Dienstlatersliste der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP
(Service List of the Protection Staff of the NSDAP)Many Third Reich collectors are familiar with the existence of the
Dienstalterslistes (SS Officer Service Lists) or "Dienstlistes" as they are sometimes called. But not many know what they are and what information they do and do not contain. I will endeavour to shed some light on this sometimes mysterious subject. I would just like to say that I am not an expert on the SS as I have but scratched the surface of this most complex organisation. And there are no doubt many readers who could add a wealth of information about the SS and the
Dienstalterslistes to this article.
What are the Dienstalterslistes?Simply put, the
Dienstalterslistes contain the names of officers who were full time members of the SS to include the
Allgemeine-SS (General SS),
Sicherheitsdienst or SD (SS Security Service),
SS-Verfügunstruppe(Special Purpose Troops),
SS-Totenkopfstandarte (Death's Head Regiments),
SS-Totenkopfverbände(Concentration Camp Staff) and, after the war started, the
Waffen-SS (Armed SS). Although the German Police came under the control of the SS in 1936, a Police officer would not be listed unless he was also a full time member of the SS.
The first list was produced in October 1934 and contained the names of all 3,238 officers in the SS at that time from
SS-Sturmführer (2nd Lieutenant - later renamed to
SS-Untersturmführer) up to and including
Reichsführer-SS. The last one (to my knowledge) was produced in November 1944 and contained the names of officers from the ranks of
SS-Standartenführer (Colonel) up to and including
Reichsführer-SS.
To my knowledge, no lists were produced in 1939, 1940 and 1945; these are the
Dienstalterslistes that I am aware of:
1934: October
1935: July
1936: December
1937: December
1938: December
1941: January, April
1942: January, April, October
1943: January, April, October
1944: January, April, July, October, November
What information do they contain?The information contained on each officer varies in each list but includes the following:
name
rank
unit(s) and/or command(s)
date of birth
promotion date(s)
SS number
NSDAP number
specific political awards
specific military awards
specific political and para-military appointments
SS officer school attended (Braunschweig or Bad Tölz)
year graduated from the SS officer school
commission rank and branch of service
The lists are in rank order starting with the highest down to the lowest. Within rank, the officers are listed in the order they joined the SS. The lowest rank contained in each list depends on when the list was produced. For example, all pre-war lists from 1934 to 1938 contain officers of all ranks at the time the list was produced. This makes the December 1938 list the most complete list of pre-war SS officers with a total of 14,038 officers listed. Each list (except for October 1934) contains an alphabetical index of the officers contained in it. This index points to the numerical position that the officer holds within the list.
War-time lists, however, only contain the ranks of either
SS-Sturmbannführer (Major) to
SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lt. Colonel) or
SS-Standartenführer (Colonel) to
Reichsführer-SS. The sole exception to this is the
Dienstaltersliste der Waffen-SS of July 1944 which contains the ranks of
SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain) up to
Reichsführer-SS. Although this list holds more officer names (4,672) than any other war time list, it contains the least amount of information with only name, rank, date of birth, last promotion date and occasionally unit or command included.
To my knowledge, the
Dienstalterslistes are limited to German officers and do not contain the names of "Foreign Volunteers". I seem to recall in correspondence with Hugh Page Taylor (author of Uniforms, History and Organization of the Waffen-SS) he mentioned the existence of a separate
Dienstaltersliste of Italian officers but I'm not positive.
The pre-war lists contain all promotion dates up to the time the list was produced whereas war time lists only contain the promotion date to the current rank. I can only assume that the needs of the war superceeded detailed lists on an ever increasing number of SS officers. New recruits, transfers between units and officers killed, wounded or captured would also increase the amount of changes and hence work required to keep the lists up to date.
What awards do they show?Political awards:
Golden Party Badge
Coburg Badge
Blood Order
SS
Totenkopf Honour Ring
SS Officer's Sword
SA Sports Badge
Reichs Sports Badge
Military awards:
WW1 Combat:
Pour le Merite
Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class
Wound Badges (all grades)
Honour Cross for Frontline Soldiers (a Third Reich award for WW1 service)
WW2 Combat:
Knight's Cross (all grades)
Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class
German Cross in Gold
Wound Badges (all grades)
Note: An all-encompassing category of "
Im Felde erworbene Landesorden" (field awards) denotes the different war badges that were awarded in WW1 and WW2. For example, Infantry Assault, Tank Asaault, etc.
