CHAPTERÂ NINE Basic ideas about the purpose and organization of SA
The 1918 revolution in Germany abolished the monarchical form of government, separated the army from the public administration, and left it open to political corruption. This also destroyed the foundations of what is known as state authority, which almost always rests on three elements that are essentially the basis of all authority.
The first foundation inherent in the notion of authority is always popularity.
But an authority that rests solely on this foundation is extremely weak, unstable, and vacillating. Therefore, every representative of an authority founded exclusively on popularity must strive to improve and secure the basis of this authority through the formation of power.
In power, that is, in force, we see the second foundation of all authority represented; certainly a much more stable and secure foundation, but always more effective, than popularity.
When popularity and strength come together, they can persist for a certain period of time, and with this, tradition is created, which is the third foundation that consolidates authority. Only when the three factors—popularity, strength, and tradition—come together can authority be considered unshakeable.
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While it is true that the revolution succeeded in demolishing the edifice of the old State with its impetuous blow, it is no less true that this was due, in the final analysis, to the fact that the normal balance within the structure of our people had already been destroyed by the war.
Every people, as a whole, consists of three broad categories: on the one hand, an extreme group made up of the best human element, in the sense of virtue, characterized by their courage and spirit of sacrifice; on the other hand, the dregs of humanity, evil in the sense of being the specimen of selfishness and vice. Between these two extremes lies the third category, the vast middle stratum of society, in which neither dazzling heroism nor base criminal instinct is reflected.
The periods of flourishing of a people are conceived only thanks to the absolute hegemony of the positive extreme represented by the good elements.
Periods of normal and regular development, or in other words, of a stable situation, are characterized by and persist as long as the elements of the middle category dominate, while the two extremes balance or cancel each other out.
Finally, the periods of decline of a people are the result of the preponderance of evil elements.
At the end of the war, Germany presented the following picture: The middle class, the nation’s largest, had fully paid its tribute of blood; the good side had sacrificed itself almost entirely with exemplary heroism; the bad side, on the other hand, by resorting to absurd laws and, on the other hand, due to the non-application of the sanctions of the military code, unfortunately remained intact.
This well-preserved dregs of our people were the ones who later made the revolution, and were able to do so only because the good side of the nation had ceased to exist.
However, it was difficult for an authority to rely on the “popularity” of the Marxist plunderers for a long time. The “anti-militarist” republic needed soldiers.
But since the primary and sole support of its state authority, that is to say, its popularity, lay solely in a community of ruffians, thieves, robbers, deserters and ambushers – in a word, in that category which we have come to call the bad end of the nation – it was a vain effort to try to recruit in these circles men prepared to sacrifice their own lives in the service of the new ideal, since they did not in any way aspire to consolidate the order and development of the German republic, but simply to plunder at its expense.
Those who truly personified the people could shout until they were hoarse without anyone responding from those ranks.
At that time, numerous young Germans appeared, ready to once again don their soldier’s uniforms, to place themselves—as they had been led to believe—at the service of “tranquility and order.” They volunteered in loose formations, and although they harbored a fierce hatred for the Marxist revolution, they unconsciously began to protect it, practically consolidating it.
The true organizer of the revolution and its true instigator—the international Jew—had accurately gauged the circumstances of the moment. The German people were not yet ripe for being dragged into the bloody Bolshevik mire, as had been the case with the Russian people. This was largely due to the racial homogeneity existing in Germany between the intellectual class and the working class; moreover, to the systematic penetration of vast strata of the population with elements of culture, a phenomenon that finds parallel only in the other Western European states and is completely unknown in Russia. There, the intellectual class was made up, for the most part, of elements of a nationality foreign to the Russian people, or at least of a non-Slavic race.
As soon as it was possible in Russia to mobilize the ignorant and illiterate masses against the small intellectual stratum that had no contact with them, the fate of that country was sealed and the revolution won. The illiterate Russian was thus transformed into the helpless slaves of their Jewish dictators, who were perspicacious enough to have their ferrules stamped with the “dictatorship of the people.”
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If, regardless of the obvious defects of the old State, taken as a cause, we ask ourselves why the 1918 revolution was successful as an action in itself, we will come to these conclusions: 1. Because the notion of fulfilling one’s duty and obedience were stratified in us.
2nd Because of the cowardly passivity observed by our so-called conservative parties.
