Talk:Schutzstaffel/The SS neither "absorbed" nor controlled the German police

While it is true that Heinrich Himmler gained full control over the Gestapo in 1934. Himmler's 1936' appointment as `Chief of the German Police` in no way meant that he recieved commmanding authority over the non-Gestapo police, though this false interpretation remaines popular. The actual powers given Himmler by this appointment were those previously exercised by the Ministry of the Interiour over the police, with power over command and personnel appointments remaining with the civilan administration, which by 1938 was completely annexed by the party cadre organisation. the appointment gave the SS authority over training including ideological indoctrination, determination of procedures and some power over recruiment. Himmler did on several occasions attempt to translate this powers into actual control but was firmly rebuffed. In newly occupied territories as long a fully rammified civilian administration had yet to be established the SS did control the police through its SS and Police chain of command (HSSPF and SSPF), however once a civilian administration was in place such control usually evaporated, and the SS ocasionally was left with even less authority then in the Reich proper. it should also be noted that Orpo headquarters were never incorporated into the RSHA but was entirely separate from it. the RSHA encompassed Gestapo,Kripo and the SD, nothing more! Wildly exaggerating the SS' power, for whatever reason, ultimately only serves to increase the credibility of this rather small organisation as an alibi for monstrousities commited by the German state as a Whole. -nsigned anon user 9Aug06

Check out the Ordnungspolizei artice. The Orpo was commanded by an SS General (Daluge), provided personnel for the Einsatzgruppen, helped patrol the Jewish ghettos, as well as provided manpower for the Waffen-SS. In addition, nearly ever Orpo General also held SS rank. History speaks for itself when it is said that the Hauptamt Ordnugspolizei was considered a full office of the SS. -Husnock 14:23, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Mein lieber husnock. I have no need to check the Orpo article, ,as I have access to a great many other sources though I propably will soon enough so as cleanse it of well refuted historiographic myths and introduce some badly needed proper information and analysis. in any event your objections clearly indicate that you completely failed to understand what I wrote, indeed I suspect you have not fully read my comment before commenting about it. I shall explain again but bear with me and this time read the whole segment before you commit the sin of deletion

1) At no point in time was Daluege or Himmler for that matter granted the right to issue orders to Orpo forces deployed inthe various gaue. power of command remained firmly in the hands of party's "bearer of soverignty", to wit gauleiters, kreisleiters and later sub-kreisleiter. It is true that in 1938 Daluege boasted that an 'eventual' coalesence of the SS and police was inevitable, propagandistic bluster is one thing and reality another the only concession the SS was able to extract in that direction was that Kripo and Orpo officers who held officer ranks in the SS as well were allowed to wear their SS runes on their police uniforms. big deal! 2) that Orpo troops guarded Jewish gehttoes and participated in the holocaust indicates no affiliation to the SS. Not more so than the participation of regular military units in the holocaust indicated an absorption of the wehrmacht by the SS. For example Orpo territorial units in the civilian administaration part of the occupied soviet territories were rigidly subordinated to the local gebeit commisars since november 41' at the latest. maintaining no contact with SS and Police command structure which had directed their activities until a civilian administration was in place. they still participated in the genocide which greatly accelarated the following spring but did so under the direction of the civilian administration, and there in lies the heart of the matter. the holocaust and other Nazi atrocities were NOT a private progect of the SS, but a national undertaking involving the whole nation. Blame for it should not be attributed soley to the SS, a misrepresentation facilitated through a fanciful exaggeration of its power. 3) When assesing the significance of an individual's holding of SS ranks a clear distinction must be drawn between active and reserve, that is, strictly nominal commisions. Even such notorious SS-bashers as Martin Borman, Erich koch and Albert Forster held high SS ranks. People accepted SS reserve commision as an indication of their political conformity for the SS was party's paramilitary service of record. nothing more. regarding the specific case of high-ranking Orpo officers holding SS comisssions. In truth a mere 10% of Orpo policemen accepted an SS commision by 1940 and not that many thereafter despite Himmler's frantic attempts to lure more. In 1944 he did confer automatic SS membership on all policemen in a hairbrained attempt to then transfer the whole lot into the waffen SS. Needless to say it failed. Only Himmler imagined as ill-informed postwar commentators continue to imagine that a merely nominal SS rank entailed its holder's subbordination to the SS. By 1943 Himmler increasingly appointed as High SS and Police Leaders( the post meant to embody Daluege's coalescence of police and SS) Orpo officers with no previous SS rank in a vain attempt to put some muscle into the increasingly defunct office and in accomodation of the preferences of the increasingly powerful party cadre. 4) last but not least large-scale rcruitment of police personnel to the waffen SS took place only in the spring of 1942, after Hitler insisted upon a rapid expansion of the waffen SS which made it temporarily impossible for the party cadre to oppose Himmler's shanghaying people left and right, including policemen. by the autumn they were once again free to block him and block him they did by issuing exemptions from enlistment to as many policemen as they deemed fit. All subsequent attempts by Himmler to gangpress the police into the waffen SS were invariably defeated with concomitant further diminition of the police's bond to the SS, such as it was. I could present more information supporting my contention but what would be the use, as long too many people including yourself continue to indulge intheir "dark fascination" with an organisation which ultimately wielded far less power than is popularly belived simply because it also had the foul duty of controling the death camps. all that gore and horror booooo. when will we learn that the evil was far more widely spread

