Waffen-SS

Waffen-SS (Literally "Armed SS") was a term used to designate the military and police units of the Schutzstaffel (SS), the paramilitary organisation of the Nazi Party which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945. At its peak in 1945 the Waffen-SS consisted of 38 divisions and almost a million personnel. The Waffen-SS fought alongside the Wehrmacht during World War II and played a principal role in the Holocaust, the Porajmos, and other Nazi atrocities. The Waffen-SS was completely destroyed in 1945, and much of its leadership was imprisoned, executed, committed suicide, or was forced into hiding.

The term was first used in official documents in late-1939, with the Waffen-SS at the time consisting of the SS Death's Head Units (which administered Nazi concentration and later extermination camps), the SS Dispositional Troops, the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguard unit), and a few other divisions. All of these organisations were subordinate to either Hitler himself or the German High Command. In August 1940 however, the SS Leadership Main Office was established, and its leader, Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, was given direct control of the Waffen-SS.

The Waffen-SS initially consisted of only ethnic German volunteers ages 17–23 who could prove that they had no traceable Jewish ancestry after 1800, though over the course of the war, these restrictions were eased so that non-German volunteers who were still considered Germanic (e.g. the French and the Dutch) and later even non-Germanic volunteers (e.g. Ukrainians, Hungarians, and Estonians) could serve in the Waffen-SS. Conscription was also introduced in 1943, although the majority of soldiers who served in the Waffen-SS were volunteers, not conscripts.