The SA Generals and the Rise of Nazism

Bruce Campbell

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780813184326
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War II
• Index: History

No part of the Nazi movement contributed more to Hitler's success than the Sturmabteilung (SA)—the notorious Brown Shirts. Bruce Campbell offers the first in-depth study in English of the men who held the three highest ranks in the SA. Organized on military lines and fired by radical nationalism, the Brown Shirts saw themselves as Germany's paramilitary saviors. Campbell reveals that the homogeneity of the SA leadership was based not on class or status, but on common experiences and training.

Unlike other investigations of the Nazi party, The SA Generals and the Rise of Nazism focuses on the military and political activities of the Brown Shirts to show how they developed into SA Leaders. By tracing the activities, both individual and collective, of these men's adult lives through 1945, Campbell shows where members acquired the experience necessary to build, lead, and administer the SA. These men were instrumental in creating the Nazi concept of "political soldiering, " combining military organization with political activism.

Campbell's enlightening portrait of the SA, its history, and its relationship to the overall Nazi movement reveals how the organization's leaders reshaped the SA over time to adapt to Germany's changing political concerns.

1

Background

The men examined in this book were participants in an arcane and complex right-wing military and paramilitary subculture that will be foreign to most readers, but its details will be important in the following study. Since the “language” of this subculture is not widely spoken today, the reader might appreciate a short general introduction to the world in which these men lived.

The majority were born into the smug, secure European middle class of the late nineteenth century, a world which even then was in the throes of profound social, cultural, economic, and demographic change. This change was accelerated by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

The scale and speed of this process was unprecedented and was not always easy to accept. The men who eventually became the top SA leaders lived in a peculiar postwar subculture that saw itself under attack by change or modernity. This subculture reacted with an aggressive mixture of nostalgia for an idealized past, hatred of the present, and messianic hope for a future that would somehow put to right everything that was seen to be wrong. This caused these men to see themselves as engaged in social war. It allowed them to speak in the name of tradition yet act as revolutionaries, and it allowed them to embrace distinctly modern tools and techniques in their struggle. This was and is a significant contradiction but, unfortunately, one that is still with us.

THE HERITAGE OF THE “OLD ARMY”

If they lived in a larger society marked by “cultural despair”¹ and wrenching modernization, they also came from a very particular social subculture within the German Empire. Nearly all of the men in this study had a military background. Most served in the First World War, but a large number had already become professional soldiers before 1914. The German army on the eve of the First World War, like most contemporary armies, had firmly embraced modern technology, yet it was also dedicated to tradition.² The military in general and officers in particular had tremendous social prestige in Germany. Tradition dictated that the officer corps be kept as socially exclusive as possible. Despite (or because of) the sweeping social and technological changes of the period, the officer corps of the German army and navy at the turn of the century nevertheless still tried to form a corps of men homogeneous in outlook and background and still claimed to represent a moral elite dedicated to serving the emperor and state.³ The social hierarchy of the Wilhelmine Empire was mirrored in miniature within the armed forces themselves. Some units were more prestigious than others, and there was a deep gulf between professional and reserve officers.

The fact that many men in this study were not only officers but professional (regular, not reserve) officers before the war was very important to them. It also speaks volumes about the way they were socialized as young adults and about how they originally saw themselves fitting into society. No other factor in the background and training of the future top SA leaders is as significant. As a whole, SA leaders defined themselves as military men. What was to change in their lives was not this fact but what they perceived as the proper role of a military man in society.

THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND THE GERMAN REVOLUTION

The exigencies of total war placed great pressure on the social and military structure of Wilhelmine society. It tended to call all existing social hierarchies into question, and it greatly reduced the ability of the nobility and the upper middle class to claim social superiority and special privileges. This leveling effect was felt within the military as well. The high casualty rate among junior officers and the huge increase in the size of the officer corps during the war diluted its social exclusivity, despite extreme attempts by the high command to preserve it. Moreover, combat amply demonstrated that the favored social groups were not necessarily the best equipped to lead men into battle, especially since success in battle was increasingly a function of technological rather than moral prowess.

A new concept of leadership came out of the war, which rejected the Kadavergehorsam (absolute obedience) based on hierarchy and deference to one’s superiors in favor of a voluntary subordination based on common ideology, mutual respect, and deference to the personal ability and charisma of a leader. This was a revolutionary element within the army. It threatened the old hierarchy by setting young combat officers against older staff officers, but did not threaten either the military or hierarchical leadership as such. This was emphatically not a democratization of the military, since it still definitely called for the establishment and maintenance of hierarchy and discipline, but it was a populist and a popular concept that distinguished a new generation of officers.

