Mein Kampf (Stackpole Sons)/Volume 2/Chapter 9
9. Basic Thoughts on the Meaning and
Organization of the Storm Troops
The strength of the old State rested on three pillars: the monarchical form of government, the administrative bodies and the army. The Revolution of the year 1918 did away with the government, disorganized the army, and delivered the administrative bodies over to party corruption. Therewith, the fundamental supports of a so-called state authority were smashed to bits. These depend almost always on three elements, which lie fundamentally at the basis of all authority.
The first basis for the formation of authority is constant popularity. At the same time, authority, which rests on this foundation alone, is utterly weak, unreliable and wavering. Every holder of such a pure dependent authority must aim at popularity, at bettering the basis of this authority and at insuring it through the generation of power. In power, therefore, in might, we have the second basis for every authority. It is readily and essentially more stable, reliable, but throughout not always stronger than the first. If popularity and power are united, and can survive in common for a certain time, then an authority may be found to rest on an even firmer basis, the authority of tradition. If, finally, popularity, power and tradition are united, authority can be considered unshakable.
By the Revolution this last possibility was cut out. There is, in fact, no longer an authority of tradition. With the break-up of the old government, the removal of the old form of state, the annihilation of its former grandeur and national symbols, tradition was rudely torn down. The result was a heavy blow to state authority.
Even the second pillar of state authority, power, was no longer present. In order to carry through the Revolution at all, one was forced to disembody the organized force and power of the State, that is, the army; indeed, one had to use the tattered fragment of the army itself as the fighting element of revolution. Although the armies from the front had not been affected by this destruction in a body, still the acid of disorganization in the homeland started to gnaw at them when they returned from the glorious fields of their heroic battle that had lasted four and a half years, and that had ended, once arrived at the point of demobilization and in the hub-bub of the so-called voluntary submission to the era of soldier self-government.
No authority could get support from this horde of collected soldiers who thought of military service as an eight-hour day. Thus, the second element is the very one that first guaranteed security for authority, and the Revolution has actually only the original one, popularity, on which to build up its authority. But this basis was an unusually unreliable one. Indeed, the Revolution succeeded with a single, mighty heave in shattering the old state structure, for one most profound reason, alone: the normal equilibrium within the structure of our people was removed by the war.
Every national body can be divided into three classes: on the one hand, the best of mankind, good in the sense of every virtue, especially distinguished by courage and by pleasure in self-sacrifice; on the other hand, at the other extreme, the worst wrecks of mankind, bad in the sense of existing for every selfish impulse and vice. Between the two extremes lies a third class, the large, broad intermediate stratum in whom is embodied neither a gleaming heroism nor a mean criminal temper.
Periods of marked ascent of a national body exist indeed only by the absolute leadership of the extremes. Periods marked by a normal, even development or by a stable condition exist by the evident domination of the middle element, whereby the two extremes maintain the balance reciprocally, respectively cancelling each other out. Periods of the break-up of a national body will be certain through the work of the worst elements.
But it is thereby remarkable that the broad mass, the intermediate class, as I wish to call them, comes tangibly into view only if the two extremes themselves engage in conflict, but that they submit readily in case of the victory of one of the extremes to the victor. In case of the domination of the best, the broad mass will follow them; in case of the ascendancy of the worst, they will at least offer them no resistance; for the intermediate mass will itself never fight.
The war in its four-and-a-half years of bloody events disturbed the inner equilibrium of these three classes. One realizes this by recognizing all the sacrifice of the intermediate class, which lead to an almost complete blood-letting of the best men. And what was shed of the irreplaceable blood of German heroes in these four and a half years, is monstrous. One adds up all the hundred thousand particulars. Each time they kept asking for: volunteers for the front, volunteer patrols, volunteer spies, volunteers for the telephone squad, volunteers for bridge-crossings, volunteers for the U-boats, volunteers for aviation, volunteers for the storm battalions, and so forth—again and again for four and a half years on thousands of occasions, volunteers and more volunteers—and one saw invariably the same failure: The beardless youths or the ripe men, both filled with passionate love of the Fatherland, reported with great, personal courage, or the highest consciousness of duty. Ten thousand, nay an hundred thousand of such cases are recorded, and gradually this human species grew scarcer and scarcer. What did not die was either shot to pieces or crippled gradually, because of the smallness of the remaining number. But one considers before everything that the year 1914 with the whole army made up of so-called volunteers who, thanks to the criminal unscrupulousness of our parliamentary do-nothings, had obtained no valid, perfecting peace, and so now had surrendered like defenceless cannon-fodder to the enemy. The four hundred thousand who fell or were maimed at the battle of Flanders could no longer be replaced.
Their loss was more than the loss of a mere number. By their death the balance was weighted too little on the good side, and now the elements of meanness, of vileness and of cowardliness, in short, the mass of the worst extreme were launched.
And added to that: Not only the best extreme became thinned on the battlefield in the most monstrous way for four and a half years, but the worst, in the meantime, in the most remarkable way were conserved. To be sure on every volunteer hero climbing the steps to Valhalla by the holy death of sacrifice, fell a poltroon who very cautiously turned his back to death in order to give practical proof of his being more or less useful in the homeland in their stead.
Thus the end of the war presented the following picture: The broad, intermediate stratum duly sacrificed its toll of blood; the best extreme sacrificed itself with typical heroism; the worst extreme was unfortunately preserved intact, supported, on the one hand, by the most stupid laws, and on the other, by the non-application of the Articles of War.
This well-preserved scum of our nation then made the Revolution and only it could make it because the extreme of the best element no longer opposed it; it was no longer alive.
Thus, the German Revolution was from the outset limited in popularity. It was not the German people who were guilty of this act of Cain, but the purblind riff-raff of deserters, kept women, etc.
The man at the front was happy to greet the end of the bloody fight, to be able again to go home, to be allowed to see wife and child. Alone he had nothing intriniscally to do with the Revolution itself; he did not like it, and still less did he like its agitators and organizers. In four and a half years of the hardest fighting he had forgotten the party hyenas; their strife was foreign to him.
The Revolution became really popular only with a small part of the German people; that is, with every class of their supporters who had chosen the rucksack as the distinguishing sign of all honorary citizens of this new State. They did not like the Revolution for its own sake, as so many misguidedly still believe today, but because of its consequences.
The authority of these Marxist freebooters could not, in truth, rest on popularity alone for long, except with difficulty. And the young Republic needed authority immediately at any price, if it did not want suddenly to be entangled again after a short period of chaos with an administrative power linked together out of the last elements of the good part of our people.
Every supporter of the Revolution feared nothing more than that in the whirlpool of their own chaos they themselves would lose every footing, and suddenly be seized by a brazen fist, and be placed on another footing, has happened more than once in such a course of events in the life of the people. The Republic had to consolidate at any price.
