http://wiki.keithl.com/SA

Is Ukraine's Military Like Hitler's Brownshirts?

The Brownshirts / Freicorps / SA /Sturmabteilung

The German Freikorps were volunteer paramilitary German militias that fought as mercenaries in Europe between the 1750s until World War 1. After 1918, "Freikorps" were mostly war veteran paramilitary groups of anticommunist war veterans, 500,000 formal members and 1,500,000 informal participants.

In 1921, Freikorps leader Gerhard Roßbach outfitted 81 of his men with surplus beige-brown shirts and ties for a 1921 bicycle ride to East Prussia, and later adopted by Hitler's Brownshirts aka Sturmabteilung (Storm Division), initially recruited from the Freikorps.

Roßbach joined the Berlin Nazi party, took part in the 1923 Munich Beer Hall Putsch, and helped Hitler organize the Sturmabteilung. Roßbach was arrested but not killed during Hitler's 1934 Night of the Long Knives purge of the SA, including the murder of SA leader Ernst Röhm on 1934 July 1.

After the purge, the SA declined by more than 40%, mostly deployed to attack Jews, such as the November 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom against German Jews. In 1939, what remained of the SA became the Wehrmannschaften training school for the Wehrmacht.

The Wehrmannschaften is partly described in the 1948 Nuremberg Trial of the Major War Criminals book:

page 139:

After 30 June 1934 the SA sank into complete insignificance. After 30 June 1934 the SA was regarded as a disagreeable appendage. The SA was considered politically unreliable. Therefore, as was repeatedly established by the testimony of witnesses before the Commission, it was not given any further duties. The SA's destiny from that day on was nothing but the search for a task. Officially the SA was supposed to handle military-political education and athletics. In reality, however, the Party entrusted the SA with totally inferior tasks. The attitude of the Party towards the SA became particularly evident in 1939, too. As the witness Jüttner has clearly stated, it was Bormann who sabotaged the decree of 30 January 1939, and who did not permit the premilitary training duties of the SA to be carried out. The witness Bock has informed us of the preparation and beginning of the premilitary and postmilitary training program. But he also stated that this task of the SA was terminated. Only the events of the war brought forth the so-called SA-Wehrmannschaften.

Thus the SA was never able, as the Prosecution say, tom"participate feverishly in the preparations for war." It is absolutely impossible that, as the Prosecution claim, 25,000 officers were trained in SA schools. This claim was unimpeachably refuted by the testimony of the witnesses Jüttner and Bock. How unreliable the SA became in Bormann's eyes is shown by the fact that the Volkssturm was not built up from the SA. We learn from one of the affidavits submitted that the reason for this was the unreliability of the SA (Number General SA-67). The elimination of the SA is demonstrated by purely external evidence, if we recall that Rohm was Chief of Staff, Reich Leader, and Reich Minister; Lutze, Chiefof Staff and Reich Leader; and Schepmann, only Chief of Staff.

During the meetings of the Commission there was much discussion about the "Wehrsport" work of the SA. Nothing has been more completely misunderstood than this. The SA is described by the Prosecution as a semimilitary organization of volunteers, although the duties of the Wehrmacht and the SA were clearlyseparate from each other. Misunderstandings resulted primarily from the fact that there is no correct English translation of the word "Wehr." Nevertheless, this concept ought to be clarified, for the Prosecution itself submitted Document 2471-PS. In this document it says:

Ultimately, the Wehrmacht is the concentrated trained and directed force of all men able to defend themselves (wehrfahig). At no time did the SA have anything to do with that technical military training which is given in the Wehrmacht. Therefore, the SA athletic badge has been misjudged by the Prosecution. It is admitted that it was the purpose in awarding the SA athletic badge to train citizens fit for military service. Indeed it is also stated in the first document of 15 February 1935:

In the regulation concerning the implementation of the document of 18 March 1937 we find the following:

It is also admitted that parallels exist between the work of the Wehrmacht and the SA. The idea was that the SA would train the German man to be a National Socialist and a political fighter, while the Wehrmacht would give him the character and technical training of the man-at-arms; it would train him for the defense of the country. .However, it would be going too far to call the SA a military unit. At no time did the SA possess any military value.

