During its short history, the SS troops have come a difficult path. Like much that was created in the Third Reich, at the end of their existence they were not at all what they were created for. In the process of their development, they changed the very idea of ​ ​ their existence, turning into a very real and effective combat force, in fact, into a separate type of German armed forces. In 1945, almost 900 thousand people who were most directly involved in military operations, paradoxically, were not de jure Wehrmacht servicemen, although in essence and in position they differed little from them.