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The (; SA; literally "Storm Detachment") was the original
paramilitary A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...
wing of the
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
. It played a significant role in
Adolf Hitler's rise to power Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. B ...
in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi rallies and assemblies, disrupting the meetings of opposing parties, fighting against the paramilitary units of the opposing parties, especially the ''
Roter Frontkämpferbund The (, translated as "Alliance of Red Front-Fighters" or "Red Front Fighters' League"), usually called (RFB), was a far-left paramilitary organization affiliated with the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) during the Weimar Republic. It was off ...
'' of the
Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West Germa ...
(KPD) and the ''
Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold The (, ''"Black, Red, ndGold Banner of the Reich"'') was an organization in Germany during the Weimar Republic, formed by members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the German Centre Party, and the (liberal) German Democratic Pa ...
'' of the
Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been ...
(SPD), and intimidating Romani,
trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
ists, and especially
Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites"" ...
. The SA were colloquially called Brownshirts () because of the colour of their uniform's shirts, similar to
Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 19 ...
's
blackshirts The Voluntary Militia for National Security ( it, Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, MVSN), commonly called the Blackshirts ( it, Camicie Nere, CCNN, singular: ) or (singular: ), was originally the paramilitary wing of the Nation ...
. The official uniform of the SA was the brown shirt with a brown tie. The color came about because a large shipment of
Lettow Lettow was a by-name given to a few Pomeranian nobles from a noble family from Vorbeck who went to assist Algirdas and Vytautas, the Great Dukes of Lithuania, in the 14th century. ''Lettow'' meant "Lithuania" in the Saxon language, and it appear ...
-
shirts A shirt is a cloth garment for the upper body (from the neck to the waist). Originally an undergarment worn exclusively by men, it has become, in American English, a catch-all term for a broad variety of upper-body garments and undergarments. ...
, originally intended for the German
colonial troops Colonial troops or colonial army refers to various military units recruited from, or used as garrison troops in, colonial territories. Colonial background Such colonies may lie overseas or in areas dominated by neighbouring land powers such ...
in Germany's former East Africa colony, was purchased in 1921 by
Gerhard Roßbach Gerhard Roßbach (28 February 1893 – 30 August 1967), also spelt Rossbach, was a German ''Freikorps'' leader and organizer of nationalist groups after World War I. He is generally credited with inventing the brown uniforms of the Nazi Party ...
for use by his ''
Freikorps (, "Free Corps" or "Volunteer Corps") were irregular German and other European military volunteer units, or paramilitary, that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenary or private armies, re ...
'' paramilitary unit. They were later used for his Schill Youth organization in Salzburg, and in 1924 were adopted by the Schill Youth in Germany. The "Schill Sportversand" then became the main supplier for the SA brown shirts. The SA developed pseudo-military titles for its members, with ranks that were later adopted by several other Nazi Party groups, chief amongst them the (SS), which originated as a branch of the SA before it was separated from it after the
Night of the Long Knives The Night of the Long Knives ( German: ), or the Röhm purge (German: ''Röhm-Putsch''), also called Operation Hummingbird (German: ''Unternehmen Kolibri''), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Chancellor A ...
. After
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
ordered the
Night of the Long Knives The Night of the Long Knives ( German: ), or the Röhm purge (German: ''Röhm-Putsch''), also called Operation Hummingbird (German: ''Unternehmen Kolibri''), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Chancellor A ...
() in 1934, he withdrew his support for the SA. The SA continued to exist but had lost almost all its influence, and was effectively superseded by the SS, which had carried out Hitler's orders in the purge, and thereafter was formally removed from the SA. The SA remained in existence until after Nazi Germany's final capitulation to the Allies in 1945, after which it was disbanded and outlawed by the
Allied Control Council The Allied Control Council or Allied Control Authority (german: Alliierter Kontrollrat) and also referred to as the Four Powers (), was the governing body of the Allied Occupation Zones in Germany and Allied-occupied Austria after the end of ...
.


