Sturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung (German: [ˈʃtʊʁmʔapˌtaɪlʊŋ] ⓘ; SA; literally "Storm Division" or Storm Troopers) was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power 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 of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and intimidating Romani, trade unionists, and especially Jews.
For the assault detachments of the German Army during World War I, see Stormtroopers (Imperial Germany). For the youth groups, see Jungsturm (disambiguation). For other uses of stormtrooper, see Stormtrooper (disambiguation).Sturmabteilung
Brownshirts (Braunhemden)
October 5, 1921–May 8, 1945
- Protection
- Intimidation
SA High Command, Barerstraße, Munich
48°08′38″N 11°34′03″E / 48.14389°N 11.56750°E
Dissolved
4,200,000 (1943)
Der Stahlhelm (1933-1935)
The SA were colloquially called Brownshirts (Braunhemden) because of the colour of their uniform's shirts, similar to Benito Mussolini'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-shirts, originally intended for the German colonial troops in Germany's former East Africa colony,[2] was purchased in 1921 by Gerhard Roßbach for use by his Freikorps paramilitary unit. They were later used for his Schill Youth organization in Salzburg, and in 1924 were adopted by the Schill Youth in Germany.[3] 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'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 ordered the creation of a bodyguard unit, which was ultimately abolished after the failed Beer Hall Putsch 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 Schutzstaffel (SS). During the Night of the Long Knives (die Nacht der langen Messer) in 1934, the SA's then-leader Ernst Röhm 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 in 1945, after which it was disbanded and outlawed by the Allied Control Council.
After the purge[edit]
After the Night of the Long Knives, the SA continued to operate, under the leadership of Stabschef Viktor Lutze, but the group was significantly downsized. Within a year's time, the SA membership was reduced by more than 40%.[36] 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 Kristallnacht ('Night of Broken Glass', more literally 'Crystal Night').[38] Jewish homes were ransacked throughout Germany. This pogrom damaged, and in many cases destroyed, about 200 synagogues (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.[39]
Thereafter, the SA became overshadowed by the SS; by 1939 it had little remaining significance in the Nazi Party, though it was never formally disbanded and continued to exist until the war ended. 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 Wehrmannschaften (SA Military Units).[40] With the start of World War II in September 1939, the SA lost most of its remaining members to military service in the Wehrmacht (armed forces).[41]
In January 1941, long-standing rivalries between the Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Office) and the SS exploded with the attempted coup d'état in Bucharest that saw SS back the coup by the Iron Guard under its leader Horia Sima against the Prime Minister, General Ion Antonescu, while the Auswärtiges Amt together with the Wehrmacht backed Antonescu. In the aftermath of the coup, the Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop 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 Freiherr 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.[42] 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.[43] 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 almost refused to allow him to present his credentials at the Vrana Palace.[42] As the ambassador in Bratislava, Ludin arranged the deportation of 50,000 Slovak Jews to Auschwitz in 1942.[44] On 23–24 August 1944, Killinger notably bungled the German response to King Michael I's Coup that saw King Michael I of Romania dismiss Antonescu, sign an armistice with the Allies, and declare war on Germany, thereby costing the Reich its largest source of oil.[45] 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.[46] 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) to Bad Deutsch-Altenburg that saw 102 of the Jews being killed, being either shot or beaten to death.[47]
The SA ceased to exist in May 1945 when Nazi Germany collapsed. It was formally disbanded and outlawed by the Allied Control Council enacting Control Council Law No. 2 on October 10, 1945.[48] In 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg formally ruled that the SA was not a criminal organization.[49]
The leader of the SA was known as the Oberster SA-Führer, translated as Supreme SA-Leader. The following men held this position:
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 Oberster SA-Führer for the remainder of the group's existence until 1945. The day-to-day running of the SA was conducted by the Stabschef-SA (SA Chief of Staff), a position Hitler designated for Ernst Röhm.[52] After Hitler's assumption of the supreme command of the SA, it was the Stabschef-SA who was generally accepted as the Commander of the SA, acting in Hitler's name. The following personnel held the position of Stabschef-SA:
Similar paramilitary organizations
Informational notes
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Further reading