Schutzstaffel

"Herr Himmler shares my interest in the old ways. And the Schutzstaffel is more than happy to oblige."

- Johann Schmidt

The Schutzstaffel, abbreviated SS, was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

1930s
"Lay down your arms! In the name of the Reich! The S.A. is no more! This facility in now property of the S.S.!"

- An SS soldier to the SA troopers

When Adolf Hitler formed the Nazi Party, he also made the paramilitary organization known as the Sturmabteilung, also known as the SA. The main job of the SA was to protect the rallies of the Nazi Party. However, Hitler also needed a permanent guard unit to protect him. Thus, the Schutzstaffel was born, composed of the most loyal members of the SA. The Schutzstaffel was also known as the SS. The commanding officer of the SS was Heinrich Himmler, one of Hitler's most loyal men.

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, the SS grew in numbers. The next year, at the Duetsches Opernhaus in Berlin, Himmler met the German physicist Johann Schmidt. Himmler was interested in Schmidt's theory that Norse gods and their magic could be more than a myth, and took him under his wing, allowing him to join the SS. The same year, to gain support from the German Army for his regime, Hitler ordered the assassinations of almost all higher officers of the SA. The SS troops were used in that task, with Schmidt personally participating in the killings. He personally killed Ernst Kaufmann, head of the SA's special weapons research. That purge later became known as the Night of the Long Knives. Himmler used the situation to transform the SS from the SA branch to one of the largest and most powerful organizations in the Third Reich.

In July 1934, Schmidt led the SS troops to attack the SA weapons testing ground at Kummersdorf. Almost the entire personell of the base was eliminated, except for the scientist Arnim Zola, who agreed to work for Schmidt. The SA's facility at Kummersdorf became property of the SS. Soon, Schmidt formed his own SS research division and named it HYDRA.

1940s
"Your HYDRA division has failed to deliver so much as a rifle in over a year. And we had learned through local intelligence you had mounted a full-scale incursion into Norway."

- Roeder to Johann Schmidt When Hitler started World War II, the SS participated in the Nazi conquest of Europe. However, by the end of 1942, the tide of war turned against the Nazis. When the SS intelligence learned that Schmidt led an attack on Tønsberg, Norway, Hitler sent three SS officers to Schmidt's base to question him about HYDRA's inability to deliver promised weapons to the German Army.

During the tour over the base, Schmidt's visitors were intrigued by the unusual uniforms and equipment used by the soldiers of HYDRA, but they were still skeptical about Schmidt's claims that his weapons could destroy his enemies in a few hours, no matter how many forces they possess. Schmidt showed them his Tesseract powered cannon, but when he said that he harnessed the power of the gods, they thought that he's mad. But when they saw Berlin marked as target on Schmidt's map, Schmidt vaporized them all.

By May 1945, the SS General Werner Reinhardt was the commanding officer of a HYDRA Research Facility in Austria that housed dozens of artifacts collected by HYDRA over the years, many of them held in the boxes marked with the logo of the. After he learned about the Red Skull's apparent demise at the hands of Captain America, he ordered his men to evacuate the facility. His plan was to escape with the artifacts and continue HYDRA's work.

However, just as his men gave him the Obelisk, the facility was attacked by the Strategic Scientific Reserve team led by Peggy Carter, Jim Morita, and Dum Dum Dugan. Reinhardt and all of his men were captured. Before he was taken away, Reinhardt warned Agent Carter that if one of HYDRA's heads was cut off, two more would grow in its place.

Members

 * Reichsführer (Nacional Leader)
 * Heinrich Himmler
 * Oberst-Gruppenführer (Supreme Group Leader)
 * Roeder
 * Obergruppenführer (Senior Group Leader)
 * Johann Schmidt (formerly)
 * Werner Reinhardt (formerly)
 * Gruppenführer (Group Leader)
 * Schneider
 * Sturmbannführer (Assault Unit Leader)
 * Hutter
 * Obersturmführer (Senior Assault Leader)
 * HYDRA Lieutenant
 * Unnamed HYDRA Officer (formerly)
 * Unnamed HYDRA Officer

Weapons
Before and during World War II, soldiers of the SS were armed with standard weapons of the German armed forces of the time. Most of them were armed with the MP 40 submachine guns. Officers of the SS used the Luger P08 pistols.

Uniforms
The SS mostly used black and grey uniforms of the same desing as those of the regular German Army. However, to distinct themselwes from other military forces of the Third Reich, they used the unique ranks and insignia. The collars of the SS uniforms were decorated with the SS rune patches. Their caps had the Totenkopf (death's head) badge under the German Reichsadler badge. Some of them wore red Nazi armbands, but unlike those of the civilian members of the Nazi Party, their armbands had two black stripes, one above and one below the swastika.

Trivia

 * In reality, the SS was never in charge of the Weapons Testing Ground at Kummersdorf. That facility was controlled by the German Army until the end of World War II.
 * The two SS Officers, Roeder and Schneider, who were vaporized by Schmidt appear to be thinly disguised analogues of Goebbels and Himmler, especially based on their facial similarity to those individuals as well as the specific uniforms they're wearing.