121.Kessinger, Die Nationalsozialisten in Berlin-Neukölln, p. 99; Reschke, Kampf um den Kiez, p. 128; Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, p. 85.
122.Grant, Stormtroopers and Crisis in the Nazi Movement, p. 31. On 1 February 1933 the SA in the city reported a 75 per cent unemployment rate (Fischer, Stormtroopers, p. 48).
123.NSDAP party members contributed to the SA’s budget by paying 10 and, from September 1930 onward, 20 pfennig to the group on a monthly basis. The SA therefore had a clear financial interest in its members also joining the party. See Longerich, Geschichte der SA, p. 134; Mühlberger, Hitler’s Followers, p. 160. On the high turnover rates in the SA in the early 1930s, see Jamin, ‘Zur Rolle der SA im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem’, pp. 331–3.
124.Mann, Fascists, p. 168. For a more detailed discussion of this subject, see Bessel, Political Violence and the Rise of Nazism, pp. 45–9; Hattenhorst, Magdeburg 1933, pp. 106–10.
125.Walter Struve, ‘Arbeiter und Nationalsozialismus in Osterode am Harz bis 1933’, in Norddeutschland im Nationalsozialismus, ed. Frank Bajohr (Hamburg: Forschungsstelle für die Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus in Hamburg, 1993), pp. 67–82, here p. 75.
126.Bessel, Political Violence and the Rise of Nazism, p. 46.
127.There is extensive older research on the social composition of the SA, partly driven by the desire to demonstrate that the SA did not really take hold in working-class areas, despite its partial successes there. More recent studies, however, suggest that the SA indeed appealed to workers as the economic situation began to deteriorate starting in 1929. See Longerich, Geschichte der SA, pp. 81–5; Reichardt, Faschistische Kampfbünde, pp. 310–23; Schmiechen-Ackermann, ‘Nationalsozialismus und Arbeitermilieus’, pp. 268–9, 322–35; Mann, Fascists, pp. 167–8.
128.On the decline of alcohol consumption between 1929 and 1933 and its social and fiscal consequences, see Thomas Welskopp, ‘Halbleer oder halbvoll? Alkoholwirtschaft, Alkoholkonsum und Konsumkultur in den Vereinigten Staaten und im Deutschen Reich in der Zwischenkriegszeit: Biergeschichte(n)’, in Die vielen Gesichter des Konsums: Westfalen, Deutschland und die USA 1850–2000, ed. Michael Prinz (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2016), pp. 183–207, here pp. 201–5. For a comprehensive analysis of the SA storm taverns, see Reichardt, Faschistische Kampfbünde, pp. 449–68.
129.Longerich, Geschichte der SA, pp. 130–1; GStA PK, I. HA, Rep. 77 titl. 4043, no. 311, p. 4: Der Oberste SA-Führer on ‘Arbeitsdienstpflicht’, 31 December 1931.
130.Gesamtverband der christlichen Gewerkschaften Deutschlands (ed.), Jahrbuch der christlichen Gewerkschaften 1932: Bericht über das Jahr 1931 (Berlin: Christlicher Gewerkschaftsverlag, 1932), pp. 76–7.
131.These figures are taken from the synopsis provided by Reichardt in Faschistische Kampfbünde, pp. 258–9.
132.BArch Berlin, NS 26/2521: Letter from Hellmuth v. Mücke to Herr Friedrich, 29 August 1929 (emphasis in original). Mücke’s anger was partly motivated by his personal quarrels with the Saxon NSDAP leader Mutschmann and the SA-Obergruppenführer von Killinger, but his letter also attests to more widespread criticism of the party’s propaganda, which played on short-lived emotions without providing lasting intellectual guidance. On this subject, see Paul, Aufstand der Bilder, pp. 51–2. For similar criticism from a disappointed former Nazi activist who had joined the ranks of the SPD, see Helmut von Klotz, Wir gestalten durch unser Führerkorps die Zukunft!; Linder, Von der NSDAP zur SPD, pp. 140–89.
