“At the heart of the power system of Nazi Germany there was a confusion of private empires
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... tiple responsibilities. Himmler became the leader of the SS in 1929 only four years after its creation as a part of the SA. Between 1929 and when the Nazi came to power in 1933 the SS were a much smaller weaker organisation than its parent organisation the SA. However in 1933 the SS began to gain more powers therefore increasing the power of their leader Himmler. Himmler soon became the head of the Bavarian police force and soon after this other police forces were united under SS control. Himmler became Chief of German Police and Reich Leader SS. The SS was also authorised by Hitler through the use of the Emergency Power Decree of February 1933 to act as an auxiliary police force with the power to take suspects into "protective custody". This meant that the SS could arrest suspects with no evidence and hold them indefinitely.
The key event in the history of the SS was their involvement in the Night of the Long Knives. This was effectively a purge of the SA and its key leaders; there were a number of different reasons for the purge, the main one being the threat Hitler perceived from the SA. This event severely weakened the SA and ensured that they play no major part in the rest of the Nazi history. It did however herald the ascension of a new power in Himmler and the SS. Between the Night of the Long Knives and Himmler's appointment as the head of German Police and Reichsfuhrer SS in 1936 the membership of the SS grew rapidly fro ...
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