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part of their work during the 1939–45 period concerned the numerically superior Waffen-SS and the execution of SS policy in the occupied territories. There were ultimately a good many overlapping and conflicting interests as regards their various duties and jurisdictions. By 1945, the Hauptamt system had become a vast and complex network of intertwining bureaucratic empires, each vying for supremacy over the others and for the attention of their Reichsführer. Having said that, there is no doubt that they always functioned effectively, even if not efficiently. The spirit of competition between them, which Himmler actively encouraged, ensured that everything dealt with by each department was recorded, checked and double checked to avoid error. If another Hauptamt had an interest, it too would record, check and double check. The result was the most detailed system of manual files ever compiled, not just on the SS organisation but on every aspect of life in the Third Reich. The SS Personalhauptamt alone housed 150 million individual documents, and the Reichssicherheitshauptamt even maintained secret and potentially incriminating dossiers on Hitler himself and on all the other Nazi leaders, mostly compiled during the 1920s by the security police of the Weimar Republic, whose files were duly inherited by the SS. This attention to detail and ability to come up with all sorts of information gave the impression of an all-seeing, all-knowing command structure which ensured that, right up until the capitulation, the Reichsführung-SS and the SS Hauptämter successfully managed to control and administer the vast SS organisation. That was not an insignificant achievement, considering that, at its peak, the SS operated across an area from the Channel Islands to the Black Sea and from the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean, with a generally hostile population.
    T HE SS H AUPTÄMTER
1.
Hauptamt Persönlicher Stab RfSS
– Himmler’s Personal Staff
2.
SS Hauptamt
– SS Central Office
3.
SS Führungshauptamt
– SS Operational HQ
4.
Reichssicherheitshauptamt
– Reich Central Security Office
5.
SS Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt
– SS Economic and Administrative Department
6.
SS Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt
– SS Race and Settlement Department
7.
Hauptamt SS Gericht
– SS Legal Department
8.
SS Personalhauptamt
– SS Personnel Department
    As the core of the Reichsführung-SS, the Personal Staff of the Reichsführer-SS (Pers. Stab RfSS) had its main offices at 8 Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, Berlin. Its members were designated ‘i.P.St.’ (on the Personal Staff) and were subordinated directly to Himmler. As more and more high-ranking people inside and outside the SS sought to gain Himmler’s ear, the Personal Staff became the focus of influence in the SS command. It consisted of:
    1. The heads of the SS Hauptämter, who were ex-officio members
    2. SS officials in certain offices and departments integrated into the Pers. Stab
    3. SS officials appointed or attached to the staff for special advisory or honorary purposes
    Besides being an advisory and co-ordinating body, the Pers. Stab was responsible for all business in which the Reichsführer-SS was concerned that did not come into the province of any of the other SS Hauptämter. In addition, it liaised with government and party offices and controlled various financial and business dealings on Himmler’s behalf. The Chief of the Personal Staff was SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff, who served as Himmler’s adjutant from 1934. In 1943, ‘Wölfchen’ was also appointed Supreme SS and Police Commander in Italy, in effect military governor of the country, but he always retained his post as Chief of the Personal Staff and, with it, all the powers and disciplinary prerogatives of a Hauptamtschef.
    Much of the administrative work generated by the Pers. Stab was processed through the Kommandostab RfSS which operated