants in the Third Reich, became Reichsführer SS. The personal personnel number of the new SS chief is 168.

The new boss began his work as the head of an elite division by tightening personnel policies. Having developed new requirements for personnel, G. Himmler cleared the ranks of the combat formation by half. The Reichsführer SS personally spent hours studying photographs of SS members and candidates, finding flaws in their “racial purity.” However, soon the number of SS soldiers and officers increased noticeably, increasing almost 10 times. The SS chief achieved such success in two years.

Thanks to this, the prestige of the SS troops increased significantly. It is G. Himmler who is credited with the authorship of the famous gesture, familiar to everyone from films about the Great Patriotic War- “Heil Hitler”, with the right straight arm raised at an angle of 45º. In addition, thanks to the Reichsführer, the uniform of Wehrmacht soldiers (including the SS) was modernized, which lasted until the fall of Nazi Germany in May 1945.

Fuhrer's order

The authority of the Schutzstaffel (SS) increased significantly thanks to the personal order of the Fuhrer. The published order stated that no one had the right to give orders to SS soldiers and officers except their immediate superiors. In addition, it was recommended that all SA units, the assault troops known as the “Brown Shirts,” assist in every possible way in staffing the SS Army, supplying the latter with their best soldiers.

Uniforms of the SS troops

From now on, the uniform of an SS soldier was noticeably different from the clothing of the assault troops (SA), the security service (SD) and other combined arms units of the Third Reich. Distinctive feature SS military uniform was:

• black jacket and black trousers;
• White shirt;
• black cap and black tie.

In addition, on the left sleeve of the jacket and/or shirt there was now a digital abbreviation indicating belonging to one or another standard of the SS troops. With the outbreak of hostilities in Europe in 1939, the uniform of SS soldiers began to change. Strict implementation of G. Himmler’s order on a single black and white uniform color, which distinguished the soldiers of A. Hitler’s personal army from the combined arms color of other Nazi formations, was somewhat relaxed.

The party factory for sewing military uniforms, due to its enormous workload, was not able to provide uniforms to all SS units. The military personnel were asked to alter the Schutzstaffel insignia from the Wehrmacht combined arms uniform.

Military ranks of the SS troops

As in any military unit, the SS Army had its own hierarchy in military ranks. Below is a comparative table of the equivalent military ranks of military personnel of the Soviet Army, Wehrmacht and SS troops.

Red Army	Ground forces of the Third Reich	SS troops
Red Army soldier	Private, rifleman
Corporal	Chief Grenadier	Rottenführer SS
Lance Sergeant	Non-commissioned officer	SS Unterscharführer
	Non-commissioned sergeant major	Scharführer SS
Staff Sergeant	Sergeant Major	SS Oberscharführer
Sergeant Major	Chief Sergeant Major	SS Hauptscharführer
Ensign
Lieutenant	Lieutenant	SS Untersturmführer
Senior Lieutenant	Chief Lieutenant	SS Obersturmführer
	Captain/Hauptmann	SS Hauptsturmführer
		SS Sturmbannführer
Lieutenant colonel	Oberst-lieutenant	SS Obersturmbannführer
Colonel		Standartenführer SS
Major General	Major General	SS Brigadeführer
Lieutenant General	Lieutenant General	SS Gruppenführer
Colonel General	General of the troops	SS Oberstgruppenführer
Army General	Field Marshal General	SS Oberstgruppenführer

The highest military rank in Adolf Hitler's elite army there was the Reichsführer SS, which until May 23, 1945 belonged to Heinrich Himmler, which corresponded to the Marshal of the Soviet Union in the Red Army.

Awards and insignia in the SS

Soldiers and officers of the elite unit of the SS troops could be awarded orders, medals and other insignia, just like military personnel of other military formations of the army of Nazi Germany. There were only a small number of distinctive awards that were developed specifically for the “favorites” of the Fuhrer. These included medals for 4- and 8-year service in Adolf Hitler's elite unit, as well as a special cross with a swastika, which was awarded to SS men for 12 and 25 years of dedicated service to their Fuhrer.

