Stormtroopers: A New History of Hitler's Brownshirts
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118.BArch Berlin, NS 23/510: NSDAP and Arbeitsbereich General Gouvernement (Stahl), Anordnung 17/42 (SA, SS und NSKK-Einheiten im Generalgouvernement), 23 April 1942; Eisenblätter, Grundlinien der Politik, pp. 255–6.
119.BArch Berlin, NS 23/98: Letters from SA-Oberführer Peltz to OSAF, 21 March 1942, and to the General Government, 5 May 1942.
120.For details of Frank’s position, see Präg and Jacobmeyer (eds), Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs, pp. 474–5 (entry from 17 March 1942).
121.BArch Berlin, NS 23/510: Hans Frank, ‘Erlaß über die Überführung der Wehrschützenbereitschaften in SA-Wehrbereitschaften’, 16 April 1942; BArch Berlin, NS 23/510: Die Oberste SA-Führung (Jüttner), ‘SA im Generalgouvernement’, 18 May 1942. In return, Frank promised to provide the OSAF with two convalescent homes in the General Government; see BArch Berlin, NS 23/98: Cable from SA-Obersturmbannführer Schänzlin to Georg Mappes, 18 April 1942.
122.BArch Berlin, NS 23/501, pp. 114–20, here p. 120: ‘Die Wehrschützenbereitschaft im Gen[eral]-Gouvernement’, undated, presumably from October 1942.
123.Eisenblätter, Grundlinien der Politik, p. 257.
124.BArch Berlin, NS 23/510: Die Oberste SA-Führung (Ohrt), ‘An den Aufbaustab der SA im Generalgouvernement’, 16 September 1942. These SA-Standarten were based in Cracow, Warsaw (Warschau, Warschau-Süd, and Warschau-Land), Radom, Lublin, Lemberg, Reichshof, Neu-Sandez, Kielce, and Petrikau-Tomaschow.
125.Eisenblätter, Grundlinien der Politik, pp. 257–8.
126.On the security problems of the years 1942–4 see Präg and Jacobmeyer (eds), Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs, pp. 642–7, 686–91 (entries from 15 April and 18 June 1943); Brewing, ‘Wir müssen um uns schlagen’, pp. 502–18; Stephan Lehnstaedt, ‘Deutsche in Warschau: Das Alltagsleben der Besatzer 1939–1944’, in Gewalt und Alltag im besetzten Polen 1939–1945, ed. Böhler and Lehnstaedt, pp. 205–28, here pp. 223–7.
127.Präg and Jacobmeyer (eds), Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs, p. 624 (entry from 22 February 1943).
128.Central’nyj archiv Minoborony Rossii (CAMO), Collection 500, Finding Aid 12450, File 161, p. 11: stenograph of a meeting of Hitler, Keitel, and others on the Berghof on 8 June 1943, http://wwii.germandocsinrussia.org/de/nodes/2297-akte-161-stenogramm-der-besprechung-bei-a-hitler-in-berghof-uber-die-behandlung-der-kriegsgefa#page/1/mode/grid/zoom/1.
129.BArch Berlin, SA 4000003047 (Peltz, Kurt): Letter from Kurt Peltz to Leonhard Gontermann, 22 December 1943.
130.Eisenblätter, Grundlinien der Politik, p. 298. According to an internal SA document, stormtroopers from nineteen SA groups during the war participated in police operations. Five SA groups were also involved in border control activities. See BArch Berlin, NS 23/166: ‘Der Einsatz der SA im Kriege’, undated. See also BArch Berlin, NS 23/501, pp. 176–8, here p. 177: Report of Hauptsturmführer Behrenbrock about his journey to Vienna, Kracow, and other places, August 1944.
131.See the respective documents in Peltz’s SA file in BArch Berlin, SA 4000003047 (Peltz, Kurt).
132.BArch Berlin, SA 400003178: Letter from Reimann to the Reich Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 23 April 1940.
133.BArch Berlin, NS 23/98: Note of SA-Oberführer Siegele, 9 December 1939.
134.Präg and Jacobmeyer (eds), Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs, pp. 643, 704 (entries from 15 April and 16 July 1943); Władysław Bartoszewski, Der Todesring um Warschau 1939–1944 (Cracow: Interpress, 1969), pp. 189–90.
135.Präg and Jacobmeyer (eds), Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs, p. 898 (entry from 5 August 1944).
