The SS

[Desert Dog]

Did the "criteria" actually change as the war progressed? Or just their interpretation?

[von Poop]

Seems most criteria were put aside in 1943 by sheer expediency and Himmler's desire to expand his own personal fiefdom, the Wehrmacht men transferred en masse were certainly not guaranteed to match up to them and I doubt the men of Dirlewanger's gang qualified under anything other than physically fit.

[angeljoanes]

Oh ya, one more thing... How about the SS HitlerJugend? Did they use under-age person?

[T. A. Gardner]

With SS recruiting the problem for the service was they were initially very limited in the number of men they could enlist. Pre-war, the Heer had sufficent pull to ensure only a small number of men went into the SS. After the war started, Himmler sought ways to increase his force size. The first choice was through using "Volksdeutsche." That is people of "Germanic" decent who were not German citizens. This was then loosened to include those propely predisposed towards Nazi ideals. Hence the recruitment of Muslims in Yugoslavia etc.
In September 1944 Himmler took over the entire German military replacement system and began to allocate troops as he pleased. The previous Werkreise system broke down and troops were basically being herded together and sent to the front to wherever the system ordered them. The Volksgrenadier division system was administered by the SS and obstensively, these too were technically now SS units even though they were not so designated.

[Slipdigit]

Minimum height for the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler: 178cm.

This criteria itself would have substantially limited the available pool of men. That's about 5'10" and currently in the US, the average height of men is 5'8" and was less than that in the 30s and 40s. I suspect it could have been a bit less in Germany at that time.

[Za Rodinu]

Originally Posted by Von Poop

SSVT recruitment criteria. (1935-).

Requirements:

We must not forget that a good Aryan had to be:

• blonde like the Führer,
• athletic like the Reichspropagandaminister Göbbels and
• svelte like the Reichsfeldmarschall Göring.

[Slipdigit]

Originally Posted by Za Rodinu

We must not forget that a good Aryan had to be:

• blonde like the Führer,
• athletic like the Reichspropagandaminister Göbbels and
• svelte like the Reichsfeldmarschall Göring.

Broad, manly shoulders and narrow hips like Reichsführer Himmler

[T. A. Gardner]

We might add:


A full head of hair and perfect teeth....(actually, the later was a pre-war requirement...no fillings or dental work).

[Desert Dog]

Doesn't fit their pictures from the eastern front

[von Poop]

I find myself wondering what they'd have done with all the 'below par' recruits had the Nazi project succeeded.
Quietly swept under the rug? or each conquered area's freiwillige being used as cadres to base regional formations of Allegemeine, and perhaps to a lesser extent Waffen, units?

Don't think I've read too much on Himmler's specific postwar intentions for the organisation? The possibilities, from his increasing mysticism to conflict between a large SS & the Heer, or other power struggles on the political side, seem mind-boggling.