The (; SA; literally "Storm Division" or Storm Troopers) 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 politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
. 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. Be ...
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 German ...
(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 Par ...
'' 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 the ...
(SPD), and intimidating
Romani
Romani may refer to:
Ethnicities
* Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia
** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule
* Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...
,
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 ...
.
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 194 ...
's
blackshirts. The official uniform of the SA was a 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. I ...
, originally intended for the German
colonial troops in
Germany's former East Africa colony, was purchased in 1921 by
Gerhard Roßbach 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, regar ...
'' 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's brown shirts. The SA developed pseudo-military titles for its members, with
ranks that were later adopted by several other Nazi Party groups.
Following
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 ...
's rise to Nazi Party leadership in 1921, he formalized the party's militant supporters into the SA as a group that was to protect party gatherings. In 1923, owing to his growing distrust of the SA,
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 creation of
a bodyguard unit which was ultimately abolished after the failed
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 othe ...
later that year. Not long after Hitler's release from prison he ordered the creation of another bodyguard unit in 1925 that ultimately became the (SS). During the
Night of the Long Knives () in 1934, the SA's then-leader
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 ...
was arrested and executed. The SA continued to exist but lost almost all its influence and was effectively superseded by the SS, which took part in the purge. The SA remained in existence until after
Nazi Germany's final capitulation to the
Allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
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 Wo ...
.
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 hereditary ...
in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
who used
infiltration tactics based on being organized into small squads of a few soldiers each. The first official German
stormtrooper
Stormtrooper or storm trooper may refer to: Military
*Stormtroopers (Imperial Germany), specialist soldier of the German Army in World War I
*'' Sturmabteilung'' (SA) or Storm Detachment, a paramilitary organization of the German Nazi Party
*8th I ...
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 Army ...
to form a detachment to test experimental weapons and develop tactics that could break the deadlock on the
Western Front Western Front or West Front may refer to:
Military frontiers
*Western Front (World War I), a military frontier to the west of Germany
*Western Front (World War II), a military frontier to the west of Germany
*Western Front (Russian Empire), a majo ...
. 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 warfare, attrition, or a well-prepared assault. This derives from la, sedere, lit=to sit. Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity con ...
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 Ba ...
, and again at the
Battle of Caporetto. 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) was formed in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
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 t ...
) 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
Emil Maurice (; 19 January 1897 – 6 February 1972) was an early member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party) and a founding member of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS). He was Hitler's first personal chauffeur, and was one of ...
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 (SPD) and
Communists (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 ...
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 (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 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 SA- (lieutenant general) and held this rank on the SA rolls until 1945.
![Bundesarchiv Bild 147-0503, Nürnberg, Horst Wessel mit SA-Sturm](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Bundesarchiv_Bild_147-0503%2C_N%C3%BCrnberg%2C_Horst_Wessel_mit_SA-Sturm.jpg)
From April 1924 until late February 1925, the SA was reorganized into a front organization known as the to circumvent
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
'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 othe ...
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
The Sturm Cigarette Company (, Storm Cigarettes or Military Assault Cigarettes) was a cigarette company created by the Nazi Party's ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA). The sale of its cigarettes provided the SA with operating funds and a channel for politic ...
. 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
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
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
![Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-P049500, Berlin, Aufmarsch der SA in Spandau](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Bundesarchiv_B_145_Bild-P049500%2C_Berlin%2C_Aufmarsch_der_SA_in_Spandau.jpg)
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, 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. Commo ...
, 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 colou ...
. 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 organi ...
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 chi ...
, the Minister of Defence, and General
Walther von Reichenau, 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 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
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (; abbreviated ; 2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a German field marshal and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany fro ...
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
Marti ...
.
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, whom Hitler felt had betrayed him, 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. 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' 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 SA continued to operate, under the leadership of ''
Stabschef''
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 Russia ...
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 worshi ...
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 camps.
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
Horia Sima (3 July 1906 – 25 May 1993) was a Romanian fascist politician, best known as the second and last leader of the fascist paramilitary movement known as the Iron Guard (also known as the Legion of the Archangel Michael). Sima was ...
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 made ...
, 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
Siegfried Kasche (18 June 1903 – 7 June 1947) was an ambassador of the German Reich to the Independent State of Croatia and ''Obergruppenführer'' of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA), a paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. Kasche was the proposed ru ...
to Croatia,
Adolf-Heinz Beckerle
Adolf-Heinz Beckerle (4 February 1902 – 3 April 1976) was a German politician, SA officer and diplomat who played a significant role in the Holocaust in Bulgaria.
''Völkisch'' Activist
Beckerle was born in Frankfurt am Main, the son of a post ...
to Bulgaria,
Dietrich von Jagow
Dietrich () is an ancient German name meaning "Ruler of the People.” Also "keeper of the keys" or a "lockpick" either the tool or the profession.
Given name
* Dietrich, Count of Oldenburg (c. 1398 – 1440)
* Thierry of Alsace (german: Dietric ...
to Hungary, and
Hanns Ludin
Hanns Elard Ludin (10 June 1905, in Freiburg – 9 December 1947, in Bratislava) was a German diplomat.
Born in Freiburg to Friedrich and Johanna Ludin, Ludin began his Nazi affiliation in 1930 by joining the party, and was arrested for his ...
