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So I have written before here about the mood at the end of WWII in Germany and it is important to emphasize that the Third Reich went down neither swinging nor in the apocalyptic Götterdämmerung that Hitler had wished for. As for the SS it's important that in only very few cases was the SS just packing up and leaving the inmates to be liberated (this happened in Buchenwald and Mauthausen) and with most camps these were ordered evacuations that resulted in death marches for the inmates.

By all descriptions, the Reich's leadership reacted in a variety of ways to the situation at the end of 1944 and beginning of 1945. As per Ian Kershaw's description in his book The End

Survival strategies varied, though they usually involved some refusal to accept reality.

Göring was among the more realistic in that he certainly recognized that the Luftwaffe was beat and had no chance at opposing the RAF and Air Force onslaught on German cities. While he retreated to his luxury palace to the north of Berlin, Ribbentrop insisted to the Japanese ambassador in January that everything wax going fine and the Germans now held the initiative on all fronts. Robert Ley spent most of his time in a drunk stupor but when he was sober remained adamant about an apocalyptic showdown with the Allies even should there be a social revolution. Bormann and his wife spent their time planning on how to rebuilt Germany after the war was over, including plans for extensive air raid shelters in every house build by Jewish forced laborers. Himmler who was at the time in his headquarters in the Black Forest held on to the illusion that he would succeed in splitting the Allies and marching eastward with British troops at his back. Goebbels, fiercely loyal to Hitler, was cautiously optimistic about the Ardennes despite their failure. Speer, the old opportunist, later claimed that this was the time when he truly realized that the war was lost. The OKW had a clear picture of the dire situation and saw that the defenses were overstretched and resources were at an end. However, they too remained convinced that fighting until the bitter end was necessary

Hitler at the same time was able to muster his tried and tested act of supreme confidence and optimism in the face of bleak reality by giving one of the most over the top new year's speeches that promised the ultimate victory, a crack in the anti-Nazi alliance and ultimate victory. Again, as per Kershaw:

His own hold on reality was waning, but had far from vanished. Beneath the veneer of indomitability that his role of Führer demanded, he was eminently capable of realizing the consequences of the unfolding disaster. His Luftwaffe adjutant, Nicolaus von Below, found him one evening after the failure of the Ardennes offensive, depressed and admitting that the war was lost – characteristically attributing it to the betrayal and the failings of others. For him now the struggle was about his place in history – a heroic end, not a cowardly capitulation for the country as in 1918. "We'll not capitulate", Below recalled him saying. "Never. We can go down. But we'll take the world with us."

And as for the population of Berlin: The diaries we have describing how New Year's Eve went are mostly concerned with the destruction of the city and the bombing on December 31. Plus the Berliners didn't exactly have a lot of venues to celebrate. What hadn't been bombed, had been closed. Theaters and Varietes had been closed since the autumn of 1944 and bars and other places had pretty much run out of stuff to sell provided they were still standing. Alcohol was still available but only through the black market and all in all things looked pretty bleak.

Journalist Ursula von Kardorff wrote in her diary: "The usual bombing [British bombers had flown a night raid on Berlin on December 31] which serves as our new year's firecrackers and leaves only broken windows. [...] At midnight, a moment of silence. We were standing with our glasses and didn't dare toast, for from afar we heard air raid sirens and shots."

Both Alexander Platz and Gedächtniskirche are destroyed, all over Berlin only smoking craters. One million people in the city are without a home and in the aftermath of the bombings, gangs of young people plunder homes and shops of what is left. The trams are still running but almost every line ends in a crater somewhere along their drive. The inhabitants of Berlin go on to give new names to parts of the city. Lichterfelde in the south becomes "Trichterfelde" (crater field), Steglitz becomes "Stehtnix" (nothing is standing), Charlottenburg "Klamottenburg".

Walter Militz, who was working at the Siemens plant in Berlin wrote about the New Year: "Everyone was curious about the situation in the air. The Nazis in the plant become more and more silent. Everyone hopes that it will be over soon. We just wanted to get out with our skins intact, but how?" Militz also describes how Siemens tried to instill some celebratory mood in their workers by handing out the so-called "Fliegerstulle" (loosely translated "Air Raid Sandwich") to its workers, meaning in the beginning of January, workers at the plant would received an extra ration sandwich with 30g of margarine and a slice of meat.

Ludwig Steeg, the Nazi mayor of Berlin, decreed that in celebration of the new year, the population of Berlin would in the time from January 2nd to January 7th receive an extra ration of cigarettes. Meanwhile elementary school teacher Arthur H. remains convinced of German victory: "New Year's Eve. We are waiting for the big speech of the Führer. After we had heard him speak we went to bed with the burning desire that all our wishes would come true in the New Year. The past year was a hard one for our people. But the New Year has given us new hope and courage and we are looking with renewed vigor to the new year."

The aforementioned Ursual von Karsdorff also mentions something else. Because of her status as an official journalist with the ministry of propaganda, she had access to foreign newspapers, which she stole and read on the toilet of the ministry. On New Year's Eve she read the report of Auschwitz in a Czech newspaper. While the camp hadn't been liberated at the time, reports had made their way in the hands of the Allies, especially thanks to the Polish government in exile. Karsdorff wrote in her diary: "Apparently that is the place where the Jews are gassed. They are lead into what looks like a bath and gas enters the room through what looks like showers." When celebrating New Year's with a friend of her that evening, it is not just the falling bombs that take up their conversation but also Auschwitz.

Also writing in her diary, Lilo G. at the time pupil at a Berlin High School but evacuated to Saxony wrote: "I will never marry. All the men are dead in the field." All the while, her brother whom she visited in Berlin over Christmas is conscripted into the Wehrmacht in order to prevent the Red Army from breaking through.

For clarification, are you specifically asking about the SS-TV camp personal, or also, the Waffen-SS & Allgemeine SS all included?

Your title seems to be heavily influenced by popular western depictions of 'the SS', and I'm wondering if clarification is needed, so someone doesn't dump a comment about something you're not entirely interested in.

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