Appendix II

Glossary and Abbreviations

Einsatzgruppen – Mobile killing units of the SS, Sipo-SD.

Gau – One of forty-two Nazi Party administrative districts into which Nazi Germany was divided.

Gauleiter – Nazi Party boss in a Gau.

General Government – Occupied part of eastern Poland not annexed to Germany.

Gestapo – Geheime Staatspolizei: state secret police.

Reichsführer-SS – Reich Chief of the SS and German Police.

RSHA – Reichssicherheitshauptamt: Reich Main Security Office, formed in late 1939, uniting Gestapo, criminal police, SIPO and SD.

SD – Sicherheitsdienst: security service of the Nazi Party.

Sonderkommando – Special unit of SS.

SS – Schutzstaffel: Guard Detachment created in 1925 as elite Nazi Party bodyguard that evolved as a security and intelligence service with a military arm.

Totenkopf – Totenkopfverbande: Death’s Head, unit of SS deployed to guard concentration camps.

Waffen-SS – Weapon SS: Military arm of the SS from 1939 onwards.

Wehrmacht – German armed forces.

WVHA – Wirtschaffts und Verwaltungshauptamt: SS Economic and Administrative Head Office, responsible for SS economic enterprises and concentration camps from 1942 under the command of Oswald Pohl.