Rise

The term predates the founding of the Nazi Party in 1919. Originally it was applied to the specialized assault troops of
Imperial Germany The German Empire (), Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditar ...
in World War I who used
infiltration tactics In warfare, infiltration tactics involve small independent light infantry forces advancing into enemy rear areas, bypassing enemy frontline strongpoints, possibly isolating them for attack by follow-up troops with heavier weapons. Soldiers ...
based on being organized into small squads of a few soldiers each. The first official German stormtrooper unit was authorized on March 2, 1915 on the Western Front. The German high command ordered the
VIII Corps 8th Corps, Eighth Corps, or VIII Corps may refer to: * VIII Corps (Grande Armée), a unit of the Imperial French army during the Napoleonic Wars * VIII Army Corps (German Confederation) * VIII Corps (German Empire), a unit of the Imperial German A ...
to form a detachment to test experimental weapons and develop tactics that could break the deadlock on the Western Front. On October 2, 1916,
Erich Ludendorff Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff (9 April 1865 – 20 December 1937) was a German general, politician and military theorist. He achieved fame during World War I for his central role in the German victories at Liège and Tannenberg in 1914 ...
ordered all German armies in the west to form a battalion of stormtroopers. They were first used during the 8th Army's
siege A siege is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or a well-prepared assault. This derives from la, sedere, lit=to sit. Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characteriz ...
of
Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the B ...
, and again at the
Battle of Caporetto The Battle of Caporetto (also known as the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, the Battle of Kobarid or the Battle of Karfreit) was a battle on the Italian front of World War I. The battle was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Centra ...
. Wider use followed on the Western Front in the German Spring Offensive in March 1918, when Allied lines were successfully pushed back tens of kilometers. The DAP (,
German Workers' Party The German Workers' Party (german: Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP) was a short-lived far-right political party established in Weimar Germany after World War I. It was the precursor of the Nazi Party, which was officially known as the National So ...
) was formed in
Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and H ...
in January 1919, and Adolf Hitler joined it in September of that year. His talents for speaking, publicity and
propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
were quickly recognized. By early 1920 he had gained authority in the party, which changed its name to the NSDAP ( or
National Socialist German Workers' Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported th ...
) in February 1920. The party's executive committee added "Socialist" to the name over Hitler's objections, to help the party appeal to left-wing workers. The precursor to the had acted informally and on an ''ad hoc'' basis for some time before this. Hitler, with an eye to helping the party to grow through propaganda, convinced the leadership committee to invest in an advertisement in the ' (later renamed the ) for a mass meeting in the , to be held in Munich on October 16, 1919. Some 70 people attended, and a second such meeting was advertised for November 13 in the beer hall, also in Munich. About 130 people attended; there were hecklers, but Hitler's military friends promptly ejected them by force, and the agitators "flew down the stairs with gashed heads". The next year, on February 24, he announced the party's Twenty-Five Point program at a mass meeting of some 2,000 people at the Hofbräuhaus. Protesters tried to shout Hitler down, but his former army companions, armed with rubber truncheons, ejected the dissenters. The basis for the SA had been formed. A permanent group of party members, who would serve as the (meeting hall protection detachment) for the DAP, gathered around Emil Maurice after the February 1920 incident at the Hofbräuhaus. There was little organization or structure to this group. The group was also called the "Stewards Troop" () around this time. More than a year later, on August 3, 1921, Hitler redefined the group as the "Gymnastic and Sports Division" of the party (), perhaps to avoid trouble with the government. It was by now well recognized as an appropriate, even necessary, function or organ of the party. The future SA developed by organizing and formalizing the groups of ex-soldiers and beer-hall brawlers who were to protect gatherings of the Nazi Party from disruptions from
Social Democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promot ...
(SPD) and
Communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...