It was momentarily almost forced to create again, alongside the tottering pillars of its weak popularity, an organization of power in order to be able to find a more solid authority on it.
When during December, January and February, 1918 and 1919, the matadors of the Revolution felt the ground under their feet wobbling, they were on the lookout for men who would be ready to strengthen their weak position by force of arms, and who offered them the love of their people. The “anti-militaristic” Republic needed soldiers.
But since the first and only support for their government authority, that is, their popularity, was rooted only in a society of kept women, thieves, burglars, deserters, poltroons, etc., and therefore, in every part of the people whom we must designate as the worst extreme, enrolling men who were ready to sacrifice their own lives in the service of the new ideal, in the circle of the futile labor of love, was everything. The supporting stratum of the revolutionary idea was neither capable nor ready to invite the soldiers to protect it. And this stratum wished by no means for the organization of a republican form of government, but for the disorganization of the existing one for the better gratification of their instincts. Their slogan did not mean: order and establishment of the German Republic, but rather—the plundering of it.
Thus the cries for help which the leaders uttered in their mortal terror went unheeded in this group, yes, they even aroused repulsion and bitterness. For in such action there was felt to be a breach between loyalty and faith; after all one sensed in the formation of an authority resting not only upon popularity, but supported also by power, the beginning of a battle against that which alone represented for these elements the valid features of the Revolution: against the right of thievery and the dissolute reign of a horde of thieves and plunderers, in short, trash, lately freed from prison walls and loosed from chains.
Shout as they might, no one came from their ranks to the aid of the leaders and only the call of “traitor” told them of the state of mind of those bearers of their popularity.
Countless young Germans found themselves ready then for the first time to put on the uniform, and take up arms in the service of “Peace and Order,” as they thought, to march steel-helmeted against the destroyers of their homeland. As volunteers they formed volunteer corps, and although they hated revolution bitterly, they began to defend and thus to strengthen this Revolution.
They did this moved by the best of intentions.
The real organizer of the Revolution and the one who pulled its strings, the international Jew, had sized up the situation correctly: “The German people was not yet ripe enough to be able to be pulled into the bloody swamp of Bolshevism, as happened in Russia.” This was due to the closer racial unity of the German intellectuals and the German artisan. Mass education such as we also find in other Western European states but which is lacking in Russia also played a part. In Russia the intellectuals had no Russian nationality or at least were not of the Slavic race. This thin intellectual layer of the Russia of that time could be supplanted easily because there was no unity at all between it and the mass of the Russian people. The spiritual and moral niveau of the latter was, however, horribly low.
When they succeeded in Russia in inciting the illiterate masses against the thin intellectual upper layer, which was entirely foreign to the masses, the fate of this country was decided, the Revolution successful. The Russian analphabet thus became a defenseless slave of the Jewish dictators, who, however, were clever enough to call this dictatorship a “Dictatorship of the People.”
In Germany there was something additional: As surely as the Revolution could be successful only as a result of the gradual deterioration of the army, just so surely the soldiers at the front could not have been the bearer of the Revolution and the dissolver of the army. This was the work of the rabble, more or less shunning the light, either loafing around in the home garrisons or because “unfit” for duty doing domestic work somewhere. This army was strengthened by thousands of deserters, who were able to turn away from the front with nothing to lose. The real coward, of course, shuns nothing so much as death. At the front he had death before him day after day in all of its thousandfold forms. If you want weak, wavering or even cowardly fellows to do their duty, then there has been from time immemorial only one possibility: The deserter must realize that his desertion will always result in that which he is trying to escape. At the front you may die, as a deserter you must die. Only through such a severe threat to every attempt at desertion can such a warning result be achieved not only in individual cases, but in totality.
And here lay the meaning and purpose of the Articles of War.
It was a prettier belief that the struggle for existence of a people could be fought out by relying solely upon the voluntary loyalty born of and preserved by the knowledge of necessity. The voluntary fulfilment of duty has always guided the best of men in their conduct, never the average man. Therefore such laws, like those against robbery, are necessary. They were not made for the genuinely honest but for the weak and fickle elements of the population. By their warning to the evildoers, such laws are intended to prevent a condition’s arising in which in the end the honest man would be considered the more stupid one, and in which, moreover, the point of view would gain the upper hand that it is also better to participate in robbery than to stand by emptyhanded or even allow oneself to be robbed.
Thus it was wrong to believe that, in a battle which as far as man could judge might very well rage for years, those time-tried means could be dispensed with which are able to force people weak and lacking in confidence to do their duty even in most serious times and in moments demanding the greatest test of nerves.
Of course, no Articles of War were necessary for the heroes who volunteered; they were needed for the cowardly egotist, who, in the hour of his people’s need, values his life higher than that of his country. Such a spineless weakling can be diverted from becoming a victim of his cowardice only by the harshest threats. Only by the ruthless application of the death penalty can the unreliable fellow be kept at his post when men are constantly fighting with death, and often must hold out for weeks in slimy shell-holes, with the worst possible food. Here threats of jail or prison sentence are of no value, for he knows from experience that in such times jail, or even prison, is many times safer than the battlefield, especially since in prison, at least, his priceless life is not threatened. It was a bad mistake to eliminate practically the death penalty during the War, to call in the Articles of War, so to speak. Especially in 1918, an army of deserters gushed forth, both in the troops, behind the line, and at home, and helped form that large, destructive organization which we suddenly saw before us as the makers of the Revolution after November 7, 1918.
The front was really not involved at all. To be sure all those at the front longed for peace. But there lay in this desire for peace a danger to the Revolution. For when after the Armistice the German armies began returning home the worried revolutionaries had only one question: “Will the front-troops do? Will they stand for this?”
At least outwardly in these weeks the Revolution in Germany had to appear temperate, if it did not want to run the danger of being suddenly destroyed by a few German divisions. For if at that time only a single division commander had decided to pull down the Red rag with the division loyal to him, and to stand the leaders up against the wall and to break down any possible opposition with trench-mortars and hand-grenades, this division would have grown to an army of sixty divisions in less than four weeks. The Jews pulling the strings were more afraid of this than of anything else. And simply to avoid this the Revolution had to seem somewhat moderate, it could not be allowed to degenerate into Bolshevism, it had to simulate “Peace and Order.” Hence the numerous great concessions, the appeal to the old officialdom, to the old army leaders. They were still needed for a time at least, and not until the Moors had done their duty could one venture to give them the kick they deserved, and take the Republic out of the hands of the old servants of the State, and deliver it to the claws of the revolutionary vultures.
