In the early days of the Nazi Party the SS and SA were two competing organizations within the Party for the role of party security. In the end Rohm, who led the SA lost to the SS and Himmler and during the Night of the Long Knives Rohm was killed and the SA decimated with its shattered remains folded into the SS. What if the SS was instead beaten by the SA and the reverse happened with Himmler killed/exiled and the SS at best made an organ of the SA?
WI: Rohm Wins Power Struggle?
- Thread starter ThatOneGuy
- Start date
At the time of the purge, the SS was subordinate to the numerically superior SA. Röhm was Himmler's superior. It gained its independence as a reward for doing Hitler's dirty work. Moreover, the SA was not folded into the SS. It continued as an independent organisation, but lost all its power and influence.
Röhm was in competition with the Reichswehr, as he wanted the SA to absorb it and create a National Socialist 'people's army', a militia force. He wanted to be War Minister. This was obviously not something the Reichswehr officer corps and the old elites could allow - nor could Röhm's many enemies in the Party leadership. With Hindenburg on death's door, Hitler needed the military on his side to become Germany's absolute ruler and conquer 'lebensraum'.
Röhm was in competition with the Reichswehr, as he wanted the SA to absorb it and create a National Socialist 'people's army', a militia force. He wanted to be War Minister. This was obviously not something the Reichswehr officer corps and the old elites could allow - nor could Röhm's many enemies in the Party leadership. With Hindenburg on death's door, Hitler needed the military on his side to become Germany's absolute ruler and conquer 'lebensraum'.
Last edited:
What @Tolkiene said. Röhm''s Plans were too disruptive at this Point .
Up to a point, but Rohm was definitely a political rival. His social and political philosophy was much more leftist and less flexible than Hitlers. While Rohm liked his luxuries and privileges he was less corrupt than Goering & many others.
As mentioned Rohm in power would mean the Reichweher or later Wehrmacht would be melded with the SA as the foundation for a national army or militia. This very likely would have diluted the well trained cadre of 100,000 built by Seeckt & his successors. That is to say when Germany eventually gets into a war the military resembles the Iranian in the 1980s. A few better led formations, more fanatical political formations, and a mass of badly trained & unevenly motivated conscripts. Since Aryan racial superiority and national will would be a central doctrine, fancy things like armored forces would be far less developed.
Röhm and Hitler were friends for a while. Röhm was one of the very few people who was on a first name basis with Hitler, using the familiar 'Du' rather than the formal 'Sie'. But at the same time they had diametrically different ideas about the role of the Party, SA etc.
Hitler regarded the SA as an auxiliary formation that served the Party. It was not supposed to be an army-in-waiting or a paramilitary force that could match the military. That was the lesson he learned after his failed putsch in 1923. The SA was supposed to look good marching, protect Party rallies and beat Communists in the streets. But that was it. Röhm, by contrast, wanted it to evolve into a National Socialist army. And he saw the soldier as more important than the political leader and disliked the 'legal path to power' that Hitler pursued after being released from jail. Far as I know, there's no proper scientific biography about Röhm yet, though Longerich has written a good book about the SA as an organisation. Some secondary literature works claim he favoured rapprochement with France, but I haven't researched the matter enough to assess how accurate that is, so take it with a grain of salt.
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. However, he definitely disliked Hitler's compromises with the old elites in the bureaucracy, army and big business. It is pertinent to note that many SA members felt that they had not been 'given their due' after the seizure of power. Sure, they got the chance to settle 'old scores' by abusing and murdering Communists, Social Democrats and so on. Several SA leaders became police chiefs. But their camps were soon closed, they lost influence in the police and overall the true winners were the Part bureaucracy, not them (there was bad blood between the SA and the Political Organisation of the Party). They wanted to be a 'revolutionary army' (though what that revolution would actually entail on a practical level beyond violence and getting privileges that had been denied them remained nebulous), but their own Führer told them that the revolution was over.
Hitler and his cronies claimed that they acted in 'self-defence' when they purged the SA, but there is no evidence that Röhm was planning a coup. Hell, the SA was on holiday. He and his men were caught by surprise when Hitler and his guards showed up at Bad Wiessee to arrest them. Now from a pure numbers perspective, the SA was bigger than the Reichswehr (and the SS). But many of its members were ruffians, not actual soldiers by that time. Exploring a scenario where the SA (or say the Strasser wing) is ascendant could be interesting, but many variables would have to change.
