Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS
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The Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS (german: Hauptamt Persönlicher Stab Reichsführer-SS) was a main office of the SS which was established in 1933 by
Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
to serve as a personal office coordinating various activities and projects subordinate to the ''
Reichsführer-SS (, ) was a special title and rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945 for the commander of the (SS). ''Reichsführer-SS'' was a title from 1925 to 1933, and from 1934 to 1945 it was the highest rank of the SS. The longest-servi ...
''.


Operations

In 1933,
Karl Wolff Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff (13 May 1900 – 17 July 1984) was a German SS functionary who served as Chief of Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS (Heinrich Himmler) and an SS liaison to Adolf Hitler during World War II. He ended the war as the Supre ...
came to the attention of Himmler who in June 1933, appointed Wolff his
adjutant Adjutant is a military appointment given to an officer who assists the commanding officer with unit administration, mostly the management of human resources in an army unit. The term is used in French-speaking armed forces as a non-commission ...
and made him chief of the office of his Personal Staff. Himmler also appointed Wolff the SS Liaison Officer to Hitler. As Himmler's principle adjutant and close associate, Wolff's daily activities involved overseeing Himmler's schedule and serving as a liaison with other SS offices and agencies. The office conveyed the wishes/interests of the ''Reichsführer'' to all branches, offices, and subordinated units within the SS. It also handled Himmler's personal correspondence and awarded decorations. Wolff managed Himmler's affairs with the Nazi Party, state agencies and personnel. Following the assassination of
Reinhard Heydrich Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( ; ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He was chief of the Reich Security Main Office (inclu ...
in 1942, Wolff fell out with Himmler and was replaced by
Maximilian von Herff Maximilian Karl Otto von Herff (17 April 1893 – 6 September 1945) was a German senior SS commander during the Nazi era. He served as head of the SS Personnel Main Office from 1942 to 1945. Early life Maximilian von Herff was born in Hanov ...
who served as its head until the end of the war. Himmler also established several special project teams under the authority of his personal office. This included the staff of the
Wewelsburg Wewelsburg () is a Renaissance castle located in the village of Wewelsburg, which is a district of the town of Büren, Westphalia, in the ''Landkreis'' of Paderborn in the northeast of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The castle has a triangular ...
castle as well as the ''
Ahnenerbe The Ahnenerbe (, ''ancestral heritage'') operated as a think tank in Nazi Germany between 1935 and 1945. Heinrich Himmler, the ''Reichsführer-SS'' from 1929 onwards, established it in July 1935 as an SS appendage devoted to the task of promot ...
''. This team of experts was interested in the anthropological and cultural history of the
Aryan race The Aryan race is an obsolete historical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people of Proto-Indo-European heritage as a racial grouping. The terminology derives from the historical usage of Aryan, used by modern I ...
. It conducted experiments and launched voyages with the intent of proving that prehistoric and mythological Nordic populations had once ruled the world.


Role in the Holocaust

The exact role that Himmler's personal staff played in the
Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
has been a subject of debate with Karl Wolff claiming that the personal staff were little more than desk bound paper pushers."History of the SS",
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
Broadcasting, 1982
However, given that most of Himmler's wishes and orders were distributed by his personal staff, Wolff would have been aware of significant events or could easily have access to the relevant information. Incriminating letters show that Wolff was involved in the Holocaust. For example, as the liquidation of the
Warsaw ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...
resulted in rail transport bottlenecks, Wolff telephoned deputy Reich Minister of Transport, Albert Ganzenmüller. In a later letter dated 13 August 1942, Wolff thanked Ganzenmüller for his assistance. Further, Wolff would have received copies of all letters from SS officers, and his friends at that point included
Odilo Globočnik Odilo Lothar Ludwig Globocnik (21 April 1904 – 31 May 1945) was an Austrian Nazi and a perpetrator of the Holocaust. He was an official of the Nazi Party and later a high-ranking leader of the SS. Globocnik had a leading role in Operation Re ...
, the organizer of "
Operation Reinhard or ''Einsatz Reinhard'' , location = Occupied Poland , date = October 1941 – November 1943 , incident_type = Mass deportations to extermination camps , perpetrators = Odilo Globočnik, Hermann Höfle, Richard Thomalla, Erwin L ...
". Therefore, his later denial of knowledge of Holocaust activities may be plausible only at the detailed level of atrocities by the Nazi regime.


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