Free Army of Evil: A History of the SS by Adrian Weale Page B

Berger * reorganised the Main Office to reflect its more limited—but still critical—role. In place of the previous multiple staff branches, he set up just four
Amtsgruppen
(business groups). Business Group A dealt with the administration of the Main Office itself. Business Group B was the Waffen-SS recruitment headquarters for Germans, and as such controlled regional Waffen-SS recruiting“
kommandos
” throughout Germany. It also ran the records office for the General-SS. Business Group C dealt with non-military training and political indoctrination for all German members of the Waffen-SS. And Business Group D oversaw the recruitment and welfare of all “Germanic” volunteers from Western Europe and the Baltic States, which meant it controlled the recruiting offices in Brussels, Liège, Oslo, Copenhagen, the Hague, Riga and Tallinn. 18
    Berger, then, more than anyone else, was responsible for the recruitment of large numbers of foreigners into Waffen-SS field units. Consequently, he was one of very few high-level SS men to retain Himmler’s confidence throughout the war. He would have preferred a field command, but Himmler always resisted appointing him to one, although he did serve for a few weeks as Senior SS and Police Leader in Slovakia in the autumn of 1944, when there was an attempted uprising against the German occupiers. 19
    Once Berger had recruited men into the Waffen-SS, it was the job of the
Führungshauptamt
(FHA—Command Main Office) to organise, train and equip them. The FHA also had responsibility for the General-SS, * but, unlike the German Army High Command, it did not have command authority over Waffen-SS units in the combat zone. So it functioned in much the same way as the
Ersatzheer
(Replacement Army)—as a home command.
    Relationships between the Berger’s Main Office and the Command Main Office were fraught. The latter was headed by an ex–army officer, Hans Jüttner, and he and his staff of professional soldiers wanted the Waffen-SS to be a relatively small, highly professional elite. By contrast, Berger, supported by Himmler, knew that Hitler was desperate for as much combat power as possible, even if that meant many Waffen-SS units would be second- or third-rate.

    * Berger was promoted to SS-
Brigadeführer
(major general) on 20 April 1940, to SS-
Gruppenführer
(lieutenant general) on 20 April 1942 and to SS-
Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS
in June 1943.
    * The outbreak of war reduced the part-time, unpaid, political General-SS to a rump. Members of military age were called up into
all
branches of the armed forces, not just the Waffen-SS. Consequently, the General-SS’s wartime mission was primarily to provide pre- and post-military training for SS men.

11

THE PATH TO GENOCIDE
    T he SS was relatively insignificant in the early stages of the Holocaust. Historians have categorised the steps towards the Holocaust as “identification, concentration and extermination,” 1 and it was only in the latter phases that Himmler’s branch of the National Socialist state assumed primacy. Although, of course, members of the SS had played their part in the brutalisation of Germany’s Jews even before the NSDAP gained power.
    The first steps in the National Socialist regime’s persecution of the Jews were taken through legislation introduced by the Interior Ministry. On 7 April 1933, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service decreed that government officials of “non-Aryan descent” were to be retired. Four days later, a supplemental regulation—the so-called
Arierparagraph
(Aryan Paragraph)—defined “non-Aryans” as “any person who had a Jewish parent or grandparent.” 2 This law had a marked effect because “government official” did not merely refer to civil servants: a wide range of professions (including teachers, university lecturers and so on) were employees of the state and so subject to the measure. Although this law was characterised by the