Original subtitles

Narrator: They believed they were the third reich's racial elite.

Men superior to others.

Ready to do anything for the nazi party.

They carried out a campaign of terror across germany,

Then the rest of europe; eliminating any opposition,

Decimating the jewish people and massacring civilian populations.

Over 70 years later, some still live among us.

This is the story of the ss,

Told from the inside.

♪ ♪

This documentary takes us to find ss members,

Who are still alive;

To try to understand how they became the nazi party's killing machines.

After several months of research,

Over twenty ss veterans were discovered living in different

Countries across europe.

Their words often shock.

Some have broken with nazism, others not.

This man is one of them.

92-year old kurt barkhausen.

He lives in central germany.

He was in the death's head division,

Whose members often worked in concentration camps.

Kurt: What counted for us?

First of all, the purity of the person.

Who are you? What do you want from life?

Secondly, you have a healthy family.

After that, there is the people.

How did our ancestors live?

What did they believe in?

What has made real germans of us?

These were our fundamental values.

Narrator: The seeds of ss fanaticism were planted in

1918, when germany lost the first world war.

The following year, the versailles peace treaty

Took several border regions away from germany.

Then came the nightmare of 1920's germany...

Hyperinflation, unemployment, poverty.

In the years to come when they looked to justify their crimes,

The ss would often point to the tribulations of the 1920s.

Nazism, they said, gave them back their dignity.

They began to form ranks behind an austrian world war one corporal,

Adolf hitler.

A radical nationalist who promised he would wipe out the shame.

-We were on our knees.

We had been poor and miserable,

And then suddenly we were somebody again.

Narrator: No one could imagine where this commitment would eventually lead.

-We were delighted with this change.

Narrator: What they did know, was that their first targets

Would be the communists; those "anti-germans" who the nazis

Had been fighting in the streets since the end of world war I.

Nazi propaganda accused them of betraying the nation by

Overthrowing the emperor in 1918 and plotting to establish

A communist state in germany.

Ekkehard: I remember in hamburg, when I was a child,

Seeing big demonstrations in the street.

My father said, "if they get into power, we're screwed".

He was talking about the communist party.

Kurt: National socialism was more social than communism,

And in political terms, was devoted purely to germany.

Whereas communism was aimed at the world and

Was largely run by jews.

Narrator: By 1933, when the nazis came into power,

The view that the jews were the real enemy,

"worse than the communists" was taking hold.

For hitler, the jews had profited from the german

People's misery.

They are hiding everywhere, said his manifesto.

And for propaganda minister joseph goebbels,

The hour of the great confrontation was near.

(crowd cheering and applause)

Narrator: It was this visceral, revengeful hatred,

Born out of 19th century racist theories that drove

The ss' heinous actions in the years to come.

Accompanying hitler through this crowd are the ss,

Who since their creation in 1925,

Had been hitler's bodyguards.

They stood out in their black uniforms and could be seen

Everywhere alongside the party leaders.

They wanted to be noticed, to distinguish themselves.

-I knew it was an elite formation.

In other words, they wouldn't take any tom, dick and harry.

Manfred: I wanted to be part of an elite division.

Narrator: They were the new regime's shop window.

New recruits had to be tall.

At least five-foot six, and young...

Under 23, no jewish ancestry.

They had to provide genealogical details dating

Back to the 18th century.

In the third reich, if you wanted a successful life,

You joined the ss.

They were also known as the black order.

A name that linked them to germanic soldier-monks who

Colonized eastern europe in the middle ages.

They were filled with grandiose ideas;

That they were the new lords of germany,

Who would oust the old aristocratic elite who had

Always run the country.

Many responded to the call.

Ekkehard guhr was assigned to the das reich division

Of the ss, which committed numerous atrocities during the war.

At the age of 17, he says,

He joined the ss to defy his parents,

Who refused to allow a relationship with a young catholic girl.

-There were images in germany where you would see a young

Man sign up for the war for freedom,

And he would kneel before his beloved, who would bless him.