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. As the ambassador in
Bratislava
Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the Capital city, 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 — approxim ...
, 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 that saw King
Michael of Romania 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
Petržalka (; german: Engerau / Audorf; hu, Pozsonyligetfalu) is the largest borough of Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Situated on the right bank of the river Danube, the area shares a land border with Austria, and is home to around 100,000 ...
,
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 the s ...
) to
Bad Deutsch-Altenburg 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 Wo ...
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
![Bundesarchiv Bild 102-15282A, Ernst Röhm](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-15282A%2C_Ernst_R%C3%B6hm.jpg)
The leader of the SA was known as the , translated as Supreme SA-Leader. The following men held this position:
*
Emil Maurice
Emil Maurice (; 19 January 1897 – 6 February 1972) was an early member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party) and a founding member of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS). He was Hitler's first personal chauffeur, and was one of ...
(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 ...
(1921–1923)
*
Hermann Göring (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 comman ...
(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
Otto Wilhelm Heinrich Wagener (29 April 1888 – 9 August 1971) was a Nazi Germany, German major general and, for a period, Adolf Hitler's economic advisor and confidant.
Life and career
An industrialist's son, Wagener was born in Durlach, gr ...
(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
Max or MAX may refer to:
Animals
* Max (dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog
* Max (English Springer Spaniel), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of OBE)
* Max (gorilla) (1 ...
(acting, May–August 1943)
*
Wilhelm Schepmann (1943–1945)
Organization
![Sturmabteil graphic](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Sturmabteil_graphic.svg)
The SA was organized into several large regional ("Groups"). The group leader answered only to the
or Hitler. Each was made up of 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 conscripted ...
-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 ...
. The SA supreme command had many sub-offices to handle supply, finance and recruiting.
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, known as . This formation expanded from regimental size in 1940 to a fully-fledged armored corps () in 1945. As for units formed outside of Germany, after the success of the
invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
in 1939, an SA unit, "Great Government" was formed. The units were re-named SA ''Wehrschützen-Bereitschaften'' in 1942. The title was abbreviated to SA ''Wehrbereitschaften'', thereafter.
Organization structure August 1934–1945
*
(Supreme SA-Command & Control)
* (Group): consisting of several brigades
* : 3 to 9
)
*
(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 conscripted ...
sized unit): 3 to 5
*
(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 ...
sized unit): 3 to 5
*
(Storm, company
A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...
sized sub-unit): 3 to 4
*
(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
*
( section): 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 do ...
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 and
Strasserism was significant. The head of the Gestapo from 1933 to 1934,
Rudolf Diels, 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
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
-leaning socialism, expecting Hitler to fulfill the 25-point
National Socialist Program.
[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 German ...
(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 the ...
(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 uniform
A number of political movements have involved their members wearing uniforms, typically as a way of showing their identity in marching, marches and demonstration (people), demonstrations. The wearing of political uniforms has tended to be associa ...
*
Glossary of Nazi Germany
*
List of Nazi Party leaders and officials
*
National Action – Neo-nazi organization which uses logo based on SA
* ''
SA-Feldjägerkorps'' (SA Field Police)
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
The ''Corpo Ausiliario delle Squadre d'azione di Camicie Nere'' (Italian: Auxiliary Corps of the Black Shirts' Action Squads), most widely known as the Black Brigades ( it, Brigate Nere), was one of the Fascist paramilitary groups, organized ...
*
Blackshirts - 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, fo ...
– United Kingdom ("Blackshirts")
*
Blue Shirts Society – China ()
*
Blueshirts – Ireland
*
Black Shortsparody of the blackshirts in the writings of
P. G. Wodehouse
* - independent paramilitary organizations of ex-German Army soldiers and unemployed workers who fought against Communist uprisings after World War I
** - paramilitary organizations of the
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
*
Greenshirts (National Corporate Party) – Ireland
*
Gold shirts
The Revolutionary Mexicanist Action ( es, Acción Revolucionaria Mexicanista), better known as the Gold Shirts ( es, Camisas Doradas), was a Mexican fascist, secular, anti-Semitic, anti-communist, ultra-nationalist paramilitary organization foun ...
– Mexico
*
Greyshirts
Greyshirts or ''Gryshemde'' is the common short-form name given to the South African Gentile National Socialist Movement, a South African Nazi movement that existed during the 1930s and 1940s. Initially referring only to a paramilitary group, it ...
– ethnically Dutch South Africans (
Afrikaaners)
* – paramilitary wing of the
NS, the Norwegian National Socialist party 1940–45.
*
Integralismo
In politics, integralism, integrationism or integrism (french: intégrisme) is an interpretation of Catholic social teaching that argues for an authoritarian and anti- pluralist Catholic state, wherever the preponderance of Catholics withi ...
*
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 strongly ...
– 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 mili ...
*
National Socialist Motor Corps - another Nazi Party organization
*
National Socialist Flyers Corps - another Nazi Party organizaion
* – Canada ("Blueshirts")
*
Portuguese Legion () – Portugal
*
Red Shirts (United States)
*
Silver Legion of America – United States ("Silvershirts")
*
*
*
paramilitary groups
*
* – paramilitary arm of the
NSB, the Dutch fascist and later National Socialist political party 1931–45.
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
1921 establishments in Germany
Military units and formations established in 1921
Military units and formations disestablished in 1945
Clothing in politics