The Ss Organization and Its Role in The Holocaust

The Nazi Party’s paramilitary organization was the Sturm Abteilung, more commonly known as the SA. The SA was formed in 1921 and was known as ‘brownshirts’ due to its brown uniform. Initially, most members were ex-soldiers or unemployed men. Violent and often disorderly, the SA was primarily responsible for the protection of leading Nazis and disrupting other political opponents’ meetings, although they often had free rein in their activities. If Hitler was to gain power democratically, he needed to reform the SA. He set out to change their reputation. A new leader, Franz von Salomon, was recruited. Rather than the violent free rein they had previously enjoyed, Salomon was stricter and gave the SA a more defined role.

In 1925, Hitler also established the Schutzstaffel, otherwise known as the SS. The SS was initially created as Hitler’s personal bodyguards, although they would go on to police the entire Third Reich. The SS was a small sub-division of the SA with approximately 300 members until 1929. In 1929, Heinrich Himmler took over the organization and expanded it dramatically. By 1933, the SS had 35,000 members. Members of the SS were chosen based on their ‘racial purity, blind obedience, and fanatical loyalty to Hitler. The SS saw themselves as the ultimate defenders of the ‘Aryan’ race and Nazi ideology. They terrorized and aimed to destroy any person or group that threatened this. The SA and the SS became symbols of terror.

The Nazi Party used these two forces to terrify their opposition into subordination, slowly eliminate them entirely, or scare people into supporting them. Whilst the SA and the SS played their part, the Nazis primarily focused on increasing their membership through advertising the party legitimately. They did this through simple and effective propaganda. The Nazis started advocating clear messages tailored to a broad range of people and their problems.

The propaganda aimed to exploit people’s fear of uncertainty and instability. These messages varied from ‘Bread and Work’, aimed at the working class and the fear of unemployment, to a ‘Mother and Child’ poster portraying the Nazi ideals regarding women. Jews and Communists also featured heavily in Nazi propaganda as enemies of the German people. Joseph Goebbels was key to the Nazi’s use of propaganda to increase their appeal. Goebbels joined the Nazi Party in 1924 and became the Gauleiter for Berlin in 1926. Goebbels used a combination of modern media, such as films and radio, and traditional campaigning tools such as posters and newspapers to reach as many people as possible. It was through this technique that he began to build an image of Hitler as a strong, stable leader that Germany needed to become a great power again.

Cite this page