All of those emotions, that I don't think we can understand

Or express today, they existed back then.

-Our motto, written on our belt buckles, was,

"my honor is my loyalty."

It meant no cowardice when facing the enemy.

-The ideology that himmler had drilled into us was,

"you are nothing, your people is everything.

Werner: You belong to the nation.

The nation is, is, is you.

You are part of the nation.

Kurt: I wanted to prove that I was ready to risk my life

For that ideology.

Narrator: By 1934, it wasn't just the german political

Elites who were being replaced;

That year himmler incited hitler to eliminate his competitors,

The leaders of the sa, the nazi party militia.

They would call this massacre the night of the long knives.

Carried out by his ss, the bloodbath consolidated his

Position at the heart of the regime.

At the head of several hundred thousand ss members,

Himmler managed, in the space of a few years,

To extend his control to all german police.

From his young men in black he demanded total submission.

-When you are a soldier,

You have to carry out orders.

You're not there to think.

That's how it was.

Today it's different.

At the time, we said, "leave the thinking to the horses,

They have bigger heads".

Narrator: Most of the ss we met were still children

In the mid-30s.

Raised in a totalitarian state,

They were subjected to hitler's propaganda,

Some of the most extensive brainwashing of the 20th century.

-The nazis made sweets for children with swastikas on them.

I was proud to eat those sweets.

But I was even prouder when I was 5 years old, in school,

And we'd go on walks or on visits and

I could wear my swastika armband.

Ekkehard: This was all drilled into us quite deliberately.

To the point that in 1934, when I was 10,

That state of mind, with the uniforms and the hitler

Salute, was quite natural.

In fact, I didn't know anyone who was opposed to it.

Narrator: In the youth organizations,

Budding ss members were given military training

From an early age.

Like sparta in ancient greece,

The state educated the children.

Egon: We used to like singing songs.

♪ the waves will close in on them, the world is at peace. ♪

It means the extermination of the jews.

They would be drowned, wiped out.

Narrator: At the time, the extermination of the jews was

Not on the agenda.

But the barriers were falling.

Like here, at a carnival in nuremberg,

Where an effigy of a jew was hanged from a float.

Or in this racist propaganda film.

Narrator: This view of germany as a victim of its jewish

Communities ran so deep, that it continues to warp the minds

Of some former ss men.

-I don't know if you would like it,

When you have a very precise type of blood,

To accept a race that is fundamentally different in its

Way of being, its religion and its very conception of life.

Narrator: It was at the age of 14 that this former austrian

Ss member, herbert von mildenburg,

Saw hitler for the first time.

-There was something in his eyes when he looked at us,

Something fascinating.

We sang,

♪ we're not going home. ♪

♪ we're not going home before the führer speaks. ♪

We were in heaven, like idiot football fans in a stadium today.

Narrator: Hitler, the man they believed would resurrect germany.

Eberhard: The fact was that six million unemployed found

Work within the space of five years.

Narrator: By increasing aid for workers,

Providing leisure activities previously reserved for the

Elite, and by funding massive rearmament and major building

Projects through the confiscation of jewish assets

And massive debt, hitler bought the approval of the german people.

For ss members, like kurt barkhausen, it was a miracle.

Kurt: It was proof that hitler had accomplished what he had promised.

Narrator: Repression began in 1933.

Political opponents were isolated from the rest of

Society as a preventive measure.

Without trial.

The task was entrusted first to the sa,

The nazi party paramilitary wing,

Then eventually to the ss.

The pretext was the burning of the reichstag,

The german parliament.

Hitler presented it as the beginning of a new communist revolution.

They were told communists were a danger and should

Be removed from the community.

Kurt: I myself noticed that the people who had previously

Expressed opposition at party meetings had now disappeared.

Either the communists joined our movement,

Or they continued to oppose us and were sent to special camps,

Which were later called concentration camps.

To the extent that there was almost no opposition in germany.

It just wasn't possible any more.

Narrator: November 9th 1938.

The feldherrnhalle in munich.