To this we should add: The ossification of the notions of duty and obedience had its deep roots in the nature of our education, which lacked a national sense and was clearly oriented toward the State. From this arises the confusion between means and ends. Conscience and the notion of duty, as well as obedience, are not ends in themselves, just as the State is not an end in itself; all together they must constitute the means conducive to facilitating and guaranteeing the existence in this world of a community of psychically and physically similar beings.
At the critical hour when a people, due to the machinations of a few criminals, visibly succumbs to the harshest humiliation, obedience and fulfillment of duty toward them is doctrinal formulaic, it is madness. According to the National Socialist concept, in such moments, obedience to cowardly superiors is not necessary, but rather loyalty to the community of the people. Then the duty of personal responsibility to the nation as a whole arises.
The revolution triumphed because our people, or rather our leaders, had lost the living understanding of these notions, giving way to a purely doctrinal and formalist conception of them.
Regarding the second point, it is worth emphasizing the following: The underlying cause of the pusillanimity of the “conservative” parties was, first of all, the disappearance of the active and well-intentioned segment of our people, which was bled dry during the war. Regardless of all this, our bourgeois parties, which we can classify as the only political institutions founded on the platform of the old state, were convinced that they must defend their convictions exclusively on the intellectual terrain and by intellectual means, since the use of material force was the exclusive power of the state. But at the time when Marxism emerged in the world of bourgeois democracy, it was a solemn absurdity to appeal to struggle with “spiritual weapons”; an absurdity that must later have had tremendous consequences. The only organizations that in those times would have had the courage and strength necessary to confront Marxism and its agitated masses were, at first, the volunteer corps, later the self-defense groups, the civil guards, etc., and, finally, the
traditionalist leagues.
What gave the Marxists victory was the perfect cohesion between their political will and the brutal nature of their actions. What deprived the nationalist factions of any influence on Germany’s destiny, however, was the lack of efficient collaboration between the power of force and the will of a brilliant political aspiration.
Whatever the aspirations of the “nationalist” parties might have been, their value was always null, because those parties had no power to defend them, much less to impose them on the streets.
The defense leagues wielded all the power and practically dominated the streets, but they lacked a political idea or a defined political purpose.
It was the Jew who, with astonishing skill, was able to propagate, through his press, the idea of ​​the “apolitical character” of the defense leagues, always praising and proclaiming, with no less refinement, the purely spiritual nature of the political struggle. Millions of naive Germans repeated this farce, without the slightest inkling that in doing so, they were practically disarming themselves and falling, defenseless, into the hands of the Jew.
But this, too, is susceptible to a natural explanation: the lack of a grand and innovative idea always means the limitation of combative strength. The conviction of having the right to use even the most brutal weapons must be permanently linked to a fanatical faith in the necessity of the triumph of a new revolutionary order in the world.
This is why a movement that does not fight for lofty goals and ideals will never resort to the last resort.
The revelation of a great new idea was the secret of the success of the French Revolution; likewise, the Russian Revolution owes its triumph to the idea, and it is only through the idea that fascism has been able to gain the strength necessary to successfully subject a people to a reform of vast proportions.
Gradually, Marxism managed to obtain, with the consolidation of the Reichswehr, the indispensable support for its authority and, acting logically and consistently, began to dissolve the national defense leagues that already seemed dangerous and superfluous to it.
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With the founding of the NSDAP, a movement emerged for the first time whose aim was not, as in the case of the bourgeois parties, a mechanical restoration of the past, but the aspiration to erect an organically national state in place of the existing absurd state mechanism.
From the very beginning, the young movement held the view that its idea should be propagated through spiritual means, but that this spiritual action would have to be guaranteed, if necessary, by the force of its own fist. True to its conviction of the enormous importance embodied in the new doctrine, it considered it natural that no sacrifice would be too great in achieving its goals.
It is an eternal lesson of history that an ideological conception based on terror can never be reduced by legal means by the established authority, but only by a new ideological conception and action no less bold and resolute. Hearing this truth will always be unpleasant for officials charged with ensuring state security. Public power can guarantee order and tranquility only when the state is identified with the dominant ideology.
That state that unconditionally capitulated to Marxism on November 9, 1918, will not be able to reappear overnight as the victor of that same Marxism; on the contrary, bourgeois know-it-alls, occupying ministerial portfolios, are already today doddering, advocating the advisability of not governing against the proletariat. But, by identifying the German worker with Marxism, they not only engage in a cowardly mystification of the truth, but, through their specious interpretation, they also try to conceal their own incapacity in the face of the Marxist idea and organization.