136.A well-known example of SA violence in this region was the murder of the prior of the Cloister Czerna by SA men in September 1944; see Präg and Jacobmeyer (eds), Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs, p. 915 (entry from 26 September 1944). See also the IMT’s examination of Max Jüttner on 14 August 1946 (morning session), http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/08-14-46.asp.
137.‘Der Dienst der SA im Grenzland’, SA in Feldgrau: Feldpostbriefe der SA-Gruppe Südmark, no. 12 (March 1941), p. 4; Helmuth Ruschnig, ‘Bericht über fünf Monate Arbeit des Kärnter Volksbundes’, as printed in Tone Ferenc (ed.), Quellen zur nationalsozialistischen Entnationalisierungspolitik in Slowenien 1941–1945 / Viri o nacistični raznarodovalni politiki v Sloveniji 1941–1945 (Maribor: Založba Obzorja, 1980), document no. 168.
138.BArch Berlin, NS 23/234: SA-Obertruppführer Schmidt, ‘Die Südmark im deutschen Freiheitskampf’.
139.‘Sie haben ihre Aufgabe restlos erfüllt!’, SA in Feldgrau: Feldpostbriefe der SA-Gruppe Südmark, no. 13 (May 1941), p. 1.
140.Schm[idt], ‘Grenzwacht gegen Banditen’, Illustrierter Beobachter (Feldpostausgabe), no. 31 (1942).
141.Lorenz Ohrt, ‘Grundsätzliche Weisung Nr. 1 der SA-Gruppe Südmark für die Organisation und Ausbildung der Wehrmannschaften in den besetzten slowenischen Gebieten’, 25 June 1941, in Ferenc, Quellen zur nationalsozialistischen Entnationalisierungspolitik in Slowenien, document no. 94.
142.For similar attempts in Alsace, see Kettenacker, Nationalsozialistische Volkstumspolitik im Elsaß, pp. 163–84. Bilingual stormtroopers speaking French in public was enough for a formal warning. ‘The use of the French language is unworthy’ for an SA man, an SA leader from Lorraine reasoned; BArch Berlin, NS 45/162: Circular from SA-Standarte Metz on the use of the French language, 28 May 1941.
143.Hans Baron and Franz Tscheligi, ‘Report on the situation in Southern Styria’, 1 May 1942, in Ferenc, Quellen zur nationalsozialistischen Entnationalisierungspolitik in Slowenien, document no. 218.
144.Ruschnig, ‘Bericht über fünf Monate Arbeit des Kärnter Volksbundes’, in Ferenc, Quellen zur nationalsozialistischen Entnationalisierungspolitik in Slowenien, document no. 168.
145.Joachim Hösler, ‘Sloweniens historische Bürde’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 46 (2006), http://www.bpb.de/apuz/29421/sloweniens-historische-buerde?p=all.
146.PAAA, Personal Papers of Siegfried Kasche, vol. 35: SA-Oberführer Moock, Report, 15 September 1939.
147.Richard Overy, The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945 (London: Allen Lane, 2013), pp. 327–38; Jörg Friedrich, Der Brand: Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940–1945 (Berlin: Ullstein, 2004), pp. 192–5.
148.BArch Berlin, NS 23/227: Gustaf Deuchler, ‘Die Bewährung der SA bei der Groß-Katastrophe Hamburgs’, 16 December 1943.
149.Hans Erich Wagner, ‘SA-Kameradschaft im Kriege’, SA in Feldgrau: Feldpostbriefe der SA-Gruppe Südmark, no. 18/19 (November/December 1941); Wilhelm Rehm, ‘Zwei Jahre Kriegsbewährung der SA’, SA in Feldgrau: Feldpostbriefe der SA-Gruppe Südmark, no. 16/17 (September/October 1941).
150.See, for example, NS 23/227: ‘SA an der Front’, Essener Volkszeitung, 10 October 1939; ‘Aus Dienst und Leben der SA’, Die SA 2:23/24 (1941) (6/13 June), p. 26.
151.For these figures (although without reference to the SA), see Christian Kretschmer, ‘Kriegsgefangene im Visier von Werkschutz, Kriminalpolizei und Landwacht: Bewachung, Fluchtprävention und Kriegsfahndung’, in KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme (ed.), Polizei, Verfolgung und Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus (Bremen: Edition Temmen, 2013), pp. 147–55. For an instructive case study, see NS 23/227: SA-Sturm 14/5 in Hirschaid/Franconia, Report on the murder of an SA-Rottenführer, 8 June 1943.