Faithful sons of their Fuhrer

Recollection of an SS soldier: “Our guiding principles were duty, loyalty and honor. Defense of the Fatherland and a sense of camaraderie are the main qualities that we cultivated in ourselves. We were forced to kill everyone who was in front of the barrel of our weapons. A feeling of pity should not stop a soldier of great Germany, either in front of a woman begging for mercy, or in front of children's eyes. We were taught the motto: “Accept death and bear death.” Death should become commonplace. Each soldier understood that by sacrificing himself, he thereby helped great Germany in the fight against the common enemy, communism. We considered ourselves warriors behind Hitler’s elite.”

These words belong to one of the soldiers of the former Third Reich, private SS infantry unit Gustav Franke, who miraculously survived the Battle of Stalingrad and was captured by the Russians. Were these words of repentance or the simple youthful bravado of a twenty-year-old Nazi? Today it is difficult to judge this.

Material from BLACKBERRY - website - Academic Wiki encyclopedia on Jewish and Israeli topics

SS and SD(abbreviations from the German Schutzstaffeln, `security formations' and Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, `security service of the imperial leader of the SS`), the main repressive and punitive institutions of Hitler's Germany, which were in charge of the “final solution” of the Jewish question.

The emergence of SS and DM

The SS arose in 1923 as part of the assault troops (Sturmabteilungen) as a small group of personal bodyguards of A. Hitler. Since 1929, when they were headed by G. Himmler (see National Socialism), they began to form as security units ensuring the security of the entire Nazi leadership. The SD was created by G. Himmler in 1931 as the internal security service of the Nazi Party, designed to monitor the purity of the party ranks and prevent the penetration of alien and hostile elements into them. The SS became an all-powerful organization of political terror, ready to flawlessly and effectively carry out any orders of the Nazi Party after the establishment of the Nazi regime in Germany in January 1933 and its unification with the SD in March 1934.

Hitler's role in the development of the SS

A decisive role in the formation of the SS as the main support of the Nazi regime was played by A. Hitler, who did not trust the traditional state institutions(including the army, political and criminal police). Hitler believed that even after a total purge of these institutions, they would not be able to become an infallible instrument for carrying out the political course he planned.

SS - a fundamentally new type of power structure

The SS was conceived as a fundamentally new type of power structure; their purpose, structure, principles of personnel selection, ideological and psychological attitudes, symbols were supposed to embody the ideals and goals of the Nazi regime and, above all, its racist ideology. The Nazi leaders made the SS a party elite, membership in them became a badge of distinction and honor - many millions of Germans considered the SS men the embodiment of strength and courage, knights without fear or reproach, the best sons of the German race. Until 1940, membership in the SS was entirely voluntary (the massive influx of volunteers did not stop until last days Third Reich), and not every member of the Nazi Party was accepted into their ranks. A member of the SS had to have an impeccable racial background (documented since at least the late 18th century), and an “Aryan” appearance was also desirable; SS members were required to demonstrate selfless devotion to the Fuhrer and the racial idea, a willingness to stop at nothing to carry out any orders from their superiors, good physical characteristics and a stable psyche. The prestige of the SS was so high that many heads of government departments (for example, J. von Ribbentrop, G. Goering and many others), major bankers, industrialists, engineers, scientists, etc. considered it an honor to wear the special SS general and officer ranks (Obergruppenführer - SS general, Standartenführer - colonel, Obersturmbannführer - lieutenant colonel, Sturmbannführer - major, Sturmführer - lieutenant, etc.).

SS - service for special assignments

The political course of the Nazi regime increasingly did not correspond to the norms of international law and the entire European Christian cultural tradition; Nazi leaders increasingly entrusted the SS with such practical actions that no one else was ready to carry out.

Increase in the number of SS and SD

Scope of activity Ss And Sd continuously increased, their numbers grew rapidly - from 280 people in 1929 to 52 thousand in 1933, several hundred thousand in 1939 and about a million by 1945 (including the Waffen SS - the most reliable military formations that took part in the hostilities).

