Stormtroopers: A New History of Hitler's Brownshirts
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Finally, the fourth and last part, consisting of chapter 10 and the conclusion, is concerned with the legacy of the SA after 1945. I will demonstrate, first, that understandings of the third SA as utterly unimportant in the Third Reich were popularized in the immediate post-war years as a means of juridical defence and met with considerable success. Second, I will show that such partisan views were quickly taken up by the early historiography on the SA and have influenced our understanding of the stormtroopers until today. Against this background I will finally reassess the role of the SA in a comprehensive history of National Socialism, with the aim of providing a stimulus for further research that transcends narrow temporal and spatial boundaries.
This outline makes it clear that I take seriously the ‘cultural politics of emotion’ of the Nazis and the self-images that guided its activists.128 I thereby aim to demonstrate how powerful the SA actually was – not only as a militia that targeted Communists, Social Democrats, and Jews in the German streets until 1934, but also as an organization active in the later years of the Nazi regime. The stormtroopers regarded themselves as a visible embodiment of the National Socialists’ promise and as guardians of a racially structured ‘people’s community’. That the majority of highbrow intellectuals despised the Brownshirts for all kinds of good reasons does not diminish the force of this belief. Against the background of the popular idea of an egalitarian society, defined as a society in which every individual shares the same basic social obligations, the importance of the brown uniform as a social unifier should not be downplayed. Egalitarianism had a strong appeal in Germany throughout the twentieth century and was reinforced by the First World War and the social promises of the Weimar Republic, which raised expectations to a new level. The National Socialist ideology played into these expectations but sharply distinguished between those whom it considered to have legitimate social rights and those whom it excluded for fundamental ideological, racial, or social reasons. The party’s idea of Volksgemeinschaft thus built on the discourse of national unity and inter-class solidarity that was also dear to the democratic parties, but it perverted this idea by making it conditional along racial and ideological lines while simultaneously fostering autocratic rule and a messianic leadership cult that contrasted sharply with the idea of democratic participation.129
The National Socialists’ combination of a charismatic yet ultimately autocratic rule and popular demands for national belonging proved attractive not only to the marginalized, but even to men of the aristocracy. When, from the late 1920s, the last Kaiser’s son, Crown Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia, nicknamed ‘Auwi’, wore the SA uniform on public occasions and even gave stump speeches on behalf of the NSDAP, many perceived him as a fool. For others, however, such symbolic gestures seemed to confirm that the Nazis were on their way to achieving something of considerable value: a true and not just imagined community that could unite patriotic Germans, from the ordinary man in the street to those born into the highest levels of the aristocracy and living in castles. This ideal of a union sacrée among the political leadership, the monarch, and the people had been established as a powerful political myth in the early nineteenth century with the alleged ‘wars of liberation’ against French troops led by Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Nazis successfully capitalized on it. However, the NSDAP was a modern political party and as such did not advocate for a monarchy based on the fortune of noble birth, but for a Führerstaat based on individual merits.130 That Hitler regularly wore the SA uniform at party rallies and on the occasion of public speeches seemed to confirm the Nazi promise: in their state, every German, regardless of his social background, should be able to make it to the top on condition that he possessed the necessary leadership qualities and the right ideological convictions – and even then, he would remain the first among his peers.131
After the Second World War was lost and Germany lay in ruins, the Nazi promises of racially structured equality were not forgotten, as demonstrated by the case of Wehrmacht soldiers who openly defended the SA even when they were in American captivity. A certain Helmut Richter, a former lieutenant colonel, said that he still believed in the ‘idea’ of National Socialism, characterizing himself as an ‘outright supporter’ of Nazi organizations like the Hitler Youth and the SA, and declaring that he regarded the latter as a cornerstone of the people’s community: ‘Within the SA, a factory director counts as much as a worker, and the troop leader is even above the factory director, if the latter is no troop leader . . . It is simply the affinity to the people that is required; this is just the new thing.’132 That a former Wehrmacht soldier could utter such a statement, even when he must have known that it would not be to his advantage, is a strong indicator that the SA had remained in the German mindset during the war, regardless of its limited direct political influence. To staunch National Socialists the SA even in 1945 remained a core element of Nazi ideology and rule, an organization that – despite all its limitations – stood for the central promises of Nazi ideology: social participation and national belonging for ‘racially’ pure Germans.133
1. This photograph depicts a street in the centre of Munich in 1919, with the towers of the Frauenkirche in the background. On the left-hand side are heavily armed soldiers in a car decorated with a skull and crossbones. The original inscription on the upper left-hand side translates as ‘Crushing of a pocket of Spartakists by governmental troops with machine gun.’ However, looking more closely, the viewer realizes that a large female figure, the companion of the soldier on the extreme right, has been made invisible. The same has happened to a figure walking in front of her. Thus, the actual street scene photographed here was rather peaceful. The retouching served the purpose to dramatize the political situation in post-war Bavaria and justify the – at times extreme – violence employed against the far left.