The men in this study were all deeply marked by this new concept of leadership. While the army and navy, which were reestablished as the Reichswehr after the turmoil of the German Revolution, remained largely in the hands of the old-style noble and upper-middle-class officers, the upheaval in the concept of leadership played a strong role within both the armed units formed during the German Revolution and the later paramilitary organizations that were their heirs. This is the reason why there is very little mention in this book of SA “officers.” Both the NSDAP and the SA itself rejected the term and consciously chose to use the term leader (Führer) instead. This symbolized the self-proclaimed social revolutionary mission of the Nazis and expressed the new definition of leadership that emerged among veterans. It is also the reason why Hitler (the former corporal) could become simply “der Führer,” first of the NSDAP and then of all Germany: it expressed his claim to be a new sort of leader who (ostensibly) relied on the power of his innate personality rather than on the force of a formal title or rank.

The German Revolution of 1918-19 (the November Revolution) was only the symbolic manifestation of larger social forces at work that swept away the old Wilhelmine Empire and the entire world of the nineteenth century. It was neither planned nor intended; rather, it was a spontaneous collapse of the old order. Nevertheless, it created a profound crisis of values and identity for large numbers of Germans, and this related directly to the rise of the NSDAP and kindred organizations.

In the resulting power vacuum, a wide range of organizations emerged, some based on older, collapsing institutions, and some new. While the old empire was clearly doomed, the exact form that the future of Germany would take was in no way predetermined. Although Germany turned into a reasonably successful democratic republic after the First World War, the conflict over Germany’s proper identity and form implicit in the revolution was never settled. It brought the Weimar Republic constant conflict and ultimately led to its destruction by the combined forces of moderate and radical conservatives who hotly contested the republican definition of a new Germany. The men in this book were all on the front lines of this conflict, and they were among the most responsible for the temporary defeat of the republican ideal in Germany.

The Republic’s survival was complicated by the circumstances surrounding its birth. Not only was it born in revolution (however superficial that revolution may have been) but it was burdened with having to sign the Versailles treaty. Worse, the German military leadership, which clearly understood in the fall of 1918 that Germany was facing total and unavoidable military defeat, later ignored or actively assisted in spreading a popular myth which held that Germany had not lost the war militarily but had instead been “stabbed in the back” by profiteers, leftists, and Jews.⁴ This famous “stab-in-the-back” legend conveniently freed Germany’s military leaders from responsibility for losing the war.⁵ It thus served to further delegitimize an already unstable nascent democratic system, and turned thousands, perhaps millions of Germans irreparably against it, particularly those already predisposed to oppose the Republic.

POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE VÖLKISCH MOVEMENT

Political parties dedicated to electoral politics—even if many ultimately rejected democracy and sought to abolish the Republic—dominated and led the political debate in the Weimar Republic. Interestingly, only two parties figure prominently in the backgrounds of the highest SA leaders: the traditional conservative Deutschnationale Volkspartei (German National People’s Party, or DNVP) and the NSDAP.

The DNVP was founded in November 1918 as the heir of a number of conservative parties of the Wilhelmine Empire.⁶ The fact that it contained so many diverse elements made it hard for the DNVP to coherently define itself. It was a monarchist party, opposed to the democratic system, the Versailles treaty, and the policy of “fulfillment.” Although it participated in parliamentary politics, it was never quite comfortable within the Weimar “system” and tended to avoid participation in government coalitions. While its politics were mainly traditional conservative, it tolerated a great deal of sympathy for anti-Semitism in its ranks, and many members condoned a more radical form of conservatism. Although its members came from all classes, the party leadership was particularly sensitive to the interests of big business and big agriculture. Organizationally it was a conventional political party, and yet it maintained close ties to the Stahlhelm, a veterans’ association and paramilitary organization. From 1924 to 1928 it was the strongest middle-class party in the Reichstag, but losses in the 1928 election (and a major split in 1929-30) caused it to adopt a more intransigent and antirepublican course under its new chairman, Alfred Hugenberg. Its tactical alliances with the NSDAP in 1929 in the campaign against the Young Plan and in 1931 against the Brüning government (the “Harzburg Front”) merely served to legitimize the latter party, while not slowing the DNVP’s gradual decline. As this study amply demonstrates, the end result was that DNVP members increasingly migrated to the NSDAP. The DNVP was a major participant in the coalition government that brought Hitler to power as chancellor in 1933. Dreaming that it could “tame” or “use” the Nazis, it was quickly outmaneuvered by them. The party was formally disbanded on June 26, 1933.

