Books Heinrich Himmler was the commander of the SS, and as founder and officer-in-charge of the Nazi concentration camps and the Einsatzgruppen death squads, he was responsible for implementing the extermination of millions of people. By the time he died, he was the second-most powerful man in Germany and regarded himself as Hitler's natural successor.

In Nazi Germany, they were called the Schutzstaffeln. The world would know them as the dreaded SS--the most loyal and ruthless enforcers of the Third Reich. It began as a small squad of political thugs. Yet by the end of 1935, the SS had taken control of all police and internal security duties in Germany--ranging from local village "gendarmes" all the way up to the secret political police and the Gestapo. Eventually, its ranks would grow to rival even Germany's regular armed forces, the Wehrmacht.