“A new Germany, reborn in a spiritual revolution of nationalist and socialist intent!” Ernst Röhm’s 1933 article on the SA’s role as vehicle for the ‘German Revolution’

The article by Ernst Röhm below was first published in the June 1933 edition of Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte, a monthly political and cultural journal produced by the NSDAP for the purposes of advancing the theoretical foundations of the National Socialist movement. The article constitutes an interesting, early artifact of the tumultuous early period of 1933-34, when the government was still finding its footing and when the paramilitary SA was still an untethered, unpredictable force advocating for a ‘second revolution’. The months leading up to the article had been frequently punctuated by violence on the SA’s part, engendered partly by disillusionment over the lack of rapid economic reforms (many Stormtroopers were unemployed and hoped to receive official positions in nationalized, state-run enterprises) and suspicion that the revolution had been co-opted by the same bourgeois reactionaries the Party had always so vociferously fought against. It was not uncommon at the time for bored, disgruntled, and frequently drunk SA-men to take out their frustrations on the general public (particularly the bourgeoisie) or on members of the Stahlhelm and other still-legal nationalist paramilitaries. The massive influx of new members into the SA (the organization grew from 400,000 members in 1932 to at least 4million by 1934) also led to problems, with common criminals joining a Sturm to provide political cover for looting, burglary, and other crimes. Röhm tried to reign his men in when their behaviors became too indefensible, but he also sympathized with them, and at times helped fan the flames of dissatisfaction with speeches and articles like that below. Röhm, contemptuous of the Party’s political cadres and even more dismissive of the bourgeois civil service, saw the SA as the basis for Germany’s future government administration. Such a massive transformation would not be achieved if the German Revolution stabilized and petered out, if the Bildungsbürgertum in the political offices and economic institutions were not forcefully dislodged from their positions to make way for revolutionary new blood. Röhm’s radical position, and the fear it caused in the army that he was a destabilizing element and the catalyst for a potential civil war, would ultimately cost him his life. 

SA and German Revolution
Ernst Röhm, SA Chief-of-Staff

First published in Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte, vol. 4, no. 39, June 1933

A victory has been achieved by means of the German Revolution.

The swastika banner flutters upon every bastion of state power, over every place of work, and from every business office of the economy.

The organizational forms of Marxism in Germany have been smashed. The Festival of German Labour,¹ that day of mutual confession from the nation to the worker and from the worker to the nation, has sounded the death knell for the insanity of proletarian class-hatred. Adolf Hitler’s iron will has guided the thinking of the Volk with compelling force to the amalgamation of national spirit with socialist will.

A tremendous victory has been achieved. But not absolute victory!

The new state has had no need to disown the bearers of the revolutionary uprising’s will, as the November-men² had to do with the red gangs who were the fellow-travelers of their revolt born of cowardice and treason. In the New Germany the disciplined brown storm-battalions of the German Revolution stand side by side with the armed forces.

Not as part of them.

The Reichswehr has its own clear task: it is incumbent upon it to defend the the borders of the Reich, insofar as its modest numbers and wholly inadequate armaments enable it to do so.

The police are expected to hold down lawbreakers.

Alongside them there is the new state’s third power-factor with their own specific tasks, the SA and SS.

The Führer and Chancellor of the German Volk needs them, given that the mighty work of German renewal still lies before him.

For the SA and SS are the cornerstone of the coming National Socialist state. Their state, for which they have fought, and which they will claim. The SA and SS are the militant-spiritual bearers of the will of the German Revolution! Continue reading →