New recruits being drilled in 1938. At first theWaffen-SS were clothed in standardWehrmacht uniforms, and were indistinguishable from their army colleagues apart from the SS runes on their collars.
CHAPTER TWO
ORGANIZATION
After Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, the popularity of the SS soared, and the organization grew rapidly as a result. Although initially tests for the potential recruits were stringent, as war loomed the barriers were lowered and theWaffen-SS developed into a sizeable force.
While Heinrich Himmler, Gottlob Berger and other senior officials in the SS manoeuvred their way through military politics in order to develop their own armed formations into division-size units,SS-Verfügungstruppen (SS-VT) commanders developed recruitment standards and training regimens aimed at turning their troops into élite warriors. From the time these units were established until the latter stages of World War II, SS-VT officials were vigorously selective about who could join their regiments. Specifically, they wanted perfect physical specimens of the ‘Aryan superman’ archetype who had a predisposition for conversion to the ideology of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP).
Predictably, the high numbers of applicants that sought membership of the organization in the wake of the Nazi’s seizure of power enabled such officials to select only first-rate candidates for enlistment. When young German men in cinemas saw newsreel images ofLeibstandarte ‘Black Guards’ marching in their crisp, black uniforms in the presence of Adolf Hitler, they flocked to SS recruitment centres in droves. To expedite the admission of successful applicants and the rejection of those deemed unfit, Gottlob Berger established 17 recruiting stations in each military district within Germany and enlarged the central SS recruiting office in Berlin.
SUCCESSFUL RECRUITING
Within just a few months, the SS recruitment branch received about 32,000 volunteers. Many of these applicants were already ardent Nazis indoctrinated in theHitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) organization. Traditional German admiration for military institutions combined with this élite mystique to ensure abundant sources of manpower throughout the 1930s and during the early stages of World War II. Only in later years, when the conflict was going against Germany, did theWaffen-SS relax its recruitment standards, seeking volunteers from other service branches and among a wide variety of ‘non-Aryan’ nationalities throughout Europe.
To enter the SS-VT, volunteers had to be between the ages of seventeen-and-a-half and 22, stand at an above-average height, and be in perfect physical health. TheLeibstandarte was es
