ABSTRACT
W affen-SS The Waffen-SS was the armed army auxiliary and only one part of Heinrich Himmler’s all-encom passing Schutzstaffel (qq.v.). The Waffen-SS has its origins in the personal bodyguard units formed by Adolf Hitler (q.v.) in the early 1920s. At Himmler’s insistence, a broad expansion of armed SS units be gan in 1939. The term Waffen-SS was widely used after the 1940 campaign in the west.