Hitler regarded the SA as an auxiliary formation that served the Party. It was not supposed to be an army-in-waiting or a paramilitary force that could match the military. That was the lesson he learned after his failed putsch in 1923. The SA was supposed to look good marching, protect Party rallies and beat Communists in the streets. But that was it. Röhm, by contrast, wanted it to evolve into a National Socialist army. And he saw the soldier as more important than the political leader and disliked the 'legal path to power' that Hitler pursued after being released from jail. Far as I know, there's no proper scientific biography about Röhm yet, though Longerich has written a good book about the SA as an organisation. Some secondary literature works claim he favoured rapprochement with France, but I haven't researched the matter enough to assess how accurate that is, so take it with a grain of salt.
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. However, he definitely disliked Hitler's compromises with the old elites in the bureaucracy, army and big business. It is pertinent to note that many SA members felt that they had not been 'given their due' after the seizure of power. Sure, they got the chance to settle 'old scores' by abusing and murdering Communists, Social Democrats and so on. Several SA leaders became police chiefs. But their camps were soon closed, they lost influence in the police and overall the true winners were the Part bureaucracy, not them (there was bad blood between the SA and the Political Organisation of the Party). They wanted to be a 'revolutionary army' (though what that revolution would actually entail on a practical level beyond violence and getting privileges that had been denied them remained nebulous), but their own Führer told them that the revolution was over.
Hitler and his cronies claimed that they acted in 'self-defence' when they purged the SA, but there is no evidence that Röhm was planning a coup. Hell, the SA was on holiday. He and his men were caught by surprise when Hitler and his guards showed up at Bad Wiessee to arrest them. Now from a pure numbers perspective, the SA was bigger than the Reichswehr (and the SS). But many of its members were ruffians, not actual soldiers by that time. Exploring a scenario where the SA (or say the Strasser wing) is ascendant could be interesting, but many variables would have to change.
Last edited:
Brecht's
The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui
Is never written, or at least is very different.
The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui
Is never written, or at least is very different.
they were too disruptive at any point.. bar like march 30th onward in 1945
There is no need for revolutionaries once the revolution is achieved, so the SA was ultimately doomed.
SS was the system for supporting the regime, SA was for ousting the old.
SS was the system for supporting the regime, SA was for ousting the old.
Any chance Rohm would think a ramped-up anti-Jewish campaign was stupid. For example, just a big waste of resources, as well as making it more difficult for talented and needed Jewish persons to quietly stay in their jobs.
@Tolkiene , since he was against compromising with big business, any chance Rohm would generally emphasize the internal perfection route, think trying to grab Slavic land was ill-advised, etc.
@Tolkiene , since he was against compromising with big business, any chance Rohm would generally emphasize the internal perfection route, think trying to grab Slavic land was ill-advised, etc.
As others have said, the SA was far to revolutionary to take power, since the Reichswehr, the predecessor to the Wehrmacht, would have been dissolved under Rohm.
My take is the SA had a considerable anti Semetic component in its membership and policies.
Anti-Semitism and anti-Communism was definitely an important component of SA policy. Just look at the SA's reign of terror after the seizure of power. A lot of violence was perpetrated against Jews and other 'undesirables' in the SA's 'wild' concentration camps. One of the reasons Himmler was able to sell himself as the ideal police chief was by claiming that the SS would be more orderly (orderly, not more 'gentle' or 'humane'). Nikolaus Wachsman's history of the concentration camps is a good read in this regard. Same applies to Longerich's SA history.
@GeographyDude
To be honest, I don't really know. Little has been written about Röhm's foreign policy views, though some works postulate he favoured a rapprochement with the Western powers, especially France. Much of the literature has been focused on the SA's organisational history, its role in the Nazi seizure of power and the 30 June 1934 purge. The SA leadership railed against compromises with the old elites and reactionaries, but the Second Revolution they demanded was highly inconcrete, as opposed to a concrete programme about how to restructure German society, beyond wanting the SA to 'get its due' and continue the revolution.
Having googled a bit, it appears Eleanor Hancock published a Röhm biography in 2008, though the one (German-language) review I read about it claims that it romanticises him a bit and that it has little new to say about his time as SA Chief of Staff.
@GeographyDude
To be honest, I don't really know. Little has been written about Röhm's foreign policy views, though some works postulate he favoured a rapprochement with the Western powers, especially France. Much of the literature has been focused on the SA's organisational history, its role in the Nazi seizure of power and the 30 June 1934 purge. The SA leadership railed against compromises with the old elites and reactionaries, but the Second Revolution they demanded was highly inconcrete, as opposed to a concrete programme about how to restructure German society, beyond wanting the SA to 'get its due' and continue the revolution.
