SS and SA for Dummies???

you are confusing Mussolinis "Black Shirts" (Fascists), with the German Nazi "Brown Shirts" (SA). The Italian Black Shirts were pre-Nazi, that is true, but not connected to them.

They were just paramilitary political thugs (like the SA), but the Italian version who dressed in black shirts and breeches. Hitler formed the SA himself as "guards" for the Nazi Party during speeches and marches. Ironically he chose brown shirts since he could purchase surplus army shirts on the cheap, these surpluse brown shirts had been produced but never distributed for the use by the Imperial German Army in the desert of the Ottoman Empire during WW1. The SA were NOT connected to the Weimar government, they were simply party muscle. The professional Army of Germany was named the Heer, the term Wehrmacht came later.

The SA, Brown Shirts were extremely brutal, in fact they were mostly composed of unemployed men, and petty criminals who couldn't get or keep a job. They blamed Communists and Socialists for their own failings, and simply loved beating up on those groups, the fact that Hitler connected the Jews to both political views, only help fuel the rage against Jews.

 

Iv'e read it just now,SA could of been invented from the Stomtrooper unit.
It could be, another member mentioned that SA was around ww1 era.

 

And now read this,

Sturmabteilung - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Once again Wiki. Take with a grain of salt But it does cover the basics.

 

You are getting closer to the thing here "Firefoxy", and in additon to the Wiki lead, include this. Don’t confuse the name "Storm Troopers" with the SA; "In 1921 Adolf Hitler formed his own private army called Sturm Abteilung (Storm Section). The SA (also known as stormtroopers or brownshirts) were instructed to disrupt the meetings of political opponents and to protect Hitler from revenge attacks."

From:

Sturm Abteilung (SA) : Nazi Germany

The SA were NOT made up from left over Storm Truppen of WW1, they were entirely different men, and just paramilitary thugs, not made up of the elite men of the Heer who formed the first organized Storm Troops of Germny. T

This link is an excellent online history site, use it for some real decent background, far superior to anything on Wikipedia;

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/

Lots of good stuff on that place.

 

It would be reasonable again though to attribute a WW1 history to all of these paramilitary groups of the period.
It was no accident that Goering was a useful WW1 hero to have around. 'Stosstruppe' was chosen for early groupings & 'Schutz Staffel' itself was a reference to Goering's WW1 days in Fighters.

More importantly though if we take 1919-20 as a rough starting point for all this 'activity' then the First war was barely over & the Freikorps paramilitaries were very much associated with that war and it's aftermath, the SA in many ways the next generation of that phenomenon. Certainly the Stahlhelm, the largest freikorps group (that eventually near fully integrated into the SA) was a veterans organisation. Hitler himself may have risen to command but he started out politically in the world of 'street action' during Weimar as a disaffected veteran himself; haunted by (as they saw it) the 'throwing away' of that war and the settlement at Versailles, all combined with an intense nationalism.
A great many of those in the SA etc. in the beer hall days would have been the same that served in the WW1 army, & even the Sturmabteilung's from which the SA took it's name.

Another small reason I often regard WW1 & WW2 as roughly the same conflict with a 20 year hiatus in the middle .

Cheers,
Adam.

 

I really thought that the SA had nothing to do with the SS but you proofed me wrong. I read you're information. I understand now.

 

I think she is confusing when I said that the SA consisted of WWI Veterans. The SA WAS NOT around during WWI, but like all the paramilitary groups in Germany post-WWI, a majority of its members were former soldiers who had returned home. Think of the Biker Gangs in the USA, the Hells Angels and Bandidos all were started by Veterans who were looking for that comradeship and excitement they had experienced in war.