(KPD), and to disrupt meetings of the other political parties. By September 1921 the name (SA) was being used informally for the group. Hitler was the official head of the Nazi Party by this time. The Nazi Party held a large public meeting in the Munich Hofbräuhaus on November 4, 1921, which attracted many Communists and other enemies of the Nazis. After Hitler had spoken for some time, the meeting erupted into a mêlée in which a small company of SA thrashed the opposition. The Nazis called this event the (), and it assumed legendary proportions in SA lore with the passage of time. Thereafter, the group was officially known as the . The leadership of the SA passed from Maurice to the young
Hans Ulrich Klintzsch Johann "Hans" Ulrich Klintzsch (4 November 1898 in Lübbenau – 17 August 1959 in Hamburg) was a naval lieutenant from the Erhardt Brigade who later served as ''Oberster SA-Führer'', the supreme commander of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA), from 1 ...
in this period. He had been a naval officer and a member of the Brigade which had taken part in the failed attempted coup. When he took over command of the SA, he was a member of the notorious
Organisation Consul Organisation Consul (O.C.) was an ultra-nationalist and anti-Semitic terrorist organization that operated in the Weimar Republic from 1920 to 1922. It was formed by members of the disbanded Freikorps group Marine Brigade Ehrhardt and was respons ...
(OC). The Nazis under Hitler began to adopt the more professional management techniques of the military. In 1922, the Nazi Party created a youth section, the , for young men between the ages of 14 and 18 years. Its successor, the
Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. ...
( or HJ), remained under SA command until May 1932.
Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...
joined the Nazi Party in 1922 after hearing a speech by Hitler. He was given command of the SA as the in 1923. He was later appointed an (lieutenant general) and held this rank on the SA rolls until 1945. From April 1924 until late February 1925, the SA was reorganized into a front organization known as the to circumvent Bavaria's ban on the Nazi Party and its organs. (This had been instituted after the abortive
Beer Hall putsch The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch,Dan Moorhouse, ed schoolshistory.org.uk, accessed 2008-05-31.Known in German as the or was a failed coup d'état by Nazi Party ( or NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler, Erich Ludendorff and oth ...
of November 1923). While Hitler was in prison,
Ernst Röhm Ernst Julius Günther Röhm (; 28 November 1887 – 1 July 1934) was a German military officer and an early member of the Nazi Party. As one of the members of its predecessor, the German Workers' Party, he was a close friend and early ally ...
helped to create the Frontbann as a legal alternative to the then-outlawed SA. In April 1924, Röhm had also been given authority by Hitler to rebuild the SA in any way he saw fit. When in April 1925 Hitler and Ludendorff disapproved of the proposals under which Röhm was prepared to integrate the 30,000-strong Frontbann into the SA, Röhm resigned from all political movements and military brigades on May 1, 1925. He felt great contempt for the "legalistic" path the party leaders wanted to follow and sought seclusion from public life. Throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s, members of the SA were often involved in street fights, called (collisions), with members of the Communist Party (KPD). In 1929, the SA added a Motor Corps for better mobility and a faster mustering of units. It also acquired an independent source of funds: royalties from its own Sturm Cigarette Company. Previously, the SA had been financially dependent on the party leadership, as it charged no membership fees; the SA recruited particularly among the many unemployed in the economic crisis. The SA used violence against shops and shopkeepers stocking competing cigarette brands; it also punished any SA member caught with non-Sturm cigarettes. Sturm marketing was also used to make military service more appealing. Cigarettes were sold with collectible sets of images of historical German army uniforms. In September 1930, as a consequence of the Stennes Revolt in Berlin, Hitler assumed supreme command of the SA as its new . He sent a personal request to Röhm, asking him to return to serve as the SA's chief of staff. Röhm accepted this offer and began his new assignment on January 5, 1931. He brought radical new ideas to the SA and appointed several close friends to its senior leadership. Previously, the SA formations were subordinate to the Nazi Party leadership of each . Röhm established new that had no regional Nazi Party oversight. Each Gruppe extended over several regions and was commanded by a SA who answered only to Röhm or Hitler. Under Röhm as its popular leader and (Staff Chief), the SA grew in importance within the Nazi power structure and expanded to have thousands of members. In the early 1930s, the Nazis expanded from an extremist fringe group to the largest political party in Germany, and the SA expanded with it. By January 1932, the SA numbered approximately 400,000 men. Many of these stormtroopers believed in the socialist promise of National Socialism. They expected the Nazi regime to take more radical economic action, such as breaking up the vast landed estates of the aristocracy, once they obtained national power. By the time Hitler assumed power in January 1933, SA membership had increased to approximately 2,000,000—twenty times as large as the number of troops and officers in the (German Army).