Only thus could they hope to fool old generals and old state officials, and so disarm any eventual opposition from them from the start through the apparent innocence and mildness of the new situation.
The facts show how successful this was.
But the Revolution had not been created by elements of peace and order but by those of rebellion, theft, and plundering. And for these elements the development of the Revolution neither proceeded according to their own desire nor could its course be made clear and palatable to them because of tactical reasons.
With the gradual increase of the Social Democratic Party, this party had lost more and more the character of a brutal revolutionary party. Not that they had ever had any other goal than that of the Revolution, or that its leaders had had any other intentions; not at all. But what finally remained was only the intention and a body no longer capable of realizing it. With a party of ten million members one can no longer carry out a Revolution. In such a movement one no longer has an extreme of activity before him, but the broad inactive mass of the middle, and a burden of inactivity.
In the realization of this even during the War, the famous split of the Social Democratic Party by the Jews took place; that is, while the Social Democratic Party, because of the inactivity of its mass clung like a dead weight to the national defense, the radical activistic elements were withdrawn from it and were formed into especially strong columns of attack. The Independent party and the Spartacist Union were the storm battalions of revolutionary Marxism. They had to create the completed fact, upon whose ground the mass of the Social Democratic Party, which had prepared for it for decades, could walk. The cowardly middle-class was in thus correctly rated by Marxism and treated simply “en canaille.” They took no notice of it at all, realizing that the fawning servility of the political structure of an old superannuated generation would never be capable of serious opposition.
When the Revolution had succeeded, and the main supports of the old State could be considered broken, the returning front army began to appear like an uncanny sphinx, and the brakes had to be applied in the natural development of the Revolution; the greater part of the Social Democratic Party occupied the newly-won positions and the Independent and Spartacist storm battalions were pushed aside.
This did not proceed however without a battle.
Not alone because these activistic attack-formations of the Revolution felt themselves deceived because they were not satisfied and on their own initiative wanted to continue the attack, was their uncontrolled brawling desired by those who pulled the strings of the Revolution themselves. For hardly had the collapse taken place, when two camps became evident, namely; the party of peace and order and the group of bloody terror. What could be more natural now than that our middle-class at once moved into the camp of peace and order with flying banners? Now all of a sudden there was the possibility of an activity for these most pitiable political organizations, by which, without having to say so, they had nevertheless in secret already found ground under their feet again, and had come into a certain position of solidarity with the power which they hated, but feared even more. The political German middle-class had received the high honor of being able to seat themselves at one table with the thrice-damned Marxist leaders in order to fight the Bolshevists. Thus already in December 1918 and January 1919 the following situation arose:
A Revolution was carried out by a minority of the worst elements, which all the Marxist parties immediately backed. The Revolution itself has an apparently moderate stamp, which arouses the hostility of the fanatic extremists. The latter begin to throw around hand grenades and to fire off machine guns, to occupy public buildings, in short, to threaten the moderate Revolution.
In order to check the fear of such a development an armistice is declared between the backers of the new situation and the supporters of the old so that they may be able to fight together against the extremists. The result is that the enemies of the Republic have discontinued their battle with the Republic as such and assist in forcing down those who themselves, for quite different reasons, to be sure, are likewise enemies of the Republic. The further result is, however, that in so doing the danger of a battle of the defenders of the old State against those of the new seems once and for all to be diverted.
One cannot emphasize this fact too often. Only he who understands this realizes how it was possible that a people, nine-tenths of whom did not carry out a revolution, seven-tenths of whom reject it, six-tenths hate it, nevertheless can finally have this Revolution forced upon it by one-tenth.
Gradually the Spartacist barricade-fighters on the one side and the nationalist fanatics and idealists on the other bled to death, and in the degree in which the two extremes incited each other, to that degree did the mass of the middle come out victorious. Middle-class and Marxism found themselves on the ground of the accepted facts and the Republic began to consolidate. This, to be sure, for the time being did not prevent the middle-class parties, especially before elections, from quoting monarchistic ideas for a time, in order to be able, with the spirits of the past, to conjure up and catch anew the smaller spirits of their disciples.
This was not really honest. Secretly all of them had long since broken with the Monarchy, and the uncleanliness of the new situation also began to make its seductive effects felt in the camp of the middle-class party. The ordinary middle-class politician feels more at home today in the mire of corruption of the Republic than in the clean severity which he still remembers from the past régime.
As has already been mentioned, the Revolution was forced after the destruction of the old army, to create a new agent of power to strengthen its state authority. As things lay it could obtain this agent only from the followers of a world-concept really opposed to its own. Only from them could slowly arise a new army, which externally limited by the Peace Treaties, had to be transformed in the course of time to an instrument of the new conception of state.
If we therefore ask ourselves, how the Revolution could succeed as an action—disregarding the real mistakes of the old State which became the cause of it—we come to this conclusion:
1. as the result of the paralyzing of our ideas of duty and obedience and2. as the result of the cowardly passivity of our so-called state supporting parties.
To this might be added:
The paralyzing of our ideas of duty and obedience has its real foundation in our entirely non-national and always purely public education. Here, too, the result is the want of appreciation of means and ends. Realization of one’s duty, performance of one’s duty and obedience are no more ends in themselves than the state is an end in itself, but they should all be the means of making possible and securing the existence upon this earth of a community of spiritually and physically similar beings. In an hour when the body of a state visibly collapses and to all appearances is most sorely oppressed, thanks to the action of a few scoundrels, obedience and performance of one’s duty becomes important to them from the standpoint of theoretical formalism or even pure lack of reason providing on the other hand a people would be saved from destruction by refusing obedience and “performance of one’s duty.” According to our present bourgeois conception of state the division commander who for his part received the order from his superior not to shoot naturally is justified in not shooting since to the bourgeois world thoughtless formal obedience is worth more than the life of his own people. According to the National-Socialist conception, not obedience to weak superiors but obedience to the community operates in such moments. In such an hour the duty of personal responsibility to a whole nation appears.
That a real interpretation of these ideas among our people or rather in our governments has been lost in favor of a purely theoretical and formal interpretation accounts for the success of the Revolution.
To the second point might be added:
The more profound reason for the cowardice of the “state supporting parties is especially the disappearance from their ranks of the activistic and well disposed section of the people which died on the field of battle. Apart from this our bourgeois parties, which we can designate as the only political structures standing on the ground of the old State, were convinced that they could represent their views solely upon an intellectual path and with intellectual means, since only the State had the right to make use of physical means. Not only do we see in such a conception the signs of a gradually developing decadent weakness but the conception itself was absurd at a time when the one political opponent had long since forsaken this point of view, and instead of it quite openly emphasized that he would, if possible, attain his political ends even through force. The moment in which Marxism appeared in the world of bourgeois democracies as a consequence of it, their slogan to fight with intellectual weapons was nonsense for which they would have to pay dearly some day. For Marxism itself had always had the point of view that weapons are to be used only if expedient and that the justification for their use always lies in the success of their use.
