Original subtitles

(epic music)

(crowd cheering)

- [Narrator] Germany's so-called elite,

the Fuhrer's guard,

the Black Order.

(epic music)

The end result is a crime

the likes of which the world has never seen.

(epic music)

(plane roaring)

June 6th, 1944.

Hitler's enemies land on the coast of Normandy.

(imperious music)

With heavy losses,

allied troops overcome the German defenses.

Nazi Germany now has to fight on two fronts,

in the West and on the Eastern Front.

(bombs exploding)

(tanks rumbling)

Units of the Waffen-SS are deployed to France

to stop the Western powers.

On their way to the front,

they are ordered to take action

against French partisans.

The Resistance has already taken control of entire towns,

among them, the town of Tulle.

Soldiers of the Waffen-SS recaptured Tulle.

(imperious music)

The residents are ordered to assemble in the market square.

While some SS men enjoy themselves in the cafe,

others arbitrarily select men from among the residents.

They hang 99 of them as revenge

for the German soldiers killed by the Resistance.

- This was a kind of troop

that was meant to have no pity for Germany's enemies

or those people who were designated Germany's enemies

by the SS and by Hitler.

- [Narrator] Deterrents through mass murder.

But the Resistance also takes revenge.

- [Translator] There were counter shootings

of German prisoners, and then, typical of the SS,

they show that they're even tougher,

even more unconditional,

and actually wipe out an entire village in Oradour.

The men were shot and the women and children

were driven into a church and burnt alive there.

- [Narrator] The massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane.

In 1944, SS men murder 642 people here,

men, women, children.

Afterwards, the village is destroyed.

The remains of Oradour still stand today as a memorial.

(Jean-Luc speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] Oradour-sur-Glane

is certainly not the only crime committed by the SS.

But it is symptomatic of a culture of violence

and enforcement of repression and terror

according to the principle of harshness.

A harshness against one self,

the ability to overcome one's inhibitions

in order to commit the worst atrocities.

(guns rapping)

- [Narrator] Nazi propaganda styles the men

of the Waffen-SS as a military elite.

Recklessness and uncompromising combat readiness,

bring them admirers,

and death and terror to their opponents.

These are heroes with a contempt for death, invincible.

That is the propaganda.

The reality is different.

(eerie music)

(intense music)

(majestic music)

July 1940, victory celebrations in Berlin

for the German Wehrmacht.

In just six weeks, it has defeated France,

it's so-called arch enemy.

(Hitler speaking in foreign language)

Hitler uses the term Waffen-SS

officially here for the first time

in his Reichstag speech after the French campaign,

The plan to turn the SS into armed military units

is much older.

Even before Hitler came to power,

the SS dreamed of elite warriors.

- [Translator] Their soldierly element

was there from the very start,

with the uniforms, the marching,

the military sports, and so forth.

In 1933, the SS went on to establish individual armed units

relatively quickly.

(Bastian speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] The former cadet school in Berlin Lichterfelde,

the barracks of one of the first armed SS units.

(Hitler speaking in foreign language)

In 1933, Hitler personally orders the expansion

of his bodyguard, and commissions Josef,

known as Sepp Dietrich, to do this.

Within a few months, the SS Sonderkommando

increases in size to almost 800 men,

all of them loyal volunteers and ardent Nazis.

At the Reich Party Congress in 1933,

Dietrich's troop receives its final name,

Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler.

(regal trumpet music)

The dictator's ruthless private army,

a nucleus of the Waffen-SS.

At the same time, the Reichswehr

claims to be the nation's sole bearer of arms,

an army with Prussian tradition

officially limited to 100,000 men

by the Treaty of Versailles.

(intense music)

- Hitler was looking for alternatives or auxiliaries,

a way of building it up, and so the SS-Verfugungstruppe

were the kind of nucleus of an alternative military force.

- [Narrator] In 1934,

the SS establishes more armed regiments,

troops at the disposal of the Fuhrer,

ostensibly, no competition for the regular army,

more a kind of military state protection.

At the end of 1935, the Verfugungstruppe

consists of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler,

with a good 2,600 men and the two SS-Standarten

Deutschland and Germania, so almost 5,100 men in total.

SS Chief Himmler wants his men to form an elite,

elite Nazis and elite warriors.