Fall

After Hitler and the Nazis obtained national power, the SA leadership also became increasingly eager for power. By the end of 1933, the SA numbered more than 3 million men, and many believed they were the replacement for the "antiquated" . Röhm's ideal was to absorb the army (then limited by law to no more than 100,000 men) into the SA, which would be a new "people's army". This deeply offended and alarmed the professional army leaders, and threatened Hitler's goal of co-opting the . The SA's increasing power and ambitions also posed a threat to other Nazi leaders. Originally an adjunct to the SA, the (SS) was placed under the control of
Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
, in part to restrict the power of the SA and their leaders. The younger SS had evolved to be more than a bodyguard unit for Hitler and demonstrated that it was better suited to carry out Hitler's policies, including those of a criminal nature. Although some of the conflicts between the SS and SA were based on personal rivalries of leaders, the mass of members had key socio-economic differences and related conflicts. SS members generally came from the
middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Co ...
, while the SA had its base among the unemployed and
working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
. Politically speaking, the SA was more radical than the SS, with its leaders arguing the Nazi revolution had not ended when Hitler achieved power, but rather needed to implement socialism in Germany (see Strasserism). Hitler believed that the defiant and rebellious culture encouraged before the seizure of power had to give way to using these forces for community organization. But the SA members resented tasks such as canvassing and fundraising, considering them ("little work"), which had typically been performed by women before the Nazi seizure of power. , the first
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one or ...
chief, estimated that in 1933 Berlin, 70 percent of new SA recruits were former Communists. In 1933, General
Werner von Blomberg Werner Eduard Fritz von Blomberg (2 September 1878 – 13 March 1946) was a German General Staff officer and the first Minister of War in Adolf Hitler's government. After serving on the Western Front in World War I, Blomberg was appointed ch ...
, the Minister of Defence, and General
Walther von Reichenau Walter Karl Ernst August von Reichenau (8 October 1884 – 17 January 1942) was a field marshal in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II. Reichenau commanded the 6th Army, during the invasions of Belgium and France. During Operation ...
, the chief of the 's Ministerial Department, became increasingly concerned about the growing power of the SA. Röhm had been given a seat on the National Defence Council and began to demand more say over military matters. On October 2, 1933, Röhm sent a letter to Reichenau that said: "I regard the now only as a training school for the German people. The conduct of war, and therefore of mobilization as well, in the future is the task of the SA." Blomberg and von Reichenau began to conspire with Göring and Himmler against Röhm and the SA. Himmler asked
Reinhard Heydrich Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( ; ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He was chief of the Reich Security Main Office (inclu ...
to assemble a dossier on Röhm. Heydrich recognized that for the SS to gain full national power, the SA had to be broken. He manufactured evidence to suggest that Röhm had been paid 12 million marks by French agents to overthrow Hitler. Hitler liked Röhm and initially refused to believe the dossier provided by Heydrich. Röhm had been one of his first supporters and, without his ability to obtain army funds in the early days of the movement, it is unlikely that the Nazis would have ever become established. The SA under Röhm's leadership had also played a vital role in destroying the opposition during the elections of 1932 and 1933.


Night of the Long Knives

Hitler had his own reasons for wanting Röhm removed. Some of his powerful supporters had been complaining about Röhm for some time. The generals opposed Röhm's desire to have the SA, a force of over three million men, absorb the much smaller German Army into its ranks under his leadership. Since the officers had developed the
Reichswehr ''Reichswehr'' () was the official name of the German armed forces during the Weimar Republic and the first years of the Third Reich. After Germany was defeated in World War I, the Imperial German Army () was dissolved in order to be reshaped ...
as a professional force of 100,000, they believed that it would be destroyed if merged with millions of untrained SA thugs. Furthermore, the army commanders were greatly concerned about reports of a huge cache of weapons in the hands of SA members. Industrialists, who had provided the funds for the Nazi victory, were unhappy with Röhm's socialistic views on the economy and his claims that the real revolution had still to take place. President Hindenburg informed Hitler in June 1934 that if a move to curb the SA was not forthcoming, he would dissolve the government and declare
martial law Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. Use Martia ...
. Hitler was also concerned that Röhm and the SA had the power to remove him as leader. Göring and Himmler played on this fear by constantly feeding Hitler with new information on Röhm's proposed coup. A masterstroke was to claim that
Gregor Strasser Gregor Strasser (also german: Straßer, see ß; 31 May 1892 – 30 June 1934) was an early prominent German Nazi official and politician who was murdered during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. Born in 1892 in Bavaria, Strasser served ...
, whom Hitler hated, was part of the planned conspiracy against him. With this news, Hitler ordered all the SA leaders to attend a meeting in the Hanselbauer Hotel in . On June 30, 1934, Hitler, accompanied by SS units, arrived at Bad Wiessee, where he personally placed Röhm and other high-ranking SA leaders under arrest. Over the next 48 hours, 200 other senior SA officers were arrested on the way to Wiessee. Many were shot and killed as soon as they were captured, but Hitler decided to pardon Röhm because of his past services to the movement. On July 1, after much pressure from Göring and Himmler, Hitler agreed that Röhm should die. Hitler insisted that Röhm should first be allowed to commit suicide. When Röhm refused to do so, he was shot by two SS officers,
Theodor Eicke Theodor Eicke (17 October 1892 – 26 February 1943) was a senior SS functionary and Waffen SS divisional commander during the Nazi era. He was one of the key figures in the development of Nazi concentration camps. Eicke served as the seco ...
and
Michael Lippert Michael Hans Lippert (24 April 1897 – 1 September 1969) was a mid-level commander in the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany during World War II. He commanded several concentration camps, including Sachsenhausen, before becoming a commander of the S ...
. Though the names of 85 victims are known, estimates place the total number killed at between 150 and 200 men, the rest of whom remain unidentified. Some Germans were shocked by the executions, but many others perceived Hitler to have restored "order" to the country. Goebbels's propaganda highlighted the "Röhm-Putsch" in the days that followed. The homosexuality of Röhm and other SA leaders was made public to add "shock value", although Hitler and other Nazi leaders had known for years about the sexuality of Röhm and other named SA leaders.


