Schutzstaffel

:For other uses of the abbreviation SS, see SS (disambiguation)

SS future visions

Historical analysis of SS records and documents of its senior members has provided historians with a picture of what the SS could have become, had Germany won the Second World War. Heinrich Himmler?s ultimate dream was to evolve the SS into a ruling class replacing the old Prussian aristocracy.

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Himmler saw the eastern lands of Russia, which Germany would surely conquer, as a vast open area for the SS state to establish itself. The SS and Police Leaders would rule the land, the Waffen-SS would serve as the Army to defend the territory, and those who lived and worked the land would be "peasant-warriors" of the Allgemeine-SS. Himmler had even drawn up plans, to be enacted after Germany won the Second World War, for the construction of twenty eight SS cities in the Lebensraum of the East. The master of all SS cities was to be at Wewelsburg, where Himmler planned to complete and expand the SS Wewelsburg castle into a capital city for the SS. The city was to be completed by 1955.

Related Topics:
SS and Police Leader - Allgemeine-SS - Wewelsburg

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On a more practical scale, SS leaders had already devised, as early as 1943, plans for what the SS would be after the conclusion of World War II. The Waffen-SS would return home to serve as a political army to enforce the will of the Nazi Party. Such activities would include strike breaking, riot suppression, and functions resembling modern day National Guard units. There are also indications that Waffen-SS commanders, as early as 1940, had proposed efforts to create Waffen-SS air and naval units. Had Germany won the Second World War, the Waffen-SS would almost certainly have extended itself into every branch of the German military. Whether or not the Waffen-SS would have eventually replaced the Wehrmacht will never be known. However, some historians have stated that this is unlikely given the tremendous actions against the Sturmabteilung, in 1934, when SA leaders had attempted a similar course of action.

Related Topics:
Wehrmacht - Sturmabteilung - 1934

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Heinrich Himmler also openly stated in 1944 that the SS would become the sole law enforcement and police agency of Germany and that, by 1950, local Allgemeine-SS units would serve a dual function as racial and political enforcers in German communities and serve as the local police force. This did not sit well with Ordnungspolizei commanders, who wanted to preserve their integrity as police units and did not favor abolishing the Orpo in favor of an SS police force.

Related Topics:
Allgemeine-SS - Ordnungspolizei

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The Concentration Camp service of the Totenkopfverbande, the most fearsome part of the SS, was to continue unabated in completing the work of the Holocaust. Himmler and other SS leaders foresaw a "Jew-free Europe" by 1948 at the latest, and it is certain that the regular activities of the Concentration Camps, such as the imprisonments of political and social undesirables, would have continued with as usual. A great "What-if" of history is whether or not the SS could have kept the Holocaust a secret which had been a primary aim during the years of extermination and genocide. Many theories abound that the SS would have "turned against their own" and begun killing anyone who had knowledge of the Holocaust, including all SS members who had served in Death camps and the senior leaders who had overseen the Holocaust. The alternative history novel Fatherland is based on this concept.

Related Topics:
The Holocaust - Alternative history - Fatherland

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Theories also exist that Himmler did not see Jews as the only race deemed worthy of extermination. Documents from 1943 and 1944 indicate Himmler had discussed privately, with certain top SS leaders and perhaps even Hitler, the idea of continuing the Holocaust to include blacks and Orientals. These ideas were obviously kept very quiet, since Japan at the time was a major ally of Germany.

Related Topics:
Jew - Blacks - Oriental

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History has been spared the knowledge of how many of the SS dreams would have come true had Germany triumphed in the Second World War. The goals of the SS remain today a memory and, some say, a warning for future generations.

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