The Kindly Ones

HSSPF (Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer, “Supreme Head of the SS and the Police”): To ensure coordination of all SS offices or suboffices at the regional level, in 1937 Himmler established the HSSPFs, who, in principle, had all SS groups in their zone under their orders. In Germany, the Reichsführer-SS appointed one of them for each Wehrkreis (“defense region,” defined by the Wehrmacht), and, later on, one for each occupied country, who sometimes had under his orders, as in occupied Poland (the “Generalgouvernement”), several SSPFs. In Soviet Russia, during the invasion of 1941, Himmler appointed an HSSPF for each of the three Army Groups, North, Center, and South.

IKL (Inspektion der Konzentrationslager, “Inspectorate for Concentration Camps”): The first concentration camp, the one in Dachau, was created on March 20, 1933, followed by many others. In June 1934, following “the Röhm putsch” and the elimination of leaders of the SA, the camps were placed under the direct control of the SS, which then created the IKL, based in Oranienburg, under the command of SS-Obergruppenführer Theodor Eicke, the commander of Dachau, to whom Himmler gave the mission of reorganizing all the camps. The “Eicke system,” which was put in place in 1934 and which lasted until the first years of the war, aimed at the psychological, and sometimes physical, destruction of opponents of the regime; forced labor, at the time, was used only as torture. But in the beginning of 1942, when Germany was intensifying its war effort following the stalemate of the offensive in the USSR, Himmler decided that this system was not adapted to the new situation, which required a maximum use of the inmates’ labor force; in March 1942, the IKL was made subordinate to the Economy and Administration Main Office (WVHA) as Amtsgruppe D, with four departments: D I, central office; D II, the Arbeitseinsatz, in charge of forced labor; D III, sanitary and medical department; and D IV, department in charge of administration and finance. This reorganization had limited success: Pohl, the head of the WVHA, never managed fully to reform the IKL or to renew its managerial staff, and the tension between the political-police function and the economic function of the camps, aggravated by the extermination function assigned to two camps under the control of the WVHA (KL Auschwitz and KL Lublin, better known as Maidanek), existed until the collapse of the Nazi regime.

KGF (Kriegsgefangener): Prisoner of war.

KL (Konzentrationslager, “concentration camp,” often incorrectly called KZ by the inmates): The daily management of a KL was the responsibility of a department overseen by the Kommandant of the camp, the Abteilung III, run by a Schutzhaftlagerführer or Lagerführer (“head of preventive detention camp”) and his adjunct. The office in charge of the organization of inmate labor, the Arbeitseinsatz, was attached to this department under the designation IIIa. The other departments were respectively: I, Kommandantur; II, Politische Abteilung (“Political Department,” or representatives in the camp of the SP); IV, administration; V, medical and sanitary (for the SS in the camp as well as for the inmates); VI, training and upkeep of the troops; and VII, guard troop of the SS. All these offices were administered by SS officers or noncoms, but the majority of the work was carried out by inmate-functionaries, often called the “privileged ones.”

KRIPO (Kriminalpolizei, “Criminal Police”): Headed by SS-Gruppenführer Arthur Nebe from 1937 to July 1944. See also RSHA.

LEBENSBORN: The “Fount of Life” society, established by the SS in 1936 and attached directly to the personal staff of the Reichsführer-SS, in charge of managing orphanages as well as maternity hospitals for members or companions of members of the SS. The Lebensborn, in order to encourage a higher birth rate among the SS, guaranteed confidentiality about childbirth for unmarried women.

LEITER: Head of an office or branch.

MISCHLINGE: Mixed race, mixed-blood. This term was part of the legal vocabulary of the National Socialist racial laws, which defined this status according to the number of non-Aryan ancestors.

NKVD (Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del, “People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs”): The main Soviet security agency during the time of the Second World War, an organism that succeeded the Cheka and the OGPU, and was the ancestor of the KGB.

NSV (Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt): National Socialist People’s Welfare Association.