After the purge

After the
Night of the Long Knives The Night of the Long Knives ( German: ), or the Röhm purge (German: ''Röhm-Putsch''), also called Operation Hummingbird (German: ''Unternehmen Kolibri''), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Chancellor A ...
, the SA continued to operate, under the leadership of ''
Stabschef ''Stabschef'' (, "Chief of Staff") was an office and paramilitary rank in the '' Sturmabteilung'' (SA), the paramilitary stormtroopers associated with the Nazi Party. It was a rank and position held by the operating chief of the SA. The rank i ...
''
Viktor Lutze Viktor Lutze (28 December 1890 – 2 May 1943) was a German Nazi Party functionary and the commander of the ''Sturmabteilung''  ("SA") who succeeded Ernst Röhm as ''Stabschef'' and '' Reichsleiter''. He died from injuries received in a car ...
, but the group was significantly downsized. Within a year's time, the SA membership was reduced by more than 40%. However, the Nazis increased attacks against Jews in the early 1930s, and used the SA to carry these out. In November 1938, after the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan (a Polish Jew), the SA was used for "demonstrations" against the act. In violent riots, members of the SA shattered the glass storefronts of about 7,500 Jewish stores and businesses. The events were referred to as ('Night of Broken Glass', more literally 'Crystal Night'). Jewish homes were ransacked throughout Germany. This
pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...
damaged, and in many cases destroyed, about 200
synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of wors ...
s (constituting nearly all Germany had), many Jewish cemeteries, more than 7,000 Jewish shops, and 29 department stores. Some Jews were beaten to death and more than 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and taken to
concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simp ...
s. Thereafter, the SA became overshadowed by the SS; by 1939 it had little remaining significance in the Nazi Party. In January 1939, the role of the SA was officially established as a training school for the armed forces, with the establishment of the SA (SA Military Units). With the start of World War II in September 1939, the SA lost most of its remaining members to military service in the (armed forces). In January 1941, long-standing rivalries between the ''Auswärtiges Amt'' (Foreign Office) and the SS exploded with the attempted coup d'etat in Bucharest that saw SS back the coup by the Iron Guard under its leader Horia Sima against the Prime Minister, General
Ion Antonescu Ion Antonescu (; ; – 1 June 1946) was a Romanian military officer and marshal who presided over two successive wartime dictatorships as Prime Minister and ''Conducător'' during most of World War II. A Romanian Army career officer who ma ...
, while the ''Auswärtiges Amt'' together with the Wehrmacht backed Antonescu. In the aftermath of the coup, the Foreign Minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's not ...
made an effort to curb the power of the SS to conduct a foreign policy independent of the ''Auswärtiges Amt''. Taking an advantage of the long-standing rivalries between the SS and the SA, in 1941, Ribbentrop appointed an assemblage of SA men to head the German embassies in Eastern Europe, with Manfred von Killinger going to Romania, Siegfried Kasche to Croatia, Adolf-Heinz Beckerle to Bulgaria, Dietrich von Jagow to Hungary, and Hanns Ludin to Slovakia in order to ensure that there would be minimal co-operation with the SS. The role of the SA ambassadors was that of "quasi-''Reich'' governors" as they aggressively supervised the internal affairs of the nations they were stationed in, making them very much unlike traditional ambassadors. The SA leaders ambassadors fulfilled Ribbentrop's hopes in that all had distant relations with the SS, but as a group they were notably inept as diplomats with Beckerle being so crude and vulgar in his manners that King
Boris III Boris III ( bg, Борѝс III ; Boris Treti; 28 August 1943), originally Boris Klemens Robert Maria Pius Ludwig Stanislaus Xaver (Boris Clement Robert Mary Pius Louis Stanislaus Xavier) , was the Tsar of the Kingdom of Bulgaria from 1918 until hi ...
almost refused to allow him to present his credentials at the
Vrana Palace Vrana Palace ( bg, Дворец "Врана", translit=Dvorets "Vrana"; formerly ; ) is a former royal palace, on the outskirts of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. It is today the official residence of former royal family of Bulgaria. While the ...
. As the ambassador in
Bratislava Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approximately 140% of ...
, Ludin arranged the deportation of 50,000 Slovak Jews to Auschwitz in 1942. On 23–24 August 1944, Killinger notably bungled the German response to
King Michael's Coup King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the t ...
that saw King
Michael of Romania Michael I ( ro, Mihai I ; 25 October 1921 – 5 December 2017) was the last King of Romania, reigning from 20 July 1927 to 8 June 1930 and again from 6 September 1940 until his forced abdication on 30 December 1947. Shortly after Michael's ...
dismiss Antonescu, sign an armistice with the Allies, and declare war on Germany, thereby costing the ''Reich'' its largest source of oil. Of the SA ambassadors, Killinger and Jagow committed suicide in 1944 and 1945 respectively while Kasche and Ludin were executed for war crimes in 1947 in Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia respectively. Beckerle spent 11 years in a Soviet POW camp, was released to West Germany in 1955, was charged with war crimes in 1966 for his role in the deportation of Macedonian Jews, which were dropped on grounds of ill health in 1968, and died in 1976 at a retirement home in West Germany. In 1943, Viktor Lutze was killed in an automobile accident, and Wilhelm Schepmann was appointed as leader. Schepmann did his best to run the SA for the remainder of the war, attempting to restore the group as a predominant force within the Nazi Party and to mend years of distrust and bad feelings between the SA and SS. On the night of 29–30 March 1945, Austrian SA members were involved in a death march of Hungarian Jews from a work camp at Engerau (modern Petržalka,
Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to th ...
) to
Bad Deutsch-Altenburg Bad Deutsch-Altenburg, until 1928 Deutsch-Altenburg ( hu, Németóvár) is a market town and spa in the district of Bruck an der Leitha in Lower Austria in Austria. Geography The town lies in the Lower Austrian Industrieviertel region, on the ...
that saw 102 of the Jews being killed, being either shot or beaten to death. The SA ceased to exist in May 1945 when Nazi Germany collapsed. It was formally disbanded and outlawed by the
Allied Control Council The Allied Control Council or Allied Control Authority (german: Alliierter Kontrollrat) and also referred to as the Four Powers (), was the governing body of the Allied Occupation Zones in Germany and Allied-occupied Austria after the end of ...
enacting Control Council Law No. 2 on October 10, 1945. In 1946, the
International Military Tribunal International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...
at
Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
formally ruled that the SA was not a
criminal organization Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...
.