For this he needs well trained officers.

Bad Tolz in upper Bavaria.

This is where Himmler

has the first SS Reich schule built in 1934.

A large new structure is built for it.

And the so-called Junkerschule in Bad Tolz,

sport is very much the order of the day.

Ideologically trained, physically fit warriors,

that is the training goal for the young SS officers.

(Jan-Erik speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] And those who came together there

had already been with the SS for some time.

So here we didn't have a cross-section

of the German male population

as was more likely with the Wehrmacht, at least.

Instead, these were men, young men,

with a clear national socialist outlook.

(Jan-Erik speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] In 1935, the second Junker School

is established in the Castle of Braunschweig.

(man bellowing in foreign language)

Himmler successfully recruits a retired Reichswehr general

as inspector of the Junker Schools

and the dispositional troops, Paul Hausser.

(Bastian speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] Himmler needs a military expert.

After all, he wants to create military units

that are also supposed to perform militarily,

and that can't be done merely with amateurs

or street fighters.

A certain amount of expertise is required.

And Hausser, as a general,

is the man who provides that expertise.

(Bastian speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] Hausser organizes the training.

Prospective SS officers are trained

in technology and tactics.

The curriculum also includes a worldview

in line with Himmler's wishes.

Germanic history, Aryan race studies,

the delusion of the so-called Lebensraum,

those are the main subjects of study.

The Nazi worldview will penetrate the head of every SS man.

(Jurgen speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] Looking back,

I think it was a very strong spirit of comradeship

based on the same mindset, so to speak.

It was based on the fact

that we were convinced we were fighting a just war.

We were convinced that we were the master race,

and we were the pick of that master race.

And that really does bind people together.

(Jurgen speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] The aim of the training is conquest.

Hitler does make frequent speeches about peace,

but he wants war, and as soon as possible.

(crowd cheering)

(imperious music)

April 20th, 1939, Hitler's 50th birthday.

Germany's army shows what it has to offer.

It's a demonstration of power.

Less than four months later,

Hitler orders the invasion of Poland.

On September 1st, 1939, the Second World War begins.

Approximately 4.5 million soldiers of the regular Army

have armed units of the SS fighting alongside them,

and accounting for not even 1% of its total strength.

On October 4th, 1939, the German Ufa-Tonwoche newsreel

reports on the Polish campaign

and on the SS warriors under Sepp Dietrich.

(announcer speaking German)

Reality has very little to do with the Nazi propaganda.

Dietrich's Leibstandarte has suffered heavy losses.

The professionals from the Wehrmacht

criticized the fighting behavior of the SS men.

(ominous music)

(Jean-Luc speaking French)

- [Translator] Combat not only requires soldiers

to be passionate fighters.

Most importantly, different troops also have to cooperate.

The infantry does attack,

but it also requires simultaneous coordinated support

from artillery fire, at least at the beginning.

That was one of the weak points of the SS.

(Jean-Luc speaking French)

- [Narrator] In their frontline reports,

officers of the Wehrmacht

complain about the tactical shortcomings of the SS men.

One example, the Leibstandarte

was only partially able to carry out its mission.

It became engaged in bitter frontal house to house fighting

with a weak enemy to which it was inferior

in infantry combat terms.

The fighting style of the SS

was characterized by blind bravado

and a lack of leadership.

(Jochen speaking German)

- [Translator] The Wehrmacht strongly criticizes the actions

of the Waffen SS, especially its military performance,

which is seen as inferior,

but there's also a lot of competitive thinking involved

and there are certain grounds for that.

But the point is precisely

that the Wehrmacht absolutely does not agree

with the fact that a separate SS troop

is going into battle alongside it.

- [Narrator] The SS is conspicuous,

above all, for its brutal attacks

on the civilian population.

The perpetrators are men like Hermann Muller-John.

Before the war, he led the music core

of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler.

(lively band music) (intense music)

As SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer, on September 18th, 1939,

Muller-John has 50 Jews shot dead near Warsaw.

- There was a sort of a fake excuse made up for him

that some people had fired from houses

and that he had reacted, but in reality,

he simply decided that he was going to kill people.

He was targeting them because they were Jews.

- [Narrator] The Wehrmacht arrests Muller-John.

