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Brown Shirt Essay

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Brown Shirts The most dynamic segment of the Nazi movements before it came to power was Sturmabteilung (SA) or Brown Shirts which protected Hitler’s political meetings from the attacks by rivals (Campbell 659). SA functioned as a paramilitary wing of the Nazi party during the raise of Hitler in 1920s and 1930s. Their name “Brown Shirts” came after the uniform that they used which was inspired by the Mussolini’s Black Shirts, and their main duty was to eliminate all the enemies and coordinated allies once the Nazis were in the control of the German state, 1933. SA was consisted by Freikorps, post-World War One nationalist and people who opposed the Versailles treaty while the Nazi Party or NSDAP was created from German people which …show more content…

In 1931, the captain of SA was changed and the new leader was Ernst Rőhm, who created a system structure in the SA by putting Hitler as the supreme leader of SA and then by putting himself as the chief of staff. Since SA grew while Rőhm was in charge, Rőhm started to believe that a revolution will happen and he would be on top of it (Hancock 2). Furthermore, he suggested SA and army to be combined for his new force, and this suggestion horrified senior officers. Senior officers of Reichswehr became horrified because traditionally they have seemed SA as street thugs without discipline and class who did bad things to humanity. Among these beliefs, Hitler also was concerned with the chief of SA who was becoming a threat for the Nazi party. All in all, Rőhm was not satisfied with Hitlers choices and he sends Hitler a letter writing that he is betraying everyone and that his commanders are not the ones who will lead to a revolution as SA would ("The Sturmabteilung or SA" 5) . The fate of Rőhm changed after this letter was written since Hitler made a deal with Reichswehr and decided to get rid of officers of SA. This resulted to the Night of the Long Knives which took place in June 1934. The Night of Long Knives is known as the purge where SS or the first paramilitary army of Nazi Party arrests and kills the officers and the chief of SA which has been a threat for Hitler. By the execution of

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