IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 1556 WL 1117
Held at: Wiener Library
Title: Reichsführer SS: Letter removing patients from the Jewish hospital, Munich, to Terezin (1942)
Date(s): 1942
Level of description: collection
Extent: 1 folder
Name of creator(s): Himmler | Heinrich Luitpold | 1900-1945 | politican
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Reichsführer SS was a special SS rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945. Reichsführer SS was a title from 1925 to 1933 and, after 1934, became the highest rank of the German Schutzstaffel (SS). Reichsführer SS was both a title and a rank. The title of Reichsführer was first created in 1926 by Joseph Berchtold. Berchtold's predecessor, Julius Schreck, never referred to himself as Reichsführer but the title was retroactively applied to him in later years.
In 1929, Heinrich Himmler became Reichsführer-SS and referred to himself by his title instead of his regular SS rank. This set the precedent for the Commanding General of the SS to be called Reichsführer-SS. In 1934, Himmler's title became an actual rank after the Night of the Long Knives and from that point on, Reichsführer-SS became the highest rank of the SS and was considered the equivalent of a Generalfeldmarschall in the German Army.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
A letter from Reichsführer SS, Himmler, to Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, 1942, regarding the removal of patients from the Jewish hospital in Munich to Terezin, as the premises were required for a school for nurses and midwives from Lebensborn.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: German
System of arrangement:
1 item.
Conditions governing access:
Open
Conditions governing reproduction:
Copies can be made for personal use. Permission must be sought for publication.
Finding aids:
A detailed description exists on the Wiener Library's online catalogue www.wienerlibrary.co.uk.
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Accruals:
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
Jewish Central Information Office.
ALLIED MATERIALS
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Archivist's note: Sources: WL 1144 entry on AIM25.
Compiled by Samantha Velumyl.
Rules or conventions: Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.
Date(s) of descriptions: March 2008