152.BArch Berlin, NS 6/857: Decree of the OSAF (Jüttner), 24 April 1942; Letter from his deputy Ohrt, 25 June 1942.
153.BArch Berlin, NS 23/227: ‘Zwölfhundert Herde wurden geborgen’, Hannoversche Zeitung, 15 December 1943.
154.Wilhelm Rehm, ‘Zwei Jahre Kriegsbewährung der SA’, SA in Feldgrau: Feldpostbriefe der SA-Gruppe Südmark 16/17 (September/October 1941).
155.BArch Berlin, NS 23/227: Gustaf Deuchler, ‘Die Bewährung der SA bei der Groß-Katastrophe Hamburgs’, 16 December 1943.
156.PAAA, Personal Papers of Siegfried Kasche, vol. 34: Letter from SA-Sturmführer Fritz Hancke to SA-Gruppenführer Siegfried Kasche, 25 August 1941.
158.BArch Berlin, NS 23/234: Hans Sponholz, secret mood report from Munich, 23 September 1942.
159.Since the second half of the 1930s, the OSAF had glorified the stormtroopers as the bearers of the ‘traditional male virtues’ that allegedly distinguished the German people from others. See, among others, BArch Berlin, NS 23/238: Radio speech by Viktor Lutze, 3 July 1939.
160.Mai, ‘Die Nationalsozialistische Betriebszellen-Organisation’, here pp. 600–2. A well-known example of temporary cooperation between Nazi and Communist unionists was the strike by workers from Berlin’s public transport company in the autumn of 1932; see Klaus Rainer Röhl, Nähe zum Gegner: Kommunisten und Nationalsozialisten im Berliner BVG-Streik von 1932 (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1994).
161.See in particular Humann, ‘Verwahranstalten mit Fantasiegehältern?’
162.For an overview of the history of these schools, see BArch Berlin, NS 23/70: Herbert Merker, ‘SA-Berufsschulen’; Martin Kipp, ‘Privilegien für “alte Kämpfer”: Zur Geschichte der SA-Berufsschulen’, in Manfred Heinemann (ed.), Erziehung und Schulung im Dritten Reich, vol. 1: Kindergarten, Schule, Jugend, Berufserziehung (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1980), pp. 289–300. The school in Lockstedter -Lager provided training for members of the Nordmark SA as early as 1931; Schröder, ‘Der NS-Schulungsstandort’, p. 9.
163.BArch Berlin, NS 23/515: Public Notice of the SA-Berufsschule Lockstedter Lager, October 1939.
164.On the SA professional schools, see also Kipp, ‘Privilegien für “alte Kämpfer”’; Volker Herrmann, Vom Arbeitsmarkt zum Arbeitseinsatz: Zur Geschichte der Reichsanstalt für Arbeitsvermittlung und Arbeitslosenversicherung 1929 bis 1939 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1993), p. 291.
165.Schröder, ‘Der NS-Schulungsstandort’, p. 12.
166.For details, see ibid., pp. 15–17.
167.BArch Berlin, NS 23/70: Letter from the Reichsarbeitsministerium to OSAF, 24 January 1939; Letter from the Reichsarbeitsministerium to OSAF, 16 April 1940.
168.Kipp, ‘Privilegien für “alte Kämpfer”’, p. 298; ‘Kurznachrichten’, Die SA 1:8 (1940) (22 March); ‘Kurznachrichten aus Dienst und Leben der SA’, Die SA 1:13/14 (1940) (26 April).
169.BArch Berlin, NS 23/70: OSAF decree from 15 October 1942; Schröder, ‘Der NS-Schulungsstandort’, p. 13. The plans for Westerstede, which included a cinema and a large gathering hall, were deemed ‘exemplary’. Similar buildings were also planned for Schulitz.
170.Kipp, ‘Privilegien für “alte Kämpfer”’, p. 297.
171.The contract between the Industriegemeinschaft and the SA was signed on 1 July 1941; see BArch Berlin, NS 23/70: Protocol of the meeting of the Industriegemeinschaft and OSAF in Berlin, 22 January 1942.