2. This portrait of Ernst Röhm depicts him as a man of several worlds. It was taken in his temporary Bolivian home between 1928 and 1930. Röhm is wearing the full dress uniform of the Bolivian army, yet he also has on the medals he had received in the First World War. Behind him, one can see the flag of Bolivia and, above, the German Imperial War Flag. The framed photograph on the table to the left is probably a portrait of Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria.
3. A group photograph of ‘Trupp Bötzow’, later to become Berlin SA-Sturm 2, taken in Weimar’s central market square on the occasion of the NSDAP party rally on 3–4 July 1926. The Swastika banner in front of the well-known Neptune fountain symbolizes the Nazi occupation of the city centre. Particularly noteworthy are the five girls in the first two rows. At least three of them are dressed in the brown shirt and also exhibit the party badge. Such images are extremely rare yet important. Although in their writings young male Nazi activists rarely mentioned closer contacts with girls and young women, travelling the country in the company of fellow Brownshirts was a way of making contact with the opposite sex. The young man in the third row, fourth from the left, is Horst Wessel, the later Nazi martyr; his brother Werner is in the same row, second from the left.
4. This group photograph from 1928 shows uniformed members of the SA on a farm in the surroundings of Prenzlau in Brandenburg, located some 100 kilometres north of Berlin. Some people, standing on the left, are in civilian clothing, among them a young woman. The stormtroopers are holding brooms, barrows and pitchforks in their hands, suggesting that they are helping out on the farm. However, cleanliness also mattered to them, as demonstrated by the water bowl and two towels that feature prominently in the foreground. Two uniformed Brownshirts are posing on horses. ‘Work trips’ to the countryside, usually on weekends, contributed to the SA’s popularity in rural areas of Germany, yet they also served other purposes such as paramilitary training and propaganda marches. Especially in the eastern provinces of Germany some owners of large estates voluntarily invited SA units in on a temporary basis.
5. This photograph depicts members of the Berlin SA-Sturm 1 standing in front of a fruit plantation in the vicinity
of the small town of Ketzin near Potsdam on 27 January 1929. According to the original caption in the photo album from which this image was reproduced, the purpose of the trip was Landpropaganda – ‘propaganda in the countryside’. The banner on the car translates as ‘Away with Dawes’ (referring to the reparation regulations of the 1924 Dawes Plan), ‘First bread, then reparation’, and ‘Read the Angriff [Goebbels’s Berlin Nazi newspaper]’. The young boy standing on the far right is holding copies of the Angriff in his hands. The man in the grey coat is Horst Wessel. The poses of the young Nazi activists show determination and pride in their own propaganda ‘achievements’, in sharp contrast with the idyllic snow-covered and empty landscape around them.