Leadership

The leader of the SA was known as the , translated as Supreme SA-Leader. The following men held this position: * Emil Maurice (1920–1921) *
Hans Ulrich Klintzsch Johann "Hans" Ulrich Klintzsch (4 November 1898 in Lübbenau – 17 August 1959 in Hamburg) was a naval lieutenant from the Erhardt Brigade who later served as ''Oberster SA-Führer'', the supreme commander of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA), from 1 ...
(1921–1923) *
Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...
(1923) * ''None'' (1923–1925) *
Franz Pfeffer von Salomon Franz Pfeffer von Salomon (19 February 1888 – 12 April 1968) during the Nazi regime known as Franz von Pfeffer, was the first Supreme Leader of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA) after its re-establishment in 1925. Pfeffer resigned from his SA command ...
(1926–1930) *
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
(1930–1945) In September 1930, to quell the Stennes Revolt and to try to ensure the personal loyalty of the SA to himself, Hitler assumed command of the entire organization and remained for the remainder of the group's existence until 1945. The day-to-day running of the SA was conducted by the (SA Chief of Staff); a position Hitler designated for Ernst Röhm. After Hitler's assumption of the supreme command of the SA, it was the who was generally accepted as the Commander of the SA, acting in Hitler's name. The following personnel held the position of : * Otto Wagener (1929–1931) *
Ernst Röhm Ernst Julius Günther Röhm (; 28 November 1887 – 1 July 1934) was a German military officer and an early member of the Nazi Party. As one of the members of its predecessor, the German Workers' Party, he was a close friend and early ally ...
(1931–1934) *
Viktor Lutze Viktor Lutze (28 December 1890 – 2 May 1943) was a German Nazi Party functionary and the commander of the ''Sturmabteilung''  ("SA") who succeeded Ernst Röhm as ''Stabschef'' and '' Reichsleiter''. He died from injuries received in a car ...
(1934–1943) * Max Jüttner (acting, May-August 1943) * Wilhelm Schepmann (1943–1945)