You're welcome to your opinion, but I've studied the SS for 19 years and to say that the Orpo was not under the control of the SS is simple against what history shows us. Himmler, as Chief of the German Police, controlled the Orpo and deployed in various SS related functions. Himmler's ultimate dream was to merge the Allgemeine-SS and the Orpo into a racial-state police force. He started by granting Orpo personnel dual status as SS, and there was a patch known as "SS membership runes" which Orpo personnel could wear as members of the SS. There is also plenty of photograhic evidence that the Orpo participate dion the Einsatzgruppen, commited crimes in the ghettos, and participated in roundups and arrests during the early years of Anti-semetism, on orders from the SS leadership. There were also people known as SS and Police Leaders who had control of any Orpo personnel in thier district. So, your opinion is your right but I wouldnt put any of that in the articles about these roups as it would probably be seen as revisiom. P.S.- recent conversations go on the bottom of a talk page and posts by other users should be maintained in the final format. -Husnock 14:55, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

this is the second time that my comment has been deleted. Again I was forced to revert. In the process it may well be that comments introduced since my last revert had been cosequentially deleted, but I had no alternative other than submitting to bulling. It is time that this degenerate vandalism came to an end. If the perfidious vandalism is your doing Husnock then you must grow up and start acting in a way that will no longer bring shame upon your parents. If husnock is not culpable, then the injunction is directed at the actual culprit. with hopes for improved conduct. -unsigned anon user

Your comments were never deleted, they were moved to the bottom of the discussion page where recent comments belong. -Husnock 14:46, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Placing my comment at the top of the talk page is absolutely necessary as it at least tries to provide a corrective to historiographical innumeracy of key parts of the article. You, in your annoying way, have confirmed its significance by lashing into it. If you are unable to bear reasoned criticism then avoid the talkpage altogather. Shameful buffoonereis like relocating it where it will not hurt your eyes, may not be as much vandalism as deleting it altogather, but vandalism it is. invoking all mannerr of procedural excuses for the attempted banishment is pathetically transperent, enough is enough. Regarding your "reply" to my comments. you either did not fully read it or are afflicted with a preternatural inabilty to comprehend the simplest reasoning, my guess would be the former. All of your conter-arguments adressed issues I covered and disposed of. Just as you should neither delete nor relocate comments that disturb you in your smug pretention to expertise, so you should not attack comments you have not read.-Unsigned anon user comment

a) please use civility; and b) learn how to spell and format. We can't follow your "arguments" when they use made up words and have extensive spelling mistakes. Also, see no personal attacks policy. Thanks. Also, your definition of "absolutely necessary" doesn't seem to match anyone else's here. Michael Dorosh 18:40, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Given that English is not my first language I am not surprised that spelling errors occasionally creep into my contributions, but your allegation of `made up words` certainly titilates me. It is a precious first in my life, perhaps you could cite the odd example for I have just revisited my comments in this talk page, and while I certainly noticed some displeasing misspellings. all the words, whether misspelled or not seemed perfectly, if not banally familiar. As for my supposed lack of civility. I am not certain that Husnock's antics were all that civil or even honest, indeed forcibly deporting my comment to the bottom in an article on the SS-a not so sweet irony, strikes me as downright shameful. You seem to have rushed to his aid, blazing with wrath of of the truely virtuous, stil, taking life in hand I submit that my viewpoint on the matter is not entirely without merit.