The commander in charge wants to have him court martialed.

(solemn music)

- [Translator] With the Muller-John case

the Wehrmacht wanted to set an example.

They wanted to demonstrate that SS men

could not simply do that sort of thing

right under their noses.

- [Narrator] From prison, the SS man seeks help

by writing to his superior,

the commander of the Leibstandarte, Sepp Dietrich,

who turns directly to Hitler.

Hitler orders the prisoner to be released immediately.

Muller-John returns to the Leibstandarte,

and is later promoted.

At the end of the war, he commits suicide.

In occupied Poland, SS men murder more than 60,000 people,

mainly Jews, within a single year.

The perpetrators are under the direct command

of SS-Reichsfuhrer Himmler.

They are policemen

or members of the armed concentration camp guards,

the so-called Totenkopfstandarten

under the leadership of Theodor Eicke.

The crimes horrify many officers in the Wehrmacht.

Even though most of them consider Poles inferior,

the mass murder of civilians goes too far for them.

General Johannes Blaskowitz complains in writing

about the brutalization and moral corruption

of the actions in Poland.

- He and many members of the Wehrmacht

believed in a certain military code of honor,

that there's certain things that one simply shouldn't do

unless absolutely forced to,

and one of these things was the mass murder of civilians.

- [Narrator] Also out of fear of resistance

from the Polish population,

Blaskowitz also demands an end to SS terror

in the Concon territories.

In the face of the Wehrmacht's criticism

of his SS task forces, Himmler's forced to react.

He says he's doing nothing that the Fuhrer does not know.

And Hitler not only knows what the SS is doing,

he wants things to remain that way.

- Hitler's response to Blaskowitz

and criticisms by senior army officers

of the brutality of the German troops in Poland

was to say, "This is not the Salvation Army.

You don't fight a war in this way."

- [Narrator] The critics in the Wehrmacht fall silent.

In October, 1939, Hitler decrees

that special jurisdiction applies to members of the SS

and to police on special duty.

This means that the Wehrmacht military courts

no longer have jurisdiction over the SS.

Hitler wants to wage a war of extermination in the East

by conquering new living space, Germanizing entire regions,

and destroying the Jewish world enemy.

The armed SS units are fighting on the front line

in support of this murderous worldview.

(ominous music)

For Hitler and Himmler,

the SS soldiers have proved their worth

during the Polish campaign,

despite all their military shortcomings.

At the beginning of 1940, Himmler is allowed

to further increase the size of his SS army.

At the beginning,

the Waffen SS comprises the following branches.

The Leibstandarte under Sepp Dietrich,

upgraded in 1941 to the first SS tank division,

SS-Leibstandarte Adolph Hitler.

Next to them, the Verfugungstruppe.

Under Paul Hausser, at the end of 1940,

they become the second SS tank division, Das Reich.

And the Totenkopfstandarten,

originally concentration camp personnel.

In 1942, under Theodor Eicke,

they become the third SS tank division, Totenkopf.

(cannon balls exploding)

On May 10th, 1940, the Germans attack in the West.

Under the high command of the Wehrmacht,

Waffen-SS units also storm through Belgium

and Holland towards France.

(announcer speaking in foreign language)

For days on end, the port city is besieged by German troops,

and fighting is especially fierce at the bridges.

(intense music)

The German Air Force is told to bomb Rotterdam.

Dutch officers start negotiating a surrender,

but the news never reaches the German bombers.

More than 800 people die.

(planes roaring)

(bombs exploding)

German troops enter the city.

Among them are members of the Leibstandarte.

They shoot Dutch soldiers who have long since surrendered.

Kurt Student, a general in the German paratroopers,

orders the SS men to seize fire.

Student is hit in the head by a ricochet

and is seriously injured.

The Waffen-SS lacks discipline and expertise.

Commanders like Sepp Dietrich are military amateurs.

As head of the Leibstandarte,

he's in charge of several thousand men.

The young Wehrmacht officer Philipp von Boeselager

later experiences an order issued by Sepp Dietrich.

- [Translator] It wasn't the kind of order we were used to

with clear goals and clear boundaries and so on.

Instead it was more like, "We'll do it this way

and you go right and you go left and I'll watch out."

