SS Dagger Schutzstaffel 4034

SS Schutzstaffel dagger, Germany 1933 (World War II)

The SS was established in 1925 as the personal guard of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Under Heinrich Himmler's rule between 1929 and 1945, the SS grew from a small paramilitary formation to become one of the largest and most powerful organisations within the Third Reich. .

The Waffen-SS, the military wing of the SS, in contrast to the Allgemeine-SS, the political wing, evolved as a second German army within the Wehrmacht, operating alongside the regular German army, the Heer. Members of the Waffen-SS were regarded as extraordinary soldiers. However, they exercised notable brutality against captured civilians and prisoners of war. Waffen-SS members helped crush the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which included many Polish Jews, and killed a number of American prisoners of war near the Belgian town of Malmedy during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944.

The SS had its own system of military ranks, which was different from that of the Wehrmacht, the NSDAP, or other state structures. The SS also had its own insignia and uniforms. Interestingly, SS members had their blood type tattooed on the inside of their left arm, and some of the SS uniforms were designed and produced by Hugo Boss, a famous and important menswear designer that is still in business today.

To maintain the political power of the NSDAP, the SS was given the authority to establish and promote the Sicherheitsdienst or SD, the intelligence and security service, and the GEheime STAats POlizei, better known as the Gestapo, the Nazi state's secret police. This kept the SS above the law.

Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS, was one of the main ideologues of the Final Solution. The SS Einsatzgruppen (mobile attack units) murdered many non-combatant civilians in German-occupied territories during World War II. The SS was responsible for the maintenance and operation of concentration camps and extermination camps, where millions of people died from treatment, overexertion, malnutrition, gas chambers or medical experiments (mostly useless). After the war, the Nuremberg Trials in 1946 declared the SS a criminal organisation accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Measurements: 38 cm
Weight: 280 g