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University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan the STURMABTEILUNG MASTER'S THESIS M-895 I I MORTON, Richard Lew i THE STURMABTEILUNG: AN INSTRUMENT FOR ACQUIRING TOTALITARIAN POWER. The American University, M.A., 1965 History, modern University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan THE STURMABTEILUNG AN INSTRUMENT FOR ACQUIRING TOTALITARIAN POWER By Richard IÏ, Morton Submitted to the Faculty of the School of International Service of The American University In Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for the Degree of MASTER 0F ARTS in INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Signatures of Committee: Chairman: ^ Date! ) 4 U t A ^ / î é * r ‘ Doan o f tM tf ^ « h o o l AMERICAN UNIVERSITY V l i b r a r y Date: 3, V _____ JAN 4 1066 W a s h i n g t o n , d . e ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Recognition for assistance in compiling the data relevant to the Sturmabteilung is gratefully extended to Oberst Freiherr Hans von Uslar-Gleichen, Liaison Officer from the Federal Republic of Germany to the United States Army Materiel Command. During his more than 40 years of service, particularly in the Reichswehr, and later in the Wehrmacht and Bundeswehr, Colonel von Uslar observed facts about the S.A. which were left unrecorded by history. Recognition must also be extended to Dr. Georg Hopfer, once a member of the Hitler Jugend, and now associated with the University of Heidelberg Library. His access to early S.A. documents, unavailable in the United States, has isolated a small part of the N.S.D.A.P. movement in which writers have shown little interest. Through the years these two gentlemen have convinced me that the unhappy conditions which once prevailed in Germany— and spawned the S.A.-- would have difficulty returning again. TABLE OP CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I, THE PROBLEM AND DEFINITIONS OP TERMS USED . 1 The Problem ................. ...... 2 Statement of the Problem ........ 2 Definition of Terms Used ......... 4 The Sturmabteilung. (S.A.). ....... 5 The Schutzstaffel, (S.S.). 6 The Sicherheitsdienst. (S.D.) ...... 7 The Geheime Staatspolizei. (Gestapo) . 8 Dynamism of the S.A. ............. 11 II. THE ROOTS OP THE STURMABTEILUNG................ 18 Storm Troops of the First World War .... 18 The German Free Corps Movement in the B a l t i c ................................... 21 The Birth of the German Free Corps Movement in the Weimar Republic .... 2? The Kapp Putsch ...........................30 Expansion of the Free Corps • ..............34 The German Youth M o v e m e n t ............... 39 Transition into the S.A. ......... 4l III. THE RISE OP THE S T U R M A B T E I L U N G ................ 44 Source of R e c r u i t s .......... 44 Source of F i n a n c e s ...........................49 iv CHAPTER PAGE The Early Days of the Stuxmab tell ting: 1 9 2 0 - 1 9 2 3 ................... ........... 54 The Period of Minimum Activity: 1 9 2 4 - 1 9 2 6 ................... ........... 60 Prom Pfoffer Back to Roehm: I926-I93O • • • 64 IV. INTERNATIONAL REACTION ............. 68 Foreign Policy ...................... 68 The S.A. and Di s armament ......... 73 V. HITLER'S SOLUTION ............................ 80 Return to Roehm ..................... 81 The Supreme Leader becomes Chancellor . 85 The S.A. and the Reichswehr........ 90 Decapitation: 1934 ............ 96 VI. CON C L U S I O N S.............................. 99 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..........................................108 Clear the street For the Brown Battalionst Clear the street For the S.A. Man! Millions look with hope to the Swastika, The day of freedom and bread is at hand! (The Horst Vessel Song Berlin, 1930) CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM AND DEFINITIONS OF TERMS USED Since the termination of hostilities of the Second World War a great flood of literature concerning the impact of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialism has appeared throughout the world. One aspect of Hitler's rise to power has not been examined in great detail by any scholar dealing with the period 1920 to 1945. This is the Sturmabteilung (s.A.), the uniformed organization that attracted so much of the world's attention during the period between the two World Wars. Various comments dealing with the importance of the S.A. by learned scholars and Journalists differ as to the importance of the organization within Europe in general and Germany in particular. In spite of the foregoing, a major detailed word on the S.A. is not to be found. Heinrich Bennecke, one of the few scholars who has given thought to the S.A., finds no particular reason for this obvious gap.