Average SA men pre 1933

The SA as an organization has always intrigued me. But the only glimpse you get into it is the higher level folks. Is there any book or film or reference that documents some average SA men? Their motivations - mindset - expectations - they couldn't have all been criminal thugs. Also, I've read places where there were huge overlaps between the SA and KPD(communists). Thanks.

 

There are parallels are the "footsoldiers" of the post war right wing organisations which organised street protests. What motivates someone to take part in a march organised by the English Defence League? What proportion are looking for a fight? Or is this similar to football hooliganism where the majority will march and shout, but in there are a proportion of ultras looking to kick someone's head in?

 

You really have to look at the socio-economic climate of Germany post World War I to get an idea. The whole 'betrayal' at the end of WWI, the tanked economy due to the peace treaty, etc etc. I know Ernst Rohm is the big wig from the SA, but I imagine books on him may offer insight.

 

I am almost certain that if you really dug into the literature you could find answers to this. In the last 50 years scholars have done an enormous amount of research and innumerable micro-studies on practically every aspect of the sociology of the 3rd Reich and the Nazi movement, and the literature out there is vast. Much of it, of course, is in German.

 

The SA recruited from the queues at the labour exchange.
While many the Freikorps men who perhaps formed the first core were eventually attracted to the nascent SS and it's whiff of death or glory, the SA was largely composed of those that saw the promise of future Jobs (among other political promises) once the essential 'street work' was done. The impression is very much that they were mostly 'ordinary' Germans, in as far as anything about the period was ordinary.
You don't build an organisation of c.2-3M uniformed men from motivated ideologues, there are not so many of that type to be found at first.
You build it from whoever was willing to try anything to hopefully improve their own circumstances.
Paramilitary... They may have worn uniforms, and naturally many had a history of military service given the period, but they remained essentially composed of civilians organised along military lines. The high percentage of unemployed men among them (and problems this sometimes caused for the leadership) is something of a theme in histories of the NSDAP's rise.

 

Funnily enough, the SA were excused the title of 'Criminal Organisation' at Nuremberg.
It does make me wonder if it was as much a pragmatic avoidance of the definition as anything, combined with the fact they had been put into a bit of an ineffective box years before the war anyway.
Given the recent history, automatically criminalising a further couple of million Germans might have potentially created more issues than it addressed. Not dissimilar to excluding normal Nazi party members from the definition and specifically targeting the leadership.

If anything, it might only have been Hitler and the Long Knives conspirators that technically defined SA men as criminals purely for being in the SA, and even then only certain individuals.

But hey... define 'criminality' in that frankly mental regime/period anyway... Tons of criminals by human and humane mores, but a much harder thing to apply under a defined legal structure to individuals, as the trials discovered.

 

Wasnt one of the Von Trapp Lass's seeing a young lad who joined?

 

Aye. Seem to recall they dressed him in a postman's uniform of the period.

 

Where did Germany get all the manpower for the SA, SS, and the Army when Germany proper only had a population of 60-70 million, they were ravaged by WWI, and by the Night of the Long Knives the SA was like 3-4 million, the SS was a few hundred thousand, and Hitler was expanding the Army. Also, weren't most SA men transferred to the Army, but how did they stay loyal after the slaying of Rohm and the top SA men?

 

SA was a hobby, like the Boy scouts, or football hooligans but bashing commies, socialist, jews, etc. For most, it wasn't a job at all.

Those intelligent enough understood that everything was rosy, 'cause they weren't dead. To suggest that things weren't rosy, was a pretty easy way to suicide-by-other. Those too stupid didn't ever see it not being rosy, even when they were dying, idolating Hitler even as they were slaughtered.

But, the Germans had no idea what the regime was about, or what was going on. :huh: Oh, no. It was all peachy-pie. 'till Churchill started dropping bombs.

 

Where did they get the manpower though before they started annexing Austria, Czechoslovakia, and forced conscription of men from lands east? Germany proper had that many men of military age prior to 1938?

 

Green slime nails it with 'hobby'.
High unemployment. High discontent. Some very good regional organisers.
High party membership - easily justified as a contribution to 'the movement'.

To be more specific on Jason's original query; I think you'd do well to examine the Freikorps' history and their more active members for who formed the initial core, though those men either drifted to more militaristic formations or rose in the SA as leadership. The broad bulk of the later SA could be defined as 'almost anyone with the time and inclination' (whether self-motivated or subject to peer pressure).

 

As VP said above, most of those soldiers came from the Freikorps as many members of the German Workers Party (Himmler, Rohm) were in the unit previously. It wasn't difficult to sway such men into the fray due to the weak political atmosphere at the time. The numbers are quite astounding though, come to think of it.

 

Agree about the numbers.
Looking at this stuff again for the first time in a long while the sheer size of the SA re-entering the rusty memory is fascinating.

Suppose you had to fill those rallies somehow...
http://c7.alamy.com/comp/E8PF80/nuremberg-rally-1933-in-nuremberg-germany-line-up-of-members-of-the-E8PF80.jpg

Good to think about the scale of NSDAP's rise once it got going. Sometimes view it in a macro detailed sort of manner and forget the size of the whole thing.

 

There was almost no television. Or at least, the masses couldn't afford it.

Radios were stuck to one channel.

Internet and TV games weren't invented. Nor were chat forums.

You couldn't be seen dead with a Jew, homo, or suspected commie.

You didn't have enough money at end of the month to go night clubbing. And that was if you had a job.

You definitely couldn't afford a car to drive yourself anywhere.

You weren't allowed anywhere far anyway without getting permission first. And that was for a train ticket.

You could read a book; if it wasn't one of the ones deemed un-German, and burnt.

You could sit around waiting for your own children to denounce you.

You could rape someone, but it better not be a Jew, or you'd be in real trouble, so that was sort of out as well.

You could paint, but it better be Aryan art.

Finally you could join the homo-hideout, the SA, and get some small social privileges in exchange for a few "dubious requests" which never count between friends.

 

Thanks so much for everyone's insight and sorry what follows is so rambling. The SA to me is the most intriguing part of the early rise of Hitler. To committ yourself (albeit some were less than committed politically) to a revolutionary cause and then at the very point where you are most ascendant to be vanquished - to be swept away by those you fought so hard for - (oh well pitty the poor bully who gets loaded and beats up commies and jews). Seems to me there's little difference early on between KPD toughs and SA ... and that I read somewhere where there was a ton of back and forth membership between the two organizations. From what I've read It appears that the biggest difference in 1926 for a 22yo unemployed bored kid fed up with his lot between the KPD and SA/NSDAP was that the KPD seen as influenced by Jews/Non-Germans/Russia and the NSDAP smartly aligned itself as a "Make Germany Great Again" party.

I'd love to be smart enough to write a screenplay about SA/KPD beerhall fights in the 20s - but to get into that mindset seems impossible - I can't even understand why someone would support Trump let alone comprehend someone during that insane time. The WWI vets and the Freikorps interest me less for some reason as the early adherents to the SA - it's more the generation that came of age just after Versailles that piques my interest because their rationale seems more vague. A 22/23 year old kid in 1929 let's say - ten years after the wars end - would that have been the majority of SA? And then the old vets and left over Freikorps would have been more the leadership?

And what of a similar 22/23 yo in the KPD in the streets taking on the brownshirts - no less radicalized? oh well fun stuff - I love this era of history - seems like those early SA days in the streets KPD running battles are some little explored territory ...