STORMTROOPERS
Copyright © 2017 Daniel Siemens
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Don’t comfort yourself with the fact that the present age is at fault. That it is in the wrong does not yet mean that we are in the right; its barbarity does not imply that we already behave as human beings, just because we do not agree with it.
— Boris Pasternak1
It is the experience of violence that unites people.
— Wolfgang Sofsky2
CONTENTS
List of Plates
Acknowledgements
Introduction: A Night of Violence
PART I
1Turmoil in Post-War Germany and the Origins of the Nazi SA
2Stormtrooper Street Politics: Mobilization in Times of Crisis
3The Brown Cult of Youth and Violence in the Weimar Republic
PART II
4Terror, Excitement, and Frustration
5The ‘Röhm Purge’ and the Myth of the Homosexual Nazi
PART III
6The Transformation of the SA between 1934 and 1939
7Streetfighters into Farmers? The Brownshirts and the ‘Germanization’ of the European East
8Stormtroopers in the Second World War
9SA Diplomats and the Holocaust in Southeastern Europe
PART IV
10‘Not Guilty’: The Legacy of the SA in Germany after the Second World War
Conclusion: Stormtroopers and National Socialism
Notes
Index
PLATES
1.‘Crushing pockets of Spartakists’ (photograph, Munich 1919). © Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv IV. [Bestand Freikorps und Höhere Stäbe 387/2]
2.Ernst Röhm in Bolivia (photograph, c. 1928). © Bundesarchiv-Berlin.
3.SA men at a party rally in Weimar (photograph, 1926). © Russian State Military Historical Archive.
4.SA men helping out on a local farm (photograph, 1928). © Russian State Military Historical Archive.
5.SA propaganda in the countryside (photograph, 1929). © Russian State Military Historical Archive.
6.Danzig stormtrooper (poster by Leo von Malotki, c. 1930). © Bundesarchiv-Bildarchiv. [Plak 003-004-023]
7.An SA-Sturm marching through the city of Spandau (photograph, 1932). © Bundesarchiv-Bildarchiv. [B 145 Bild P 049500]
8.‘Germany’s autarky’ by Erich Schilling. © bpk. [# 4849]
9.Advertisement for SA Cigarettes (poster, 1932). © Münchner Stadtmuseum, Sammlung Reklamekunst.
10.and 11. ‘The Victory of Faith’ and ‘The Red Devil Rages’ (two woodcuts by Richard Schwarzkopf, 1936), taken from Oberste SA-Führung (ed.), . . . wurde die SA eingesetzt: Politische Soldaten erzählen von wenig beachteten Frontabschnitten unserer Zeit (Munich: Eher, 1938).
12.SA boycott action in Cologne (photograph, 1933). © AKG images/Interfoto. [# 7-I1-556778]
13.SA ‘sports’ in the KZ Oranienburg (photograph, 1933). © Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin. [Inv. Nr. F88 527]
14.‘Arbeits-Kommando Schutzhaft-Lager Burg Hohnstein’ (photograph, 1933). © Archiv Burg Hohnstein.
15.Selling SA dolls (photograph, December 1933). © Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo. [# 364913]
16.‘When German men part company’ (drawing by Felix Hartlaub, 1934). © Hartlaub Family Archive/Melanie Hartlaub.
17.Viktor Lutze (photograph, July 1934). © Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo. [# 14368]
18.SA party for children (photograph, 1935). © Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo. [# 362978]
19.SA antisemitic propaganda in Recklinghausen, 18 August 1935. © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Warren A. Gorrell. [# 80821]
20.SA men jumping off their horses (photograph). © AKG images. [AKG127254]
21.The wedding of an SA man (group photograph). © Staatsarchiv Sigmaringen. [N 1/68 Nr. 935]
22.Recording the noise of the SA boots (photograph, 15 August 1937). © Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo. [# 365580]
23.Reichswettkämpfe der SA in Berlin (photograph, 17 July 1938). © Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo. [# 362944]
24.SA men marching in the ‘liberated’ Sudetenland (photograph, 1938). © Bundesarchiv-Bildarchiv. [Bild 116-116-050]
25.SA Staffellauf mit Luftschutzmaske in Berlin (photograph, 2 April 1939). © Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo. [# 362935]
26.‘This company is driving for the SA settlement free of charge’ (photograph, c. 1937–8). © Stadtarchiv Rosenheim.
