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members
of the SD, including all local representatives
and agents honorary or otherwise, whether they
were technically members of the SS or not, but
not including honorary informers who were not
members of the SS, and members of the Abwehr who
were transferred to the SD.
The
Tribunal declares to be criminal within the
meaning of the Charter the group composed of
those members of the Gestapo and SD holding the
positions enumerated in the preceding paragraph
who became or remained members of the
organization with knowledge that it was being
used for the commission of acts declared
criminal by Article 6 of the Charter, or who
were personally implicated as members of the
organization in the commission of such crimes.
The basis for this finding is the participation
of the organization in War Crimes and Crimes
against Humanity connected with the war; this
group declared criminal cannot include,
therefore, persons who had ceased to hold the
positions enumerated in the preceding paragraph
prior to 1 September 1939.
SS
Structure and
Component Parts: The Prosecution has named
Die Schutzstaffeln der Nationalsozialistischen
Deutschen Arbeiterpartei (commonly known as the
SS) as an organization which should be declared
criminal. The portion of the Indictment dealing
with the SS also includes Der Sicherheitsdienst
des Reichsführer-SS (commonly known as the
SD). This latter organization, which was
originally an intelligence branch of the SS,
later became an important part of the
organization of Security Police and SD and is
dealt with in the Tribunal's Judgment on the
Gestapo.
The SS was originally
established by Hitler in 1925 as an elite
section of the SA for political purposes under
the pretext of protecting speakers at public
meetings of the Nazi Party. After the Nazis had
obtained power the SS was used to maintain order
and control audiences at mass demonstrations and
was given the additional duty of "internal
security" by a decree of the Führer.
The SS played an important role at the time of
the Röhm purge of 30 June 1934, and, as a
reward for its services, was made an independent
unit of the Nazi Party shortly thereafter.
In
1929 when Himmler was first appointed as Reichs
Führer the SS consisted of 280 men who were
regarded as especially trustworthy. In 1933 it
was composed of 52,000 men drawn from all walks
of life. The original formation of the SS was
the Allgemeine SS, which by 1939 had grown to a
corps of 240,000 men, organized on military
lines into divisions and regiments. During the
war its strength declined to well under 40,000.
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