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I have explained how in the practical life of our young movement a guard was gradually formed for the protection of our
rallies, and how it gradually took on the character of a law enforcement force, eventually tending to become an entire organization.
The first task of this security force was, therefore, limited. At first, it consisted of facilitating the holding of rallies, which, without the intervention of this force, would have been easily sabotaged by the adversaries. Already at that time, our security force was trained for the blind execution of the attack, not because a cult of “laqui” had become a thing, as was often said in certain foolish nationalist circles, but simply because that force understood that even the most brilliant man can be annihilated by the blows of this “laqui,” as indeed it is not uncommon in history to find eminent minds succumbing under the fist of minuscule helots. Our organization did not seek to impose violence as its goal but rather sought to safeguard the preachers of the ideal goal from violence. And at the same time, understanding that it was not obligated to protect a state that did not defend the nation, it took it upon itself to protect that nation against those who threatened to destroy the people and the state.
As its name indicates, the assault section (SA Sturm-Abteilung) represents nothing more than a section of our movement, that is, a link, just as propaganda, the press, scientific institutes, etc., constitute nothing more than links in the party.
The central idea that dominated the organization of our “assault section” was always, along with the goal of physical training, to make it an unbreakable moral force, deeply rooted in the National Socialist ideal and consolidated to the highest degree by its spirit of discipline. It should have nothing in common with a bourgeois organization, much less with the character of a secret society.
The reason for my tenacious opposition, at that time, to the attempt to make the NSDAP’s “assault section” present itself as a defense league was based on the following: From a purely objective point of view, it is not possible to carry out the military education of a people through private institutions, unless one has enormous state subsidies. To think otherwise would be to attribute to oneself too much power. Of course, the fact that, on the basis of so-called “voluntary discipline,” one can create organizations of military significance beyond a certain limit is beyond dispute. Here, the essential instrument of command is needed, that is, sanction.
Disciplinary. It is true that in the autumn of 1918, or more accurately in the spring of 1919, it was possible to form “volunteer corps,” which not only had the advantage of having among their members a majority of ex-combatants educated, therefore, in the school of the old army, but also the circumstance that the obligations imposed on the individual subjected him unconditionally to military discipline, at least for a limited time.
Even if, despite the difficulties mentioned above, a defense league were to succeed in training a certain number of Germans year after year in military training—that is, in moral, physical, and technical terms—the result, despite everything, would inevitably be null in a state that, consistent with its political tendency, did not desire, and even detested, such militarization because it was in absolute contradiction with the innermost objective pursued by its leaders, who are at the same time its corrupters.
This is the current situation. Or would it not perhaps make the current government regime look ridiculous to want to secretly provide military training to a few tens of thousands of men, when that same regime, a few years earlier, ignominiously abandoned eight and a half million admirably trained soldiers, whose services to the country were rejected and met with humiliation? How, then, can soldiers be trained for a state that once vilified and spat upon the most glorious soldiers, allowing their decorations to be ripped from their chests, their cockades to be snatched, their flags trampled, and their merits denigrated? Did that state ever take any step toward restoring the tarnished honor of the old army by punishing its dissenters and detractors? Certainly not! On the contrary, today we see such elements enthroned in the highest public offices.
Analyzing the question of whether or not it is appropriate to create voluntary defense leagues, I can’t help but ask myself: What purpose are young people being trained for? What purpose will they serve, and when should they be mobilized?
If the current state were ever to draw on reserves prepared in this way, it would never do so in defense of national interests against an external enemy, but only in service to the nation’s oppressors at the moment when the fury of the deceived, betrayed, and sold-out people erupted.
Of course, for that reason alone, the SA should have nothing to do with a military organization. It was simply a protective and educational vehicle for the National Socialist movement, and its mission lay in a completely different field than that of the so-called defense leagues. Nor should it be a secret organization, because the purpose of secret organizations must be fatally contrary to the law.
What we National Socialists needed, and will always need, are not one or two hundred heartless conspirators, but hundreds of thousands of fanatical followers fighting for our ideology. Our work must not be accomplished in secret meetings, but in impressive popular demonstrations, and not by using daggers, poison, or pistols, but by conquering the streets in open battle. We must teach Marxism that the future master of the streets must be National Socialism, which will one day also be the master of the state.
