SS and Police Leader

SS and Police Leader ( _de. SS- und Polizeiführer) was a title for senior Nazi officials that commanded large units of the SS during and prior to World War II. The office of SS and Police Leader was one of the most powerful postings in Nazi Germany. Fact|date=March 2008

The first SS and Police Leaders were appointed in 1938 from the existing office of the Allgemeine-SS "Oberabschnitt Führer" (Senior District Leader). The purpose of the SS and Police Leader was to be a direct command authority for every SS and police unit in a given geographical region with such authority answering only to Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler. By the start of World War II, the SS and Police Leaders were divided into three rank levels: SS and Police Leaders ("SS- und Polizeiführer", SSPF), Higher SS and Police Leaders ("Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer", HSSPF), and Supreme SS and Police Leaders ("Höchste SS- und Polizeiführer", HöSSPF). The office of Higher SS and Police Leader (in German: "Höhere SS und Polizeiführer") was the most commonly appointed.

SS and Police Leaders directly commanded a headquarters staff with representatives from almost every branch of the SS. This typically included the Ordnungspolizei (regular police), Gestapo (secret police), Totenkopfverbände (Nazi concentration camps), SD (intelligence service), and certain units of the Waffen-SS (combat units). In theory, an SS and Police Leader had authority to command and commandeer any SS unit available in a particular region; however, in practice SS units answered to their immediate chain of command and would only be requisitioned by the SS and Police Leader in the event of an emergency.

One of the more notorious functions of the SS and Police Leaders was to serve as the Commanding SS General for any Einsatzgruppen (mostly death squads) that were activated in the SS and Police Leader’s area. Such duties typically involved ordering the deaths of tens of thousands of persons and, following the close of World War II, nearly every SS and Police Leader, who had served in Poland and the Soviet Union, was charged with war crimes. A large number of the SS and Police Leaders, who had been involved with such crimes, committed suicide before capture.

SS and Police Leaders were also the overseeing authority of the Jewish Ghettos in Poland and, as such, directly coordinated deportations to extermination camps with the administrative help of the RSHA. The SS and Police Leaders were also afforded direct command over Police Battalions and SD Regiments that were assigned to keep order in the ghettos. The classic image of SS troops, storming through a Jewish Ghetto murdering victims at random, can be attributed to troops under the command of the SS and Police Leaders.

The grand dream of Heinrich Himmler was to evolve the SS and Police Leader into an SS Lord of the Lebensraum which the SS would rule and control after Germany had won World War II. Himmler’s dream envisioned twenty eight SS States, spread throughout the East, each one of which would be ruled by an SS and Police Leader, militarily controlled by the Waffen-SS, and worked and lived on by SS warriors of the Allgemeine-SS. Whether or not Himmler’s vision was plausible, and if the more rational elements of the Nazi government would have permitted an SS nation in the east, remains one of the great “what-ifs” of history.

Notable SS and Police Leaders

* Supreme SS and Police Leader of Italy (HöSSPF): Karl Wolff
* Higher SS and Police Leader of the Elbe (HSSPF): Udo von Woyrsch
* Higher SS and Police Leader of France (HSSPF): Carl Oberg
* Higher SS and Police Leader of the Donau (HSSPF): Ernst Kaltenbrunner
* Higher SS and Police Leader of Bohemia and Moravia (HSSPF): Karl Hermann Frank
* Higher SS and Police Leader of Northern Russia (HSSPF): Friedrich Jecklen
* Higher SS and Police Leader of the Black Sea (HSSPF): Richard Hildebrandt
* Higher SS and Police Leader of the Alpenland (HSSPF): Erwin Rösener
* Higher SS and Police Leader of the Adriatic Coast (HSSPF): Odilio "Globus" Globocnik
* Higher SS and Police Leader of the Netherlands (HSSPF): Hanns Albin Rauter
* Higher SS and Police Leader of Central Russia (HSSPF): Erich von dem Bach
* Higher SS and Police Leader of Norway (HSSPF): Wilhelm Rediess
* Higher SS and Police Leader of Denmark (HSSPF): Günther Pancke
* Higher SS and Police Leader of Greece (HSSPF): Jürgen Stroop; replaced by Walter Schimana, later Hermann Franz
* Higher SS and Police Leader of General Government (Poland)(HSSPF): Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger; later Wilhelm Koppe
* SS and Police Leader of Warsaw (SSPF): Jürgen Stroop
* SS and Police Leader of Kraków (SSPF): Julian Scherner
* SS and Police Leader of Lublin (SSPF): Odilo "Globus" Globocnik

Bibliography

*Höhne, Heinz "The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS." (Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf: Die Geschichte der SS). First published in 1967.

External links

* [http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=3126 www.axishistory.com] Lists of SSPF
* [http://www.janssen-militaria.com/waffenss.html Lists of SS Commanders and their assignments on 9 November 1944]