133.In October 1927 Stennes was promoted to the position of OSAF-Ost, ‘the leader of the SA in East Germany’. See Patrick Moreau, Nationalsozialismus von links. Die ‘Kampfgemeinschaft Revolutionärer Nationalsozialisten’ und die ‘Schwarze Front’ Otto Straßers 1930–1935 (Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1984), pp. 12–101; Reinhard Kühnl, Die nationalsozialistische Linke 1925–1930 (Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain, 1966).
134.RGVA, Osobyi Archives, Fond 720, Opis 1, no. 43, p. 6: ‘Wo stehen wir?’, Das Sprachrohr. Organ der Berliner NSDAP, November 1930. For a clearsighted 1930 analysis of the incommensurate nature of the Nazis’ economic and social positions, see Decour, Philisterburg, pp. 88–9.
135.RGVA, Osobyi Archives, Fond 720, Opis 1, no. 43, pp. 61: ‘Politische Schulung der SA: Was trennt uns von der NSDAP?’, typescript, 6 October 1931; Siemens, ‘Prügelpropaganda’, p. 36.
136.For details, see Hancock, Ernst Röhm, pp. 105–10.
137.One reason for the dissatisfaction of these men was that they had requested to be considered as candidates for parliament in the upcoming elections but after initial concessions were bypassed by Hitler and Goebbels. For details, see Sauer, ‘Goebbels “Rabauken”. Zur Geschichte der SA in Berlin-Brandenburg’, in Berlin in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Uwe Schaper (Berlin: Jahrbuch des Landesarchivs, 2006), pp. 107–64, here pp. 121–2; Moreau, Nationalsozialismus von links, pp. 71–81; Bernhard Fulda, Press and Politics in the Weimar Republic (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 159–62.
138.BArch Berlin, NS 23/510: Ernst Röhm, Decree of 31 March 1931.
139.GStA PK, I. HA, Rep. 77 titl. 4043, no. 32, pp. 147–9: Police President Berlin, Abt. IA, on the NSDAP in the capital, 27 November 1930.
140.On these events, see the excellent memorandum (most likely provided by the Berlin police): ‘Gründe und Auswirkungen des Zwists Hitler-Stennes’, in RGVA, Osobyi Archives, Fond 720, Opis 1, no. 47, pp. 97–110.
141.The new name of this joint group was Nationalsozialistische Kampfgemeinschaft Deutschland. See RGVA, Osobyi Archives, Fond 720, Opis 1, no. 43, pp. 13–14: NSKD (Nationalsozialistische Kampfgemeinschaft Deutschland), Die Oberste SA-Führung, SABE 6 [= SA-Befehl 6] from 6 June 1931. For a characteristic impression of this group’s self-image as working-class militants, see also their song ‘Arbeiter, Bauern, Soldaten’, which was sung to the tune of ‘Brüder aus Zechen und Gruben’, itself a National Socialist reworking of the famous Socialist ‘Brüder, zur Sonne, zur Freiheit’; ibid., p. 40.
142.RGVA, Osobyi Archives, Fond 720, Opis 1, no. 43, pp. 20–2, here p. 20: Nationalsozialistische Kampfbewegung, SA-Befehl No. 4, undated. Against this background, Jamin’s verdict that ‘socialist’ or ‘revolutionary’ ideas were only of secondary importance in the two Stennes revolts should be revised; see Jamin, ‘Zur Rolle der SA im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem’, p. 334.
143.RGVA, Osobyi Archives, Fond 720, Opis 1, no. 43, p. 14: NSKD, Die Oberste SA-Führung, SABE 6 from 6 June 1931.
144.RGVA, Osobyi Archives, Fond 720, Opis 1, no. 43, pp. 7–8: G. Kübler, Die ‘R.K.’ (Revolutionäre Kämpfer), transcript of the second letter ‘Schulungsbriefe der Kampfgemeinschaft Revolutionärer Nationalsozialisten’, March 1931.
145.RGVA, Osobyi Archives, Fond 720, Opis 1, no. 43, p. 55: Mitteilung Nr. 18 des Landeskriminalamts IA Berlin der Preußischen Polizei, 15 September 1931; Gailus and Siemens, ‘Hass und Begeisterung bilden Spalier’, pp. 107, 142; Krüger, ‘Die Brigade Ehrhardt’, p. 122.
