Holocaust History Front Page

Term Definition

Help with the Glossary

Step 1. Click on an alphabetical category using the buttons at the bottom

A list of the terms will then appear

Step 2. Click on the term you are looking for, the definitions will then appear in the definition box.

A-E

A

Abwehr
Aktion
Anschluss
Antisemitism
Appeasement
Article 48
Aryan
Aryanisation
Assimilation
Axis

B

Belzec
Blackshirts
Bolshevism
Beer Hall Putsch
Brownshirts
Buchenwald

C

Caricature
Chancellor
Communism
Concentration camp
Cosmopolitan
Coup d'etat

D

Dachau
Death camp
Death Marches
Deportation
Displaced persons
DNVP
DVP

E

Egalitarian
Einsatzgruppen
Enabling Act
Ethnic
Extermination camp

The SS started as Hitler's elite bodyguard and developed into a huge organisation feared throughout Nazi Europe. The division known as Death's Head Brigade or Totenkopf in German had the responsibility of running of the concentration camps and ultimately the death camps. They were the powerful arm that the Nazis used to run all their programmes of atrocity. The name is derived from 'Schutzstaffel' in German, which means defence unit. The SS were also known as the Blackshirts.

Blackshirts (aka SS)