WW2 War Effort:
German Cross in Silver
Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross with and Without Swords
War Merit Cross with and Without Swords
Political and Para-military appointments:
Member of the Reichstag
Higher SS and Police Leader
SS and Police Leader
Police President
Among other things, the
Dienstalterslistes do not contain the following information:
dates that awards were earned or given
place of birth
date of death
place of death
address
If a member of the
Allgemeine-SS had a commission in the
Waffen-SS or other branch of the
Wehrmacht, the branch of service and rank held in that commission are shown. Financial contributors to
Lebensborn are also acknowledged.
What can we infer from this? Well, the inclusion of WW1 awards tells us that WW1 service was highly regarded by the Nazi leadership and that the Coburg Badge was held in equal esteem to the Golden Party Badge and Blood Order. It also appears that awards for contributions to the war effort such as the War Merit Cross were attributed more importance than combat awards such as the Close Combat Clasp, tank destruction strip and Anti-partisan War Badge which were much more difficult to acquire; these were lumped in with the "field awards" category. It also tells us that financial contributors to
Lebensborn were more appreciated than were "Old Fighters" who have no recognition whatsoever (except perhaps the award of the Golden Party Badge). And, strangely, although the SA and Reichs Sports Badges are included, neither the NSDAP nor SS long service awards are shown. As a side note, about 10% of the almost 20,000 officers in my data base were Golden Party Badge holders. (Note that any conclusions made here are my own.)
How can the Dienstalterslistes be used?With the name of an officer from a helmet, tunic, hat, etc., the
Dienstalterslistes can be an excellent source of information to produce a short history of that officer's career in the SS. Obviously, the more times he is listed and the higher his rank, the more information can be obtained. In addition to the
Dienstalterslistes, other sources such as the internet and reference books can be used to add to the level of detail, again, based on details such as his rank, awards, command(s) and how famous (or infamous) he was.
One of the hardest named artifacts to trace is the SS Honour Ring because original rings only contain the recipient's last name. Many times people have sent me a last name with a first name or initial from inside a ring and I have had to tell them that their rings were not original. If the name inside the ring is an unusual one and not frequently seen, one can be reasonably certain of the original owner if the name is found in a
Dienstaltersliste and the award date on the inside of the ring coincides with the date that the award is shown on the list. Note that the
Dienstalterslistes do not show the exact date of award but will reflect awards of the ring made prior to the publication date of the list.
For example, let's take a hypothetical situation of a ring with a recipient's name of "Schicklegruber" and an award date of "30.4.38". We find Adolf Schicklegruber in the December 1937
Dienstaltersliste and he is not shown as having the ring at that time. However the December 1938 list shows him as having the ring and he is the only Schicklegruber listed. We can reasonably assume that this is the owner of the ring. But we can never be 100% certain unless other provenance exists.
If, on the other hand, the name is a common one such as "Schmidt" or "Meyer", forget it. I once found 13 officers with the same last name, 7 of whom had been awarded the ring.
Old Fighters:One question that puzzled me for a long time was why so many early members of the SS (indicated by a low SS number - usually 4 digits), do not appear in any lists after 1938 which only contain the ranks of Major and above. I thought about this for a long time and concluded that most of these early members were probably ex-WW1 veterans and Freikorps members who may have had a hard time adjusting to civilian life. They were literally the "Old Fighters" of the early days that did battle with the communists on the streets of Weimar Germany and provided Hitler with the physical protection he needed in those turbulent times. Many had become hardened after years in the trenches and were perfect for the role of "protection squads" which ultimately gave birth to the SS. Unlike the Army, the SS was "classless" and although many of these men became low ranking officers, most did not progress beyond the rank of Lieutenant, hence they would not appear on any war time lists. Another reason is that many of these men were born in the 1890s. This would make them over 40 by the time the war started and relegated to Reserve Units only being thrown into the fray at the end of the war. Again, these are my own conclusions.