146.RGVA, Osobyi Archives, Fond 720, Opis 1, no. 43, pp. 20–2, here p. 20: Nationalsozialistische Kampfbewegung, SA-Befehl Nr. 4, undated; Moreau, Nationalsozialismus von links, pp. 41–71, 102–99. On the organization of the regional groups of the Stennes SA, see also ‘Anlage 1 zu Sabe 7’, in RGVA, Osobyi Archives, Fond 720, Opis 1, no. 43, pp. 30–1. On Stennes’s post-1934 biography, see Charles Drage, The Amiable Prussian (London: Blond, 1958), pp. 105–92; Mechthild Leutner (ed.), Deutschland und China 1937–1949: Politik – Militär – Wirtschaft – Kultur. Eine Quellensammlung (Berlin: Akademie, 1998), pp. 67, 108.
147.Open letter to Hitler, published in Nachrichten für Stadt und Land, 10 September 1931, as quoted in Noakes, The Nazi Party in Lower Saxony, pp. 184–5.
148.For a recent survey of the most prominent ‘corruption scandals’ in the Weimar Republic, see Annika Klein, Korruption und Korruptionsskandale in der Weimarer Republik (Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2014).
149.RGVA, Osobyi Archives, Fond 720, Opis 1, no. 47, pp. 97–110, here p. 101: �
�Gründe und Auswirkungen des Zwists Hitler-Stennes’.
150.Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil 1, Band 2/II, p. 361 (entry from 11 September 1932).
151.BArch Berlin, NS 23/510: Transcript of the Munich police’s Lagebericht from 20 October 1932.
152.BArch Berlin, NS 23/337, p. 228: Development of SA membership between July 1932 and January 1933.
153.Mühlberger, Hitler’s Followers, pp. 166–80; Reichardt, Faschistische Kampfbünde, pp. 267–9.
154.Mechthild Hempe, Ländliche Gesellschaft in der Krise: Mecklenburg in der Weimarer Republik (Cologne: Böhlau, 2002), pp. 57–128, 181–99.
155.Schuster, Die SA in der nationalsozialistischen ‘Machtergreifung’, pp. 94–5.
156.See Geiger, Die soziale Schichtung des deutschen Volkes, p. 114; as well as the historical studies cited below.
157.Matthiesen, Greifswald in Vorpommern, p. 221.
158.Heinrich Schoene, born on 25 November 1889 in Berlin, had a remarkable career in the Third Reich. In February 1934 he was appointed Police President of the city of Königsberg as well as SA-Gruppenführer Ostmark. Starting 1 September 1941 he served as the General Commissar for the Volhynia and Podolia general district in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Schoene died in April 1945. For details of his biography, see BArch Berlin, SA 400003464 (Schoene, Heinrich). On his involvement in the mistreatment of civilians in Ukraine, see Karel C. Berkhoff, Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine under Nazi Rule (Cambridge, MA, and London: Belknap, 2004), pp. 267–8.
159.GStA PK, I. HA, Rep. 77, titl. 4043, no. 309, pp. 337–8: Report on speeches of the leader of the SA-Gruppe Ober-Nord, Major a.d. Dinglage [Karl Dincklage] and his adjutant Schöhne [Heinrich Schoene], 8 March 1929.
160.BArch Berlin, NS 23/1239: Heinrich Schoene, Gaubefehl, 10 May 1929.
161.See in particular Alexander Otto-Morris, Rebellion in the Province: The Landvolkbewegung and the Rise of National Socialism in Schleswig-Holstein (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2013); idem, ‘“Bauer, wahre dein Recht!” Landvolkbewegung und Nationalsozialismus 1928/30’, in ‘Siegeszug in der Nordmark’: Schleswig-Holstein und der Nationalsozialismus 1925–1950. Schlaglichter – Studien – Rekonstruktionen, ed. Kay Dohnke et al. (Kiel: Arbeitskreis zur Erforschung des Nationalsozialismus in Schleswig-Holstein, 2009), pp. 55–74; Gerhard Stoltenberg, Politische Strömungen im schleswig-holsteinischen Landvolk 1918–1933: Ein Beitrag zur politischen Meinungsbildung in der Weimarer Republik (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1962), pp. 128–81; Rudolf Heberle, Landbevölkerung und Nationalsozialismus: Eine soziologische Untersuchung der politischen Willensbildung in Schleswig-Holstein 1918–1932 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1963). For a similar development in Western Pomerania, see Matthiesen, Greifswald in Vorpommern, pp. 220–38.