6. Poster by Leo von Malotki from Danzig-Langfuhr (today’s Polish Gdansk), printed by the publishing house A. W. Kafemann GmbH in Danzig around 1933. A multi-headed snake marked with two Stars of David, as well as the abbreviations ‘SPD’ (Social Democratic Party), ‘KPD’ (Communist Party of Germany), and ‘RF’ (Red Front), attacks a stormtrooper marching on the right-hand side. In the background, across the harbour basin, one sees the city of Danzig and, above, effectively a shadow of the stormtrooper, a white figure of Saint George, venerated as a ‘Christian soldier’. Contemporary viewers, familiar with the idea of a German Volkstumskampf in eastern Europe, could not fail to get the message: the Nazis were fighting a religious and ideological war against the evils of the present, similar to the Teutonic Knights who had ‘Christianized’ large parts of Pomerania, Prussia and the Baltic region since the thirteenth century.
7. A propaganda image of an SA-Sturm marching through the streets of Berlin-Spandau in 1932. Two officers of the Prussian police guard this political demonstration. Parades and processions were common spectacles in the German capital at this time, and, consequently, only some of the many people in the streets took a closer look at the marching Brownshirts.
8. This cartoon by Erich Schilling, ‘Germany’s autarky’, first published in the satirical weekly Simplicissimus in August 1932, was a sarcastic comment on the increasing hostilities and bloody run-ins on German streets at the end of the Weimar Republic. The cartoon depicts two armed Reichsbanner men on the left and two armed Brownshirts on the right, each pair ready to confront the other. The subtitle translates as ‘What progress since 1914! When it comes to warfare, the Germans finally made themselves completely independent from abroad.’
9. This 1932 poster advertises the cigarette brand Trommler (Drummer), a product from the Dresden-based Sturm company that reached out to the rapidly growing number of Brownshirts as consumers. A share of the company’s profits was handed over to the SA; in return, the organization requested their men smoke cigarettes made by Sturm exclusively. In doing so, the poster claimed, they were acting Gegen Trust und Konzern – ‘Against Trust and Big Business’.
10 and 11. These two woodcuts by the Düsseldorf-based artist Richard Schwarzkopf from 1936 were part of a series of six, entitled ‘The Fight of the SA: The German Passion’. The woodcuts depict the fight of the SA in the form of a danse macabre. Next to traditional motifs of marching Brownshirts in the woodcut ‘The Victory of Faith’, ‘The Red Devil Rages’ features the stormtrooper as a farmer and a father, alluding to the changing purpose of the SA after 1934.
12. Members of the SA block the entrance to the Ehape department store on Cologne’s Bahnhofstrasse on 1 April 1933. The Ehape Einheitpreis-Handelsgesellschaft mbH was part of the department house consortium Leonhard Tietz AG that, from July 1933 onwards (and after the Tietz family was pressured to sell their shares), became known as Westdeutsche Kaufhof AG. The photograph shows at least three different reactions to the boycott. While the women pass by the SA men rather quickly, ostensibly not paying attention, two men are pictured in conversation with the Brownshirts. The man with the bicycle seems to be having a relaxed chat with the SA leader present, while the body language of the man with the hat suggests he is more critically minded.
13. This photograph depicts prisoners of the SA-run concentration camp at Oranienburg who are forced to engage in physical exercises, so-called SA sports. One SA man in the middle gives commands and demonstrates what to do, while other Brownshirts standing behind the prisoners are overseeing the correct execution of the exercises. The photograph was probably taken on behalf of the camp management in the spring or summer of 1933 as part of a series used for publications inside Germany and distributed to foreign press agencies to counter reports of torture in the early camps. Such Nazi propaganda often focused on the bodies of prisoners that were to be ‘educated’ and ‘disciplined’ through sports and hard labour, so that, ideally, the prisoners could one day return to the Nazi ‘people’s community’ as valuable members. Propaganda images of this kind took care to present the prisoners in good health. The clearly visible SA man with the Red Cross on his armband suggests that the prisoners were well taken care of. The photograph also demonstrates that the concentration camp was located in direct proximity to family houses.