It was five years since hitler's rise to power and

Less than a year before the start of world war two.

These thousands of ss men were about to experience one of the

Most important events of their lives.

Soldiers: Heil hitler!

Narrator: Among them, eberhard heder,

A future captain in the wiking division.

-I saw hitler arrive, very solemn and then,

"men of the ss, recite your oath!"

-We pronounced the words with our hearts.

-The phrase "to the death" was a shock, of course.

Loyalty to that degree?

That's going too far.

Narrator: They would soon find out what their vow entailed.

In September 1939, hitler attacked poland,

Starting the second world war.

On the eve of the offensive, the ss played a crucial role.

To justify the invasion,

The führer ordered them to fake a polish provocation.

The ss simulated a polish attack,

A bloody one, on the german border.

Dirty work the ss had done since the start and would continue.

The ss also fought alongside the regular army,

The wehrmacht.

If the ss sacrificed itself on the frontline,

Paying with its blood, explained their leaders,

It would have the moral right to lead the repression in germany.

To these men destined to fight on the frontline,

Himmler gave a name, the waffen ss, the armed ss.

800,000 men joined the waffen ss during the war.

They saw themselves as political soldiers and

In the eyes of the regime, they were dependable.

Hitler could count on them in the event of

Trouble at home or abroad.

Manfred diener, was one of those waffen-ss, at sixteen.

For this baker's son from thuringia,

It was an opportunity for social advancement.

Manfred: With us there was no "sir". "lieutenant, sir!" or " yes captain, sir!"

In other wehrmacht units, you needed your exams to be an officer.

The waffen ss made an exception.

Even if, like me, you only had a basic school certificate,

You could become an officer.

Narrator: It was a model for the german people to follow.

But in reality, these young men were no longer their own masters.

With the tattoo of their blood group marked under their left arms,

They had become someone else.

Once inside the black order, there was no way out.

♪ ♪

In a short time, these young waffen-ss men go from drilling

At their barracks, to leading the invasion of France.

And only a few months later, they would take part in the

Invasion of yugoslavia, then greece,

And in June 1941, the ussr.

It was there, against stalin's troops,

That himmler's ss would find their special role,

As executioners.

Narrator: Summer 1941.

Hitler orders the invasion of the soviet union,

Launching a kind of war never seen before,

To conquer "living space" and exterminate the

"judeo-bolsheviks," as he calls them.

Alongside the regular army, the wehrmacht,

The führer now has a force of more than 100,000

Men who have sworn loyalty to the death... The ss.

This horrific scene was filmed behind the lines in

German-occupied latvia.

(gunshot)

Jewish men were assassinated and buried in the sand.

Just one of the terrible consequences of the

Indoctrination of the 1930's.

(gunshot)

Hans friedrich was in the first ss infantry brigade.

A few months before his death in 2005,

He confessed on film to his part in the murder of several thousand jews.

Hans: They were in such a state, of shock,

And so scared that we could do what we wanted with them.

Try to imagine, there's a ditch.

On one side, there are people.

And opposite, there are soldiers.

That was us.

And we shot.

The ones who were hit, fell in the ditch.

I just thought, aim well.

So they'd be killed with a single shot.

That was my only thought.

Interviewer: That was your only thought?

You didn't have any feelings for the jewish

Civilians you were executing?

-Nein. No.

Interviewer: And why not?

-Because my hatred for the jews was too strong.

Narrator: Not all took part in the extermination,

But many agreed with it.

In order to kill jews, the nazis employed special units

They used for the invasion of poland.

The einsatzgruppen, detachments of killers made

Up of ss members, police and locally-recruited auxiliaries.

Here is one of their leaders, ss general jeckeln.

He'd be hanged by the allies in 1946 for the murder

Of more than 100,000 people.

His method of execution, sardine packing.

He applied it here, in the babi yar ravine,

Where he executed more than 30,000 jews.

They were laid on top of one another and shot,

Then buried in layers like sardines.

Men, women, children.

