Stormtroopers : a new history of Hitler's Brownshirts /

Siemens (European history, Newcastle Univ., UK) has written three previous books, most recently an excellent study on the murder of Horst Wessel and the creation of the Nazi icon myth (The Making of a Nazi Hero, 2013). History is replete with scenes of Nazi Brownshirts marching through German cities chanting nationalist and anti-Semitic songs and slogans. From its inception in 1920s Bavaria, the Sturmabteilung (SA) swelled with WWI veterans, nationalists, the unemployed, anti-communists, and some who thrived on violence. Hitler's army of thugs became the spine of the Third Reich, bullying reluctant citizens, rounding up Jews in Eastern Europe, and stiffening the government's dictums. The organization changed organically after Hitler's 1923 putsch to reflect society's insecurities: political urban violence and growing disdain for the weak Weimar government. The expansion into the countryside unified the nation. While numerous studies exist on the Brownshirts, they generally end with the Night of the Long Knives in June 1934, when Hitler's paranoia led him to assassinate the SA leadership. Siemens's excellent history continues the story until 1945, as many SA men served in the army, helping to form the postwar myth of the "Good German." This authoritative, elegantly written book on the Storm Troopers will doubtless stand as the final story of the Brownshirts. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. --Arnold Paul Krammer, emeritus, Texas A&M University

An exhaustive examination of Hitler's Sturmabteilungen, aka the SA.As Siemens (History, Philosophy, and Theology/Bielefeld Univ.; The Making of a Nazi Hero: The Murder and Myth of Horst Wessel, 2013, tec.) reports in this revelatory scholarly survey, the SA, founded soon after the Treaty of Versailles in the 1920s, was once not the only popular substitute for Germany's demolished war machine; it soon became the sole "people's militia" serving as an adjunct of the nascent Nazi Party. The stormtroopers were generally undereducated and unemployed young men with a gang mentality, and they shared a love of uniforms and a distinct hatred of Bolsheviks and Jews. Hitler often wore the stormtroopers' uniform, made by Hugo Boss. The SA became so powerful as their rancorous numbers increased that the Fhrer had their erstwhile leader, Ernst Rhm, murdered along with many others during the notorious "Night of the Long Knives" in 1934. The SA, no longer a threat to the regime, still had important functions under their new boss, Heinrich Himmler, and the group took a prominent role in the murder of Jews. Stormtroopers were instrumental in the deadly Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, and they excelled as guards in prisons and concentration camps. During the war, a few stormtroopers were selected to resettle on farms in enemy territory, and some were appointed as diplomats in occupied regions. Many others were drafted into the Wehrmacht, where their sociopathic tendencies were well-employed. Siemens' book, land-mined with Teutonic compound nouns, is decidedly not a pop history. It is a scholarly work, assiduously researched and filled with illustrative examples and case studies covering the development of the SA, its role in a fight against Versailles and Weimar, its cruelties, its survival, and its legacy today. It will be a significant source of discussion and an influence on the historiography of the Third Reich. A considerable work that promises to be the preferred text in English on the brown-shirted stormtroopers for some time to come. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.