The first episode traces the rise to power of the SS: from their ascent in the Weimar Republic to their establishment within the Nazi regime to their role in the first concentration camps and in the war of extermination. From an early stage, the SS built up a business empire and maintained training facilities for new members. The film examines the biographies of several perpetrators. Who was recruited? And why was the SS so attractive to so many men?

The fourth episode focuses on the Waffen SS. Nazi propaganda painted them as a military elite, intended to attract the best German soldiers. The fact that foreigners were later allowed to join the SS, or even forced to do so, did nothing to undermine this image. An unbeatable generation? This reality was very different, and many of them were poorly trained. SS troops fought with contempt for death and slaughtered anything which got in their way.

SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler is the focus of the second episode. An agriculturalist by training, he went on to lead the SS – and tried to escape responsibility at the end of the war. Who was Heinrich Himmler? A committed Nazi who sometimes left his desk to ensure the “efficiency” of the concentration camps. His work diary, recently discovered in Moscow, provides terrifying insights into the SS leader, revealing details of both his private life and his work as the leader of the SS.

This episode focuses on Reinhard Heydrich. The leader of the Reich Security Main Office and Deputy Reich Protector in Bohemia and Moravia was a careerist. An orchestrator of mass murder, more than any other Nazi leader, he was responsible for rational planning with cold efficiency, ensuring that the Hitler and Himmler’s extermination plans were put into practice. In disturbing contrast to his function, in private, he played the role of the loving father, displaying average middle class values.

The fifth episode casts a light on the infamous Totenkopfverbände or “Death Head Units” of the SS. They were guards at the concentration camps, torturing and murdering prisoners on a daily basis. Disturbing personal photos from the camps show these men in their free time on excursions and at cheerful social gatherings. Who were the perpetrators who sent millions of prisoners in the extermination camps of Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück, Auschwitz and Sobibor to their deaths?

The sixth episode draws a line to the present. The myth of the SS has lived on after 1945. Many Nazi perpetrators fled to exile unscathed with the help of the Vatican or the US intelligence services. Yet some did not escape punishment and were forced to confront their responsibility. Although the atrocities of the SS are beyond all doubt, among current far-right groups, there is a cult surrounding “old comrades” and SS symbolism.