172.BArch Berlin, NS 23/515: Letter from the Einstellungszentrale for the SA professional schools, 12 December 1941.
173.BArch Berlin, NS 23/70: Protocol of the meeting of the Industriegemeinschaft and OSAF in Berlin, 22 January 1942.
174.At least in theory, the period of schooling was meant to serve as a probation period, with successful graduates automatically accepted into the SA as regular members. If and to what extent these principles were practically applied, however, is not known. There were also plans to create ‘SA shipyard storms’ that would be allowed to meet during working hours. See BArch Berlin, NS 23/70: Protocol of the meeting of the Industriegemeinschaft and OSAF in Berlin, 22 January 1942.
175.BArch Berlin, NS 23/515: Letter from the head of the SA-Gruppe Nordmark, October 1939.
176.BArch Berlin, NS 23/70: Letter from the OSAF to Middendorff, 4 June 1942.
177.The SA also regarded the schools as a way to increase its budget: the shipbuilding industry was required to pay 3.20 reichsmark per day per man to the SA, while the apprentices were only paid 0.50 reichsmark per day. See BArch Berlin, NS 23/515: Administrative directive of the SA leadership, 14 July 1941.
178.BArch Berlin, NS 23/70: Report from the OSAF’s ‘Inspektion Erziehung und Führerausbildung’ (Merker), 4 July 1942.
179.Ibid.: Letter from Middendorff to the OSAF, 25 June 1942.
180.Ibid.: Report from the OSAF’s ‘Inspektion Erziehung und Führerausbildung’ (Merker), 4 July 1942.
181.Herbert Merker, born on 15 June 1901 in Bornstedt near Potsdam, joined the NSDAP in 1925. Previously a member of the Freikorps Hülsen (1919), the Stahlhelm (1922–3), and the Frontbann (1924), he served as a local and regional NSDAP leader in Westphalia between 1925 and 1927 before returning to his home region. On 25 September 1930 he was promoted to Organisationsleiter in Brandenburg and assumed other party functions in the years to come. He was sentenced for various political offences several times between 1931 and 1933. Imprisoned from 30 June to 3 August 1934 in the notorious Columbia House Prison in Berlin, Merker narrowly survived the ‘Röhm purge’ and on 28 February 1937 was promoted to SA-Brigadeführer. See BArch Berlin, SA 4000002858 (Merker, Herbert).
182.As quoted in ‘Befehl ausgeführt!’, SA in Feldgrau: Feldpostbriefe der SA-Gruppe Südmark 13 (May 1941).
183.The name change from ‘school’ to ‘camp’ was due to internal rivalries and was also a consequence of the fact that as ever more forced labourers were recruited, the character of the schools changed from that of a ‘camp’ to that of a ‘prison’. See the correspondence on these matters from the summer and autumn of 1942 in BArch Berlin, NS 23/70.
184.Ibid.: Report from the OSAF’s ‘Inspektion Erziehung und Führerausbildung’ (Merker), 4 July 1942.
185.Goebbels commented in his diary that ‘unfortunately’ Schepmann’s speech had been only of secondary importance and that even the Führer had been informed about Schepmann’s failure. ‘The SA is extremely unlucky. Never in its existence did it possess a leader of stature’; Goebbels, diary entry from 27 October 1943, as quoted in Müller, ‘Wilhelm Schepmann’, p. 525, n. 61.
186.It is telling that Schepmann shortly after his appointment as Chief of Staff formally prohibited the term ‘SA spirit’ from being used in SA correspondence and propaganda. He likewise dissolved the ‘Cultural Circle of the SA’ (Kulturkreis der SA) on the argument that there was no particular SA culture, but only a German culture influenced by National Socialism. See BArch Berlin, NS 19/2119: Speech of Wilhelm Schepmann in Posen, 6 October 1943.
187.Ibid. On Schepmann’s ‘servility’ toward Himmler, see also Müller, ‘Wilhelm Schepmann’, p. 524.
188.This figure is provided by Jamin, ‘Zur Rolle der SA im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem’, p. 357.
189.BArch Berlin, NS 23/515: Wilhelm Schepmann, ‘Weltanschauliche Ausrichtung für den totalen Einsatz’, 6 December 1944, here topic 6, ‘Kampf gegen Nörgler und Gerüchtemacher’. For a more detailed discussion of this point, see Wagner, ‘Die letzte Schlacht der “alten Kämpfer”’, pp. 31–40.
