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[[Image:Sturmabteilungen.jpg|right|thumb|250px|An SA propaganda poster]]

[[Image:Sturmabteilungen.jpg|right|thumb|250px|An SA propaganda poster]]

The '''Sturmabteilung''' (German: "Assault Division"; abbreviated as '''SA'''), were a paramilitary organization within the [[Nazi Party]] in interwar [[Germany]], originally founded to protect Nazi meetings from disruption, and then used to intimidate, threaten, and commit acts of violence against political opponents as well as [[Jew]]s and other individuals opposed by party doctrines.  Commonly referred to as "Brownshirts" due to the color of their uniforms or "Storm troopers", the SA at its height numbered greater than twenty times that of the German Army.

The '''Sturmabteilung''' (German: "Assault Division"; abbreviated as '''SA'''), were a paramilitary organization within the [[Nazi Party]] in interwar [[Germany]], originally founded to protect Nazi meetings from disruption, they were the tool used to intimidate, threaten, and commit acts of violence against political opponents as well as [[Jew]]s and other individuals opposed by party doctrines.  Commonly referred to as the "Brownshirts" or "Storm troopers", the SA at its height numbered greater than twenty times that of the German Army.

It was led by [[Ernst Röhm]], who had been a co-founder of the paramilitary organisation. During the early 1930s Röhm's SA ("brownshirts"), with 3 million members, was a much larger and more powerful part of the Nazi Party than [[Heinrich Himmler]]'s [[SS]]. That suddenly changed in June 1934 as a result of a power struggle between the SA, which had a more radical vision than Hitler would tolerate. A coalition of Himmler, [[Hermann Göring]], the army and big business found them to be unwieldy. The army feared the SA would absorb it into its ranks; which is what Röhm wanted to do. Himmler and [[Reinhard Heydrich]] prepared the list of Röhm's SA associates who were executed or imprisoned in the "[[Night of the Long Knives]]" which took place between June 30 and July 2, 1934.<ref>Kershaw, Ian. ''Hitler: A Biography'' (2008).</ref> Hitler had Röhm killed as well, for fear that he would be a rival in the near future.<ref>Lively, Scott & Abrams, Kevin. ''The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party'', 4th Edition.</ref> Himmler and his SS gained enormously from the killings; the SS became its own branch and Himmler reported only to Hitler.<ref>Weale, Adrian. ''The SS: A New History'' (2010).</ref>

The origins of the SA naturally followed the beginnings of the Nazi Party.  At the end of the [[First World War]] the party was a small group founded by a locksmith named Anton Drexler in 1918, merging with another group in 1919 under the name "German Workers' Party" (''Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' or DAP)<ref>Shoah Resource Center, http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205946.pdf </ref><ref>Germanculture.com, http://www.germanculture.com.ua/library/weekly/aa012400b.htm</ref>.  An obscure former corporal in the regular army, [[Adolf Hitler]], joined the DAP in September 1919, and through his fiery oratory would transform the small party into the "National Socialist German Workers Party" (''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' or NSDAP).<ref>McNab, Chris (2009). ''The Third Reich''</ref>  When the party expanded, a force was needed to protect meetings, and the SA was created in Munich in 1921, organized first to kick out hecklers at Nazi meetings, then to break up the meetings of other parties.  The fascists of Italy under [[Benito Mussolini]] would inspire a uniform choice: brown shirts worn by all members, emblazoned with a red band bearing a [[swastika]] on the left arm. The SA was a group consisting largely of ex-soldiers, Freikorps (Free Corps) members, and common thugs who believed in the Nazi cause; they would march in Nazi rallies, assault political opponents, and intimidate voters during elections.  Hitler used them unsuccessfully during the failed [[Beer Hall Putch]] in Munich, 1923, which resulted in a temporary disarray.

 

Still believing in Hitler's cause, the SA reorganized by 1925.  In 1931, they were led by a radical who had grandiose dreams of his own: [[Ernst Röhm]].  An anti-capitalist who believed in a permanent, continuing revolution, Röhm would use the SA to propel Hitler to the chancellery as well as increase the size of the organization to such an extent that it would threaten to replace the Army as Germany's main fighting force, with himself at its head.  To that extent the charismatic Röhm swelled the SA from approximately 200,000 in 1931 to close to 2 million men by 1933.

 

To consolidate power, Hitler needed the backing of two groups considered fundamental to Germany's well-being: the big-business industrialists - such as I.G. Farben and Krupp - and the Army.  Both eyed the SA as an uncontrolled mob, and Röhm as a power-seeker; indeed, evidence that he was an avid homosexual only added fuel to the fire.  The powerful men in the Nazi hierarchy - [[Heinrich Himmler]], [[Hermann Göring]], and [[Joseph Goebbels]] - saw Röhm and the SA as a threat to their recently-won acquisition of power and decided on a plan to eliminate him.

 

On June 30 1934<ref>Kershaw, Ian. ''Hitler: A Biography'' (2008).</ref>, the [[Night of the Long Knives]] (''die Nacht der langen Messer'') took place beginning near Munich at the Hanselbauer Hotel in Bad Wiessee where it was known that SA leadership were on holiday; the plan for execution was conceived by Himmler and [[Reinhard Heydrich]].  Röhm - caught in bed with a male lover by Hitler himself - was summarily executed, as well as many SA leaders over the next few days<ref>Lively, Scott & Abrams, Kevin. ''The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party'', 4th Edition.</ref> .  Himmler gained enormously from the killings; his ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) became its own branch and would later grow from Hitler's personal bodyguard to become a terrifying force in the next war<ref>Weale, Adrian. ''The SS: A New History'' (2010).</ref>.  Its leadership decimated, the SA became a shadow of what it used to be, its only military use training the Home Guard during World War II.

The term is sometimes erroneously broadened to include all Nazis and even all [[fascists]], although strictly speaking Italian fascists were [[Blackshirts]], for similar reasons of their uniform. <ref>http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERsa.htm</ref> The term was also used in [[World War I]] to denote special trench assault units of the German Army.

The term is sometimes erroneously broadened to include all Nazis and even all [[fascists]], although strictly speaking Italian fascists were [[Blackshirts]], for similar reasons of their uniform. <ref>http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERsa.htm</ref> The term was also used in [[World War I]] to denote special trench assault units of the German Army.