The rise of the SS began with the murder of Ernst Roehm, the man who led the SA, the Nazi organisation of storm troopers. This murder was carried out on Hitler's orders and heralded a wave of terror during which prominent opponents of the regime were eliminated. Thereafter, the SS was firmly established as the supreme tool of the regime's terror-apparatus.
Part two of this six-part series looks at Heinrich Himmler, the most powerful man in the Third Reich after Hitler. The SS expanded rapidly under Himmler's efficient leadership and soon cast a black shadow over Germany. Himmler chose the castle of Wewelburg in Westphalia as the centre of the SS cult, and invented a glorious historical past and a pseudo-religion.
As head of the SS Security police, Reinhard Heydrich rose with meteoric speed to control the murder squads operating in Poland and Russia with brutal efficiency. He took charge of the 'final solution to the Jewish problem', becoming a central figure in the horrors of the Holocaust.
This episode looks at the Death's Head Battalion, whose members were identified by the badge with a skull on the right lapel of their uniform. They underwent rigorous training to abolish every trace of human emotion and independent thought, leaving them willing tools of the unimaginable crimes committed in its name.
This episode looks at The Waffen SS who were the elite military wing of the organisation. They were fanatical fighters who spread fear and terror in the early days of the war as the Blitzkrieg was launched against Poland and the West. This episode also looks at the major role The Waffen SS played in the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941.
This final episode features interviews with Nazi hunters Beate Klarsfeld, Ephraim Zuroff and Serge Klarsfeld; former members of the US secret service and army officers William Gowen, James Milano and Wolfgang Robinow and former SS members.
