German SA Wounded Veteran Sports aged Badge

German SA Wounded Veteran Sports aged Badge.

The Sturmabteilung (SA), literally Storm Detachment, was the Nazi Party’s original paramilitary wing. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi rallies and assemblies, disrupting the meetings of opposing parties, fighting against the paramilitary units of the opposing parties, especially the Red Front Fighters League (Rotfrontkämpferbund) of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), and intimidating Romani, trade unionists, and, especially, Jews – for instance, during the 1933 Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses.

The SA were also called the “Brown shirts” (Braunhemden), from the color of their uniform shirts, similar to Benito Mussolini’s black shirts. The SA developed pseudo-military titles for its members, with ranks that were later adopted by several other Nazi Party groups, chief amongst them the Schutzstaffel (SS). This had originated as a branch of the SA before being separated. Brown-colored shirts were chosen as the SA uniform because a large number of them were cheaply available after World War I, having originally been ordered during the war for colonial troops posted to Germany’s former African colonies.

After Adolf Hitler ordered the “blood purge” of 1934, he withdrew support from the SA. This event became known as the Night of the Long Knives (die Nacht der langen Messer). The SA continued to exist, but was effectively superseded by the SS, although the paramilitary forces were not formally dissolved until after Nazi Germany’s final capitulation to the Allies in 1945.