Organization

The SA was organized into several large regional ("Groups"). Each had subordinate ("Brigades"). Subordinate to the were the smaller
regiment A regiment is a military unit. Its role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, service and/or a specialisation. In Medieval Europe, the term "regiment" denoted any large body of front-line soldiers, recruited or conscripte ...
-sized . operated in every major German city and were split into even smaller units, known as and . The command nexus for the entire SA was the , located in
Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the S ...
. The SA supreme command had many sub-offices to handle supply, finance and recruiting. Unlike the SS, however, the SA did not have a medical corps nor did it establish itself outside of Germany, in occupied territories, once World War II had begun. The SA also had several military training units. The largest was the , which served as an auxiliary to the (German Navy) and performed
search and rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...
operations as well as harbor defense. The SA also had an "army" wing, similar to the
Waffen-SS The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's '' Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and unoccupied lands. The grew from ...
, known as . This formation expanded from regimental size in 1940 to a fully-fledged armored corps () in 1945.


Organization structure August 1934–1945

* (Supreme SA-Command & Control) * (Group): consisting of several brigades * : 3 to 9 (Standards) * (Standard,
regiment A regiment is a military unit. Its role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, service and/or a specialisation. In Medieval Europe, the term "regiment" denoted any large body of front-line soldiers, recruited or conscripte ...
sized unit)
: 3 to 5 (Storm banns) * (Storm bann,
battalion A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of 300 to 1,200 soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and subdivided into a number of companies (usually each commanded by a major or a captain). In some countries, battalions are e ...
sized unit)
: 3 to 5 (Storms) * (Storm,
company A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of people, whether natural, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specific, declared go ...
sized sub-unit)
: 3 to 4 (platoons) * (Troupe,
platoon A platoon is a military unit typically composed of two or more squads, sections, or patrols. Platoon organization varies depending on the country and the branch, but a platoon can be composed of 50 people, although specific platoons may range ...
sized sub-unit)
: 3 to 4 (sections) * (
section Section, Sectioning or Sectioned may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Section (music), a complete, but not independent, musical idea * Section (typography), a subdivision, especially of a chapter, in books and documents ** Section sig ...
)
: 1 to 2 (squads or teams) * (
squad In military terminology, a squad is among the smallest of military organizations and is led by a non-commissioned officer. NATO and US doctrine define a squad as an organization "larger than a team, but smaller than a section." while US Army d ...
or team)
: 4 to 8 SA-Men/SA-Troopers * (SA-Man/SA-Trooper)


"Beefsteaks" within the ranks

In his 1936 ''Hitler: A Biography'', German historian Konrad Heiden remarked that within the SA ranks, there were "large numbers of former Communists and Social Democrats" and that "many of the storm troops were called 'beefsteaks' – brown outside and red within." The influx of non-Nazis into the membership was so prevalent that SA men would joke that "In our storm troop there are three Nazis, but we shall soon have spewed them out." The number of "beefsteaks" was estimated to be large in some cities, especially in northern Germany, where the influence of
Gregor Strasser Gregor Strasser (also german: Straßer, see ß; 31 May 1892 – 30 June 1934) was an early prominent German Nazi official and politician who was murdered during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. Born in 1892 in Bavaria, Strasser served ...
and Strasserism was significant. The head of the Gestapo from 1933 to 1934,
Rudolf Diels Rudolf Diels (16 December 1900 – 18 November 1957) was a German civil servant and head of the Gestapo in 1933–34. He obtained the rank of SS-''Oberführer'' and was a protégé of Hermann Göring. Early life Diels was born in Berghausen in ...
, reported that "70 percent" of the new SA recruits in the city of Berlin had been communists. This is evidenced further by historians, "As for the prior youth group memberships, nearly half of the SS members and nearly one-third of the instant stormtroopers were with the Free Corps, vigilantes, or militant veterans' groups during their first 25 years of life. They also came in disproportionate numbers from left-wing youth groups such as the Socialist or Communist Youth or the Red Front (RFB)." Some have argued that since most SA members came from working-class families or were unemployed, they were more amenable to Marxist-leaning socialism, expecting Hitler to fulfill the 25-point
National Socialist Program The National Socialist Program, also known as the 25-point Program or the 25-point Plan (), was the party program of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP, and referred to in English as the Nazi Party). Adolf Hitler announced the part ...
.Bendersky, Joseph W. (2007) ''A Concise History of Nazi Germany'', Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 96 However, historian reports that the repeated efforts by the
Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West Germa ...
(KPD) to appeal to the working-class backgrounds of the SA were "doomed to failure", because most SA men were focused on the nationalistic cult of Hitler and destroying the "Marxist enemy", a term that was used to identify both the KPD and the
Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been ...
(SPD). The "beefsteak" name also referred to party-switching between Nazi and Communist party members, particularly involving those within the SA ranks.