How correct this point of view is was demonstrated in the days from the 7th to the 11th of November 1918. At that time Marxism cared not in the least for parliamentarism and democracy but gave both the death-thrust through howling and pilfering criminal hordes. That the bourgeois chatter-box groups were defenseless in this moment is of course self-evident.
After the Revolution when the bourgeois parties suddenly appeared again (even though they had changed their nameplates) and their brave leaders crept forth from the security of dark cellars and drafty attics, they had not forgotten their old mistakes nor learned anything new, just as all representatives of those old structures. Their political program lay in the past to the extent that they were not already reconciled to the new situation. Their aim, however, was to participate in the new government, and now as before their lone weapons continued to be merely words.
Also after the Revolution the bourgeois parties have at all times capitulated in the most pitiful manner.
When the defense law of the Republic was to be adopted there was no majority for it. But the bourgeois “statesmen” feared the two hundred thousand demonstrating Marxists so greatly that they passed the law against their convictions, quite understandably fearing that otherwise they would be beaten to pulp while leaving the Reichstag. Unfortunately because of the adoption this did not occur.
Thus did the development of the new State run its course as though there were no nationalistic opposition at all.
The only organizations which at this time would have had courage and strength to combat Marxism and its stirred-up masses were at first the volunteer corps, later the organizations for self-preservation, citizens corps, etc., and finally the Traditionverbände.
The reason that their existence brought about in the development of German history no perceptible change was:
Just as the so-called nationalistic parties were unable to exert any influence because they lacked any threatening authority in the streets, so the so-called defense units were unable to exert any influence because they had no political idea of any sort and lacked particularly any real political goal.
What had once given Marxism success was the consummate interplay of political desire and activistic brutality. That which excluded the national Germany from any form of German development was the lack of a close cooperation of brutal force with ingenius political desire.
Whatever the nature of the desire of the “nationalist” parties might be they had not the least strengh to fight for this desire, least of all in the streets.
The defense units had all the strength, they were the lords of the street and the State, but they possessed no political idea and no political goal for which their power might have been used to the advantage of nationalist Germany. In both cases it was the cleverness of the Jew which brought about, by clever talking and strengthening, literally a perpetuation, in any case, however, and further deepening of this unhappy fate.
It was the Jew who through his press very cleverly launched the idea of the “non-political character” of the defense units just as he cunningly praised and demanded pure intellectualism in political life. Millions of German blockheads now babbled this nonsense without having the slightest idea how they actually disarmed themselves in so doing and surrendered themselves completely to the Jew.
But this also has its natural explanation. The lack of a great re-forming conception always means a restriction of fighting strength. The conviction of the right to use even the most brutal weapons is always dependent upon the existence of a fanatic faith in the necessity of victory for a new revolutionary order of things upon this earth.
A movement which does not fight for these highest aims and ideals will therefore never reach for the last weapon.
The revealing of a new great idea was the secret of the success of the French Revolution; the Russian Revolution owes its victory to the idea, and Facism has retained its strength only through the idea of subjecting a whole people very successfully to a most comprehensive re-generation.
Bourgeois parties are not capable of this.
Not only did the bourgeois parties see their political goal in a restoration of the past, but also the defense units, in so far as they concerned themselves with political aid. The tendencies of the old societies of veterans and of Kyffhäuser were revived in them and aided politically to dull the sharpest weapon which the nationalist Germany had at that time, and to let it degenerate in lowly service of the Republic. That they in so doing were acting with the best intentions and faith does not change this wretched lack of reason of these events in the least.
Gradually Marxism received the necessary support of its authority in the now consolidated Reichswehr and began systematically and logically to eliminate the seemingly dangerous national defense units because they were now superfluous. Individual and particularly bold leaders whom one mistrusted were ordered to appear before the courts and placed behind bars. For whatever lot befell them they were themselves to blame.
With the founding of the N. S. D. A. P. there appeared for the first time a movement whose aim was not like that of the bourgeois parties, whose aim was not the mechanical restoration of the past but lay in the attempt to set up in place of today’s nonsensical mechanism on organic populist state.
The point of view of the young movement from the very beginning was that their idea was to be represented intellectually, but that the protection of this representation must be assured if necessary even by forceful means. True to its conviction of the tremendous significance of the new doctrine, it seems to it as a matter of course that no sacrifice is too great in the realizing of the goal.
I have already indicated the motives which oblige a movement that intends to win the heart of a people, to defend from its own ranks the terroristic attempts of its opponents. Likewise it is the eternal experience of world history that a terror represented by a world-concept never can be broken by a formal state authority but always succumbs only to a new and different world-concept, equally bold and determined. This will always be unpleasant to the official guardians of the state although this does not alter the fact in the least. State authority can guarantee peace and order only when the state and the ruling world-concept agree, so that violent elements possess only the character of individual criminal natures and are not considered as representatives of a purpose extremely opposed to the views of the state. In such a case the state can apply for centuries the most violent measures against a terror threatening it; in the end, however, the state will succumb being unable to accomplish anything against it.
The German State is assaulted most vigorously by Marxism. The State in its seventy year struggle has not been able to prevent the victory of this world-concept. On the contrary in spite of thousands of years of prison and jail sentences and bloodiest measures which it inflicted upon the defenders of the Marxist world-concept threatening it, the State has been forced to an almost complete capitulation. (The normal bourgeois state leader will want to deny this, too, but of course without being able to convince anyone).
The State which on the 9th of November 1918 unconditionally surrendered to Marxism, will not suddenly arise tomorrow as its conqueror; on the contrary, bourgeois simpletons occupying Ministers’ seats are already today talking at random about the necessity of not ruling against the workers, using the word “worker” in the Marxist sense. By identifying the German worker with Marxism, they are committing a cowardly and mendacious perjury, and thus also attempt to hide their own collapse in the face of the Marxist idea and organization. In view of this fact, that is, the complete surrender of the present-day State of Marxism, there arises for the National-Socialist movement the real duty of not only preparing spiritually for the victory of their idea but also of assuming its defense against the terror of the victory-drunk International itself.
I have already described how quite naturally there slowly developed in our young movement a group to protect our meetings, and how this group gradually assumed the character of a definite police troop and strove for an organizing formation.
Although the gradually arising structure externally resembled a so-called defense group, it was not to be compared with such a group.