27.‘Postcard Bad Salzgitter’ (c. 1940). Private collection.
28.Recruits of Feldherrnhalle units (photograph, 1941). © bpk. [# 50074765]
29.The SA general and diplomat Siegfried Kasche meets Istvan van Perceviv (photograph, 1941). © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München/Bildarchiv. [Fotoarchiv Hoffmann. P6, no. Hoff-36272]
30.‘Melde Dich freiwillig zum Wehrdienst in der Panzer-Grenadierdivision Feldherrnhalle’ (poster by Werner von Axster-Heudtlaß, 1944). © Bundesarchiv-Bildarchiv. [Plak 003-025-003]
31.Wilhelm Schepmann inspecting volunteers for the SA-unit ‘Feldherrnhalle’, February 1945. © AKG images. [00040702]
32.Election Poster of Hans Gmelin, 1954. © Alfred Göhner/Stadtarchiv Tübingen.
33.A caricature by Leo Haas of ‘SA man Schröder’ from 1957. © AKG images. [AKG1887603]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Although one individual author name appears on the cover of this book, it would never have been completed without the generous help and support from many colleagues, institutions, and friends. Work on this project started with an email I received on 18 April 2012 from Heather McCallum, back then publisher for trade books at Yale University Press. At that time, I was the DAAD Francis L. Carsten Lecturer for Modern German History at University College London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies (UCL-SSEES). Heather invited me to write a ‘new authoritative history’ of the SA in the English language, but it initially fell on deaf ears. ‘The Brownshirts? Not again!’ was my spontaneous reaction. However, after a period of consideration, I warmed to the idea, and soon after found myself immersed in archival documents and old newspapers. Looking for a particular book on the many shelves dedicated to the history of National Socialism became my surrogate sport.
During the past five years, I was fortunate enough to work at two excellent universities, University College London and Bielefeld University, which both provided ideal opportunities for intellectual debate and individual research. I am particularly grateful to Simon Dixon, Axel Körner, Michael Berkowitz, and Andreas Gestrich for their support in London and, later, back in Germany, to the members of my Habilitationskommission – Thomas Welskopp, Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey, Michael Wildt, Willibald Steinmetz, and Peter Schuster – who, in 2016, read and accepted an earlier version of this book as a habilitation dissertation. Thomas Welskopp, in pa
rticular, has been incredibly supportive over the past years, a brilliant historian and a true friend. For the opportunity to discuss aspects of this project at various universities, conferences, and workshops between 2013 and 2016, I am thankful to Arnd Bauerkämper, Frank Bösch, Hubertus Buchstein, Norbert Frei, Ulrike von Hirschhausen, Sylvia Kesper-Biermann, Gabriele Metzler, Markus M. Payk, Kim C. Priemel, Hedwig Richter, Martin Sabrow, Désirée Schauz, Dirk Schumann, Sybille Steinbacher, Nikolaus Wachsmann, Annette Weinke, Richard F. Wetzell, Michael Wildt, and Gerhard Wolf.
University College London, Bielefeld University, the Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung, the Stiftung Mercator, and the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts generously supported archival research for this project. I am very grateful to fellow historians Sebastian Panwitz and Jenny Fichmann for their expertise, time, and support in organizing rarely looked-at primary sources in Russia and the United States. Hauke Janssen and his team from the documentation department of the Spiegel publishing house in Hamburg provided an excellent working environment for some crucial days at the beginning of this project. At a later stage, a fellowship from Ludwig Maximilian University’s Center for Advanced Studies, under the managing director Annette Meyer, allowed for detailed research in the archives and libraries of the Munich era.
Some of my ideas in this book have appeared in print elsewhere. Parts of chapter 10 are based on my article ‘Writing the History of the SA at the International Military Tribunal: Legal Strategies and Long-Term Historiographical Consequences’, which was published in the Journal of Modern European History in 2016. A slightly different version of chapter 7 has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Genocide Research in 2017. I am grateful to both journals for their permission to use these texts in modified form for my book.