Caveat Emptor!At this point, it's worth mentioning that the presence or absence of an SS officer's name or number in the
Dienstalterslistes does not prove or disprove the originality of an item that contains it. Some unscrupulous
individuals have used names and/or numbers from the
Dienstalterslistes to embellish and hence increase the value of both reproduction and original artifacts. Conversely, the name and/or number of an officer might not be found in the
Dienstalterslistes even though the item is completely original. And some forgers use completely fictitious names
and numbers.
I am therefore always on the lookout for scam artists. Here are a few examples of bogus items that I have uncovered:
One guy claimed to have the SS
Totenkopf Honour Ring belonging to THE Karl Wolff and wanted me to send him my research findings on Wolff. Right away, I was suspiscious as I knew this would be a significant piece of history. So I contacted my good friend Don Boyle and asked him if he knew when THE Karl Wolff was awarded the ring and if the whereabouts of the ring was known. Don gave me the date and also told me that he knew the whereabouts of the ring. I then told this individual that the date in his ring was not the date that THE Karl Wolff had been awarded his ring. I never heard from him again.
Someone who was known to add embellishments to artifacts sent me the number on a chained SS dagger he had. Right away, I was suspiscious. When I looked it up, I found (not to my great surprise) that the number belonged to
SS-Gruppenfuhrer Herman Fegelein. In a lengthy reply, I advised this individual that all may not be as it seems and I never heard from him again either.
Recently, someone sent me the name of an
SS-Sturmbannfuhrer apparently from
3. SS Pz. Div. Totenkopf that was inside a peaked hat he was considering buying along with a picture of the name tag. Two things alerted me that things might not be right. First, I did not find the officer's name listed in any
Dienstaltersliste. Although possible,
it's very unusual not to find such a high ranking officer. Secondly, the name tag used the abbreviation "T.K." for
"Totenkopf". The actual abbreviation used by the Germans for
"Totenkopf" was "T.", not "T.K.". I relayed my concerns to him and he had it checked out by a few people in the know about hats and it turned out to be bogus. He wrote back and thanked me for saving him $3000. Luckily, in this case the forger used a fictitious name and did not know the proper abbreviation for
"Totenkopf". But if they would have used the name of a legitimate member of
"Totenkopf" and the correct German abbreviation, I would have had no suspiscions.
And finally, like Don Boyle's Honour Ring certificates, my research letters have been used to try to authenticate bogus or embellished artifacts. A friend once confronted an unscrupulous dealer claiming his SS
Totenkopf Honour Ring was original because it was accompanied by my research letter. Andy told him in no uncertain terms that his ring was bogus and that I would not knowingly research a ring that I knew or suspected was not original. So just because an artifact is accompanied by one of my research letters (or any research letter for that matter), it does not guarantee its originality.
Having said this, I have researched items that actually did belong to high ranking officers to include a few Generals, Knight's Cross winners, German Cross in Gold winners and even an infamous Concentration Camp commandant.
Sample Pages from the DienstalterslistesI- This is a sample page from the
October 1944 SS-Dienstaltersliste. From left to right, the columns show:
Numerical order in the
Dienstaltersliste Name (followed by WW1 and WW2 awards)
SS
TotenkopfHonour Ring/SS Sword Holder
Unit
NSDAP Party Number
SS Number
Date of Birth
Rank
Promotion Date to current rank.
On this particular page, of special interest are the following:
Number 3582 is a Golden Party Badge holder as his NSDAP number is below 100,000
Number 3585 is a member of
"3. SS Pz. Div. Totenkopf" Number 3600 is a member of
"1. SS Pz. Div. LSSAH" and is a holder of the German Cross in Gold, SS
Totenkopf Honour Ring and SS Officer's Sword
Number 3605 is a member of
"7. SS Frw. Geb. Div. Prinz Eugen" Numbers 3610/11 are members of
"12. SS Pz. Div. Hitler Jugend" and holders of the SS
Totenkopf Honour Ring and SS Officer's Sword.
II- This is the
October 1944 SS-Dienstaltersliste Award Symbols page outlining awards and their symbols as used in the
Dienstaltersliste.
III- This is the
October 1944 SS-Dienstaltersliste Abbreviations page outlining the abbreviations used in the
Dienstaltersliste and their meaning.
