THE WAIKATO INDEPENDENT WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1944. HITLER’S THUGS.

Waikato Independent, Volume XLIII, Issue 4031, 23 August 1944, Page 2

THE WAIKATO INDEPENDENT WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1944. HITLER’S THUGS.

There has been more .than one reference in the news lately to Himmler’s S.S. troops, the troops elite of the Nazi organisation. When it was feared that the Army plot to assassinate Hitler might cause risings in Berlin S.S. troops guarded the city; when Bavarians and Saxons tied on the eastern front they found themselves threatened in the rear by-S.S. troops; when patriots in the occupied countries committed acts of sabotage or showed open resistance S.S. troops took hostages by the hundreds and murdered them. These hated S.S. troops—their strength was recently estimated at 20 divisions—arc bound body and soul to the Nazi machine and are fanatical in their loyalty to their personal chief, Himmler, and to Hitler, They are part of the Gestapo and are the real rulers of Germany. Their German name is Schutzstafflen (bodyguards), so named because their original members were Hitler’s personal bodyguard, a role they still fulfil. It is only'the pick of the young Nazis who may enter the S.S. The strictest of racial rules apply—the recruit must prove purity of Aryan blood from as far back as 1750, he must be of Nordic appearance, and must be not less than six feet in height. Once admitted, the S.S. trooper is a member for life. Before he can wear the death’s-head cap, the black uniform, and the S.S. dagger in bis belt, lie must complete a three-year novitiate, during which he must prove, by a number of tests, that his loyalty to the Nazi cause is beyond the slightest doubt. On attaining the age of twenty-one years the successful novice takes his place in the organisation which, during the war, has been divided into two sections, the S.S. on the home front and the Waffen-S.S., or S.S. in arms. Although the S.S. have been sent to the front as shock troops they arc not absorbed into the German Army, but retain their independence. Since 1942 they have been officially recognised' as a fourth service, the other three being the Army, Navy and Army Air Force. Their dispositions on * the fighting fronts and in the occupied' countries, gave Himmler control of practically all key positions in the Nazi regime, and now that Hitler has appointed the head of the Gestapo to be commander-in-chief of the home forces the whole of the Nazi sytsem of government, both military and civil, has come under the control of the S.S.