The danger of secret organizations today also lies in the fact that their members are completely unaware of the magnitude of their mission and are led to believe that a people’s fortunes could suddenly turn favorable thanks to the perpetration of a political assassination. Such an approach can only be historically justified when a people groans under the tyranny of some brilliant oppressor, whose extraordinary personality alone is known to guarantee the inner consistency and recklessness of the prevailing regime.
In 1919 and 1920, there was a danger that members of secret organizations, inspired by the great examples of history and deeply moved by the nation’s infinite misfortune, would attempt to take revenge on the corrupters of the homeland, in the belief that this would put an end to the people’s misery. But such a plan was absurd, for the simple reason that Marxism had triumphed not thanks to the superior genius and personal significance of a single individual, but rather due to the unspeakable moral weakness and cowardly inaction of the bourgeois world. After all, it is still understandable to capitulate to a Robespierre, a Danton, or a Marat, but it will always be shameful to submit to a starving Scheidemann, an obese Erzberger, a Friedrich Ebert, and other minuscule politicians. It would have been futile to eliminate any of them, because the result would only have accelerated the enthronement of another no less bloodthirsty and greedy than his predecessor.
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If the SA was not to be an organization of a military nature, nor a secret intuition, the following conclusions were necessary: ​​1) Its instruction had to be carried out in consultation with the convenience of the party and not from a military point of view.
When it comes to physical training, paramount importance should not be given to the practice of military exercises, but rather to sports activities. I have always considered boxing and jujitsu more important than a shooting course, which, if deficient, will inevitably be unsuccessful. Physical training must instill in the individual the conviction of his physical superiority and, with it, give him that confidence that eternally lies in the awareness of his own strength; in addition, he must be taught those athletic skills that serve as weapons for the defense of the National Socialist movement.
2) To prevent the SA from becoming secret from the outset, it wasn’t enough for its uniform to unmistakably reveal its identity; the sheer size of its membership had to point it in the direction that suited the party and made it public knowledge. It wasn’t supposed to meet secretly, but rather march in the open air, thereby establishing a practice that would definitively destroy all the legends accusing it of being a “secret organization.”
3rd) The form of the SA’s organization, as well as its uniform and equipment, were not to be copied from the models of the old army, but rather chosen according to the needs of the task incumbent upon it.
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Three events were of transcendental importance for the development of the SA: 1) The great protest demonstration of all patriotic associations, held in the summer of 1922 at the Konigsplatz in Munich against the Law for the Protection of the Republic.
The National Socialist movement had also taken part in that demonstration. The general parade of the NSDAP was preceded by six groups of one hundred men from the Munich SA, followed by the
political sections of the party members. We also had two marching bands and carried approximately fifteen flags. The arrival of the National Socialists at the large assembly square, already half occupied, aroused overwhelming enthusiasm in the crowd. I had the honor of being one of the speakers who addressed that crowd of over sixty thousand people.
The success of the rally was tremendous, especially because, despite the threats from the Reds, it demonstrated for the first time that National Socialist Munich was also capable of taking to the streets.
2nd) The October 1922 parade in Coburg.
Various National Socialist associations had agreed to hold a meeting in Coburg on “German Day.” I, too, received an invitation with the express recommendation that I bring some companions with me.
Indeed, as “escorts,” I selected 800 SA men, forming 14 sections, which were to be transported by special train from Munich to the city of Coburg, which had recently come under Bavarian jurisdiction. It was the first time a special train of this kind had run in Germany. At every station along the route, where new SA members were added, our train was a source of great excitement.
Upon arriving in Coburg, we were received by a delegation from the organizing committee of the meeting and were given a document that, in the form of an “agreement,” contained an order from the city’s workers’ unions, that is, from the Independent Party and the Communist Party, prohibiting us from marching in closed columns with unfurled flags and music (we had expressly brought a band composed of forty-two instruments).
I flatly rejected such degrading conditions and continued to express to the members of the delegation my surprise at the fact that negotiations were being held and agreements were being made with these people. I firmly declared that the SA would immediately form sections to march through the city streets with music and waving flags.
And so it was.
