(2) Principal Branches of the SS. Up to 1933 there were no such specially designated branches. The SS was a single group, made up of “volunteer political soldiers.” It was out of this original nucleus that new units developed.
(a) The Allgemeine SS. The Allgemeine (General) SS was the main stem from which the various branches grew. It was composed of all members of the SS who did not belong to any of the special branches. It was the backbone of the entire organization. The personnel and officers of the Main Departments of the SS Supreme Command were members of this branch. Except for high ranking officers and those remaining in staff capacities, as in the Main Offices of the SS Supreme Command, its members were part-time volunteers. Its members were utilized in about every phase of SS activity. They were called upon in anti-Jewish pogroms of 1938; they took over the task of guarding concentration camps during the war; they participated in the colonization and resettlement program. In short, the term “SS” normally meant the General SS.
It was organized on military lines as will be seen from the chart (Chart Number 3), ranging from district and subdistrict down through the regiment, battalion, and company, to the platoon. Until after the beginning of the war it constituted numerically the largest branch of the SS. In 1939 d’Alquen, the official SS spokesmen, said, in his book, “The SS” (2284-PS):
“The strength of the General SS, 240,000 men, is subdivided today into 14 corps, 38 divisions, 140 infantry regiments, 19 mounted regiments, 14 communication battalions and 19 engineer battalions as well as motorized and medical units. This General SS stands fully and wholly on call as in the fighting years, except for one small part of the chief leaders and men. The corps, which are presently led by a Lt. General or Major General, are subdivided into divisions, regiments, battalions and companies.” (2284-PS)
Similar reference to the military organization of the General SS will be found in Himmler’s speech, “Organization and Obligations of the SS and the Police” (1992-A-PS), and in the Organizations Book of the NSDAP for 1943 (2640-PS). Members of this branch, however,—with the exception of certain staff personnel—were subject to compulsory military service. As a result of the draft of members of the General SS of military age into the Army, the numerical strength of presently active members considerably declined during the war. Older SS men and those working in or holding high positions in the Main Departments of the Supreme Command of the SS remained. Its entire strength during the war was probably not in excess of 40,000 men.
(b) The SD. The second component to be mentioned is the Security Service of the Reichsfuehrer SS, almost always referred to as the SD. Himmler described the SD in these words (1992-A-PS):
“I now come to the Security Service (SD); it is the great ideological intelligence service of the Party and, in the long run, also that of the State. During the time of struggle for power it was only the intelligence service of the SS. At that time we had, for quite natural reasons, an intelligence service with the regiments, battalions and companies. We had to know what was going on on the opponents side, whether the Communists intended to hold a meeting today or not, whether our people were to be suddenly attacked or not, and similar things. I separated this service already in 1931 from the troops, from the units of the General SS, because I considered it to be wrong. For one thing, the secrecy is endangered, then the individual men, or even the companies, are too likely to discuss everyday problems.” (1992-A-PS)
Although, as Himmler put it, the SD was only the intelligence service of the SS during the years preceding the accession of the Nazis to power, it became a much more important organization promptly thereafter. It had been developed into such a powerful and scientific espionage system under its chief, Reinhard Heydrich, that on 9 June 1934, just a few weeks before the bloody purge of the SA, it was made, by decree of Hess, the sole intelligence and counter-intelligence agency of the entire Nazi Party (2284-PS). Its organization and numbers, as they stood in 1937, were thus described by Himmler (1992-A-PS):
“The Security Service was already separated from the troop in 1931 and separately organized. Its higher headquarters, coincide today with the Oberabschnitte and Abschnitte—[that is, the districts and subdistricts of the General SS]—and it has also field offices, its own organization of officials with a great many Command Posts, approximately three to four thousand men strong, at least when it is built up.” (1992-A-PS)
Up to 1939 its headquarters was the SS Main Security Office (Sicherheitshauptamt), which became amalgamated in 1939 into the Reich Main Security Office (or RSHA), one of the SS main departments shown on the chart (Chart Number 3).