I was very surprised

at just how unmilitary those orders were.

- [Narrator] The SS replaces its lack of military expertise

with a prescribed contempt for death.

(Jean-Luc speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] The first campaigns of the SS

were characterized by a will to assert themselves

as a military elite at all costs.

But at the same time, often by a lack of professionalism,

which led to heavy losses now and then.

(Jean-Luc speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] But losses hardly matter

if the end result is a victory.

Within a few days, the neutral states

of Holland and Belgium are overrun by German troops.

The next target is France.

The German troops advanced quickly

and pushed the enemy towards the Atlantic coast.

The port city of Dunkirk,

from here, French and British soldiers

are evacuated to safety in England.

The Germans are moving ever closer,

including SS-Totenkopf units.

Not far from the coast, they come across a unit

of the Second British Infantry Division.

The British defend themselves stubbornly

until they run out of ammunition and surrender.

The SS have suffered heavy losses.

Their commander has the 100 or so British soldiers

in the village of Le Paradis lined up and shot.

Only two survive.

(Jean-Luc speaking French)

- [Translator] In these crimes, one constantly encounters

the will to assert oneself as a military elite

by erasing any perceived traces of military failure.

- [Narrator] On May 28th, 1940, in the village of Wormhoudt,

British soldiers are surrounded by men of the Leibstandarte.

Here too, the SS have suffered heavy losses.

The British soldiers surrender.

They include 19-year-old Albert Evans.

- They weren't very pleasant people to meet at all,

none whatsoever.

I mean, our officer pleaded with the one SS

and he said, "The point of where you're going

is the point of no return."

- [Narrator] The British are driven into a stable

and SS men throw hand grenades into it.

Evans is injured, but manages to escape with his captain.

- This SS guards follows, then three yards rang, bang, bang.

Captain was dead, and he turned around and fired at me,

but the bullet hit the tree and I was lucky,

it just hit me, grazed in the back of the neck.

- [Narrator] Evan's faints.

The SS man thinks he's dead.

- I happened to look up,

I could hear all the automatic firing

and I wanted to go back to my comrades

and then I thought, "Well, if I stand,"

I don't think I'd have got there.

I'd have been killed before I got there.

Anyway, I could see this farm in the distance,

which I managed to crawl into and that's what saved my life.

- [Narrator] More than 80 British prisoners

are murdered at Wormhoudt by SS men.

Heinrich Himmler stylizes his SS murderers

as Nazi Praetorians.

The Black Order is considered particularly Aryan

and loyal to Hitler.

The men of the Waffen-SS now add the image

of self-sacrificing super warriors to Himmler's propaganda.

(intense music)

This myth is to be spread by a separate PR troop.

(Jan-Erik speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] These SS war correspondents

had an important function

in spreading certain views, certain myths about the SS,

and they did so very, very successfully.

(Jan-Erik speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] Hitler also publicly praises the achievements

of his SS men after the victory in the West,

even though they contributed little to the success.

Inexperience and ruthlessness have been costly.

After the Polish and Western campaigns,

the Waffen-SS have suffered heavy losses.

Their ranks have to be replenished.

(imperious music)

The Waffen-SS, an army of volunteers,

according to the propaganda.

Himmler initially recruits his soldiers

mostly from the ranks of the General SS, honorary SS men.

(imperious music)

But this reserve is quickly exhausted,

also, because his SS members are drafted into the Wehrmacht.

New recruits are mainly attracted by the elitist image.

The men are proud to be chosen.

In 1941, 17-year-old Wolfgang Filor becomes an SS man.

- [Translator] When I got the conscription order,

I walked around the whole town

and was happy that I'd been called up,

because at the medical examination in the summer of 1941,

out of 80 men, only three or four were accepted.

The others only joined the Wehrmacht, not the Waffen-SS.

- [Narrator] In addition to a dashing image,

the Waffen-SS also offers social advancement opportunities.

Young men, without higher education

can make a career in the SS,

a career like that of Sepp Dietrich.

A general without a high school diploma

is unimaginable in the Wehrmacht.

In the barracks of the Waffen-SS,

the recruits learn how to handle weapons,

and receive military training.

There is a special emphasis on physical training

as with all armies of the world.