As has already been mentioned, the German defense organizations had no definite political plan of their own. They were actually only units for self-protection more or less suitably trained and organized, so that they really represented an illegal complement to the existing legal instruments of power of the state. Their similarity to volunteer corps was due only to the nature of their formation and to the condition of the State at that time. In the sense that they were independent units fighting for an independent and individual conviction this title is not appropriate. They certainly did not have such a conviction in spite of the fact that individual leaders and whole groups were opposed to the Republic. For in order to be able to speak of a conviction in the higher sense, it is not sufficient to be convinced of the inferiority of an existing order. For the root of a conviction lies solely in the knowledge and inner perception of a new order which we feel must be achieved under any circumstances and the realization of which we consider our highest task in life.
What fundamentally distinguishes the police troop of the National-Socialist movement at that time from all defense units is that it was not in the least and did not want to be a servant of the conditions created by the Revolution, but that it was fighting exclusively for a new Germany.
At first this troop was simply a guard at meetings. Its first task was simply to make it possible to hold meetings which otherwise would definitely have been prevented by the opposition. Even at that time this troop was trained to attack blindly; not that it regarded the rubber blackjack as the highest ideal, as some stupid German nationalists claimed, but because these men understood that the highest ideal can be exterminated if its leader is killed by a rubber blackjack. In fact not infrequently in history, the most important leaders have fallen under the blows of the most insignificant helot. It did not want to consider violence as a goal, but it wanted to protect the proclaimers of a spiritual aim from oppression by violence. It understood at the same time that it was not duty-bound to assume the protection of a State which affords no protection to the nation, but that on the contrary it was to protect the nation against those threatening to destroy both people and State.
After the massacre at the meeting in the Munich Hofbräuhaus the police troop received once and for always the name Storm Troop as a lasting recollection of their courageous storming of the small group at that time. It is obvious from the name itself that this group represents only one part of the movement, just as propaganda, the press, the scientific institutions, etc., are merely single parts of the Party.
We could see how necesasry its extension was not only from this memorable meeting, but also from our attempt to spread the movement gradually from Munich throughout the rest of Germany. As soon as we had begun to appear dangerous to Marxism, it left no stone unturned to nip every attempt at a National-Socialistic meeting in the bud, or to prevent its being held by breaking it up. At the same time it was quite a matter of course that the Marxist Party organizations of all shades should completely hide any such purpose and each occurrence of this kind in the representative bodies. What, however, should one say about bourgeois parties, which, thrashed down by Marxism themselves, do not dare to let their speakers appear publicly in many places, and who in spite of that carry on, in one way or another, very unsatisfactory struggles against Marxism with a feeling of satisfaction which is quite foolish and incomprehensible to us. They were happy that Marxism which could not be conquered by them, which indeed was overcoming them, could not be defeated by us either. What should one say about state officials, police-presidents, yes, even ministers, who, indecently unprincipled, chose to pass outwardly as “nationalist,” but who in all disagreements which we had with Marxists, gave them the most reprehensible, underhanded assistance. What should one say about people who go so far in their self-debasement that for the miserable praise of Jewish newspapers persecute without further ado the men whose heroic intercession they have to thank in part for their own lives that they were not hanged by the Red pack as rotting corpses to light-posts only a few years ago.
These were such wretched figures that on one occasion they drove our unforgettable late President Pöhner, who in his severe straightforwardness hated all fawning as only an honorable man can hate, to the blunt expression of opinion: “In my whole life I never wanted to be anything except a German in the first place, and then a public officer, and I should never like to be confused with those creatures who as official whores prostitute themselves for everyone who at the moment is able to play the master.”
It was especially pitiful that this sort of people gradually got not only tens of thousands of the most honorable and upright servants of the State under their power, but also slowly infected them with their own want of character. On the other hand they persecuted the honest with grim hate and finally gnawed them out of office and position while they represented themselves in lying hypocrisy as “nationalist.”
From such men we may never hope for any kind of support and we have received it only on very rare occasions. Only the extension of our own protection could safeguard the activity of the movement and at the same time achieve for it that public attention and common respect which one pays to him who defends himself when attacked.
In the development of this Storm Troop, the guiding idea, besides physical improvement, was the intention to make it the inviolably convinced representative of the National-Socialist idea, and finally to strengthen its disciples to the highest degree. It was to have nothing to do with a defense organization in the bourgeois sense, nor with any secret organization.
The following consideration explains why I already, at that time most vehemently struggled against developing the S. A. (Sturm-Abteilung, i.e. Storm Troop) of the N. S. D. A. P. as a so-called defense unit:
From a purely practical point of view the defense of a people cannot be carried out by private units, without the greatest amount of assistance from the State. Any other belief is based upon an exaggerated opinion of one’s own ability. It is simply impossible to develop an organization having military value beyond a certain point with so-called “voluntary discipline.” The most important support for the authority to give orders is gone, namely the authority to punish. To be sure, it was possible in the fall and more so in the spring of 1919 to organize “volunteer corps,” but that at least for a time this group obeyed like soldiers, was not simply because they were men who had fought at the front and for the most part had been through the school of the old army, but also because of the type of duty imposed on each individual.
This is entirely lacking in a volunteer “defense organization” of today. The larger the unit becomes, the more lax the discipline, the less significant the demands upon the members, the more the whole thing will assume the character of the non-political associations of soldiers and veterans.
Volunteer training for an army without assured, unconditional authority to give orders will never be possible for great numbers. There will always be only a few who will be ready of their own accord to render an obedience which in the army is considered a matter of course.
The ridiculously insignificant means at the disposal of a defense unit for purposes of self-training constitute another real obstacle. The very best, most reliable training would have to be the main purpose of such an institution. Eight years have passed since the War, and in that time not a single year’s class of our youth has been systematically trained. It certainly cannot be the task of a defense unit to take hold of the already trained generations, since it can be determined with mathematical certainty when the last member will leave the corporation. Even the youngest soldier of 1918 will be too old to fight in twenty years, a time which will all too soon be upon us. Thus every defense unit of necessity becomes more and more like the old Association of Trained Soldiers. This cannot be the purpose of an institution which does not call itself an organization of fighters but a defense unit, and simply through its very name strives to express that it sees as its mission not only the maintenance of the tradition and feeling of solidarity among former soldiers, but also the development of the defense idea and the practical realization of this idea, the creation of a unit capable of defense.
This task demands then unconditionally the training of those elements which had as yet had no military drill, and in practice this is actually impossible. With one or two hours of training a week one can really not create a soldier. In view of the enormously increased demands which military service makes on the individual man today, a two-year service period is perhaps just about sufficient to transform the untrained young man into an educated soldier. We all have before our eyes on the battlefield the terrible consequences which befell soldiers not thoroughly trained in military affairs. Units of volunteers, who with iron determination and infinite devotion had been drilled for fifteen or twenty weeks, offered at the front, none the less, only cannon fodder. Only distributed into the ranks of experienced old soldiers, could the younger recruits, trained from four to six months, serve as useful members of a regiment; in this way they were guided by the “old ones” and then gradually grew into their tasks.
