We trace the rise to power of the SS from their ascent in the Weimar Republic to their establishment within the Nazi regime and their role in the first concentration camps and 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

Who was SS Reichsfuumlhrer Heinrich Himmler An agriculturalist by training he went on to lead the SS and tried to escape responsibility at the end of the warnbsp He was a committed Nazi who sometimes left his desk to ensure the efficiency of the concentration camps His work diary recently discovered in Moscow provides terrifying insights into the SS leader revealing details of both his private

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 any other Nazi leader he was responsible for rational planning with cold efficiency ensuring that Hitler and Himmlers extermination plans were implemented In disturbing contrast to his function in private he played the role of

The Waffen SS ndash Nazi propaganda painted them as a military elite to attract the best German soldiers The fact that foreigners were later allowed to join the SS or even forced to do so did nothing to undermine this image An unbeatable generation This reality was very different and many of them were poorly trained SS troops fought with contempt for death and slaughtered anything that got in

The infamous Totenkopfverbaumlnde or ldquoDeath Head Unitsrdquo of the SS They were guards at the concentration camps torturing and murdering prisoners daily Disturbing personal photos from the camps show these men on excursions and at cheerful social gatherings in their free time Who were the perpetrators who sent millions of prisoners in the extermination camps of Dachau Sachsenhausen

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 Yet some did not escape punishment and were forced to confront their responsibility Although the atrocities of the SS are beyond all doubt among current farright groups there is a cult surrounding ldquoold comradesrdquo and SS symbolism