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officials
of the Security and Order Police, at SS ranks
equivalent to their rank in the police.
Until
1940 the SS was an entirely voluntary
organization. After the formation of the Waffen
SS in 1940 there was a gradually increasing
number of conscripts into the Waffen SS. It
appears that about a third of the total number
of people joining the Waffen SS were conscripts,
that the proportion of conscripts was higher at
the end of the war than at the beginning, but
that there continued to be a high proportion of
volunteers until the end of the war.
Criminal
Activities: SS units were active
participants in the steps leading up to
aggressive war. The Verfügungstruppe was
used in the occupation of the Sudetenland, of
Bohemia and Moravia, and of Memel. The Henlein
Free Corps was under the jurisdiction of the
Reichsführer SS for operations in the
Sudetenland in 1938, and the
Volksdeutschemittelstelle financed fifth-column
activities there.
The SS was even a
more general participant in the commission of
War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. Through
its control over the organization of the Police,
particularly the Security Police and SD, the SS
was involved in all the crimes which have been
outlined in the section of this Judgment dealing
with the Gestapo and SD. Other branches of the
SS were equally involved in these criminal
programs. There is evidence that the shooting of
unarmed prisoners of war was the general
practice in some Waffen SS divisions. On 1
October 1944 the custody of prisoners of war and
interned persons was transferred to Himmler. who
in turn transferred prisoner-of-war affairs to
SS Obergruppenführer Berger and to SS
Obergruppenführer Pohl. The Race and
Settlement Office of the SS together with the
Volksdeutschemittelstelle were active in
carrying out schemes for Germanization of
occupied territories according to the racial
principles of the Nazi Party and were involved
in the deportation of Jews and other foreign
nationals. Units of the Waffen SS and
Einsatzgruppen operating directly under the SS
main office were used to carry out these plans.
These units were also involved in the widespread
murder and ill-treatment of the civilian
population of occupied territories. Under the
guise of combatting partisan units, units of the
SS exterminated Jews and people deemed
politically undesirable by the SS, and their
reports record the execution of enormous numbers
of persons. Waffen SS divisions were responsible
for many massacres and atrocities in occupied
territories such as the massacres at Oradour and
Lidice.
From 1934 onwards the SS was
responsible for the guarding and administration
of concentration camps. The evidence leaves no
doubt that the consistently brutal treatment of
the inmates of concentration camps was carried
out as a result of the general policy
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