In comparison how unpromising does the attempt seem—to rear troops by means of a one to two hour so-called training each week without a clear power of command and comprehensive means! In that way perhaps one can freshen up old soldiers again, but can never make young men into soldiers.
How indifferent and completely worthless such a procedure would be in its results can again be exemplified through the fact that: At the same time when a so-called volunteer defense unit in difficulty and despair trains or seeks to train in the idea of defense a few thousand well-meaning men (those of a different sort it does not even approach)—the State itself consistently robs millions of young people of their natural instincts through the pacifist-democratic type of education, poisons their logical patriotic thought and so transforms them gradually into a herd of sheep tolerant of every despotism. How ridiculous in comparison to that are all efforts of the defense units to communicate their thoughts to German youth. But almost still more important is the following point of view, which caused me always to take a position against every attempt of a so-called military defense procedure on the basis of a volunteer unit!
Assuming a unit would succeed in spite of the previously mentioned difficulties in training year after year a definite number of Germans to be men capable of defense, even in respect to their temperament as well as physical proficiency, and military training, even then the result would have to be absolute zero in a State which, according to its entire tendency, does not at all desire such a defense procedure, yes, even thoroughly hates it, since it completely opposes the innermost aim of its leaders, the destroyers of this State.
In any case such a result would be worthless under regimes which have not only shown through their deeds that they care nothing about the military power of the nation, but who would never at all be inclined to allow an appeal to this power except for the extreme instance of the support of their destructive existence.
And today that is absolutely true. Or is it not ridiculous for a regiment to attempt to train same ten-thousand men in the twilight of decline when the State, a few years before, abandoned eight and a half million men disgracefully, not only no longer made use of them but, as a reward for their sacrifices, even exposed them to general insult?
Does one then intend to train soldiers for the regiment of a State which befouled and spat upon the soldiers who were once the most honorable, which ripped their cockades from their chests, trampled their banners and degraded their performances? Or has this present State ever undertaken a step to reestablish the honor of the old army, and to take to task their destroyers and slanderers. Not in the least! On the contrary: we can see the latter enthroned in the highest state offices. As it was said at Leipzig. “Right goes with might.” Since today in our Republic the power lies in the hands of the same men who once plotted the Revolution, this Revolution, nay, the basest treason, which represents the most wretched rascality of all German history, then no reason can be found for increasing the power of these very characters through the training of a new young army. All principles of reason in any case speak against it.
Whatever worth this State, even after the Revolution of 1918, attributed to the military strength of its position proceeded clearly and simply from its attitude to the great contemporary organizations for its own defense. As long as they had to contribute to the defense of personally cowardly creatures of revolution they were not unwelcome. However as soon as—thanks to the gradual ruin of our people—the danger for them seemed to have passed, and the existence of these units meant a national political strength again, then they were superfluous, and everything was done to disarm them, even if possible to disperse them.
History shows the gratitude of princes only in rare instances. But only a bourgeois patriot of the present day would reckon upon the gratitude of revolutionary incendiaries, exploiters of the people, and national traitors. In any case at an investigation of the problem whether volunteer defense units were to be created, I could never resist the question: For whom am I training the young people, for what purpose are they to be used, and when are they to be called upon? The answer to that yields at the same time the best lines of direction for one’s own conduct.
If the present day State should call upon trained reserves of this kind, then this would never take place as a representation of foreign interests of the nation, but always as a protection to the tyrants within the nation from the general rage of the deceived, betrayed, and bartered people, which may some day break out in flames.
The S. A. of the N. S. D. A. P. could on this basis have nothing to do with a military organization. It was a means of education and protection for the National-Socialist movement and its tasks lay in a sphere entirely different from that of the so-called defense units.
But too, it was not to have the character of a secret organization. The purpose of secret organizations can only be contrary to law. In this way, however, the size of such an organization is of itself limited. It is not possible, especially in the face of the talkativeness of the German people, to build up an organization of some size and at the same time to keep it a secret to the outside, or even to conceal its aims. Every such intention will be thwarted in a thousand ways. It is not only that a staff of pimps and similar rabble is at the service of our police courts who will for the Judas fee of thirty pieces of silver betray what they can find, and invent what is to be betrayed, but the members themselves are never to be brought to the silence necessary in such a case. Only very little groups can assume the character of a true secret organization through years of sifting. The very smallness of such structures would nullify their value for the National-Socialist movement. What we needed and do need, were and are not a hundred or two hundred bold conspirators, but hundreds and hundreds of thousands of fanatical fighters for our world-concept. Not in little secret gatherings is the work to be done, but in mighty mass processions, and not by means of dagger and poison or pistol can the path be broken for the movement, but through the capture of the highway. We have to show Marxism that the future lord of the highway is National Socialism, just as it will some day be the lord of the State.
The danger of the secret organizations today further lies in this fact that the greatness of the task is totally misunderstood frequently among the members, and instead the opinion develops that actually through a single murder the fate of a people could be suddenly decided favorably. Such an opinion may have its historical justification, in a case when a people languishes under the tyranny of some sort of talented oppressor, of whom one is certain that only the inner security and the frightfulness of hostile oppression grants him his towering personality. In such a case a man ready for the sacrifice may suddenly spring forth from the people to plunge the dagger of death into the breast of the hated individual. And only the republican temperament of little rascals conscious of guilt will look upon such a deed as abhorrent, while the greatest poet of freedom of our people took it upon himself to present in his Tell a glorification of such an action.
In the years 1919 and 1920 there was danger in the fact that the member of secret organizations, spurred on by the great examples of history and horrified by the boundless misfortune of his Fatherland, sought to revenge himself on the plunderers of his home in the belief that by his deed he was preparing an end to the misery of his people. Every such attempt was nonsense, however, since Marxism had not at all conquered because of the superior talent and personal importance of an individual, but much more because of the boundless misery, the cowardly despair of the bourgeois world. The most horrible criticism which one can launch against our citizenry is the certainty that the Revolution itself did not bring forth a single brain of any greatness, and that nevertheless they subjugated themselves to it. It is still comprehensible that one would capitulate to a Robespierre, a Danton, or a Marat, but to grovel before a dull Scheidemann, a fat Herr Erzberger and a Friedrich Ebert and all the countless other political pigmies is annihilating. There was really not one intelligence there, in which one could have seen the talented man of the Revolution and in him the misfortune of the Fatherland, but they were, as a whole and singly, nothing but the vermin of revolution, petty Spartacists. To put one of those out of the way was perfectly pointless and had, at the most, only one successful result—that a few others just as great and just as thirsty advanced to his position all the more quickly.