^ Wolfgang Sauer, a keen student of the pre-Hitler era, ^Heinrich Bennecke, Hitler und die SA (Munich: Guenter Olzog Verlag, I9 62), p. 9» feels that the importance of the S.A. was eclipsed by 2 Hitler's meteoric rise to power. Lastly, a good case for the lack of scholarly interest in the S.A. could be made because of its acquittal during the War Crime Trials: Although in specific instances some units of the SA were used for the commission of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, it cannot be said that its members generally participated in or even knew of the criminal acts. For these reasons the Tribunal does not declare the SA to be a criminal organization within the meaning of Article 9 of the Charter. ^ All of this may help explain the inadequate treatment of a subject of considerable historical value. In the quest for bigger game the world has been seeking the more important Nazis from organizations which engaged in even greater acts of violence and terror. I . THE PROBLEM Statement of the problem. It was the purpose of this study (l) to trace the development of this storm troop or paramilitary movement as a tool in the hands of a dictator in his rise to the leadership of his nation, (2 ) to gauge its importance, and (3 ) to present adequate 2 Wolfgang Sauer, "Die SA - Terrorinstrument oder Revolutionsarmee?" Die nationalsozialistische Maohter- greifung (Cologne: Westdeutscher Verlag, I96O), p. 829* ^"Judgment", Trial of the Major War Criminals. Vol. I. (Nuremberg: Allied Control Authority for Germany, 194?), p. 275. proof to support a thesis that this S.A. movement was one of Adolf Hitler's many projects that proceeded without any master plan to guide it. Adolf Hitler, in both his rise to power and his 12 years as Fuehrer of the Third German Reich, seemed to ignore long-range contingency planning. Decisions were often made on an ad hoc or piecemeal basis. Fre­ quently this worked in Hitler's favor. Sometimes it did not. Hitler's arrival at the English Channel with­ out any firm plan to proceed with the war was an example of his inability to grasp the importance of planning for the difficulties he certainly must have known might lie ahead. His sudden decision to strike at the Soviet Union, in the east, without having solved the problem of Great Britain in the west, constitutes a prime example of irresponsibility in the field of contingency planning. ^ This study will stress this lack of planning as it per­ tained to the S.A. and indicate how this failure to anticipate developments became a disadvantage and an acute dilemma by 1934. Nevertheless, the S.A. was an L Otto-Heinrich Kuehner, Vahn und Untereang (Stuttgart * Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1956), p. 59* ^Kuehner, o£. cit., pp. 112-113» organization created to satisfy a political need of the times. Unfortunately, with Hitler's ascendency to the chancellorship, no plan existed to deal with this powerful force then in being. The S.A. had struck terror within Germany and dismayed most major powers in the world. France, England, and Belgium, among others, had just completed a long, costly, and bloody war with Germany. The sight of so many young Germans in military uniforms did little to cast any feeling of peace and security across Europe in the late 1920's and early 1 9 3 0 's. « But the man who had to solve the problem of the S.A. was Hitler himself. He had authorized its creation. His poor planning had allowed it to become a distinct embarrassment to himself and his party. The scope of this study will restrict itself in chronology to the day of the purge, June 3 0 , 1934. The S.A. survived until 1 9 4 5 » but the drastic action necessiated by the events of the purge left only a weak and decapitated paramilitary organization. II. DEFINITION OP TERMS USED Major works dealing with this period of history treat the S.A. as a relatively unimportant child of the Nazi revolution and doom it to obscurity in the shadows ot its own once-subordinate organizations such as the s,s., the S.D. , and the Gestapo. In this connection a myth surrounding the S.A. has emerged from the wreckage of the Third Reich. This myth, perpetuated by Journal­ ists, Hollywood, and, of late, the television industry, equates storm troops with any German military formations between 1925 and 1945. This failure to differentiate between the various military and paramilitary organiza­ tions, both private and official, stems from what George Kennan cites as victimization by our own propaganda prejudices concerning Nazi Gennany,^ In short, the general public was blinded by reports of uniformed Germans oppressing the populace and committing atrocities. By 1940 it had become fashionable to identify any German in uniform as a ruthless, militaristic, Prussian, storm trooper. In reality, however, this was not the case. Before a student of the era can appreciate the impact of the S.A. , he must first define what the S.A. was and what it was not. The Sturmabteilung. (Storm Section). This Organi­ zation was the parent unit of many military and semi- 7 military formations that emerged during the Third Reich.
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