Creating An Army

After listening today to the Professor speak about the Treaty of Versailles, and how it prohibited Germany from establishing a large military unit, it is quite clever what the NSDAP created with the SA, and it's minor branch (which would later become the notorious) SS. By limiting the German army to 100,000 members, and the Navy to 15,000, Germany posed no real threat to it's other European counterparts. However, the SA, which was created (mainly) as a Security team to protect leaders at speeches and other party meetings, soon filled the void of the lost military personnel, and eventually, when the SS became more powerful than the SA, they were the task force that handled most of the tragedies that come out of the Holocaust.
Kershaw describes the beginnings of the SA when the DAP "needed a squad of bouncers" (Kershaw, 172). However, whenever Hitler seizes the party in 1921 "it was reshaped...responsible... for the 'bodily training of the male youth in the movement'" (173). The SA soon plays a major part in enforcing the creed of Hitler and the NSDAP. They were trained in combat, “boxing, marching, exercises and occasional sharpshooter practice” (174), and though at first were low in numbers, after 1922, they were soon a “force to be reckoned with” (175).

As we later see in Hitler’s failed Beerhall Putsch, the SA also played a role when, “a body of men in steel helmets appeared… a heavy machine gun was pushed into the hall” (206). These stormstroopers (SA) are already a military faction before Hitler goes to prison, and before the NSDAP ever has any control of the German government. The difference between these men and a regular army is that they owe their allegiance to a man, not a country. Though the SA is not as loyal to Hitler as the SS will become, they operate for the party and as head of the party Hitler enforces and controls their opinions and actions. If ever there is a time where Hitler’s manipulative abilities become dire it is within the SA and SS.

As we will later read in Ordinary Men, which focuses on a Reserve Police Batallion (not the SS or SA), men were capable of atrocities outside of the SS and SA. However, it is with Hitler’s direct attention that the minds of the SA and SS are shaped from youth to conform to his ideas. Hitler builds an army (when one is not allowed) and he does it right under the nose of the European allies that are telling Germany no. He even puts on full display the impressive feat in Triumph of the Will. The rallying of young SA members starts early and eventually turns into one of the most memorable factions of Hitler’s rule.