Chapter 281 Stormtroopers (1)
The Sturmabteilung?, the name originated from the Western Front battlefield in World War I. At that time, in order to solve the dilemma of trench warfare, the German army invented the squad infiltration tactics, and the troops that carried out this tactics were called Sturmabteilung.
If they are literally called "Storm Detachment", there is a more fashionable translation in later generations, which is the famous "Storm Commando".
Of course, in reality, the stormtrooper and the Storm Commando are completely different units of concept. The former only borrows the title that made the soldiers of the Allied Powers frightened on the Western Front battlefield.
After the stormtrooper was cleaned by Hitler, the SS, which was independent from the stormtrooper, followed the stormtrooper organization method, so the basic unit of the SS is still called the Stormtrooper, but this has nothing to do with the original stormtrooper.
When people talk about the stormtroopers, they always associate with the chaotic and passionate days before and after the Nazis came to power. The brown linen uniform witnessed the miraculous rise of the National Socialist Workers' Party. It is hard to tell the relationship between this party and the stormtroopers in the early days of the Nazi Party. Some people may say that the Nazi Party made the stormtroopers, but others think that if the relationship between them is reversed, it would look more reasonable.
The stormtroopers were born from the "Freedom Legion" that was rampant in Germany after World War I. After the defeat, the Second Empire fell into a period of full depression. The war had destroyed Germany's economy, and the harsh Versailles Treaty made even worse. All kinds of thoughts in society were noisy, and ordinary civilians at the bottom were at a loss and did not know how to choose the direction for the future.
The veterans left behind by the war were difficult to find suitable jobs because of their lack of work skills, and most of them had been honed into killing machines by the battlefield and were completely unable to adapt to ordinary social life. Therefore, under the support and organization of some people with intentions, a series of "free legions" were born in various parts of Germany, and all recruited were veterans who were dissatisfied with the defeat. The target of the legion was the left-wing parties and Jews who were extremely active in Germany at that time.
At that time, the left-wing parties and workers' groups in Germany tried to replicate a Soviet-style revolution in Germany and completely change the German political system. So they took the example of comrades from the East and organized a series of armed workers' forces.
At that time, the leaders of the right-wing party who were mainly verbally had never thought that there would be such an operation as the proletarian iron fist. To be honest, using violence to spread their ideas and attack their political opponents, the left wing is indeed more expert in this regard.
So in 1919, the "Spartacus Alliance" led by the left-wing Independent Socialist Party and the German Communist Party launched the famous "January Uprising" in German history. Five hundred thousand unemployed workers flocked to Berlin, and the protest march quickly turned into a communist revolution. The workers' armed forces only took half a day to occupy the city of Berlin.
Just when everyone thought Germany would become the second Soviet Union, the uprising was quickly suppressed, and the new Bavarian Soviet Republic also disappeared, and only lasted for a week.
There are many reasons for the failure of the uprising, such as the struggle for power and profit within the "Spartacus Alliance", the ideological dispute between the armed revolutionaries and the peaceful reformists, etc., and the biggest reason for the failure comes from the outside, that is, the army that supports the Weimar Republic and the "Freedy Legion" that came from all over the country to support it.
Among them is a militia unit known as the "Free Army of the Eastern Bavarian Border" or the "Free Army of the Ap", which is very active in the fight against the Berlin Uprising. In this unit, there is a 32-year-old former army captain born in Munich, named Ernst Julius Günter Rom.
If you only count your qualifications, Rom spent longer in the Nazi Party than Hitler, because when he joined the party, this party was called the "German Workers' Party".
Hitler was interested in Rom's political toughness and the armed forces in his hands, and Rom wanted a leader who could achieve his political ideals. Of course, it would be better if he could still meet his economic needs.
That period was the honeymoon period between Hitler and the Stormtroopers. Rom hit it off and began to fight for the rise of the Nazi Party with all his might. Rom's ruthless veterans liked to eliminate Nazi Party enemies or potential opponents directly from their bodies. In their words, they relied on chair legs and wine bottles to conduct political debates.