190.Müller-Hill, ‘Man hat es kommen sehen und ist dennoch erschüttert’, p. 28 (diary entry from 5 April 1944).
191.On the developments that occurred prior to this appointment as well as its consequences, see Franz W. Seidler, ‘Deutscher Volkssturm’: Das letzte Aufgebot 1944/45 (Munich: Herbig, 1989), pp. 35–47; Müller, ‘Wilhelm Schepmann’, pp. 528–30.
192.BArch Berlin, NS 23/227: ‘Zweiter Großeinsatz des Volkskriegs’, Front und Heimat 49 (October 1944).
193.Willy Timm, Freikorps ‘Sauerland’ im Deutschen Volkssturm: Südwestfalens letztes Aufgebot 1944/45 (Unna: Hellweg, 1993), pp. 22 and 29.
194.BArch Berlin, NS 23/510: Decree no. 3/44 from the leader of the SA-Brigade 94 Oberdonau, SA-Standartenführer Faller, 21 September 1944.
195.Seidler, ‘Deutscher Volkssturm’, pp. 142–5.
196.BArch Berlin, NS 23/227: ‘Die Bedeutung der SA im Volkssturm’, Nürnberger Neueste Nachrichten, 21 October 1944.
197.Timm, Freikorps ‘Sauerland’ im Deutschen Volkssturm, p. 34.
198.BArch Berlin, NS 23/515: Wilhelm Schepmann, ‘Weltanschauliche Ausrichtung
für den totalen Einsatz’, 6 December 1944, here topic 8, ‘Der SA-Mann ist immer im Dienst’.
199.Schepmann thereby followed the official propaganda, which urged leaders to draw this historical parallel as often as possible. See Seidler, ‘Deutscher Volkssturm’, pp. 261–3.
200.BArch Berlin, NS 23/515: Wilhelm Schepmann, ‘Weltanschauliche Ausrichtung für den totalen Einsatz’, 6 December 1944, including topic 3, ‘Jeder SA-Mann ein fanatischer Träger des äußersten und totalen Widerstandswillens’.
201.See also Saul K. Padover, Lügendetektor: Vernehmungen im besetzten Deutschland 1944/45 (Munich: Econ, 2001), esp. pp. 278–9 (first published in English in 1946 under the title Experiment in Germany: The Story of an American Intelligence Officer).
202.See, for example, ‘SA Geist schlägt den Bolschewismus’, Die SA 2:34 (1941) (22 August), p. 4; Walther Nibbe, ‘Den Kampf, den Horst Wessel begonnen, im braunen Gewand der SA . . .’, SA in Feldgrau: Feldpostbriefe der SA-Gruppe Südmark 16/17 (September/October 1941), pp. 1–2. On the Nazi interpretation of the Second World War as an eschatological battle from 1941 onwards, see Behrenbeck, Der Kult um die toten Helden, pp. 534–48.
203.See the published quotations from (alleged) war letters: ‘Feldpostbriefe’, SA in Feldgrau: Feldpostbriefe der SA-Gruppe Südmark 16/17 (September/October 1941); ‘Streiflichter aus dem Sowjetparadies’, SA in Feldgrau: Feldpostbriefe der SA-Gruppe Südmark 18/19 (November/December 1941); ‘Streiflichter aus dem Sowjetparadies’, SA in Feldgrau: Feldpostbriefe der SA-Gruppe Südmark 20/21 (January/February 1942). Even those soldiers who did not buy into such cheap Nazi propaganda, like the teacher Konrad Jarausch, insisted on categorical differences between ‘Russians’ and ‘Bolshevists’. The ordinary Russian people, Jarausch noted, are ‘still human beings as ourselves’, whereas the ‘Bolshevist element proper’ (das Eigentlich-Bolschewistische) and the ‘Jewish element’ needed to be mercilessly eradicated. See Jarausch and Arnold, ‘Das stille Sterben’, pp. 330–1, 335.
204.BArch Berlin, NS 23/515: Wilhelm Schepmann, ‘Weltanschauliche Ausrichtung für den totalen Einsatz’, 6 December 1944, including topic 3, ‘Jeder SA-Mann ein fanatischer Träger des äußersten und totalen Widerstandswillens’.