Emil Maurice was an early member of the Nazi Party and a close associate of Adolf Hitler with a personal friendship dating back to at least 1920. With the founding of the Sturmabteilung in 1921, Maurice was the first SA-Stabschef (Chief of Staff). In 1923, Maurice also became the SA commander of the newly established Stabswache which was a special SA company tasked to guard Adolf Hitler at Nazi parties and rallies.

In 1925, two years after the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Emil Maurice and Adolf Hitler refounded the Stabswache as the Stoostrupp Adolf Hitler which was renamed, later that year, as the Schutzstaffel (SS). At that time, Hitler became SS Member #1 and Emil Maurice became SS Member #2. Maurice became an SS-Führer in the new organization, although the leadership of the SS was assumed by Julius Schreck, the first Reichsführer-SS.

When the SS was reorganized and began to expand in 1932, Maurice became a senior SS officer and would eventually be promoted to the rank SS-Oberführer. While Maurice never became a top commander of the SS his status as SS Member #2 effectively credited him as the actual founder of the organization. Heinrich Himmler, who ultimately would become the most recognized leader of the SS, held SS Member #168.

Maurice's stagnent SS career, after Himmler had become Reichsführer-SS, has lead historians to uncover evidence that Himmler suspected Maurice as being part Jewish. Himmler had lobbied for Emil Maurice to be removed from the SS, although Hitler never approved this due to Maurice's early membership in the Schutzstaffel. It is therefore one of the greatest ironies in history that the man credited with founding the SS, an organization which is generally accepted as responsible for the Holocaust, was himself most likely of Jewish heritage.