The Schutzstaffel (SS) evolved from a relatively small Nazi paramilitary unit into the central institution behind the Third Reich’s racial policies and mass violence, according to historian Bastian Hein in an interview published by Die Zeit. Hein argues that the organisation’s radical ideology, strict internal structure and emphasis on racial doctrine transformed it into the driving force behind the Holocaust, with many of its members acting without waiting for direct orders from Adolf Hitler.
The interview accompanies Die Zeit’s release of a searchable archive containing hundreds of thousands of personnel records from members of both the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the SS. Drawing on years of research into the SS, Hein explains how both organisations attracted large numbers of German men before and after the Nazi seizure of power.
According to Hein, the appeal of the SA and SS initially stemmed from the opportunity they offered men to participate in military-style organisations at a time when Germany’s armed forces were heavily restricted under the Treaty of Versailles. Similar political militias existed across the political spectrum during the Weimar Republic, but Hein said the SA and SS combined militaristic ideals with militant political activism. Membership allowed individuals to express hostility toward communists, Jews, the democratic system of the Weimar Republic and liberal political values.
Following the Nazi Party’s rise to power in 1933, membership expanded rapidly. Hein noted that the SS grew from around 4,000 members in 1930 to approximately 50,000 by the end of 1932 before temporarily reaching about 400,000 during 1933 and 1934. The SA eventually expanded to roughly 4.5 million members. He said many new recruits joined after the Nazi Party suspended new party memberships in May 1933, viewing the SA and SS as avenues to demonstrate loyalty to the new regime.
Hein acknowledged that opportunism also influenced recruitment. While many members were committed National Socialists, others joined because of the political climate or in pursuit of career opportunities and material advantages. Nevertheless, he stressed that the SS was never simply a social organisation. Members underwent ideological training, military exercises and mandatory service while pledging absolute obedience after 1934 through an oath committing them to loyalty “until death.”
The interview challenges the common perception that the SA consisted primarily of violent street fighters while the SS represented an elite organisation from the outset. Hein said this distinction did not accurately reflect the Weimar period. According to political police statistics cited in the interview, the SS was at least as violent as the SA before the Nazi dictatorship consolidated power. The clearer separation between the two organisations emerged only after Heinrich Himmler assumed leadership of the SS in 1929.
Hein describes Himmler’s leadership as a turning point that reshaped the SS around an ideology of racial elitism. Applicants were required to provide genealogical documentation tracing their ancestry to 1800 in an effort to demonstrate what the organisation regarded as racial purity. Himmler also introduced policies governing marriage and family life, including directives encouraging SS members to have large families with women approved under the organisation’s racial criteria. Hein told Die Zeit that Himmler envisioned what amounted to a programme of human breeding based on Nazi racial ideology.
This racial agenda, Hein explained, distinguished the SS from the SA and became central to its identity. While the Nazi regime publicly promoted the concept of a unified German national community, the SS internally embraced a more exclusive racial doctrine influenced by theorist Hans F. K. Günther. Hein said this contradiction remained largely concealed from broader public messaging because leaders recognised that an openly elitist racial hierarchy could undermine the regime’s narrative of national unity.
The historian also examined the social composition of the SS. Although academics were represented at roughly twice their share of the general population, Hein said the organisation was not dominated by elites alone. Workers, craftsmen and office employees still formed the majority of its membership, while the SA reflected a similarly broad cross-section of German society.
According to Hein, the SS increasingly expanded its influence after the purge of SA leader Ernst Röhm in 1934. The organisation subsequently established what he described as an independent power structure that extended beyond traditional state institutions. Police organisations were gradually integrated with the SS, while its administrative structure came to shape broader security institutions throughout Nazi Germany.
Hein argues that the organisation’s ideological culture encouraged members to act proactively rather than await explicit instructions. Referring to historian Ian Kershaw’s concept of “working towards the Führer,” Hein said SS personnel were expected to understand Hitler’s objectives and independently pursue increasingly radical actions. This dynamic, he said, contributed directly to the escalation of Nazi persecution and mass murder, with local and regional initiatives frequently driving the implementation of anti-Jewish policies before formal directives were issued.
The interview also traces how the targets of Nazi violence changed over time. Immediately after 1933, the SA and SS focused primarily on crushing political opposition, including socialists, communists, Catholics and liberal organisations. Early concentration camps were used to suppress political opponents through intimidation and violence. As that resistance diminished during the mid-1930s, persecution expanded to include groups labelled by the regime as “asocial” or criminal before escalating during the Second World War into the systematic murder of Jews, Roma, Sinti and other groups targeted under Nazi racial policies.
Hein identifies Himmler as the principal architect of the SS’s transformation. According to the interview published by Die Zeit, Himmler combined organisational skill with unwavering loyalty to Hitler while surrounding himself with figures responsible for racial policy, concentration camps and recruitment. Hein argues that the SS’s concept of morality redefined “decency” as absolute service to the Nazi state and racial ideology. He cited Himmler’s 1943 Posen speech, in which the SS leader described mass executions as morally acceptable if carried out solely in service of the regime, as an example of how the organisation sought to justify systematic violence.
Although members of the Wehrmacht and police units also participated in Nazi crimes, Hein said the SS remained the central force behind the Holocaust. From the Einsatzgruppen operating in occupied Poland to the creation of gas vans, extermination operations under Aktion Reinhardt and the gas chambers at Auschwitz, he described the SS as the core institution responsible for organising and implementing the Nazi regime’s industrialised campaign of mass murder.