(intense music)

But the men of the Waffen-SS

are more than just ordinary soldiers,

their inner attitude is also part of the drill.

- The SS man was supposed to be extremely tough.

And the kind of training they got

was in a way rather similar to the sort of punishments

they would mete out to concentration camp inmates,

extreme cruelty, extreme harshness, unquestioning obedience.

- [Narrator] In 1942 Jurgen Girgensohn

volunteers for the Waffen-SS.

(Jurgen speaking German)

- [Translator] We'd been seriously drilled

during our training, almost like animals in fact.

Sometimes it was very, very brutal.

(Jurgen speaking German)

- [Narrator] If one of the young men

does not achieve the set goals,

the whole group is punished.

So pressure from the instructors

is exacerbated by beatings from comrades.

(Jurgen speaking German)

- [Translator] Not everyone could stand it.

There were also some who wanted to get out of it.

And the only way was suicide.

- [Narrator] The prototype of Waffen-SS warrior

is tough, courageous, and above all victorious.

At least that's how the Nazi newsreels present him.

(announcer speaking in foreign language)

A hero of the Waffen-SS, the propaganda has an impact.

(Wolfgang speaking German)

- [Translator] As a young guy, as a soldier,

when you came home and you didn't have a decoration,

you were basically nothing.

Everyone would've loved to get the Knight's Cross,

no matter how.

(Wolfgang speaking German)

- [Narrator] The prospect of winning medals

leads many soldiers to their deaths.

To further swell the ranks of his Waffen-SS,

Himmler lowers the entry standards.

The minimum height of one meter 70 is abolished.

Severe visual impairment is no longer a problem.

From 1941 onwards,

it becomes easier for new volunteers to join.

(Bastian speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] Waffen-SS recruiters

go into Reich Labor Service camps and Hitler Youth camps,

and put the young men there

under considerable pressure to volunteer.

The requirement is that they give up on their own ideals

to avoid the Fuhrer being disappointed

by a lack of suitable candidates.

(Bastian speaking in foreign language)

(intense music)

- [Narrator] The German victories

in Western and Northern Europe

open up promising prospects for the Waffen-SS recruiters,

who now become active

in the supposedly Germanic brother nations.

In Himmler's understanding,

these are the Scandinavians, Dutch and Belgians.

Here Himmler has units of the Germanic SS founded,

modeled after Germany's General SS.

From their ranks, the Waffen-SS is replenished.

(intense music)

In Belgium, the SS mainly wins supporters

from the Flemish National Federation,

a party that advocates the succession of Flanders

from Belgium and has fascist tendencies.

After the Germans occupy Belgium,

the National Federation collaborates with the Nazis.

One of its supporters is Oswald Van Ooteghem.

In 1941, he volunteers for the Waffen-SS at the age of 17.

(Oswald speaking German)

- [Translator] The great wave of volunteers

only came after the war with Russia had started

and the Flemish leadership had called for volunteers

in the fight against Bolshevism.

(Oswald speaking German)

Firstly, and secondly, to acquire for Flanders

an equal place in the New Europe.

(Oswald speaking German)

- [Narrator] By 1945, almost 10,000 Flemings

had joined the Waffen-SS, in addition to 22,000 Dutch,

around 6,000 Danes and about 5,000 Norwegians.

From 1942 onwards,

Himmler also accepts women into the Waffen-SS.

(Isabel speaking German)

- [Translator] The women helpers within the SS

were a very small group

and were actually listed as SS members.

Here we have a group of about 2,500 people

who were actually selected as SS helpers

from the women's and girls organizations

of national socialism, usually young unmarried women,

who then took on tasks in the SS.

(Isabel speaking German)

- [Narrator] Overenheim in Auschwits,

here from 1942, Himmler sets up the Reich SS school.

Housed in country estates, the only SS school for women.

As stipulated in the operational regulations,

the female SS helpers are trained

for the communication service as telephonists,

tele printers and radio operators.

Male intelligence personnel

can thus be transferred to the front.

The requirements for radio training are high.

The women have to learn foreign languages

and also how to operate the Enigma cipher machine.

Ideological instruction and mother training

are also on the curriculum.

SS Chief Himmler has precise ideas

for the future of the SS women.

(Himmler speaking in foreign language)

Any goings on with strange men or nighttime excursions,

result in dismissal from the SS.

