The SS Was the Shadow Lead Agency in the Shoah

The comprehensive “Final Solution” mandate issued by Hermann G;ring (actually, by Adolf Hitler) to RSHA Chief Reinhard Heydrich on July 31, 1941, not only made the latter the CEO of the “Holocaust Project” but ordered ALL agencies and organizations in the Third Reich to basically what Heydrich tells them to do.

Including (theoretically) the mighty SS… which inadvertently led to the situation “tail wags the dog” – of sorts. “Wags the dog” because (1) RSHA was part of the SS – not vice versa; (2) Heydrich reported to SS-Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler – not the other way around; and (3) the key resources needed to implement the chosen method of the “Final Solution” were in the SS – but outside RSHA.

In fact, RSHA by itself had only very limited resources: Einsatzgruppen to commit some serial mass murders in the “Holocaust by Bullets” (many were committed by Order Police controlled by Himmler, not Heydrich) and “Jewish” Referat IV B4 that coordinated some activities in “Holocaust by Gas”.

Only some, because Operation Reinhard was managed by Odilo Globocnik – Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) in Lublin, reporting directly to Himmler (RSHA had nothing to do with that) and Chelmno death factory was under command of Wilhelm Koppe – HSSPF in Reichsgau Wartheland (Polish territory annexed into German Reich after occupation). Who also reported directly to Himmler.

Auschwitz and Majdanek killing centers were built and run by Concentration Camps Inspectorate – subsequently incorporated into WVHA (SS Main Economic and Administrative Office), which also managed Jewish slave labor and controlled the flow of valuables taken from murdered Jews to coffers of the Third Reich.

Identification of the Jews (according to criteria established in Nuremberg Laws and subsequently at the Wannsee Conference) was done by experts of RuSHA – SS Race and Settlement Main Office – that also reported directly to SS-Reichsfuhrer.

Hence the real (“shadow”) lead agency in the “Holocaust Project” was the SS, not RSHA and the real (“shadow”) CEO of this diabolical endeavor was Heinrich Himmler, not Reinhard Heydrich.

Officially, the former was ordered to provide the latter all necessary resources (by the “G;ring Mandate” that conveyed the order from Hitler) … but it appears that the “tug of war” was going on for nine months between highly ambitious Heydrich and his boss over the management of the “Holocaust Project”.

It is possible that the latter got tired of fighting with the former – and ordered first to let British commandos attack Heydrich – and then his physician to kill him.