The Nazi SA (Stormtroopers)

The Nazi SA (Stormtroopers)

Nazi paramilitary association that performed a key function in Adolf Hitler's increase to power. The SA was based by Hitler in Munich in 1921 and drew its early members from the Freikorps. Outfitted in dark uniforms after the latest tendency of the Italian Fascist Blackshirts, the SA defended Nazi Party meetings and assaulted political opponents. From 1931 it was going by Ernst Röhm, and by 1932 it had developed to a force of more than 400,000. Röhm liked to amalgamate the normal armed detachment with the SA under his authority, but Hitler had become wary of the organization's increasing power. In 1934 he organised a "blood purge" of the SA, which became renowned as the Night of the Long Knives. Thereafter the SA was decreased to a secondary political role.

The Sturmabteilung, Storm Division or Battalion, abbreviated SA and usually translated as stormtroop(er)s, functioned as a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s.

SA men were often called "brownshirts" for the color of their uniforms. Brown-colored shirts were chosen as the SA uniform because a large batch of them were cheaply available after World War I, having originally been ordered during the war for colonial troops posted to Germany's former African colonies.

The SA was also the first Nazi paramilitary group to develop pseudo-military titles for bestowal upon its members. The SA ranks were adopted by several other Nazi Party groups, chief amongst them the SS, itself originally a branch of the SA. The SA was very important to Adolf Hitler's rise to power, but was largely irrelevant after he took control of Germany in 1933; it was effectively superseded by the SS after the Night of the Long Knives, though never formally dissolved.

The term Sturmabteilung predates the founding of the Nazi Party in 1919. It originally comes from the specialized assault troops used by Germany in World War I utilizing Hutier infiltration tactics. Instead of a large mass assault, the Sturmabteilung was organized into small squads of a few soldiers each. The first official German stormtroop unit was authorized on 2 March 1915; German high command ordered the VIII Corps to form a detachment for the testing of experimental weapons and the development of appropriate tactics that could break the deadlock on the Western Front. On 2 October 1916, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff ordered all German armies in the west to form a battalion of stormtroops. First applied during the German Eighth Army's siege of Riga, then again at the Battle of Caporetto, their wider use on the Western Front in March 1918 allowed to push back Allied lines tens of kilometers.

The DAP (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or German Workers' Party) was formed in Munich in January 1919 and Hitler joined in September of that year. His talents for speaking, publicity and propaganda were readily recognized and by early 1920 he had gained some authority in the party, which changed its name to the ...