The paradox was that the ss didn't see themselves as

Criminals, but as victims, soldiers defending themselves.

Oskar gröning was 21 when the ss assigned him to auschwitz.

At the time, he believed, the jews deserved their fate.

Oskar: We were convinced, and this was our vision of the

World, that we germans had been betrayed by the whole

World and that there was a huge jewish conspiracy against us.

Children weren't our enemies at that point.

The enemy was the blood which flowed in them.

But the children would grow up and become potentially dangerous jews.

That was why the children were included.

Narrator: In the view of ss chief himmler,

Those who killed jews were carrying out the work required

For the country to survive.

And so, the massacres continued.

Narrator: As the jewish people gradually disappeared,

The ss profited and dreamed.

Himmler had promised them the brightest of futures.

The third reich will last a thousand years, he tells them.

As greece fought rome,

As rome conquered carthage and jerusalem,

So germany will crush the judeo-bolshevik ussr.

While history has proven himmler to be a murderous monster,

Some of his ss followers still see him as their hero.

Herbert: Himmler was a decent man,

A man of honest character.

Himmler wanted the best for the german people.

Narrator: And his ambitions weren't limited to those from germany.

From 1940, with the aim of founding a german empire,

He opened the doors of the ss to the inhabitants

Of several defeated countries.

The danes, the norwegians, the dutch...

They were all germanic, said himmler.

As the war continued, the ss opened up to the

French-speaking belgians, the french themselves and the

Italians; latin peoples, to whom himmler gave the hope of

Entering into the nazi elite.

-Joining the waffen ss was a promotion for us.

For me, it was an excellent model.

The national socialist party had done a lot of good

In germany for the workers by giving them jobs,

Getting them involved, building them houses and gardens, etcetera.

We thought it was a model, yes.

Exactly.

My dream at the tiem was to see germany win the war.

For me germany was the supreme nation in europe.

When I joined the waffen-ss,

I considered myself to be one of them.

Narrator: But it was an illusion.

None of the non-germanic, latin or muslim slav peoples

Would ever actually belong to the black order.

Attracted by the wages and the family allowances,

They wore the uniform, but were cannon-fodder.

"for every foreigner who dies,"

Said the head of recruitment,

"no german mother cries."

By 1942, the nazis controlled a large part of europe and

Believed they would soon defeat the ussr.

But there were still some ten million european jews

Left to kill, according to nazi calculations.

They knew they could not exterminate that many people

With the existing killing methods,

And troop morale was beginning to be an issue.

So, ss leaders came up with a solution...

Death camps.

This amateur footage shot by ss guards shows the inside of

The posen camp, one of the first in occupied poland.

Locking up "undesirables" was now no longer enough,

They must be killed.

To achieve their goal, the ss secretly tested toxic gas.

In a specially-built gas chamber hidden behind these

Walls, they had already eliminated 400 mentally

Ill prisoners by 1939.

Egon: Where the nazis were very smart was with the

Extermination in the concentration camps.

They managed to keep it all perfectly secret.

There were a lot of people to exterminate.

Narrator: Most would be sent to the slaughterhouse.

Notably to auschwitz.

These photos, taken by an ss guard,

Show the arrival of prisoners and their sorting by ss doctors.

On one side are the young and healthy who will work.

On the other, those who will be killed in the coming hours.

Once they were designated, the ss avoided them.

The guards merely supervised the killing process,

Dropping toxic gas canisters into the gas chamber via a hatch.

Then, other prisoners removed and burned the bodies in ovens.

Most of the ss guards in the camps experienced a feeling of power.

And they received benefits not available to ss assigned elsewhere.

The camps were not on the frontlines,

The staff were not risking their lives,

And himmler had made sure they'd be comfortable.

Like here, at the reischof camp,

120 miles from auschwitz.

The auschwitz camp itself was much sought-after.

It was here, to this 470-acre complex,

That oskar gröning was sent as an accountant in 1942.

Oskar: The main camp at auschwitz was like a small town,

With its gossip and rumors.