The second political party, and the one to which all of the highest SA leaders belonged, is of course the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or NSDAP.⁷ It presents us with a paradox: even though it eventually became the largest single political party in German history, it began in January 1919 as a tiny sectarian party in the southern German state of Bavaria called the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German Workers’ Party, or DAP). It existed in the beginning as just one of many tiny splinter groups and parties on the extreme right end of the political spectrum that made up the völkisch movement.

The völkisch movement had its roots in the nineteenth century.⁸ This broad and diverse movement had as its common tenants a form of ultranationalist, antidemocratic populism which claimed to represent a kind of integral Germanness. Xenophobic in general, the völkisch movement was particularly identified with a virulent anti-Semitism. It was strongly influenced by the Social Darwinism rampant in European society at the end of the nineteenth century. The völkisch movement embraced such mainstream political positions as the need for a powerful army and a strong state, but individual völkisch thinkers and movements also embraced a wide range of more marginal ideas, which could include such things as nudism, vegetarianism, mysticism, or reincarnation. While völkisch parties or organizations such as the Christlich-soziale Partei (Christian Social Party) of Adolf Stöcker or the separate Christlich-soziale Partei of Karl Lueger in Vienna did occasionally become something like mass movements before the First World War, the organized völkisch movement generally remained small and on the margins of society at that time.

In the atmosphere of revolution, defeat, and despair, the völkisch movement in Germany grew significantly after the war and served to focus the fears and resentments of many Central Europeans. Perhaps just as important, even before the war völkisch ideas had begun to infiltrate mainstream society. The radicalization of the political climate, combined with the earlier gradual acceptance of völkisch ideas by moderate conservatives, allowed for a much closer cooperation between moderate and völkisch (radical) conservatives after the war than had previously been possible.⁹

It is important to emphasize that from the time of its founding in 1919 until about 1927, the NSDAP was just one of many völkisch organizations in Germany and Austria and was seen to be, and generally saw itself to be, just one part of a larger völkisch movement.¹⁰ Although Nazi ideology and policy distinguished itself from that of other contemporary völkisch organizations on a handful of points, it really represented little that was new or original;¹¹ instead, anyone familiar with the larger völkisch movement would instantly recognize and feel comfortable with most of what the Nazis represented.

The very familiarity of the Nazis to those attracted to völkisch ideology allowed the NSDAP to grow in its early years by gradually absorbing members of other völkisch organizations or their hangers-on. Furthermore, as a minor member of a larger movement, the NSDAP was ensured a safe and congenial, if limited, social space in which to organize and grow in its early years. The NSDAP first absorbed the members of other organizations in this political “niche,” which allowed it to reach a certain size and consolidate itself organizationally before it began to take on the much more difficult task of crossing over into the political mainstream, which it had begun to do by 1927. This process can be seen clearly within the top leadership of the SA, and it is therefore not surprising that völkisch groups or parties figure prominently in the backgrounds of many (but by no means all) of the highest SA leaders.

One of the earliest völkisch organizations to achieve national prominence during the German Revolution was the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund (German Völkisch Defense and Defiance League).¹² Although it did not have a very tight national organization, and though it only existed from 1919 until 1922, it was extremely important because it served to give a völkisch focus to the great and general resentment, hatred, fear, and disappointment felt by many Germans after the loss of the war and during the upheavals of the revolution. For many of the future top SA leaders, this was their first exposure to völkisch ideas.

A second group of völkisch organizations to which many future SA leaders belonged included both contemporary competitors of the NSDAP, such as the Deutschsoziale Partei (German-Social Party), the Deutschsozialistische Partei (German-Socialist Party), or the Deutschvölkische Freiheitspartei (German Völkisch Freedom Party), or völkisch organizations formed to continue the völkisch movement after the NSDAP and similar organizations were banned in the wake of the failed Beer Hall Putsch, such as the Deutschvölkische Freiheitsbewegung (German Völkisch Freedom Movement), the Nationalsozialistische Freiheitsbewegung (National Socialist Freedom Movement), or the Großdeutsche Volksgemeinschaft (Greater-German National Community).¹³ These völkisch organizations are important because they (and the early NSDAP) pioneered many of the tactics and strategies that the Nazis later used so effectively, and they eventually supplied political skills and ideology to the separate but contemporary movement of paramilitary associations, or Wehrverbände.

Although the völkisch element is important in the backgrounds of the higher SA leaders, it is a relatively small element and it functioned more like a catalyst. The military and paramilitary activities of these men are much more important in terms of th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations Used in the Text
• Introduction
• 1. Background
• 2. The Pioneers, 1925-1926
• 3. The Defectors, 1927-1930
• 4. The Specialists, 1931-1932
• 5. The Latecomers, 1933-1934
• 6. Conclusion
• 7. Methodology
• Appendixes
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index