One could not proceed sharply enough in those years against such an idea which had its cause and foundation in the truly great phenomena of history, but was not suited in the least to the momentary age of dwarves.
Even in connection with the question of the disposal of so-called traitors the same consideration is to be made. It is ridiculously illogical to kill a fellow who has betrayed a cannon while nearby in the highest positions of dignity sit nobodies who sold out a whole realm, who have the vain sacrifice of two million dead on their conscience, who must be responsible for millions of cripples, yet at the same time, spiritually calm, carry on their republican business. To dispose of little traitors is nonsensical in a State whose government itself frees these traitors from every punishment. So it can come to pass some day that an honorable idealist, who in behalf of his people does away with a rascally military traitor, is taken to task by national traitors of the first magnitude. And there is certainly an important question: Is one to allow such a treacherous little creature to be disposed of by another creature or by an idealist? In one case the success is doubtful and subsequent treachery sure; in the other case a little scoundrel is disposed of and in the process the life of an idealist is risked who cannot perhaps be replaced.
Besides my position in the question is this, that one should not hang little thieves in order to let the big ones run free; but that some time a German national law court will have to condemn and execute ten thousand or so of the organizers and therefore criminals of the November treason and all that goes with it. Such an example will be the necessary lesson even for the petty military traitor once and for all.
All these are the considerations, which caused me to forbid again and again participation in secret organizations and to guard the S. A. itself against the character of such organizations. I kept the National-Socialist movement in those years far removed from experiments, where executors were mostly gloriously idealistic-minded young Germans, whose deed however, would mean only their sacrifice, while they were not able in the least to better the fate of their Fatherland.
If the S. A. could be neither a military defense organization nor a secret union, then these conclusions must result:
1. Its training must follow not according to military views, but according to those in keeping with the aims of the Party.
In promoting physical health of the members, the chief emphasis was not to be laid on military exercise but much more on sports. Boxing and Jiu-Jitsu have always seemed to me more important than any sort of poor, because only half vigorous, rifle-training. Let the German nation be given six million athletically trained bodies, all of them inflamed with fanatical love of their country and all of them reared to the highest pitch of aggressive spirit, and a national state will have created out of them an army, in not even five years time if necessary, at least in so far as a certain basic stock is at hand. The physical conditioning will inject into the individual the conviction of his superiority and give him that confidence which forever lies in the consciousness of his own power; besides it must give him those athletic skills which will serve as a weapon of defense for the movement.
2. In order to ward off from the very beginning every characteristic of secrecy from the S. A., apart from the uniform immediately recognizable to anyone, the greatness of its constituency must itself point the way, of use to the movement, and known to the whole public. It must not assemble in secret, but march in the open air and in that way be directed in activity which would destroy absolutely all legends about a “secret organization.” In order to withold it spiritually, too, from all attempts to satisfy its desire for activity through small conspiracies, it must from the beginning be completely consecrated to the great idea of the movement, and to the task of representing this idea. It must be so unceasingly trained that from its inception the horizon would be broadened and the individual would see his mission not in the disposal of some smaller or greater rogue, but in his participation in the erection of a new National-Socialist State of the people. By this means, however, the struggle against the present State was elevated from the realm of petty actions of revenge and conspiracy to the magnitude of a philosophical war of annihilation against Marxism and its structures.
3. The formation of the S. A., as well as its uniform and equipment, is rationally not to be inclined toward the models of the old army but in keeping with its own purpose defined by its task.
These views which guided me in the year 1920 to 1921, and which I attempted gradually to inject into the young organization had this success, that by the middle of the Summer of 1922 we already had under control an impressive number of groups of hundred, which in the late autumn of 1922 one after the other received their special characteristic uniform. Infinitely important for the further formation of the S. A. were three events.
1. The great general demonstration of all patriotic associations against the republican defense law in the late summer of 1922, on the Königsplatz in Munich.
The patriotic associations of Munich at that time had issued the proclamation which demanded as a protest against the introduction of the republican defense law a gigantic demonstration in Munich. Even the National-Socialist movement was to take part in it. The closed ranks of the Party were introduced by six groups of a hundred from Munich which were followed by the sections of the political party. In the parade itself there marched two bands, and fifteen banners were carried along. The assembly of the National Socialists on the great square, which was already half filled and otherwise was without flags, aroused an immeasurable enthusiasm. I myself had the honor of being permitted to speak as one of the orators before the crowd numbering about sixty thousand.
The success of the arrangement was overwhelming, especially because, in spite of all Red threats, it was demonstrated for the first time that national Munich could march on the street too. The Red republican defense schemers who attempted to hinder with terror the marching columns were within a few minutes scattered with bloody heads by the S. A. groups of a hundred. The National-Socialist movement had demonstrated then for the first time its determination to claim for itself in the future the right of the highway, and to wrest this monopoly from the hands of the international traitors and enemies of the Fatherland.
The result of this day was the no longer to be contended proof of the psychological and organizational correctness of our ideas about the structure of the S. A.
It was now energetically expanded on the successful principle, so that already a few weeks later the number of groups of a hundred was doubled.
2. The March to Coburg in 1922
“Populist” associations intended to hold in Coburg a so-called “German day.” I myself received an invitation to it with the note that it would be desired that I bring along some following. This request which I received in the forenoon about eleven o’clock came very opportunely. An hour later the orders for a visit to this German were already given out. As a following I designated eight hundred men of the S. A., who were to be transported in about fourteen groups by special train from Munich to the village which had become Bavarian. Corresponding commands went out to the National-Socialist S. A. groups which had been formed in the meantime at other places.
It was the first time that a train of this sort travelled in Germany. At all the places where new S. A. men boarded, the transport attracted the greatest attention. Many had never seen our banners before; their effect was very great.
When we assembled at the station in Coburg a deputation of the festival committee of the “German Day” received us, which handed over to us a signed command, designated as “agreement”, of the local organizations, that is, of the Independents and of the Communistic Party, that we would not be allowed to enter the city with unfurled banners nor with music (we had brought along our own band of forty-two men) nor in closed ranks. I dismissed these disgraceful conditions immediately, but did not hesitate to express to those gentlemen of the festival committee who were present my astonishment that arrangements had been made and that they had come to an agreement with these people and explained that the S. A. would immediately approach in companies and would march into the city with sounding music and with waving banners. And so it happened.