There was a grocer's where you could buy marrowbone to make a soup.

A canteen, a cinema.

There was a theatre, where they regularly put shows on.

A sports club, where I was a member.

It was joyful and lively, like in a small town.

Narrator: This façade of normalcy was meant to shield

The ss from the brutality of the death camps.

But soon, the façade would fall apart.

Narrator: In 1944, the normandy landings bring

Allied troops to the west,

And the soviets attack from the east,

Forcing german retreats everywhere.

To try to shore up their crumbling front-lines,

Hitler scales up the deployment of the waffen-ss,

The "frontline firemen" as they call them.

The ss know they have everything to lose.

Since the 1930s, they've staked everything on hitler.

If he falls, they fall with him.

-That was what the war was about, total war,

Where the human being had no importance.

None.

Narrator: In France, the nazis face a persistent insurrection.

So, they use a new kind of terror against the french,

To dissuade them from supporting the resistance.

Maurice: I saw civilians hanging from trees and lamp-posts.

They said, "you see what we do.

If you do anything against us, then we'll hang you.

We'll kill you!

Narrator: Certain waffen-ss soldiers from the das reich division

Were forcibly enrolled.

They were nothing like the others who were volunteers.

From the alsace border region, they were born french,

But the nazis saw them as german.

They were called the "malgré nous," "against our will".

In 1944, as the army withdrew, they discovered from the

Inside the ruthless methods of the black order.

Daniel: All those who weren't with them were against them.

If you caught traitors, resistance fighters,

Civilians, then you could shoot them and that was that!

Durlewanger: You could feel the fanaticism in their every move.

Narrator: The true consequences of this unchecked

Fanaticism were finally seen in 1945 when allied troops

Liberated the concentration camps and discovered the

Massacre committed by the ss.

Six million jewish victims.

Hundreds of thousands of political prisoners

Assassinated, along with homosexuals, priests, roma,

And disabled people.

Only some of the 40,000 ss guards were arrested and identified.

These men who thought they were superior to others now

Looked very ordinary.

Some disguised themselves as prisoners,

In striped uniforms, in an attempt to pass unnoticed.

Most of them were identified by the blood group tattoo

Under their arms, stamped when they first joined the ss.

It was a mark they could never wash off,

Even if they cut and re-stitched their skin.

May 8th 1945.

Germany surrenders.

The ss were moved into prisoner-of-war camps where

They would spend months, even years.

Disguised as a police sergeant, their leader,

Himmler, hid among the crowd.

After several weeks of wandering,

He was arrested by the allies and committed suicide

With a cyanide capsule.

It's a myth that members of the ss were all punished.

Apart from a few leaders, most slipped through the net.

Now, some former ss place the blame on the leader

They once admired.

-Hitler betrayed me.

He pushed us into misery when he'd promised us joy.

He perpetrated such crimes that I can only see it as treason.

Narrator: "I'm ashamed to be a german",

Wrote one munich citizen on may 28th 1945 on the ruins of

The feldherrnhalle.

The place where the ss had once sworn their allegiance.

But how to get out of the cult?

Eberhard heder, a captain in the wiking division,

Abandoned his racist convictions and pursued

A career in the army of the federal republic of germany.

Ekkehard guhr, a member of the ss's das reich division,

Who dreamed of chivalry, became a pastor.

Egon kuhn became a trade unionist,

Speaking tirelessly of the brainwashing he

Received in his youth.

But they were exceptions.

Many of those who were in the ss would remain nostalgic,

Often joining waffen ss veterans' associations,

Which still exist today.

Like manfred diener.

Or kurt barkhausen, whose speeches are still used by

Extremist networks.

Herbert von mildenburg set up businesses in south america,

While maintaining relations with several world war ii revisionists.

In 2015, the former auschwitz accountant,

Ss sergeant gröning was sentenced to four years in

Prison for complicity in the murder of 300,000 jews.

After numerous legal appeals,

He died without serving his time.

Captioned by cotter captioning services.