The SA was nothing but an association whose members counted millions and 'marched' in the same step. From time to time field games were played, but it was forbidden to base them on military situations. The SA man listened to an occasional lecture and practiced with small-bore rifles once every fortnight, just as is done in rifle clubs. Therefore, the SA is far from being a military unit, even if every company (Sturm) should have had a maximum of five small-bore rifles which, however, was not universally true. The SA never possessed heavy arms, much less practiced with them.

The relationship of the SA to the Wehrmacht was accordingly strained. At no time was it recognized by the Wehrmacht. Service rank in the SA -no matter how high it may have been- had not the slightest influence on rank in the Wehrmacht. On the contrary, it often had the effect of delaying promotion. Special training certificates of the SA, such as riding certificates, medical certificates, radio certificates, received no recognition in the Wehrmacht. It is actually comic to read in affidavits that SA men from engineer units were used in signal corps regiments and SA men from signal corps units in engineer units of the Army. It may be stated in detail:

(1) The SA uniform was the most unsuitable uniform imaginable for military purposes. In this connection I refer to the testimony of the witness Bock.

(2) Aside from the small-bore rifles already mentioned, only dagger and pistol were permitted. Moreover, the dagger was not introduced until after the year 1933. Only the Sturmfuhrer had pistols, and only part of the Sturmfuhrers at that, namely, only those carried pistols who fulfilled the customary conditions in Germany for the firearms permit.

(3) There were no means of transportation in the SA.

(4) The SA had no depots for heavy weapons and no arsenals for small arms. Therefore, no training in them could take place.

(5) The SA units did not correspond to the military units. Their competition and organization were not planned from the point of view of possible military service. With the exception of the "Feldherrnhalle" Standarte, the SA were not quartered in permanent barracks. The military jurisdiction (draft board and recruiting district headquarters) did not correspond with the SA classification. A "Standarte" in the country, for instance, was territorially split up into many small "Stürme" and "Trupps," which were not fixed in number and not comparable with a military regiment.

(6) Commands could not be passed on quickly.

(7) No exercises in military formation took place.

(8) The SA special units did not have any military tasks. They had no military equipment, just as they had no military value and no military mission. The SA riding companies served for riding and driving sports. The engineer companies were for emergency service in case of natural disasters. The signal companies had the task of reading signals with primitive, old-fashioned methods, without the use of radio, which was forbidden, as can be seen from an affidavit. The medical companies of the SA served in giving first aid in the field of public health service. Their training was in keeping with the Geneva Convention (Testimony of Bock, Affidavit General SA-90).

(9) The so-called "Feldherrnhalle" army units w'ere not subordinate to the Supreme SA Leadership, as evidenced by the affidavit ofthe former Major General Pape (General SA-18).

(10) The SA leaders were not chosen according to military consideration or ability (Bock's testimony).

The examination of the Defendant Von Schirach showed that the SA was incapable of providing military training. During the war the draft of an agreement was submitted to the SA for over a year, according to which the SA, like the SS and the Police, was to furnish persons to the Hitler Youth for the purpose of training young men in military training camps. Documentary evidence in Exhibit USA-867 establishes that the SA Leadership did not grant this request. As reason for this the Defendant Von Schirach states that the SA was not capable of doing this.

The concepts of "Wehrmannschaften" and "SA-Wehrmannschaften" were confused by the Prosecution. In the occupied territories the Wehrmannschaften constituted a consolidation of legal civilian offices which were generally only concerned with administration, but if the rear areas should become endangered they were to be organized for their defense. Furthermore, the term "Wehrmannschaften" in the occupied territories also included local residents such as Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, or White Ruthenians, who likewise had to defend themselves against partisans. However, the term SA Wehrmannschaften signifies formations from the Reich itself which primarily were supposed to organize the SA men dismissed from military service in the Wehrmacht for the purpose of preserving their military efficiency. They were to be a kind of substitute for the former veterans' organizations.

The British Prosecution has been good enough to submit among their Prosecution documents articles from the SA-Mann which reveal what is really to be understood by military training. Probably for purposes of comparison, to determine whether the SA gave military training, it quotes these articles which deal with the training of British, French, Russian, and Italian youth, as well as that of British Dominion youth and French youth. They make it quite clear that the Supreme SA Leadership did not give any such training.