Already at the station square, an excited crowd of several thousand was waiting for us, shouting and apostrophizing us with the affectionate epithets of murderers, bandits, criminals, etc., etc. The young SA maintained its exemplary discipline. They had formed into sections in front of the station building and showed complete indifference to the
The abuse of the mob. Due to the timidity of the police authorities, our procession, in a city completely unfamiliar to us, was not directed toward the accommodation prepared for us on the outskirts of town, but toward the Hofbräuhauskeller, located very close to the city center. Hardly had our last section entered the courtyard of the Hofbräuhauskeller when a large crowd tried to follow us and, amid deafening shouts, attempted to enter the premises, but was prevented by the police, who blocked the entrance. As the situation became unbearable, I ordered the SA to form up again, gave a brief address, and demanded that the police immediately open the doors. Finally, after much hesitation, my request was granted.
We retraced our steps to reach our lodgings, and it was on this route that the representatives of true socialism, equality, and fraternity appealed to the resource of stones.
This must have put an end to our patience. For ten minutes, stones rained down from left and right, and fifteen minutes later, not a single communist remained on the street.
Serious clashes continued during the night. SA patrols found National Socialist elements who had been attacked in isolation, badly mistreated.
Our reaction was swift. The next day, the Red Terror under which Coburg had suffered for years was in full swing.
With the characteristic hypocrisy of the Marxist Jew, they attempted to incite men and women, “comrades of the international proletariat,” to take to the streets once again by means of leaflets. Completely distorting the true facts, they claimed that our “hordes of murderers” had begun a war of extermination against the “peaceful” workers of Coburg. At 1:30 that day, the great “popular demonstration” was to take place, comprised of tens of thousands of workers from all around Coburg, as its organizers claimed. Determined to definitively eliminate the Red Terror, I had the SA, which had meanwhile swelled its ranks to a strength of 1,500, form up at 12:00, and with it, I set off, passing through the square where the announced communist demonstration was to take place.
But instead of tens of thousands, we saw only a few hundred there, who remained more or less calm in our presence and even retreated partly.
We could then see how the frightened population gradually regained its composure, gathered courage, and even dared to greet us with cheers. At night, as we headed toward the station, spontaneous jubilation erupted in many places along the route as we passed.
Once at the station, the railway personnel unexpectedly informed us that they were not driving the train. I began by letting some of the organizers of the sabotage know that, in such a case, I would arrest any scoundrel who fell into my hands and that the train would depart under our control, without neglecting, of course, to carry a few dozen of the famous “comrades of international solidarity” in the locomotive, in the tender, and in each carriage. I also made sure to draw these gentlemen’s attention to the fact that the trip under our charge would, naturally, be a very risky undertaking, and it wouldn’t be unusual for us all to be badly injured, although we consoled ourselves with the thought that, at least, we wouldn’t be going to the other world alone, but that, in equality and fellowship, the communist gentlemen would accompany us.
Thanks to my resolute attitude, the train left punctually and the next morning we arrived in Munich safe and sound.
The experience at Coburg had taught us, then, how useful it was to introduce a regular uniform into the SA, not only to strengthen esprit de corps but also to avoid confusion and incomprehensible recognition. Until then, the SA had worn only an armband as a distinctive symbol; later came the use of the blouse and the familiar cap.
Another experience acquired in Coburg was to demonstrate the need to systematically suppress the Red Terror and restore freedom of assembly in places where, for years, any demonstration by other parties had been impossible.
3rd) The occupation of the Ruhr by the French in the first months of 1923 had enormous significance for the development of the SA
This occupation, which did not come as a surprise to us, gave rise to the well-founded hope that the cowardly policy of submission would finally end and that, with it, the defense leagues would assume a perfectly defined role. Nor did the SA, which already at that time included many organizations,
Thousands of young, strong men were to be deprived of their ability to perform this national service. In the spring and summer of 1923, the SA was transformed into a military combat organization.
The conclusion of 1923, which at first glance was sad for Germany, was nevertheless, from a higher perspective, a necessity, since that year finally brought to an end the military transformation of the SA, which was detrimental to the movement and rendered useless by the attitude of the Reich Government. Thus, the possibility arose for our National Socialist ideal of one day returning to the point where we had previously been forced to abandon the true path.
The NSDAP, founded on new foundations in 1925, must rebuild, educate, and organize its SA in accordance with the principles mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. The NSDAP returns to its former sound ideas and also sees as its supreme task the goal of creating, through its SA, an instrument to strengthen and sustain the movement’s ideological struggle.
The NSDAP must not tolerate the SA descending to the level of a defense league, nor even to the level of a secret organization; rather, it must strive to make it a 100,000-strong guard of the National Socialist ideal and, therefore, of the racial ideal in its deepest sense.