During that time, many bloody crimes occurred in various parts of Germany, most of which were related to the stormtroopers. At this time, the membership of the stormtroopers had changed. A large number of rural landless farmers and unemployed gangsters joined the group. The former did not know the importance of the attack, while the latter knew how to eliminate the evidence because they had been engaged in the police system for many years.
The Nazi Party gradually stood out from the party-torn battles in Germany with the most primitive violence and deceptive propaganda. With the rise of the Nazis, the scale of the stormtroopers also expanded rapidly. When they reached their peak, the number of stormtroopers in Germany exceeded three million, thirty times that of the German Wehrmtroopers whose total strength was controlled at 100,000.
When the Nazi Party took over the German regime, Hitler no longer needed to go out to the streets to fight against hostile parties. He had more means to conquer his opponents. At this time, Hitler needed to establish a healthy and upward image among the Germans, so he had to change the previous style of the stormtroopers, and move closer to the direction of adhering to Germanic order and tradition.
Hitler first took back a series of privileges he had given to the stormtroopers, who wanted to incorporate the stormtroopers into part of the German state machine and positioned them as an auxiliary department of the police system.
This was obviously not the result Rom wanted to see, and the rapidly expanding stormtrooper organization also made him feel blindly confident. He even began to plan to replace the already "corrupt" German Wehrmtrooper.
Rom has always regarded himself very highly and does not look down on Hitler, a former army corporal, in his heart, so every time the two people's ideas conflict, he never takes into account the latter's face. Rom began to declare to the outside world that he was preparing to launch a second revolution and complete the agreements with the German people in the 25 party platform of the Nazi Party. He demanded that the capital of those big enterprises and the great trust be nationalized and the wealth of those capitalists be divided to every German citizen.
In fact, anyone with discerning eyes understands that Rom's finger is actually directed at Hitler, because the other party has reached a compromise with the capital forces in Germany. Once Rom's second revolution begins, if Hitler expresses opposition, he will definitely lose the support of the people.
Rom's arrogant provocation finally exhausted Hitler's patience. After clearly receiving support from the army and capital forces, he decisively launched the "Night of the Long Sword". The main force responsible for this bloody purge was he who specially supported the new force against the stormtroopers and was only loyal to his personal SS.
After the Night of Long Swords, the SS quickly replaced the role of the stormtrooper and became the sharpest blade of the Nazi Party. The stormtrooper was severely damaged in this internal strife. At least 2,000 high school commanders across the country were arrested. In addition to the more than 200 people who were executed at that time, the rest also died in concentration camps everywhere.
After that purge, the stormtroopers completely withdrew from Germany's political front and completely became the kind of auxiliary unit in Hitler's plan. However, the stormtroopers have existed in Germany for more than ten years, and Hitler could not erase the influence of this group among the people, let alone ban it. He could only minimize the social activities of the stormtroopers and no longer organize flag parades on the streets every few days.
At the same time, he also incorporated a large number of backbone forces of the stormtroopers into the expanding German Wehrmstrong Army. This trick was very effective. Without these activists, the stormtroopers quickly lost their original vitality and their number quickly decreased to a controllable level. Most of them were old and weak who did not meet the service standards.
Nowadays, the veteran of the stormtrooper who was riding bicycles on the street with a big belly, or the rookie who was still childish and still had a scarf with Hitler Youth League, gradually replaced the heroic image of the stormtroopers holding up the party flag in the early propaganda of Nazis. By 1940, the stormtroopers could only be responsible for some public security patrols and preparing for training for new recruits, and no longer had the old view of howling the streets.
"Salute to the Head of State! Hi! Reinhart!" Under the leadership of the leading stormtroopers, a new generation of stormtroopers resolutely declared their loyalty to the new generation of heads of empire.
The head of state stood high on the table, looking down at the group of young faces, raised his hand and flipped his wrists. "Hi..."
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Chapter completed!