After Hindenburg died and Hitler took over as Chancellor and President, the German armed forces were reformed.
An organizational structure was created, according to which at the head of each of the three branches of the army (ground army, Luftwaffe and Navy) stood their own supreme commander in chief, personally reporting to the Fuhrer. In addition, the SS troops with their headquarters and leadership were a separate military structure. Thus, the Wehrmacht did not actually have a single military command.
The military ranks of fascist Germany in general outline the hierarchy adopted after the end of the First World War. According to the terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty, the size of the army should not exceed one hundred thousand people. Junior commanders, captains and headquarters officers made up the middle command structure. Thus, to deploy a full-fledged army, it remained only to introduce mobilization instructions for the junior commanders and privates.
In 1937, the ranks of technical and veterinary non-commissioned officers were introduced. A year later, the ranks of "sergeant-major" and "headquarters of sergeant-sergeant servant" were approved, which were assigned to non-commissioned companies who had passed re-certification. Thus, the military ranks of fascist Germany appeared, which indicated that the political and military leadership of this country had headed for militarization, and the conditions adopted at Versailles were practically ignored.
The organizational structure of the kriegsmarine, that is, the naval forces, did not differ significantly from the hierarchy accepted throughout the world. The naval military ranks of fascist Germany, from the rank-and-file sailor to the admiral, corresponded to their counterparts in the Soviet Navy, the difference was only in the names: “corvettencapital”, “frigattencapital” and “captain tsurzee”, that is, captains of the third, second and first ranks.
In the Luftwaffe (the same as the Air Force), the rank-and-file employee was called the "flig". In aviation, the military ranks of fascist Germany were the same as in the ground forces.
SS troops had their own subordinate structure. These armed groups were considered elite, which was expressed in the requirements for the appearance of the fighters. He had to fully comply with the racial theory that prevailed in the Third Reich. The military ranks of the Wehrmacht did not coincide with the SS, as did the insignia. So, the shoulder straps of the Untersturmführer SS corresponded to the general lieutenant, the guard of the SS Hauptsturmführer had the authority of the captain, and the standartenführer SS the colonel.
You can see a certain parallel between two similar military structures - the German SS troops and the Soviet NKVD. The power provided by the military ranks of fascist Germany, epaulettes and other insignia, was different for elite units and for ordinary combat troops. In the USSR, the NKVD sergeant performed duties similar to lieutenant (RKKA). This “shift” by two steps continued further, until the major, who corresponded to the colonel.
Under the conditions of a totalitarian state, punitive troops carry out a fundamental function for such regimes. They intimidate both the population of the occupied territories and their own army. This explains the hatred that comes to hatred, combined with the contempt with which front-line soldiers belonged to the representatives of these elite formations, all the more so since neither the NKVD officers nor the SS men were particularly resistant in defense and courage in attack.