It is impossible to name all friends, colleagues, and family members of former SA men who shared their knowledge and ideas on the Nazi period or helped in a multitude of ways in the completion of this book. I would like to thank Gleb Albert, Bojan Aleksov, Jörg Baberowski, Rüdiger Bergien, Robert Bierschneider, Stephanie Bird, Kirsten Bönker, Christina Brauner, Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski, Bruce Campbell, Jan Daniluk, Herta Däubler-Gmelin, Stefan Dölling, Siglind Ehinger, Christiane Eisenberg, Ivona Fabris, Juan Luis Fernandez, Andreas Freitäger, Geraldine von Frijtag Drabbe Künzel, Mariola Fuerst, Vito Gironda, Michael Graupner, Barbara Hachmann, Wolfgang Hardtwig, Melanie Hartlaub, Elisabeth Harvey, Daniel Hedinger, Susanne Heim, Lara Hensch, Benjamin C. Hett, Tom Hill, Stefan Hördler, Jochen Hung, Goran Hutinec, Melvyn Ingleby, Henning von Jagow, Mathilde Jamin, Volker Kasche, John Keyne, Egbert Klautke, Jonas Kleinhaus, Niklas Krahwinkel, Alexander Kranz, Christoph Kreutzmüller, Anja Kruke, Stefan Laffin, Stephan Lehnstaedt, Malte Ludin, Christoph Luther, Karl Lutze, Stephan Malinowski, Caroline Mezger, Dirk A. Moses, Yves Müller, Sönke Neitzel, Eduard Nižňanský, Armin Nolzen, Rainer Orth, Rudolf Paksa, Winfried Pätzold, Zuzana Pincikova, Jan-Philipp Pomplun, Sven Reichardt, Jana Remy, Thomas Reuß, Christiane Rothländer, Christian Schemmert, Markus Schmalzl, Mike Schmeitzner, Sabine Schroyen, Eckhard Steinmetz, Jens Thiel, Jutta Wiegmann, Tobias Winstel, Andreas Wirsching, Alexandre Zaljonov, and Benjamin Ziemann.
At Yale University Press in London, Heather McCallum, Melissa Bond, and Marika Lysandrou navigated this project with great enthusiasm through the stages of its Buchwerdung. Two anonymous reviewers provided careful and encouraging feedback that helped me shape crucial arguments made in the book. I am likewise extremely grateful to Sarah Vogelsong and Richard Mason, who, at different moments, carefully edited my manuscript and safeguarded its author from the linguistic traps a non-native speaker is prone to walking into. Finally, Marcel Krueger did not shy away from improving my translations of SA songs, despite their horrific lyrics. All remaining faults are, of course, my own.
Last but not least, this book benefited more than anything else from aspects of life that had nothing to do with history. Seeing my children taking their first steps and growing into personalities of their own kept me going, too. Jan, Emilia, and also Magdalena – my partner in crime – have witnessed the making of this book from close range. Despite my many hours of absence from home, they have remained cheerful and supportive throughout. I owe you more than I can possibly say.
Daniel Siemens
Bielefeld, January 2017
INTRODUCTION
A Night of Violence
Countless images of the saints creep out of the bedroom’s darkness; become living caricatures and close in on him: half hostile, half preposterous.
— August Scholtis, 19311
In the East German province of Upper Silesia, 9 August 1932 was a cool summer day, and the following night was unusually fresh. These were to be the last hours of Konrad Pietrzuch,2 an unemployed thirty-five-year-old worker from Potempa, an obscure village in the Tost-Gleiwitz district that boasted fewer than 1,000 residents and was located just three kilometres from the Polish border. Here, Pietrzuch lived in a dilapidated hut that he shared with his younger brother Alfons as well as their sixty-eight-year-old mother, Maria. The walls of their home were decorated with holy pictures but lacked any windows.3
All three were asleep when a group of men encircled the house in the early hours of 10 August. These men came from the surrounding villages and were members of the local branch of the National Socialist Sturmabteilungen (SA), literally the ‘storm detachments’ or ‘storm sections’ but better known as ‘stormtroopers’ or ‘Brownshirts’. They stopped in front of the Pietrzuch home, opened the unlocked door, and shouted: ‘Get out of bed, you cursed Polish Communists! Hands up!’ Then the armed men entered the house and, after pushing Maria out of the room, pulled Konrad out of his bed and beat him savagely before one of them shot him in a nearby cabin. Meanwhile, Alfons was forced to stand with his face to the wall and was beaten with equal severity, allegedly with a billiard cue or a truncheon. He suffered a serious head wound, which bled heavily, and lost consciousness for a time. According to his later testimony in court, the whole ordeal lasted half an hour. At nearly 2 a.m. the assailants finally drove away to the nearby village of Broslawitz, today’s Zbrosławice in Poland. By that time, Konrad Pietrzuch was already dead.4
