Waffen-SS

Waffen-SS (Literally "Armed SS") was a designation for the military and police units of the Schutzstaffel (SS), the paramilitary organisation of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS fought alongside the German military during World War II and played a principal role in orchestrating the Holocaust, the Porajmos, and other Nazi atrocities. At its peak in 1945, the Waffen-SS consisted of 38 divisions and almost a million personnel. The SS was completely destroyed in May 1945 following the German Instrument of Surrender, and much of its leadership was imprisoned, executed, committed suicide, or was forced into hiding.

The term Waffen-SS 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 (Hitler's personal bodyguard unit), and a few other divisions. However, all of these organisations were subordinated to the German Military High Command. But this changed in August 1940 when 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 only consisted of 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 eventually even non-Germanic volunteers (e.g. Ukrainians, Hungarians, and Estonians) could also serve in the Waffen-SS. Conscription was also introduced in 1943, meaning that some people were forced to serve in the German military and the Waffen-SS against their will, although it should be noted that the vast majority of soldiers who served in the Waffen-SS were volunteers, not conscripts.