Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 8,794
It Started With Eight Men ...
On April 4, 1925, Julius Schreck ...
... a close confidante of Adolf Hitler founds a small troop that will in future ensure Hitler's safety during his public speeches:
Schreck, convinced Nazi and NSdAP member of the first hour (member number 53), who will later also work as Hitler's personal driver and bodyguard (the "Führer" does not have a driver's license!), is looking for eight handpicked party members for this new task out.
Their names are:
Joseph Berchtold ...
...Ulrich Graf...
...Emil Maurice...
...Christian Weber...
...Josef Dietrich...
...Rudolf Heß...
...Jakob Grimminger...
...und Walter Buch...:
Since the bodyguards - like all party branches of the NSdAP - are supposed to be in uniform, Schreck puts them in SA uniforms.
Only one detail is different:
They get black ski hats, the SA wears brown ones. Here is the "Führer" between SA men (left) and his SS Praetorians ...:
Now a special badge is still missing!
That copies Schreck from a former "Freikoprps" (volunteer corps) made up of right-wing extremist soldiers, the "Erhardt Marine Brigade" ...
... and who previously served as a badge for the two Prussian Leibhusar-regiments (also a kind of bodyguard) in the German Empire ...:
It's a skull (which will be changed twice in the design later!) ...:
The eight men were called "Saal-Schutz" ("hall protection"), later - when they became more numerous - "Schutzstaffel" ("Protection Squad"). Both are abbreviated in the same way.
What began with those eight men that Julius Schreck selected was the hour of birth of the SS ...!
Julius Schreck will not see them grow into an army of millions, a gang of murderers and a state within a state, because he will die of meningitis in 1936.
Three of the eight first SS men will have a special career:
Jakob Grimminger will later bear the "blood flag" - that is the swastika flag that was carried during the "Hitler putsch" in Munich in 1923 - foiled by the Bavarian police - and has the status of a relic for Nazis.
All SS men were sworn in on this flag ...:
Josef "Sepp" Dietrich will be the commander of the "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler" and the SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer and Colonel-General of the Waffen-SS, the highest-ranking SS commander next to Karl Hauser (und nach SS-"Reichsführer" Heinrich Himmler)...:
And Rudolf Hess will even rise to the position of "Deputy Leader" in the Nazi hierarchy - and in 1987 he was the last inmate to commit suicide in the war crimes prison in Berlin-Spandau ...:
The only one who did not rise to the highest ranks was Walter Buch:
At first he also made a picture-book career and rose to become the highest party judge of the Nazius party!
But then he got in Hitler's way personally:
The reason for this was the case of the Gauleiter of Silesia and Westphalia-South, Josef Wagner: Wagner had been removed from office by Hitler on November 9, 1941 after his wife spoke out against leaving the church and the marriage of their daughter to an SS man would have.
A party judicial committee composed of several Gauleiters under the direction of Walter Buch had decided on February 6, 1942 that Wagner was not in "behavior harmful to the party" and left the former Gauleiter in the party.
On October 12, 1942, Hitler overturned the judgment of the party court and expelled Wagner from the NSDAP.
Buch did not lose his post, but from then on he had to submit all decisions of the Supreme Party Court to his son-in-law Martin Bormann for countersignature before they became valid.
After the war he was classified as the "main culprit" and lost all of his fortune. About six weeks later, Walter Buch committed suicide by cutting open his wrists on September 12, 1949 and falling into the Ammersee near Schondorf.
On April 4, 1925, Julius Schreck ...
... a close confidante of Adolf Hitler founds a small troop that will in future ensure Hitler's safety during his public speeches:
Schreck, convinced Nazi and NSdAP member of the first hour (member number 53), who will later also work as Hitler's personal driver and bodyguard (the "Führer" does not have a driver's license!), is looking for eight handpicked party members for this new task out.
Their names are:
Joseph Berchtold ...
...Ulrich Graf...
...Emil Maurice...
...Christian Weber...
...Josef Dietrich...
...Rudolf Heß...
...Jakob Grimminger...
...und Walter Buch...:
Since the bodyguards - like all party branches of the NSdAP - are supposed to be in uniform, Schreck puts them in SA uniforms.
Only one detail is different:
They get black ski hats, the SA wears brown ones. Here is the "Führer" between SA men (left) and his SS Praetorians ...:
Now a special badge is still missing!
That copies Schreck from a former "Freikoprps" (volunteer corps) made up of right-wing extremist soldiers, the "Erhardt Marine Brigade" ...
... and who previously served as a badge for the two Prussian Leibhusar-regiments (also a kind of bodyguard) in the German Empire ...:
It's a skull (which will be changed twice in the design later!) ...:
The eight men were called "Saal-Schutz" ("hall protection"), later - when they became more numerous - "Schutzstaffel" ("Protection Squad"). Both are abbreviated in the same way.
What began with those eight men that Julius Schreck selected was the hour of birth of the SS ...!
Julius Schreck will not see them grow into an army of millions, a gang of murderers and a state within a state, because he will die of meningitis in 1936.
Three of the eight first SS men will have a special career:
Jakob Grimminger will later bear the "blood flag" - that is the swastika flag that was carried during the "Hitler putsch" in Munich in 1923 - foiled by the Bavarian police - and has the status of a relic for Nazis.
All SS men were sworn in on this flag ...:
Josef "Sepp" Dietrich will be the commander of the "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler" and the SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer and Colonel-General of the Waffen-SS, the highest-ranking SS commander next to Karl Hauser (und nach SS-"Reichsführer" Heinrich Himmler)...:
And Rudolf Hess will even rise to the position of "Deputy Leader" in the Nazi hierarchy - and in 1987 he was the last inmate to commit suicide in the war crimes prison in Berlin-Spandau ...:
The only one who did not rise to the highest ranks was Walter Buch:
At first he also made a picture-book career and rose to become the highest party judge of the Nazius party!
But then he got in Hitler's way personally:
The reason for this was the case of the Gauleiter of Silesia and Westphalia-South, Josef Wagner: Wagner had been removed from office by Hitler on November 9, 1941 after his wife spoke out against leaving the church and the marriage of their daughter to an SS man would have.
A party judicial committee composed of several Gauleiters under the direction of Walter Buch had decided on February 6, 1942 that Wagner was not in "behavior harmful to the party" and left the former Gauleiter in the party.
On October 12, 1942, Hitler overturned the judgment of the party court and expelled Wagner from the NSDAP.
Buch did not lose his post, but from then on he had to submit all decisions of the Supreme Party Court to his son-in-law Martin Bormann for countersignature before they became valid.
After the war he was classified as the "main culprit" and lost all of his fortune. About six weeks later, Walter Buch committed suicide by cutting open his wrists on September 12, 1949 and falling into the Ammersee near Schondorf.