The autopsy report by forensic pathologist Dr Weimann revealed the brutality of the attack: the body of Konrad Pietrzuch, he found, was
all in all marked by 29 wounds, of which two were relatively unimportant. The corpse was extremely bruised around the neck. The outer carotid artery was completely shredded. The larynx displayed a large hole. Death resulted from suffocation as blood from the outer carotid artery poured through the larynx into the lungs. The deadly wound must have been inflicted to Pietrzuch while he was lying on the ground. In addition, the neck shows dermabrasion that is definitely the result of a kick. Apart from these wounds, Pietrzuch is battered all over his body. He has received heavy blows on his head with a dull-edged hatchet or a stick. Other wounds look like he was hit in the face with a billiard cue.5
Given the extent of these injuries, the authorities feared that Pietrzuch’s maltreated body would immediately become an object of political interest. Consequently, after the crime became known, they confiscated his corpse in order to ‘remove it from the eyes of the Communists’ and prevent them from taking photographs of the body and using those for propaganda purposes.6
Although this crime was particularly savage, it was far from an isolated incident. In fact, a glance over the German newspapers from the summer of 1932 reveals daily lists of reports about Nazi attacks, largely on socialist and Communist workers, but also on Jews.7 The liberal Jewish newspaper CV-Zeitung covered bomb and hand-grenade attacks in the Upper Silesian cities of Hindenburg (today’s Zabrze), Gleiwitz (Gliwice), and Beuthen (Bytom) between 6 and 9 August 1932 alone.8 Historians have described Nazi stormtroopers as engaging in a veritable ‘terror campaign’ through Silesia in the summer of 1932, following the Reichstag elections of 31 July that established the National Socialist German Worker
s’ Party (NSDAP) as the nation’s strongest party but did not lead to a Hitler-run government.9
The killing in Potempa quickly made nationwide headlines, thanks in large part to a new emergency decree ‘against political terrorism’ that had gone into effect at midnight on the night the attack was carried out.10 Armed with this anti-terror legislation, and in a desperate attempt to stem the wave of everyday political violence that was rapidly becoming impossible to control, the government of Chancellor Franz von Papen requested the death penalty for the perpetrators of these politically motivated murders. Under the new law, those who committed political capital crimes were to be sentenced as soon as possible by newly established special courts. With this legislation, the already fragile German state attempted to insist on its monopoly on the use of force, but the message remained largely unheard and was the last attempt of its kind before the Weimar Republic finally collapsed a few months later.11 Joseph Goebbels, since 1926 the leader (Gauleiter) of the regional branches of the NSDAP in Berlin and Brandenburg, rightly anticipated that this last effort would be in vain. On 10 August 1932, apparently not yet knowing about the Potempa murder, he wrote in his diary: ‘Phone call from Berlin: new emergency decree with martial law . . . But none of this will help anymore.’12
On 11 August, just one day after the murder was committed, the police arrested nine men on suspicion of murder: the miner and SA squad leader (Scharführer) August Gräupner (b. 1899); the pikeman and NSDAP member Rufin Wolnitza (b. 1907); the electrician Reinhold Kottisch (b. 1906); the SA troop leader and timekeeper (Markenkontrolleur) Helmuth-Josef Müller (b. 1898); a former police officer named Ludwig Nowak (b. 1891); and the miners Hippolit Hadamik (b. 1903) and Karl Czaja (b. 1894). They also arrested two innkeepers who had played a pivotal role in the crime: the SA man Paul Lachmann (b. 1893), who was also the municipal administrator (Gemeindevorsteher) of Potempa; and Georg Hoppe (b. 1889), who ran an SA tavern in the nearby village of Tworog.13 Four other participants, including Paul Golombek, a local butcher and probably one of the main culprits, had already fled.14 As these men’s dates of birth and professions indicate, the attackers represented a fairly typical cross section of Upper Silesian men aged twenty-five to forty-three. According to historian Richard Bessel, a specialist on the Nazis’ rise to importance in Silesia, the leaders of the attack at least ‘had fairly solid middle-class occupations’, indicating how ‘naturally’ the middle classes perceived, carried out, and justified violent attacks and even political murder in the region.15
Stormtroopers: A New History of Hitler's Brownshirts Page 1
