SS recruitment poster.
The SS is a Nordic Order. Adolf Hitler founded his conception of the world on the immutable essence of the Nordic species. The people and the empire must be the structural future of this Nordic nature. As the leader of the Germanic peoples, the German people have the predestined mission to be the first to carry out the battle for the rebirth of Germanism. The Nordic race is also the major source of Nordic blood inheritance. The first objective of National Socialism must therefore be to carry out a sound racial policy. This demands a cleansing of the German people from all foreign influence at the level of blood and character.
The SS then selects its members, according to the ideal of the Nordic race to form a liberated Germanic type. Since, first of all, the value of the soul of men cannot be prejudged, the selection is made according to the physical ideal of the Nordic race and according to the stature. Experience has shown that the value and aptitude of a man mainly corresponds to what his racial appearance suggests.
The selection criteria of the SS are, consequently, increasingly severe. The racial policy of the Reich incites the Nordicization of the whole people. The closer you get to that goal, the more the racial criteria of the SS are accentuated.
‘The friend of the soldier’, almanac of 1944, edition D: Waffen SS, I- The SS as Order, taken from The Schutzstaffel (SS) Order, OSS, I.1.2.