Thus in scarcely over a year since Heinrich Himmler had been appointed Reichsführer-SS the Party was catapulted into the stress centre of German and world finance and politics. Exactly when he realised this or when he realised that his conception of the SS as the elite of the Party was about to be fulfilled is impossible to say, but the greater the intra-Party rivalries forced by these pressures, the more the SS came to play the key role as the loyal, unquestioning praetorian guard of the Führer and the more Heinrich Himmler himself became the key figure.
