The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS Paperback - 2001

Details

• Title The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS
• Author Heinz Hohne; Richard Barry (Translator)
• Binding Paperback
• Edition Reprint
• Pages 690
• Volumes 1
• Language ENG
• Publisher Penguin Group, London
• Date August 28, 2001
• Illustrated Yes
• ISBN 9780141390123 / 0141390123
• Weight 1.93 lbs (0.88 kg)
• Dimensions 8.51 x 5.35 x 2.08 in (21.62 x 13.59 x 5.28 cm)
• Ages 18 to UP years
• Grade levels 13 - UP
• Library of Congress subjects National socialism, Germany - Politics and government - 1933-1945
• Library of Congress Catalog Number 2001272292
• Dewey Decimal Code 943.086

Their uniform was black and they were the terror of a nation. Their badge was the death’s head and they swore eternal allegiance to the Führer. Their flash was the runic double-S and they murdered men in millions. Hardly an aspect of the nation’s life seemed safe from their interference; they provided the sentries on the Reich Chancellery and the guards in the concentration camps; they manned the divisions which carried the death’s-head symbol to Europe; they occupied key positions in agriculture, the health service, racial policy and scientific affairs; they crushed their way into traditional diplomatic festivities; they had their watchdogs among the ministerial bureaucrats.

They called themselves the “Schutzstaffel [guard echelon SS] of the National-Socialist Party and in the words of SS-Hauptsturmführer [Captain] Dieter Wisliceny they considered themselves a “new form of religious sect with its own rites and customs” …

In fact the SS world was a bizarre nonsensical affair devoid of all logic. The theories hitherto advanced to explain the SS phenomenon have been equally bizarre, though superficially logical. In fact, history shows that the SS was anything but an organisation constructed and directed on some diabolically efficient system; it was a product of accident and automatism. The real history of the SS is a story of idealists and criminals, of place-seekers and romantics; it is the history of the most fantastic association of men imaginable.