The connecting link between the military training of the SA and aggressive warfare was supposed to be a series of articles on the so-called "Lebensraum" question, which, indeed, the British Prosecution has meanwhile withdrawn, since this series of articles does not indicate what it wished to maintain. The articles quoted by the British Prosecution on the colonial problem mention only a peaceful recovery of the colonies. As the proceedings before the Commission have shown, these articles showed no signs of any war-mongering spirit. Therefore, the leap which the Prosecution makes in order to prove the promotion of a war of aggression by the SA is a leap into empty space. On the contrary, I have shown that the Supreme SA Leadership did everything possible to contribute to understanding among nations. T his was clearly shown by the statements of the witness Oberlindober. I have also shown that only individual ideological political training was given at the Fiihrer schools of the SA, no military training. We see from affidavits that songs which might perhaps have indicated an aggressive tendency were forbidden by the Supreme SA Leadership. I have shown that individual SA men who tried to preach a war of revenge were expelled from the SA.

Finally, I have shown that preparations were made on the part of the SA Leadership for the Reich Party Rally of 1939, which were contrary to any possible plans for war. We have also made this clear through the testimony of the witness Dr. Geyer, and through the affidavits of Koch and Zellenhofer. Finally, in the proceedings before the Commission there came to our attention an agreement between the SA and the Wehrmacht, which was intended to constitute a counterbalance against any possible military aggressive tendencies on the part of Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels (Affidavit Number General SA-1).

The Prosecution's view that the SA was founded in order to overthrow political opponents with terroristic methods and thus make the way clear for an aggressive war is likewise completely misleading. Anyone who knows political conditions in Germany and views them unclouded by propaganda will wonder how people can arrive at such an opinion. The arms depots of the KPD (Communist Party of Germany), which have been officially proved, and the unequivocal attitude of the KPD speak an unambiguous language (Document Number SA-287). The extent of the political street encounters of the KPD and the other Leftist radlcal elements can be seen from the testimony of the witness Bock before the Commission, who testified that the relief fund of the NSDAP had to be founded in order to care for members of the NSDAP who fell victim to the Leftist radical terror. It might be pointed out that it was the KPD that considered civil war, general strike, and a political mass strike as necessary political fighting methods, as appeared from the decision of the State Court for the Protection of the German Republic, which I submitted to the Tribunal in my document book (Number SA-285) That this political terrorism was carried on as a part of world revolution is also shown by a decision rendered by the State Court for the Protection of the German Republic This was also pointed out to us by the witness Jüttner when he referred to the idea of a defensive Western Pact directed against endeavors to bring about a world revolution (Document Number SA-286), in pursuance of which, by their own admission, the Communist International began revolutions, among other places, in Finland, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Syria. It can be said without any exaggeration that without the Marxist theory of class struggle, and without the events which led up to it, the causes would doubtless not have arisen which required the protection of a spiritual movement by means of the SA. The witness Gisevius also adopts this view when he declares:

The Prosecution, for their part, have submitted unequivocal documents of the SA-Mann, which was certainly not an official organ of the Supreme SA Leadership, but which in this case offers conclusive proof as to which side was responsible for the terrorism, and that was undoubtedly the Communist Party. I do not propose to quote in detail the articles which contain this proof. I merely want to refer to Prosecution Document 3050-PS, in which, by the way, articles from the SA-Mann were reproduced by the Prosecution in a distorted way and torn from their context (Compare the testimony of Klähn and Bock before the Commission).

The above is followed by the prosecution Col. Pokrovsky's rebuttal.

To me, it seems likely that the Cold War was already taking shape, with both west and east pickin-and-choosing witness statements to justify post-1946 ideologies, not describe and document pre-1939 Nazi crimes. The US goal may have been rapidly rehabilitating "West" Germany as an economic contributor. The Russian goals were revenge for horrific war crimes and 30 million "eastern block" deaths, and a German rump state vassal exploitable far into the future.

The western allies lost less than 2 million out of a much larger population. Revenge was in play, but "we" enacted most of our revenge with bombing, not armies.

SA (last edited 2025-03-10 04:04:18 by KeithLofstrom)