Liaisons with SS men on the other hand, are tolerated,

as long as no petty jealousy is involved.

After the Second World War, the female SS helpers

are not classified as members of the SS

and usually avoid prosecution.

Yet from 1943 onwards,

they are deployed in all branches of the SS,

including concentration camps.

(ominous music)

On June 22nd, 1941, Germany attacks the Soviet Union.

For Himmler, the real mission of the SS now begins,

to conquer living space in the east

and to destroy alleged Jewish Bolshevism.

Himmler's Waffen-SS has grown to five divisions,

but this is still only a fraction

of the total German strength of 150 divisions.

Within a few weeks, the German advanced far to the east.

The Soviet Army is not prepared.

Entire units end up as prisoners of war.

(cannon fire exploding)

By 1945, over 3 million Soviet prisoners of war

will starve to death or die from epidemics

in Wehrmacht camps, a forgotten part

of the German crime of the century,

but entirely in Himmler's interest.

In a 1943 speech to the SS leaders, he declares.

(Himmler speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] The war of extermination

began as early as September 1939,

but with the invasion of the Soviet Union

in the summer of 1941, it entered a whole new dimension.

(Jochen speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] In the late summer of 1941,

the Wehrmacht continues its advance on Moscow.

The plan is for the conquest of the capital

to bring victory.

But in mid-October, the German advance

gets bogged down in the mud.

Rain is followed by snow and frost.

Expecting a further blitzkrieg, the German soldiers

are not equipped with winter proof clothing.

Thousands freeze to death.

The Soviet Union counter attacks,

the Red Army pushes the Germans back, and Moscow is held.

Hitler blames the Wehrmacht leadership,

and in December 1941,

assumes supreme command of the Army himself.

(Jean-Luc speaking French)

- [Translator] Hitler thinks that the German army

lacks the ideology and the fanaticism

to confront a Baltjovik enemy,

to use the term of that time,

that is ideologically superior to it.

(Jean-Luc speaking French)

He therefore increasingly favors the fanatical soldier.

And in his opinion, the Waffen-SS man

is the perfect embodiment of that fanatical soldier.

- [Narrator] Himmler sees his chance

to further expand the Waffen-SS

and arranges for a PR campaign.

Since the beginning of the war,

cameramen and propaganda personnel

have followed the German troops on their campaigns.

(cannon balls exploding)

Himmler uses his own SS war correspondents

and sends them to the front.

SS men in combat filmed at close range.

The footage is welcomed by the newsreels

(solemn music)

(announcer speaking in foreign language)

In proportion to its size,

the Waffen-SS appears much more frequently

in the newsreels than the Wehrmacht does.

(Jan-Erik speaking German)

- [Translator] The war correspondents

certainly helped to make the Waffen-SS seem more important

at the time, but above all their views,

their opinions and the images they created of the Waffen-SS,

which they also actually published,

have contributed to how the Waffen-SS

is still perceived to this day.

(Jan-Erik speaking German)

- [Narrator] Early 1943, at Stalingrad,

250,000 German soldiers and allies

are surrounded by the Soviet Army.

Their situation is hopeless.

Less than one third of them survived the battle

and thousands more die as prisoners of war.

After the defeat at Stalingrad,

Waffen-SS units in Ukraine

are located outside Kharkov.

A few weeks earlier, Waffen-SS General Paul Hausser

had ordered his troops to withdraw from the city.

He had thus avoided an encirclement,

but had lost the city to the Red Army.

In March 1943, the Germans attack Kharkov again.

Soldiers of the SS tank divisions Das Reich,

and Leibstandarte, retake the city.

The victory is achieved with heavy losses,

but the Waffenschau is jubilant,

especially about the Waffen-SS.

(announcer speaking in foreign language)

Hitler's hoping for miracles from the Waffen-SS.

By the beginning of 1943,

its ranks have grown to eight divisions.

In the last two years of the war,

the dictator deploys the Waffen-SS

on various different fronts.

The Fuhrer's fire brigade is often brought in

where defeats threaten.

Wehrmacht officers, like Bernd von Loringhoven,

changed their attitude towards the SS.

(Bernd speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] They were excellent soldiers,

extremely brave men, and most of the time,

they were also better equipped than you were.