Already at the depot thousands of howling, hooting people received us. “Murderers,” “Bandits,” “Robbers,” “Criminals.” These were some of the pet names which the model founders of the German Republic graciously showered upon us. The young S. A. maintained exemplary order, the squads of one hundred assembled on the square before the railway station and at first ignored the abuse. The marching procession was directed by the nervous police into the Hofbräuhaus near the center of the town, instead of into our quarters, lying on the outskirts of Coburg, a city quite strange to us all. To the right and to the left of the procession the noise of the accompanying masses constantly increased. Hardly had the last squad turned into the courtyard of the beer garden when large crowds attempted to follow amidst deafening shrieks. To avoid this the police locked up the building. Since this situation was intolerable I let the S. A. approach once more, admonish them briefly and demanded of the police that they open the gates immediately. After rather long hesitation they complied.
We now marched back the way we had come to get to our quarters and there we finally had to face the mob. After they were unable to disturb the squads by shouts and insulting remarks the representatives of the true socialism, equality and brotherhood changed over to throwing stones. This exhausted our patience, and thus for ten minutes we attacked furiously to the right and left and fifteen minutes later nothing Red was to be seen on the streets any more.
At night there were more serious attacks. Patrols of the S. A. had found members of the National-Socialist Party, who had been attacked, when alone in mutilated condition. After that we made short work of our opponents. Already the following morning the Red Terror under which Coburg had suffered for years was broken down.
With genuinely Marxist-Jewish untruthfulness they tried once more by means of handbills to get the members of the International Proletariet out onto the street, maintaining that our bands of murderers had begun a war to exterminate the peaceful workers in Coburg. At one-thirty the great “demonstration of the people” was to take place and it was hoped that tens of thousands of workers from the vicinity would be present. Firmly resolved to put an end to this Red Terror once and for all I had the S. A. assemble at twelve o’clock, the S. A. now numbering nearly fifteen hundred, and marched with them to the Coburg fortress across the large square where the Red demonstration was to take place. As we entered the square there were only a few hundred present instead of the announced ten thousand. As we approached they remained in general quiet, although some ran away. Only here and there did Red troops, who in the meantime had come from outside and who as yet did not know us, try to renew hostilities; but any desire to do so was quickly taken from them. And now we could see how the population, formerly so cowed, slowly awoke, took courage, and ventured to greet us with shouts, and in the evening at our departure broke out in spontaneous loud rejoicing.
Suddenly we were told at the station that the train would not be run. Thereupon I had a few leaders of the mob informed that in this case I intended to capture whatever Red big shots I happened to find, and also that we would operate the train ourselves, planning to take along in the locomotive tender and each coach a few dozen brothers of the international solidarity. Nor did I neglect to make it clear to the gentlemen that the trip managed by our own forces naturally would be a very risky undertaking and that it was quite possible that we would all break our necks. And that it would be a pleasure to enter eternity not alone but accompanied by the Red gentlemen who advocate equality and fraternity.
After that the train left very punctually, and we arrived in Munich safe and sound the next morning.
For the first time since 1914 the equality of citizens before the law was thus restored in Coburg. For if today some ninny of a higher official claims that the State protects the lives of its citizens, at least it was not true at that time; for the citizens had to defend themselves against the representatives of the present-day State.
It was impossible to estimate at once the full significance of this day. It wasn’t only that the victorious S. A. greatly added to their self-confidence and to their faith in the correctness of their leadership, but the people began to take a greater interest in us, and many recognized for the first time in the National-Socialist movement that institution which most probably would one day be called to put the appropriate finishing touches to the Marxist madness.
Only the democratic party groaned that we had not let our skulls be crushed peacefully, but that we had dared in a democratic Republic to meet with brutal attack with fists and sticks instead of with pacifistic songs.
In general the bourgeois press was partly pitiable, partly vulgar and only a few decent papers welcomed our defeating the Marxist footpads in one place at least.
In Coburg itself a part of the Marxist workers, who themselves moreover had simply been misled, had been taught by the fists of National-Socialist workers to realize that the latter were also fighting for ideals, since it is a matter of experience that one only fights for something in which one believes and which one loves.
To be sure the S. A. itself profited most. It grew rapidly so that on the first Party Day on the 27th of January, 1923 already nearly six thousand men, of which the first companies were dressed completely in their new uniforms, could take part in the dedication of the Banner.
The experiences in Coburg had simply demonstrated how essential it is to introduce a uniform dress for the S. A. not only in order to strengthen the corps spirit but also in order to avoid mistakes and failures to recognize comrades. Up to this point the men wore simply arm-bands, now a windbreaker and the well-known cap were added.
The experiences in Coburg were further significant because from now on we began to break systematically the Red Terror which in many places had prevented for years any meeting of opponents. We restored the freedom of public meeting. From now on, the National-Socialist battalions assembled in such places, and gradually in Bavaria one Red citadel after another fell victim to the Nazi propaganda. The S. A. had understood its task better and better, and thus had moved farther and farther from the character of a meaningless and unessential defense movement, and had risen into a living organization fighting for the establishment of a new German State.
This logical development lasted until March 1933. Then an event happened which forced me to take the movement out of its previous course and to inaugurate a change.
3. The occupation in the Ruhr which was carried out in the first months of year 1923 by the French was subsequently of great significance for the development of the S. A.
Even today it is not possible and in the interests of the nation not practicable to talk or write about it publicly. I can only say as much as has been touched upon in public discussions, and thus already been placed before the public.
The occupation of the Ruhr, which did not come as a complete surprise to us, gave rise to the justified hope that from now on, once and for all, an end had been made of the cowardly policy of retreat, and therefore a very definite assignment would be placed upon the defense units. The S. A., too, which at that time already numbered among its members many thousands of powerful young men, could not escape this national service. In the Spring and Summer of 1923 its transformation into a military fighting organization was completed. The later developments of the year 1923, in so far as they concerned our movement, can to a great extent be traced back to this transformation.
In as much as I discussed elsewhere in outline the development of the year 1923, I want to state here merely that the transformation of the S. A. at that time, from the point of view of the movement, was a harmful one if the presuppositions which had led to its transformation (I mean the assumption of active resistance against France) were not correct.
The conclusion of the year 1923, however awful it may appear in the first moment, was practically a necessary one when viewed from a higher standpoint, in so far as with a single blow it put an end to the transformation of the S. A. which was made innocuous by the attitude of the German Government, and which was harmful to the movement itself. In this manner the possibility was opened to build anew one day where once we were forced to forsake the correct course.
The N. S. D. A. P., founded anew in 1925 must set up, develop and organize its S. A. according to the principles mentioned at the outset. It must therefore return again to the originally sound principles, and it must again regard its highest duty to be the creation in its S. A. of an instrument to represent and strengthen the fight for the philosophy of the movement.
It must not permit the S. A. to sink to a kind of defense unit or secret organization; it must, on the contrary, try to develop a guard of a hundred-thousand men for the National-Socialist and thus really the populist idea.