162.Pyta, Dorfgemeinschaft und Parteipolitik 1918–1933, pp. 472–8; Gerhard Reifferscheid, ‘Die NSDAP in Ostpreußen: Besonderheiten ihrer Ausbreitung und Tätigkeit’, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte und Altertumskunde Ermlands 39 (1978), pp. 61–85, here pp. 64, 67; Schnabel, ‘Die NSDAP in Württemberg 1928–1933’; GStA PK, VI. HA, NL Daluege, no. 9, pp. 20–4: Regierungsrat Bach (Darmstadt), ‘Die Entwicklung der nationalsozialistischen Bewegung in Hessen, besonders im Odenwald’; GStA PK, I. HA, Rep. 77 titl. 4043, vol. 311, p. 318: Racliffe (Polizeimajor), ‘Denkschrift über Kampfvorbereitung und Kampfgrundsätze radikaler Organisationen’, 1931. On the NSDAP’s rural campaigns in Bavaria, see Geoffrey Pridham, Hitler’s Rise to Power: The Nazi Movement in Bavaria, 1923–1933 (London: Hart-Davis, 1973), pp. 224–36.
163.Pridham, Hitler’s Rise to Power, p. 229.
164.Bösch, Das konservative Milieu, pp. 116–32. For similar processes in small towns, see Koshar, ‘From Stammtisch to Party’; Bergerson, Ordinary Germans in Extraordinary Times.
165.Pyta, Dorfgemeinschaft und Parteipolitik 1918–1933, pp. 324–432; Adelheid von Saldern, ‘Sozialmilieus und der Aufstieg des Nationalsozialismus in Norddeutschland (1930–1933)’, in Norddeutschland im Nationalsozialismus, ed. Frank Bajohr (Hamburg: Ergebnisse, 1993), pp. 20–52, here p. 36.
166.Mühlberger, Hitler’s Followers, p. 164. In rural Bavaria, the situation was markedly different from that in the north of Germany. In the south, members of the lower classes, both skilled and unskilled labourers, prevailed. See ibid., pp. 165–6.
167.Bösch, Das konservative Milieu, p. 119.
168.Pridham, Hitler’s Rise to Power, p. 131.
169.Pyta, Dorfgemeinschaft und Parteipolitik 1918–1933, pp. 324–9.
170.Hans-Helmuth Krenzlin, Das NSKK: Wesen, Aufgaben und Aufbau des Nationalsozialistischen Kraftfahrkorps, dargestellt an einem Abriß seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1939), p. 7.
171.RGVA, Osobyi Archives, Fond 720, Opis 1, no. 47, pp. 143–53, here pp. 148–9: Memorandum of the Baden police, Die SA und SS der NSDAP, Karlsruhe, 15 May 1931; Hochstetter, Motorisierung und ‘Volksgemeinschaft’, pp. 21–39; Krenzlin, Das NSKK, pp. 9–11. On working-class youth’s excitement about the NSKK, see Michael Zimmermann, ‘Ausbruchshoffnung: Junge Bergleute in den Dreißiger Jahren’, in ‘Die Jahre weiß man nicht, wo man die heute hinsetzen soll’: Faschismuserfahrungen im Ruhrgebiet, ed. Lutz Niethammer (Bonn: Dietz, 1983), pp. 97–132, here pp. 101–2.
172.In those parts of the countryside with a predominantly Catholic population, the organization of the SA largely happened later and recruited followers less successfully, even if local varieties were considerable. See Heilbronner, Catholicism, Political Culture and the Countryside, pp. 112–15, with further references.
173.Benjamin Schröder, ‘Stately Ceremony and Carnival: Voting and Social Pressure in Germany and Britain between the World Wars’, Comparativ: Zeitschrift für Globalgeschichte und vergleichende Gesellschaftsforschung 23:1 (2013), pp. 41–63, here pp. 61, 63.
