If you're talking about Nazi Germany, then the term 'storm troops' refers to members of the paramilitary organisation the SA ('Sturm Abteilung'). If you're just talking about a military context then both storm troops/shock troops refer to soldiers especially trained for mounting assaults (often elite, but not necessarily).
So the SA (sturm abteilung) means storm troopers in German? What were some of the responsibility's of the SA. I know they were die hard nazi's but I thought they were more of a domestic group.Did they fight in any battles like the SS?Also if they were just a domestic group then why did the term storm troopers take on the meaning of especially trained soldiers trained for mounting a assault if the SA did not do this? Or is this the type of action they did inside of Germany to help Hilter come to power?
Basically in WW1 the German army came up with a bright idea, rather than hurling troops at the enemy why not use a smaller number of exceptional soldiers to spearhead an assault and then follow them up with lesser troops to exploit the gap they should create. The idea was that these 'storm troopers' would be more likely to open up the enemies lines than ordinary soldiers and hense they carried more weapons (grenades and automatic weapons etc) to help in their task. When the Nazi party as formed from the German Workers Party in 1919 it was a time of violence on a national scale, the Friekorps were bashing socialists left right and center and just about every extreamist political movement had a paramilitary group, the Nazis could hardly not have one and the name 'Sturm Abtailung' (actually the translation is more like 'storm' or 'assault' 'unit' as abtailung does not translate well) was rather fitting as this gang of thugs in brown shirts were supposed to be the storm troops who broke through the old guard to herald a new Germany. The duties of the SA were mainly to guard Nazi meetings and take part in parades, to 'creat an impression of order where there was chaos' as one German later descrived it. Of course they also spent a lot of time bashing or being bashed by left wing groups, essentially they were a bunch of thugs who beat people up and ponced around in uniform. When the SS were formed to act as a bodyguard for Hitler they began to take over the role of the SA and in the wake of Ernst Rohm rocking the boat in 1934 were largely responsible for the cull of the SA in the Night of the Long Knives. After this the SA declined, during the war a few units of SA men were involved in actions right at the end of the war and a few dragged out their old uniforms to wear whilst serving with the Volkssturm but for the most part they did very little during the war. So there you have it, a pocket history of the Sturm Abtailung, a very grand name for a group of men who I can best compare to the ones one might find semi concious in the street outside a pub after chucking out time, the ones with the fresh cracked ribs, broken noses and black eyes. I hope that helps.
[EDIT - Damn you Stefan, beat me to it!] I can't recall the translation off the top of my head (not a fluent German speaker), I think it's something like 'Storm Unit' or 'Storm Detachment', but I'm sure one of the German speakers on the forum will correct me. Yeah, they were a domestic group, they were basically responsible for violence against the Nazi's political opponents (primarily Communists and Socialists) and other groups that the Nazis disapproved of (homosexuals, trade unionists, gypsies, Jews, etc etc) The term 'storm trooper' predates the Nazis, it simply took on a new connotation when the SA came into existence. IIRC, the term storm troops originates from the First World War, where small units of men were specially trained to assault enemy lines and capture trenches. Both sides did this, but it's usually remembered as a German invention. [ 12. August 2003, 05:48 PM: Message edited by: Greenjacket ]
it means roughly storm battalion. The correct or literall translation in Deutsch would be sturmtruppen but it is not accepted as such...... Brown shirters is much more the likened term. A bunch of ugly looking old thugs..... ~E
*bows* Actually I am just trying to get up my post count. The thing that always gets me about the SA is how could anyone take them seriously? It is like considering the English football fans at the world cup to be a powerful political force!
