ABSTRACT
The SS was the most important and the most typical of all Nazi institutions. It showed the real face of the regime: tendencies only partially visible in other Nazi organizations were most fully devel oped in the SS. It institutionalized the essence of the Nazi regime, namely its totalitarian terror. It was responsible for the murder of more than five million Jews and approximately eight million nonJews: Poles, Russians, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, asocials, and members of any other group classi fied by the Nazis as an enemy. In addition, it was responsible for killing some 70,000 Germans de clared incurably ill or insane in the so-called eutha nasia program.
