The Schutzstaffel (German for "Protective Squadron"), abbreviated SS- or (Runic)- was a major Nazi organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The SS grew from a small paramilitary unit to an elite force that served as the Führer's "Praetorian Guard," the Nazi Party's "Shield Squadron" and a force with as much political influence as the regular German armed forces. Built upon the Nazi racial ideology, the SS, under Heinrich Himmler's command, was primarily responsible for the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Nazis during the Second World War.
Initially smaller than the Ernst Röhm's Sturmabteilung (Storm Battalion abbreviated SA), the SS grew in size and power due to its exclusive loyalty to Hitler, as opposed to the SA, which was seen as semi-independent and a threat to Hitler's hegemony over the party. Under Himmler, the SS selected members according to the "Aryan" ideology. Developing elite police and military units such as the Waffen SS, Himmler used the SS to develop an order of men claimed to be superior in racial purity and abilities than other Germans and national groups, the model for the Nazi vision of a master race. During the World War, SS units operated alongside the Army and in the final stages of the war, exercised dominance over the Army to eliminate perceived threats to Hitler's power while implementing his strategies despite the increasingly failing war effort.
The SS was responsible for the vast majority of war crimes perpetrated under the Nazi regime, including the Holocaust. As part of its race-centric functions, the SS oversaw the isolation and displacement of Jewish people from the populations of Germany and conquered territories, seizing their assets and imprisoning them in concentration camps and ghettos where they would be used as slave labor, pending extermination.