174.For a more detailed analysis of this subject, see Daniel Siemens, ‘Gegen den “gesinnungs-schwachen Stimmzettelträger”: Emotion und Praxis im Wahlkampf der späten Weimarer Republik’, in Kultur und Praxis der Wahlen: Eine Geschichte der modernen Demokratie, ed. Hedwig Richter and Hubertus Buchstein (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2017), pp. 215–36.
175.On von Obernitz, see Utho Grieser, Himmlers Mann in Nürnberg. Der Fall Benno Martin: Eine Studie zur Struktur des Dritten Reiches in der ‘Stadt der Reichsparteitage’ (Nuremberg: Stadtarchiv, 1974), pp. 44–61.
176.On the sympathies of considerable parts of the East German nobility toward the NSDAP in the late 1920s and early 1930s, see Bergien, Die bellizistische Republik, pp. 308–23; Malinowski and Reichardt, ‘Die Reihen fest geschlossen?’
177.GStA PK, I. HA, Rep. 77, titl. 4013, no. 311, pp. 210–14: SA-Untergruppe Oberschlesien, ‘Besondere Anordnung: Propagandastürme für die Wahlarbeit’, 22 March 1932.
178.GStA PK, I. HA, Rep. 77, titl. 4013, no. 311, p. 65: Report of Regierungsrat Dr Müller.
179.GStA PK, I. HA, Rep. 77, titl. 4043, no. 311, p. 5: Der Oberste SA-Führer on propaganda marches, 7 January 1932. As the discussions among Red Front Fighters about the participation of women in street marches demonstrate, such a prohibition was not unique to the NSDAP, but was a characteristic element of the ‘masculine’ character of Weimar’s street politics. For a detailed discussion of this problem, see Daniel Siemens, ‘Erobern statt Verführen: Die Kategorie Geschlecht in der Politik der Straße der Weimarer Republik’, in Geschlechter(un)ordnung und Politik in der Weimarer Republik, ed. Gabriele Metzler and Dirk Schumann (Bonn: Dietz, 2016), pp. 255–77.
180.Moritz Föllmer has recently argued that Nazism allowed for more room for individual development than previously claimed. However, he largely concentrates his analysis on German men and women originating from the middle classes, broadly defined. While I agree with Föllmer’s general conclusion that the Nazi regime promoted individual self-transformation, aspects of class should be given stronger emphasis in such an examination. The history of the stormtroopers, as provided in this study, clearly elucidates the limits of inter-class dynamics a
nd individual empowerment. See Moritz Föllmer, ‘The Subjective Dimension of Nazism’, Historical Journal 56:4 (2013), pp. 1,107–32.
181.Stefan Jonsson, Crowds and Democracy: The Idea and Image of the Masses from Revolution to Fascism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), p. 250.
182.Siegfried Kracauer, ‘The Mass Ornament’, in The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays, trans. and ed. Thomas Y. Levin (Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 75–86, here esp. pp. 75–6, 84–6.
183.Ibid., pp. 76, 79.
184.Theweleit, Male Fantasies.
185.This observation is also in line with the sociological findings of Lewis A. Coser, who observed that ‘greedy’ organizations ‘tend to consider stable sexual ties a threat to total allegiance and commitment which they require of all or of some of their members’. See Coser, Greedy Institutions, p. 136.
186.RGVA, Osobyi Archives, Fond 720, Opis 1, no. 47, pp. 372–437, here p. 386: Werner von Fichte, typescript of a booklet on the SA, untitled and undated, sixty-five pages.
187.Ferdinand Tuohy, Craziways, Europe (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1934), p. 18, as quoted in Angela Schwarz, ‘British Visitors to National Socialist Germany’, Journal of Contemporary History 28:3 (1993), pp. 487–509, here pp. 490–1. The guidelines for SA physicians from 20 April 1931 requested that they regularly lecture the rank and file on personal hygiene, nourishment, and sexual diseases. To prevent acquiring the latter, physicians were urged to propagate beliefs about sexual abstinence. See BArch Berlin, NS 23/510: [Reichsarzt] Paul Hocheisen, ‘Anweisung betr. Aufgaben und Tätigkeit der SA-Ärzte’, 20 April 1931.
188.Kracauer, ‘Mass Ornament’, pp. 85–6.
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