Subordination of government agencies to the SS and SD services

At the same time, there was an increasingly complete subordination Ss And Sd government agencies, responsible for internal and external security (only the army could not be completely subordinated). In 1933, the head of the SS G. Himmler also headed the Munich police, in April 1934 - the Prussian Gestapo, in June 1936 - the entire police system of the Third Reich, and in August 1943 - the Imperial Ministry of the Interior. In parallel with this, there was an expansion of the prerogatives of the SD, a kind of elite within the SS: in June 1936, the favorite of A. Hitler and G. Himmler, the chief of the SD since its creation, R. Heydrich (see National Socialism) became the head of the security police of the Third Reich. In September 1939, the absorption of state structures by party ones (including Ss And Sd) ended with the creation of the Main Reich Security Office (RSHA - Reichssicherheitshauptamt) headed by Heydrich. The RSHA, which united the Gestapo and SD under one command, became part of the structure of the Ministry of the Interior, while remaining at the same time one of the most important divisions of the SS (in both capacities it was subordinate to G. Himmler). The RSHA was transferred entirely to the functions and powers to eliminate any, including potential opponents of the Nazi regime and racial ideology, which included persons suspected of treason (particular vigilance was shown towards journalists, some church figures and former members of banned non-Nazi parties and trade unions), as well as all representatives of “inferior and inferior” races, and above all Jews. The "Final Solution" of the Jewish Question could not have been conceived and implemented without Ss And Sd and the human type formed in them - ideological and therefore ruthless and cold-blooded killers, and often simply sadists, for whom Nazi ideology served as a convenient justification for their criminal inclinations.

SS and SD - organizers and executors of anti-Jewish actions

From the moment the Nazi regime was established in Germany, all anti-Jewish actions were entrusted only to Himmler’s department. SS and SD directed and controlled the process of ousting Jews from civil, political, economic, cultural and other spheres of life, which began back in 1933. These same punitive authorities monitored compliance with the Nuremberg Laws, which actually deprived Jews of basic human rights. The SD and Heydrich were directly tasked with provoking a wave of “spontaneous” Jewish pogroms throughout Germany on November 9, 1938 (see Kristallnacht). Administered Ss And Sd There was also a campaign carried out before the start of World War II to cleanse the entire territory of Greater Germany from the Jewish presence, as the Nazis began to call the united country after the Anschluss of Austria. One of the main organizers of the forced Jewish emigration, accompanied by the confiscation of almost all the property of the expelled Jews, was A. Eichmann.

The decision to exterminate European Jewry

Formally, the decision to exterminate all European Jewry was made at the Wannsee Conference in 1942, but immediately after the attack on the Soviet Union, the SS began the total killing of Jews in the occupied territories. Together with the police, they formed special detachments - Einsatzgruppen - to “restore order” in the rear of the German troops. Each Einsatzgruppen was headed by senior SS officers.

Death camps

The death camps were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the SS: Himmler’s department was entrusted with their design, construction, security, and then ensuring their uninterrupted operation. Scientific and design institutes that were part of the SS system (among them, along with the institute of “racial hygiene”, were engineering, technological, chemical, biomedical and others) developed the most effective and cheap equipment and chemicals for quickly killing people. The RSHA clearly and organizedly ensured the delivery of Jews from European countries controlled by Nazi Germany to the death camps. After the assassination of R. Heydrich in May 1942 by Czech partisans, the RSHA was headed by E. Kaltenbrunner (a lawyer from Austria, who had led the Austrian SS since 1935; he, in particular, carried out an operation in Lithuania in 1941, during which a group consisting of 18 SS men under his direct command destroyed more than 60 thousand Jews). The SS “Totenkopf” units, specially created in 1934, guarded the death camps. The main administrative and economic department of the SS - the VFHA, which was in charge of the camps, developed and established a regime for maximum rationalization of the death conveyor - first, children, pregnant women, the sick and the elderly were destroyed; the service by prisoners of those operations of the process of killing people was introduced, which was abhorred not only by the SS men themselves, but also by their henchmen from the populated occupied countries; Before their destruction, able-bodied prisoners were drained of all their strength by slave labor; personal belongings and even the remains of victims (gold crowns, hair, often skin, ashes from crematoria ovens) were disposed of. As a rule, only those doctors and scientists who had officer and sometimes general SS ranks were entrusted with medical and biological experiments on concentration camp prisoners, mainly Jews. At the last stage of the war, when the defeat of Nazi Germany became inevitable, it was the SS units that were entrusted with the elimination of death camps and all traces of Nazi atrocities.