Higher Waffen-SS formations and ranks

[varyar]

In OTL, there were Waffen-SS Armies and the highest rank was Oberst-Gruppenfuhrer. But what if the Reich somehow survived to the present day in your bog-standard Fatherland scenario? What would Waffen-SS Army Groups and SS Field Marshalls have been called?

 

[viperjock]

I imagine that the Waffen SS would become like the United States Marine Corps, a multi-division organization. One SS General might be promoted to Field Marshal and basically be commandant of the Waffen SS.
How big the Waffen SS gets depends on how much power Himmler and his successors maintain in a post-war world. If the SS remains the favored child of the Nazi regime then the sky is the limit. If Himmler goes away then the Waffen SS might end up a division sized unit at best. Either way I don’t see the Heer handing over a Field Marshal title easily.

 

[Jürgen]

I suspect that any POD which allow a German victory would leave the SS much weaker than it was at the end of the war, and I could see SS go the way of SA in the power struggle after the death of Hitler.

Also SS doesn’t really compare to the marine corps, it compare better with the Republican Guard of Iraq or traditional Royal Guards in different European countries. It’s a common structure in authoritarian regimes as a way to protect the supreme leader from coups. But with the leadership of SS playing their own power games there are fewer reasons to keep them around.

 

[Tolkiene]

Ironically, the Waffen-SS really started taking off in terms of size when things started...going poorly for Germany. One of the reasons Himmler turned to foreign legions (not just 'Volksdeutsche' and fellow 'Germanic' people in Scandinavia and Benelux...but also Ukrainians and Bosnians!) was that the Wehrmacht imposed limits on how many people he could recruit in Germany.

That pesky issue was resolved by his appointment as Commander of the Ersatzheer following the 20 July coup...but by then he had little time to enjoy his new power. So the development of the SS depends on the context and timing of the Third Reich's survival. A Germany that wins in 1941/1942 will have mostly had the Wehrmacht do all the fighting. The Waffen-SS (along with the Wehrmacht) will have slaughtered tons of civilians...but overall not made that big an impact on the battlefield.