(Bernd speaking in foreign language)

So you felt pretty safe

when you could lean on a Waffen-SS unit.

(Bernd speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] After years of rather moderate effectiveness,

the tanks division of the Waffen-SS

proved to be strong in battle.

Like comparable units of the Wehrmacht,

the troops received the best recruits

and the most modern equipment

and are quickly replenished after losses.

(gentle music)

Newly formed divisions on the other hand,

often fight only with looted weapons,

for example, the SS Mountain Division Prinz Eugen.

The Mountain Division is the first SS unit

to consist almost exclusively of so-called ethnic Germans

from Serbia, Croatia and Romania.

The division operates mainly in the Balkans.

Its task is to fight partisans in Yugoslavia

and it commits numerous war crimes in the process,

also against civilians.

The Mountain Division is one of several SS units

that Himmler creates for operations in the Balkans.

In February 1943, a division is formed

from literally Muslim volunteers.

The 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar,

it's emblem is the saber.

Muslims from Bosnia's cannon fodder for the Waffen-SS.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem

is particularly important for recruitment in the Balkans.

Mohammed Amin al-Husseini has lived in Germany since 1941

and becomes a member of the General SS.

Himmler emphasizes that Muslims are united with the SS

by their common hostility towards Judaism,

but the new fighters are difficult to reconcile

with his idea of Nordic purity.

(Isabel speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] Himmler then creates the instrument

by saying that a Bosnian Waffen-SS member

is not a Bosnian SS man,

but a Bosnian serving in the Waffen-SS unit.

He creates, so to speak, a special right to membership

of the Waffen-SS for peoples who are not included per se

in the overall Germanic concept.

(Isabel speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] By May 1945, the Waffen-SS

has grown to 38 divisions.

Many of them are only formed in the last year of the war

and are immediately annihilated

during the first front line deployment.

At the end of the war,

some continue to exist only on paper.

Of the more than 800,000 men

who serve in the Waffen-SS during the Second World War,

almost half are not from the German Reich.

The Waffen-SS is a multiethnic army.

(ominous music)

On June 6th, 1944, Allied troops

land on the French Atlantic coast.

The Waffen-SS is ordered to repel them.

Mainly young inexperienced soldiers

of the newly established SS Division,

Hitler Youth, are available.

(eerie music)

(Bernhard speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] When it was set up,

we didn't like the name at all,

because it sounded like we were young kids

and we wanted to be real soldiers.

(Bernhard speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] Many 16 and 17-year-olds joined the Waffen-SS

straight from the school classroom,

young people who have grown up in the Nazi state

and experienced years of propaganda and Nazi training.

Among them is 17-year-old Bernhard Heisig.

- [Translator] There was no danger of us

reflecting on any of our actions.

That wasn't our job.

Our job was to follow orders.

- [Narrator] The majority of the young people

did not survive the fighting.

Bernhard Heisig would later process his impressions

of the war, as an artist.

In the final months of the war, the Waffen-SS

long since stopped relying on volunteers alone.

(Bastian speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] In the final phase of the war,

from '44, '45 onwards,

when Himmler also took over functions,

such as chief of the Reserve Army,

the Waffen-SS forcibly conscripted young men.

It's estimated that about 150,000 young men

weren't actually volunteers at all,

they joined under duress.

- [Narrator] In view of the approaching fronts,

Hitler relies more and more on the SS.

In July 1944, he makes Himmler

head of the replacement Army and Army equipment.

The Reichsfuhrer-SS is thus also responsible

for Germany's so-called Wunderwaffen,

or miracle weapons,

rockets.

Since 1938, in Peenemunde on Usedom,

the Wehrmacht has been researching the new type of weapon.

Under the direction of engineer Wernher von Braun,

the so-called V-weapons are developed.

(rocket roaring) (serious music)

After Allied air raids on Peenemunde in 1943,

the V-2 weapons factory is relocated to the Harz Mountains.

Near Nordhausen in Thuringia,

the rockets are built underground in a system of tunnels.

The SS takes over the organization.

Prisoners from camps assembled the V-2.

Beside the mine tunnels,

a new concentration camp is built, Dora Mittelbau.