All talk pages on Wikipedia, with few exceptions, use the format that recent comments are posted to the bottom. I guess if you really wanted it at the top and demanded it be there, something could be arranged but simply moving recent comments to the bottom of the page is not an attack or vandalism. As for all the other things you mentioned, since it is heavily littered with personal attacks, it is hard to provided a response. But, as stated previously, you are welcome to your opinion. -Husnock 19:46, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Hello Husnock! you seem to feel victimised by my criticism of your actions and views ,still, it strikes me as unfair of you to have moved my comment to the obscure bottom of the page on your own authority. Given that you strongly object to its content, I greatly doubt it had that much to do with upholding format procedures. you presented some objections to my comment. I adressed them in a reply and then you repeated these self-same arguments in a way that unmistakably indicated that you had not read my reply, assuming ,that is, that you even read more than the title of my original comment before writing your objections. You than went on to claim that my replies were so "littered with personal attacks" as to make a reply hard to provide. While my replies to your objections were not intended to be the ultimate exercise in unctious affability, for didn't you just try to banish my heresies to the bottom of the page, your objections to their style is highly suspect, since you do not seem to have read them before replying, which rather vexed, and continues to annoy, me. to remove all doubt I most certainly do insist that my comment be placed on or near the top of the page. Disposing of the well-worn myths of the mighty "SS state within a state" which dominated the rest of the Nazi state exercising great and sinister poers of coercion, is essential not only for establishing a correct view of he power-political relations within the regime, which ofcourse is not all that important, but in order to recognise the highly volitional nature of the perpetrarors participation in Nazi atrocities. I will now attempt once again to reply to your objections, please read them! A) you refer to Orpo's participation in the Holocaust as proof of its subbordination to the SS. one has nothing to do with the other. Both the ghettoisation of the Jews as wel as their subsequent murder were not undertakings exclusive to the SS but involved the entire Nazi state. Aside from police and SS forces it also intensively involved regular army forces, especially the rear area divisions, and the reich ailway authorities and other bodies over which the SS exercised no control whatever. notably Orpo's primary participation in the murder of Soviet Jews took place in the spring and summer of 42' by which time a commisariat-type civilian administration was firmly in place and the formerly powerful HSSPF and SSPF wielded no power over police matters. Their sporadic attempts to do so were ivariably and forcefully rebuffed and reprimended. B) you refer to the HSSPF and SSPF as emboding the SS' assumption of control over the police, but these officers were only allowed to issue orders to the police in the absence of a civilian administration. once a civilaian administration was in place they either accepted subbordination to the civilian governer-in whatever guise: Commisar, General governor and so on- or were sidelined. As Germany occupied new territories a situation usually emerged where the military relinquished political control to the civilian administration before such an administration materialised except on paper. This would produce a power vaccume which the SS would avidly fill with Einzatsgruppen and HSSPFs often taking drastic and irreversible actions while doing so, but the power vaccume would eventully fill. In the occupied Soviet territories it filled completely in november 41' and in the following spring the civilian administration grew even stronger with the establishment of ArbeitsberichsOst which gave he territorial commisars Gauleiter like RVK powers,this not only made their power of command over the police unassailable, but also gave them exraordinary powers over all agencies in their territories including much of the SS, which scotched all SS hopes for any autonomy let alone dominance. It was at this exact time that the Holocaust there began its second and deadliest stage. So much for the need for SS control in order to secure Orpo participation in the genocide. C) regarding Himmler and Daluege's authority. As I have previously pointed out Himmler 1936' appointment as Cheif of the German police did not grant him power of command. It did not make him `befehlshaber` of the police. The powers given him were ,despeite the fancy title, only those previously exercised over the police by the Ministry of the Interior and not even all of those. the ministerial power transfer was only completed in august 43 when Himmler was olso appointed Minister of the Interior. Command authority over the non-Gestapo police remained firmly in the hands of the civilian administration which in 1938 was completely annexed by the party cadre organisation the PO (later redesignated NSFK). Command authority over the police would as indicated above be likewise conferred on the civilian administration in occupied territories. It was therefore impossible for Himmler to delagate command authority over Orpo to Daluege anymore than command authority ofer Kripo to Heydrich for he possesed none himself. Daluege's role was confined to establishing service regulations and control over training academies and currculae. D) Last but not least, and this applies not only to the police. the holding of SS ranks by functionaries or private persons of all sort meant NOTHING unless their SS commision was an active one. Reserve commisions were strictly titular and were held by some of the SS' worst enemies like Martin Borman, Erich Koch (gauleiter of East Prussia and late reichscommissar for the Ukraine) and even Albert Forster (gauleiter of Danzig-West Prussia) who once favoured the world with the immortal words: "If I looked like Himmler I wouldn't talk about race". By the same token the acceptance of SS ranks by policemen did amount to their being "absorbed" by the SS. Occasional attempts by Himmler and other SS potentaes to make more of it inevetibly came to nought or grief. At most the acceptence of such a commision gave the SS the righ to expect some cordiallity from its recipiant but, as the case of Forster and Koch proves this was not guaranteed. the SS along with the SA was the Nazi party paramilitary arm of record. notables were expected to accept honorary SS commisions as a show of political conformity. -unsigned anon user 25Aug06

Knock yourself out, man, the comments can stay at the top of the page until someone else moves them (which they probably will). As for the personal attack thing, in your dialouge you made a reference to the way my parents raised me and then said (twice) I was annoying. Sayng things about a Wikipedia users parents and then calling them annoying qualifies as a personal attack by every rule we have here. I would recommend reviewing our policies and then estabish an account as people tend to take anon ip addresses not as seriously as estanlished users. -Husnock 14:05, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

While praising your own open-mindedness you chose not to read the my comments regarding the SS' relationship with the police though, on this occasion at least, they could not possibly have contained any personal attacks. That's one way of keeping one's mind pure of doubt and wonderings. Here is to happiness in simplicity.