How many SS veterans went on to be part of the Stasi?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Any reliable numbers on exactly how many there were?

Because any such person would have to be a quite literal definition of "Horrible Person" in every way. Completely terrible in two completely different ways.

[DC Al Fine]

Would they let former SS join the Stasi? Being a former SS officer in East Germany sounds like a death sentence.

[nolesfan2011]

Would they let former SS join the Stasi? Being a former SS officer in East Germany sounds like a death sentence.

agreed, I'd have to think more former SS went to work for West German military/intel than in the East, most of the Stasi middle and upper echelon were veteran reds from the KPD days, and also the Soviet Union (NKVD/Smersh, Partisans etc.)

[Yeahsayyeah]

SS is not, at all, the right comparison here. And if the Soviets and GDR governments were keen to oust a branch of Nazi government and organizations it was the SS.

As long as the GeStaPo is concerned, nobody seems to know. It is possible, but no rank and file.

[Hifly]

Would they let former SS join the Stasi? Being a former SS officer in East Germany sounds like a death sentence.

I don't see why it would be a problem; plenty of SED (and allied parties') members and top officials were also former NSDAP members.

[minionofmidas]

Would they let former SS join the Stasi? Being a former SS officer in East Germany sounds like a death sentence.

In the late 40s / very early 50s? The regular course of action for a detected SS man would be deportation to Russia, a "trial" with a 20 years Siberia sentence, then (for the survivors) being bought by Adenauer in 1959 and feted as a "late-returning POW" here in the West.

[Yeahsayyeah]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

They had their own "special camps" for this purpose (and some others) on SOZ/GDR soil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD_special_camps_in_Germany_1945%E2%80%9349

[Heimdal]

According to Tony Judt in «Postwar» there were a lot of former Gestapo and SS personnel in the East German police and Security Forces.

It makes sense really when you think about it. The East German government needed an efficient tool for repression. There weren't enough reliable homegrown communists; since the KPD had been wiped out in the 1930s (most of the ones that fled to Moscow were handed over to the Gestapo after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact).  Therefore they used people that had served in the security apparatus of the Third Reich.

This was obviously a good deal for the former Nazis as well, as it meant that they would avoid prosecution.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

It would be very interesting to have some complete data to compare a number of former SS members working for the East and for the West.

[minionofmidas]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

They had their own "special camps" for this purpose (and some others) on SOZ/GDR soil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD_special_camps_in_Germany_1945%E2%80%9349

Those were for the NSDAP's civilian members (of prewar vintage), mostly.

But just as deadly (in part because the average inmate was older, and thus quicker to die from starvation and exposure.)

They were also closed slightly before the practice of hunting SS men ended.

[Hifly]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Sommer