In the summer of 1944,

Himmler wants to push ahead with the use of the rockets

and accelerates production.

By the end of the war, 6,000 V-2s are produced here.

By April 1945, the inhumane working conditions here,

killed 20,000 concentration camp prisoners.

In the late summer of 1944,

Antwerp and London in particular,

are bombarded with V-2 rockets.

8,000 people are killed.

The hope for a turnaround in the war, does not happen.

By the end of 1944, the Nazi regime

is under pressure on all fronts.

In Eastern Europe, the Red Army

reaches German soil in east Prussia.

And in the west, the Americans and British

are close to the border.

The Waffen-SS is fighting on all fronts

and Himmler looks for more miracle weapons

to still avert defeat.

One of the projects is the so-called NATA,

the first vertical takeoff aircraft with rocket propulsion,

a disposable interceptor made of plywood

designed to knock allied bomber fleets out of the sky.

(imperious music)

The Hoiberg military training area.

On March 1st, 1945, the first man test launch

of the NATA is to take place here.

At the launchpad, pilot Lorta Zieber,

discusses once again with the designer, Erich Bacham.

The takeoff succeeds, but shortly afterwards,

the aircraft goes out of control and crashes to the ground.

Pilot Lorta Zieber is killed.

Himmler continues his research on the Nata,

but even this secret project

cannot change the course of history.

(serious music)

Hitler's last ally is Hungary's government,

under the fascist Arrow Cross Party,

but the Red Army is already on Hungarian soil.

Since Christmas 1944, Hungarian soldiers

and units of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS

have been trapped in Budapest, about 70,000 men.

Hitler demands the unconditional defense

of the fortress of Budapest.

The commander of the city,

an officer of the Waffen-SS, obeys.

The battle lasts over three months, 150,000 people die.

The SS units are almost entirely wiped out.

Despite such military disasters,

Nazi propaganda continues to emphasize

the super warrior image of the SS

as the last bulwick of the regime.

- [Translator] What's fascinating is

that we still associate the Waffen-SS

with this elitist image today,

because it was emphasized so much during the Nazi era,

through the propaganda measures of the regime,

Those Waffen-SS tank units, like Totenkopf,

Viking, Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler,

and in part, the Hitler Youth,

were all propagated so to speak.

It's a myth that somehow been continued.

(Jan-Erik speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] A dangerous myth

that leads many SS soldiers to give up their lives

for a long lost cause.

In the final battle for Berlin,

it is still units of the Waffen-SS

that defend the government quarter to the last.

Among them, are a noticeable number

of foreign SS volunteers, Danes, Latvians and French.

Among them, 26-year-old Henri Fenet.

(Henri speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] We didn't think about death at all.

Not at all.

Just about fighting, carrying on fighting.

- [Narrator] An unconditional will to persevere,

for some SS men, it was based less on loyalty to Hitler

than on fear of the victors.

(Bastian speaking in foreign language)

- [Translator] The knowledge that one had fought

far outside the norms of international law

and international military law of that time,

and that the violence on its own

would now return wit a vengeance.

(Bastian speaking in foreign language)

And if that feared revenge by the victors did occur,

it would be the SS, the SS men,

would of course suffer the most.

(Bastian speaking in foreign language)

(serious music)

- [Narrator] The chance of surviving capture,

for a member of the Waffen-SS,

was indee,d lower than for members of the Wehrmacht.

Not all SS soldiers had been involved in war crimes

by any means, but that made no difference.

The tattooed blood group under the left upper arm alone

identifies the men as members of the SS,

automatically making them criminals for the Allies.

- [Announcer] Tattooed on his skin for life,

as his SS ideas are in his brain for life.

He is incurable.

- [Narrator] The murderous madness of the SS,

a warning from history.

- [Translator] That's what I tried to make clear

to my students as their teacher,

that war isn't anything heroic,

it's blood and tears, and fear and dirt.

I told them not to be seduced again by such adventures,

because that's what I thought they were back then.

(Jurgen speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] The men of the Waffen-SS,

trained to be fanatical, unscrupulous fighters,

ruthless on the battlefield and to themselves.

The vast majority of the perpetrators

are never held accountable.

After the war, many keep the myth of the Waffen-SS alive

with no regrets and no remorse.

(imperious music)