From the “Protection Squadron“ to the SS State(Episode 1)

screenable online

The first episode traces the rise to power of the SS: from their ascent in the Weimar Republic to their establishment within the Nazi regime to their role in the first concentration camps and in the war of extermination. From an early stage, the SS built up a business empire and maintained training facilities for new members. The film examines the biographies of several perpetrators. Who was recruited? And why was the SS so attractive to so many men?

The first episode traces the rise to power of the SS: from their ascent in the Weimar Republic to their establishment within the Nazi regime to their role in the first concentration camps and in the…

SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler is the focus of the second episode. An agriculturalist by training, he went on to lead the SS – and tried to escape responsibility at the end of the war. Who was…

This episode focuses on Reinhard Heydrich. The leader of the Reich Security Main Office and Deputy Reich Protector in Bohemia and Moravia was a careerist. An orchestrator of mass murder, more than…

The fourth episode focuses on the Waffen SS. Nazi propaganda painted them as a military elite, intended to attract the best German soldiers. The fact that foreigners were later allowed to join the SS…

The fifth episode casts a light on the infamous Totenkopfverbände or “Death Head Units” of the SS. They were guards at the concentration camps, torturing and murdering prisoners on a daily basis…

The sixth episode draws a line to the present. The myth of the SS has lived on after 1945. Many Nazi perpetrators fled to exile unscathed with the help of the Vatican or the US intelligence services…