14. This photograph depicts SA guards and their prisoners from the early concentration camp at Hohnstein Castle in Saxony. This staged scene was presumably made on behalf of the stormtroopers, as a kind of trophy. The carefully written board translates as ‘Labour battalion of the Preventive Detention Camp Hohnstein Castle 28 April 1933’. Two prisoners were later highlighted on the photograph with the numbers ‘1’ and ‘2’, yet they could not be identified.
15. After the Nazi takeover of power in 1933, many German producers attempted to benefit from the political sea change by launching products that targeted driven National Socialist consumers. This photograph from December 1933 shows a young saleswoman working for a puppet factory in Schönhauser Straße, located in central Berlin, presenting a puppet in SA uniform giving a Hitler salute. The picture suggests that a wide variety of similar figures, in SA and BDM uniforms, was available to German boys and girls for Christmas.
16. A drawing by the German student and writer Felix Hartlaub on the occasion of his time as a participant in an SA paramilitary student camp in Heidelberg during the spring of 1934. The banner in the background reads Schlachtfest (‘Country feast with freshly slaughtered meat’). The Latin toast Amico pectus, hosti frontem translates as ‘Friends stretch forth your heart and enemies your forehead’, alluding to the traditions of German student fraternities, here intermingled with the new soldierly but equally ‘wet’ habits of the SA.
17. The new SA Chief of Staff, Viktor Lutze, leaves the SA offices in Berlin, Wilhelmstraße 6, on 24 July 1934, and is greeted with the Hitler salute. At the time, more than a thousand men incarcerated in the alleged Röhm purge were still held in prisons and concentration camps. Lutze repeatedly tried to restore the organization’s reputation after 1934, leading the SA until his death in a car accident in 1943.
18. This photograph from 1935, made for propaganda purposes, was taken on the occasion of the second anniversary of the ‘Day of Potsdam’ (21 March 1933), the symbolic reunion of the National Socialist government with proponents of the conservative elites. Men of the ‘SA motor unit’ (SA-Motorstaffel) M 28 serve hot chocolate and cakes to children in the Tivoli, a club house and cinema in the working-class neighbourhood of Berlin-Moabit.
19. Members of the SA stand on lorries in preparation for a propaganda tour through the streets of Recklinghausen in the Ruhr district on Sunday, 18 August 1935. The banners translate as: ‘He who knows the Jews knows the devil!’ and ‘The bourgeois: . . . “The economy is everything.”’ The poster in the middle depicts a stormtrooper using a swastika to strike two heads caricatured as Jews, who have aggressive-looking snakes emerging from them. The Jews are associated with the dangers of Communism, as the hammer and sickle next to the snakes makes plain. Such violent propaganda slogans, which blended together anti-Communist, anti-Jewish, anti-capitalist and, at times, anti-Church sentiments, were typical of the SA in the 1930s.
20. In the 1930s, the SA promoted riding as a particularly ‘manly’ sport that
would train German men for future military operations. This photograph depicts three Brownshirts jumping off their horses at Alt-Möderitz in Mecklenburg, an exercise that was part of the obligatory ‘riding test’.
21. A group photograph at a wedding in front of the restaurant Zum Erbprinzen in Inzighofen near Sigmaringen in the southern part of the Swabian Alps, taken between 1933 and 1938. The bridal couple is standing behind a flower-adorned portrait of Hitler. The groom is wearing an SA uniform, as are many of the middle-aged guests, whereas members of the older generation are in their traditional Sunday best. The young boys sitting in front are dressed in children’s SA uniforms. This photograph demonstrates the Brownshirts’ pride in their uniform as well as their integration within local communities.
22. A journalist bows down to capture the noise of a marching SA unit on his microphone. The photograph was taken at an SA festive parade on 15 August 1937 in Berlin. By this time, the trampling of SA boots was a well-known and recognizable symbol of the regime – deliberately recorded for use in mass media, yet feared by many ordinary Germans as a symbol of Nazi violence.