Elite im Verborgenen: Ideologie und regionale Herrschaftpraxis des Sicherheitsdienstes der SS und seines Netzwerks am Beispiel Sachsens (review)

Carsten Schreiber's study of the Sicherheitsdienst der SS (the SD) in the former Land Saxony extends far beyond its regional focus. In his history of the SD as a whole after 1936, Schreiber produces the best picture available of the organization in its mature form. He builds on and refines this reviewer's work on the earlier SD and Michael Wildt's analysis of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA).¹ His conclusions about the regional SD leadership are in keeping with Wildt's picture of the academically socialized members of the Generation des Unbedingten, who evolved into Hitler's "willing executioners." Yet, by fully clarifying the complex nature of affiliation with the SD, he produces a more complex picture of its membership at that level. He has explored successfully the truly complex nature of the SD as one of the key elements of the totalitarian Nazi regime.

Specifically, Schreiber presents a precise picture of the V-Leute (Vertrauensleute, or trusted persons), the confidential informants who provided the SD with the basis for its information-reporting system. That system was supposed to keep the Nazi leadership informed on public opinion and on developments in all aspects of public life and the national economy, as well as to alert it to potential sources of discontent. Until now, students of the SD, relying on scant documentation concerning the V-Leute, have resorted to little more than speculation about the quality and value of this source of domestic intelligence.

Schreiber analyzes the card files (Karteikarten) of 2,746 men and women who served as coworkers (Mitarbeiter) and information sources (V-Leute) for the SD-stations in Saxony. By collating the relevant biographical data from the cards with other data sources, such as the files of the former Berlin Document Center, he provides the first preliminary quantitative social analysis of this group. Of course, given the group's nature as a network attuned specifically to its regional environment, Schreiber does not draw generalizations carelessly about the broader national network. Nevertheless, he provides the clearest picture yet available of actual SD operations at the field level. He explores the incompatibility of the organization's goal of objective reporting with the inevitable conflicts of interest of the "affiliates" it had recruited in the hope of entrenching itself among the power-structure elite.

Schreiber analyzes the SD as a network in the sociological sense of that term. Furthermore, for a clear and thorough analysis of all persons involved in that network, he goes beyond the status of membership to include a second dimension of function among the broader spectrum of participants. For Zugehörigkeit or Angehöriger, the English terms membership or member are inadequate to define the SS/SD, where something more like family, citizenship or congregation (as in a house of worship) was involved. What emerges is a picture of the SD beyond a mere organizational description—a picture enriched by numerous biographical sketches.

In his analysis of the mentality of the SD and their availability as "Hitler's willing executioners," Schreiber draws upon the best of the scholarly literature as well as on the pronouncements of SS and SD leadership, reinforcing his selection with examples of the language used in personnel evaluations. His conclusions are in line with those of the last decade's Täterforschung among German scholars, which has returned to an emphasis on ideology, indoctrination, and institutional identity for understanding perpetrator motivation. He argues forcefully that an SD mentality was widely embraced, and uses individual examples to support his argument. But he admits that it is impossible to provide definitive proof of how widely the attitude was embraced. Emphasis on ideological commitment is well balanced by other factors explored in Täterforschung: self-interest, and more specifically careerism, competition, and other situational pressures. Even the multifaceted nature of National Socialist ideology, which consisted of much more...