WI: A German civil war between the SA and the government in 1934.

Ok, first of all I'm not declaring that nazis are left wingers, we all know that they are far right, but here I'm going to refer to the SA and Strasserists as left wingers since they are at the left of the NSDAP, all right?

Well, in OTL to prevent the SA from discovering the plans of the night of the long knifes, everything was planned exceptionally fast and only using voice orders, no writtings at all, and Hitler did everything to make it look to the SA that everything was fine, Goering even attended the marriage of a main SA officer just two days before the massacre of the long knifes (and ironically enought that main officer would be shot there on his honeymoon). The PoD is that news of the coming massacre ends slipping, whoever does that is irrelevant, but this is not enought to stop it and Rohm and his associates find the situation too surreal to react, but just in case they secretly increase the military presence on the hotel where him and his SA officers were. When the SS attacks along with Hitler they are caught off guard with much of their forces crushed in the gunfight while Hitler escapes, prompting Rohm to order the SA to rise up in all Germany as his "revolution" starts. What happens next? The army had only 100 thousand man, the SS still was a professional but small force of bodyguards, while the SA had absorbed other paramilitary forces and had over 3 million men, and while the new forces made the SA ideologically diverse, the government also was composed of difference factions, the DNVP, the NSDAP and other small parties that never would accept to collaborate with the nazis like the SPD. Would the left wing nazis joins Rohm, like the Strasser brothers?
 
I could see the Nazi left rallying to Rohm, as it would be clear that Hitler was attempting to purge local opposition and any threats that could prevent him from consolidating power. Possibly making an alliance with the DNVP is a stretch, but not entirely impossible. What will probably go down is a civil war between an SA-led coalition vs the Hitler loyalists in the SS.
 
I could see the Nazi left rallying to Rohm, as it would be clear that Hitler was attempting to purge local opposition and any threats that could prevent him from consolidating power. Possibly making an alliance with the DNVP is a stretch, but not entirely impossible. What will probably go down is a civil war between an SA-led coalition vs the Hitler loyalists in the SS.

What areas could the SA and the left NSDAP occupy? The Rhine is a completely yes since it was the main bastion of Strasserism.
 
As for what regions could they hold, the major industrial regions of the Rhine are a definite yes. However, most of the major Cities of Eastern Germany and probably the entirety of Bavaria will stay under Hitler.
 
Oh and they would absolutely bomb civilians.

What do you think of this sketch? I plan to make this a HoI IV mod:

KengQsf.jpg
 
Looks pretty good, although again, the SA has little love in the East, really only the main Industrial regions of the Germany will join their cause.

Yeah, but they are garrisons everywhere, according to one of the NatGeo documentaries I saw about Rohm he divided Germany into five administrative regions of the SA.

What about the navy? Is the navy going to join the SA or the government? The navy was the most anti nazi part of the armed forces by far.
 
And have the unit cohesion of professional army right?

I gonna check the other thread, btu the main difference is that on that scenario Hitler sides with the SA. Here we are asking about the left NSDAP and the SA fighting Hitler.

Well, they were mostly composed of former soldiers, they really did had the military training that the normal infantry did, they just lacked the heavy weaponry AFAIK.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
Ok, first of all I'm not declaring that nazis are left wingers, we all know that they are far right, but here I'm going to refer to the SA and Strasserists as left wingers since they are at the left of the NSDAP, all right?

..., like the Strasser brothers?
Pls let me refer you to this post about the 'leftishness' of the SA.
Aside the extensive and almost not to be supplemented posts of @Tolkiene I would like to add some thoughts
Tolkiene said:
..

Much has been made about Röhm taking the Socialist part of National Socialism more seriously than Hitler, but what he wrote and said about the 'Second Revolution' was vague.

...
... and most of it without reason and with as much 'weight' as the almost as often in this situation named 'Strasserists'.

About the latter :
First question should always be (and only rarely asked ... or even known about) about which Strasser is meant, Gregor or Otto. The first evolving until 1932 into something very much resembling socialdemocrats of Germany in the 60ies/70ies (aside the nationalistic and chauvinist-rassistic positions 'fancy' in interwar period), the latter even in the postwar GDR shouting out national-bolshevistic phrases.

Röhm and the overwhelming majority of the SA were neither.

For most SA-members the 'true' NSDAP or then the 'Second Revolution' should have lead to them getting some 'proper' position with payment best without having to work for what for the average SA-bloke would have meant : "Now I am the boss instead of my boss!"
... and that essentially was it.

Röhm probably thought a wee bit 'deeper' in trying to revive the 'experience of the trench comradeship' what he somewhat heroized as the only 'true comradeship' and highest expression of a social community. He essentially wished to turn the whole german state into a kind of permanent SA/militia/military field-training camp in an uneducated misinterpretation of the antiprussianis phrase pf "an army that affords itself a state".
Perhaps that could count as kind of a "social(istic ?)" utopia ... or rather dystopia.
And about ...
I gonna check the other thread, btu the main difference is that on that scenario Hitler sides with the SA. Here we are asking about the left NSDAP and the SA fighting Hitler.

Well, they were mostly composed of former soldiers, they really did had the military training that the normal infantry did, they just lacked the heavy weaponry AFAIK.
... as I said : there WAS no 'leftish' SA or NSDAP. Especially not in 1934 anymore. All there was were yet unsatified SA-bullies at best who would see their 'best' chance siding with the system ... as Hitler did.
 
The SA gets crushed numbers are nice until everyone routs in face of a machine gun

SA numbers are less in actuality than on paper. Post nazi takeover the SA numbers were hosted by forcing the inclusion of veterans groups like the Stalhelm Society, ect... Most of those were out of alignment with 'SA' doctrines and some very conservative. Actual active SA participants in this may be as little as half the 1934 membership. Some of these other groups may actually join the police and army in fighting the SA.
 
Very unlikely. Individual soldiers would desert, but the Reichweher was able to screen for reliability and command loyalty.

Plus the fact it was the army that was pressuringHitler to remove Röhm in the first place. Now if a civil war erupts they might decide they don't want to waste their time with any Nazis anymore and create a conservative junta
 
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