SS-Hauptamt

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The SS-Hauptamt (translated as "SS Head Office") was the central command office of the German Schutzstaffel (SS). The office can trace its origins to 1931 when the SS created the SS-Amt to serve as an SS Headquarters staff overseeing the various units of the Allgemeine-SS.

In 1933, after the Nazi Party came to power and established the Third Reich, the SS-Amt was renamed as the SS-Oberführerbereichen and placed in command of all SS units in Germany. By 1936, the office had adapted its final name as the SS-Hauptamt and would remain as such until the fall of the SS in 1945.

The SS-Hauptamt was responsible for all administrative matters within the SS which typically involved manpower allocation, personnel transfers, and screenings for promotion. The office was technically subordinate to the Persönlicher Stab Reichsführer-SS (Personal Staff of the SS Reich Leader), but in reality maintained its own autonomy.

After the close of World War II, members of the SS-Hauptamt were branded as war criminals due to the fact that it was this office which had maintained the "paper trail" for such activities as the Einsatzgruppen and the commission of the Holocaust by other branches of the SS. Those so labelled challenged this assertion, stating that members of the SS-Hauptamt were little more than file clerks who held desk jobs and could not be held responsible for atrocities occurring under the name of the SS as a whole.

The files of the SS-Hauptamt can be today be found (via microfiche) with National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, Maryland. The original documentation is kept in Germany, under the authority of the Bundesarchiv in Berlin.