19 Dec. 45
Up to 1939 its headquarters was the SS Main Security
Office (Sicherheitshauptamt) which, as I shall shortly show, became
amalgamated in 1939 in the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) one of the
SS main departments shown on the chart before you — the sixth box
from the left.
The closer and closer collaboration of the SD with the Gestapo and
Criminal Police — which eventually resulted in the creation of this
RSHA — and the activities in which the SD engaged in partnership
with the Gestapo will be taken up in the presentation of the case
against the Gestapo. The SD was, of course, at all times an integral and
important component of the SS. But it is more practicable to deal with
it in connection with the activities of the whole repressive police
system with which it functioned.
The third component to be mentioned is the Waffen-SS — the combat
arm of the SS — created, trained, and finally utilized for purposes
of aggressive war. The reason underlying the creation of this combat
branch was described in our Document Number 2640-PS, the Organization
Book of the Nazi Party for 1943. It appears on Page 427a of the
original, Page 5, Paragraph 7 of the translation:
"The armed SS originated out of the
thought: to create for the Führer a selected, long-service troop
for the fulfillment of special missions. It should make it possible
for members of the General SS, as well as for volunteers who fulfill
the special requirements of the SS, to fight in the battle for the
realization of the National Socialist idea with weapon in hand in
unified groups partly within the framework of the Army."
The term "Waffen-SS" did not come into use until after the
beginning of the war. Up to that time there were two branches of the SS
composed of full-time, well-trained, professional soldiers: The
so-called SS Verfügungstruppe, translatable perhaps as SS Emergency
Troops, and the SS Totenkopf Verbände (the Death's Head Units).
After the beginning of the war, the units of the SS Verfügungstruppe,
were brought up to division strength, and new divisions were added to
them. Parts of the SS Death's-Head Units were formed into a division,
the SS Totenkopf Division. All these divisions then came to be known
collectively as the Waffen-SS.
Let me now trace that development. I quote again from the Organization
Book of the Nazi Party for 1943, our Document Number 2640-PS, Page
427b of the original, Page 5, last paragraph of the translation:
"The origin of the Waffen-SS goes
back to the decree of 17 March 1933 establishing the Stabswache with
the original strength of 120 men. Out of this small group developed
the later — called SS Verfügungstruppe," — SS
Emergency Force —