See also

* Uniforms and insignia of the Corps colors of the *
Militia A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...
*
Political color Political colours are colours used to represent a political ideology, movement or party, either officially or unofficially. It is the intersection of colour symbolism and political symbolism. Parties in different countries with similar ideo ...
* Political uniform *
Glossary of Nazi Germany This is a list of words, terms, concepts and slogans of Nazi Germany used in the historiography covering the Nazi regime. Some words were coined by Adolf Hitler and other Nazi Party members. Other words and concepts were borrowed and appropriat ...
* List of Nazi Party leaders and officials * National Action – Neo-nazi organization which uses logo based on SA Similar paramilitary organizations *
Albanian Fascist Party The Albanian Fascist Party ( sq, Partia Fashiste Shqiptare, or PFSh) was a fascist organisation active during World War II which held nominal power in Albania from 1939, when the country was invaded by Italy, until 1943, when Italy capitulated to ...
– Albania ("Blackshirts") * Black Brigades *
Blackshirts The Voluntary Militia for National Security ( it, Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, MVSN), commonly called the Blackshirts ( it, Camicie Nere, CCNN, singular: ) or (singular: ), was originally the paramilitary wing of the Nation ...
- Italy *
British Union of Fascists The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was a British fascist political party formed in 1932 by Oswald Mosley. Mosley changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936 and, in 1937, to the British Union. In 1939, f ...
– United Kingdom ("Blackshirts") *
Blue Shirts Society The Blue Shirts Society (藍衣社), also known as the Society of Practice of the Three Principles of the People (, commonly abbreviated as SPTPP), the Spirit Encouragement Society (勵志社, SES) and the China Reconstruction Society (中華� ...
– China () *
Blueshirts The Army Comrades Association (ACA), later the National Guard, then Young Ireland and finally League of Youth, but best known by the nickname the Blueshirts ( ga, Na Léinte Gorma), was a paramilitary organisation in the Irish Free State, founded ...
– Ireland * Black Shortsparody of the blackshirts in the writings of
P. G. Wodehouse Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, ( ; 15 October 188114 February 1975) was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeev ...
* - independent paramilitary organizations of ex-German Army soldiers and unemployed workers who fought against Communist uprisings after World War I * Greenshirts (National Corporate Party) – Ireland * Gold shirts – Mexico * Greyshirts – ethnically Dutch South Africans (
Afrikaaners Afrikaners () are a South African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th and 18th centuries.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: Brain to Cas ...
) * – paramilitary wing of the NS, the Norwegian National Socialist party 1940–45. * Integralismo *
Iron Guard The Iron Guard ( ro, Garda de Fier) was a Romanian militant revolutionary fascist movement and political party founded in 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu as the Legion of the Archangel Michael () or the Legionnaire Movement (). It was strongl ...
– Romania ("Greenshirts") *
Italian Social Republic The Italian Social Republic ( it, Repubblica Sociale Italiana, ; RSI), known as the National Republican State of Italy ( it, Stato Nazionale Repubblicano d'Italia, SNRI) prior to December 1943 but more popularly known as the Republic of Salò ...
– ("Blackshirts") *
Militia organizations in the United States The American militia movement is a term used by law enforcement and security analysts to refer to a number of private organizations that include paramilitary or similar elements. These groups may refer to themselves as militia, unorganized milit ...
*
National Socialist Motor Corps The National Socialist Motor Corps (german: Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrkorps, NSKK) was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) that officially existed from May 1931 to 1945. The group was a successor organisation to the o ...
- another Nazi Party organization * – Canada ("Blueshirts") * Portuguese Legion () – Portugal *
Red Shirts (United States) The Red Shirts or Redshirts of the Southern United States were white supremacist paramilitary terrorist groups that were active in the late 19th century in the last years of, and after the end of, the Reconstruction era of the United States. Red ...
* Silver Legion of America – United States ("Silvershirts") * * * paramilitary groups *


References

Informational notes Citations Bibliography * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Further reading * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{Authority control Adolf Hitler Military wings of fascist parties Nazi Party organizations Paramilitary organisations of the Weimar Republic Anti-communism in Germany German words and phrases 1920 establishments in Germany Military units and formations established in 1920 Military units and formations disestablished in 1945 Clothing in politics