Having googled a bit, it appears Eleanor Hancock published a Röhm biography in 2008, though the one (German-language) review I read about it claims that it romanticises him a bit and that it has little new to say about his time as SA Chief of Staff.
Last edited:
Yes - and he wouldn't have been able to pull that off, even if the so-called "Röhmputsch" was mostly a propaganda fabrication and the SA would probably not have been quite so easy to behead had they truly embarked on a coup plan, it would still not have withstood the combined forces of police, Reichswehr and SS, and its political support base would have been rather narrow.
Later, the SS got more or less what the SA had wanted, a kind of ideologised state-in-the-state, a militant vanguard, whatever. The difference is not so much in their political agenda, but in the timing probably. The Nazi dictatorship progressively radicalised, which was what the SA had wanted, too. Only, in 1934 Hitler still preferred to appear more palatable to conservatives.
Not going yo disagree with that assessment.
I would note that the SS was more Prussian in nature and more in line with military doctrines where as the SA was not quite as well organized on a strict military model
nor did Rohm have the foresight to see that once power was established the thug mentality was not as useful to law and order. When the reichswer submitted to nazi authority it was game over for the SA
Last but not least SA leadership was riddled with including Rohm, open homosexuals . Which wasn't a great career move in nazi Germany.
All in all list for power, way to Comfortable with Hitler as his buddy ol pal, and not seeing the winds changing and thus changing organizationally .. That was his and the SA DOWNFALL. he thought he would remain independent.
Hitler backers wanted a stable Germany to make money in.. Something had to give . . Rohm
I agree with @Salvador79. It's pertinent to note that at the time of the Night of the Long Knives, the SA was far from homogenous. It had assimilated other paramilitary formations such as the Stahlhelm. Moreover, plenty of people had simply joined it for opportunistic or economic reasons.
While the number of former Communists who started wearing brown shirts has been exaggerated (partly by the Nazis to justify the purge by claiming the SA had been infested with 'Brown Bolshevism), there were certainly defections from one side to the other. Viktor Lutze, Röhm's successor, accompanied Hitler when he drove to Bad Wiessee to arrest Röhm and his closest associates. In short, the SA's rather heterogenous structure would have also impeded any takeover attempt at the time, even if Röhm had actually planned to seize power, which he didn't.
And, yes, it's a huge irony that the SS essentially got what the SA wanted. Be a state in the state, the militant vanguard of the 'National Socialist revolution' etc. But Himmler was cannier about it, able to present the SS as being more 'respectable' (initially) and its method of state terrorism was more 'organised' compared to the 'wild' concentration camps and Radauantisemitismus ('Rowdy Antisemitism') of the SA. He was the bureaucrat, Röhm the rough Landsknecht who was bad at politicking.
I think a scenario where the SA clique/Freikorps types take power requires a very different course of events. Perhaps one where the Weimar Republic never experiences the brief period of stability it had in the mid-20s, meaning that the idea of a 'March on Berlin' is not discredited, though even in that case a Reichswehr-backed 'directory' is more likely, unless things go really off the rails.
While the number of former Communists who started wearing brown shirts has been exaggerated (partly by the Nazis to justify the purge by claiming the SA had been infested with 'Brown Bolshevism), there were certainly defections from one side to the other. Viktor Lutze, Röhm's successor, accompanied Hitler when he drove to Bad Wiessee to arrest Röhm and his closest associates. In short, the SA's rather heterogenous structure would have also impeded any takeover attempt at the time, even if Röhm had actually planned to seize power, which he didn't.
And, yes, it's a huge irony that the SS essentially got what the SA wanted. Be a state in the state, the militant vanguard of the 'National Socialist revolution' etc. But Himmler was cannier about it, able to present the SS as being more 'respectable' (initially) and its method of state terrorism was more 'organised' compared to the 'wild' concentration camps and Radauantisemitismus ('Rowdy Antisemitism') of the SA. He was the bureaucrat, Röhm the rough Landsknecht who was bad at politicking.
I think a scenario where the SA clique/Freikorps types take power requires a very different course of events. Perhaps one where the Weimar Republic never experiences the brief period of stability it had in the mid-20s, meaning that the idea of a 'March on Berlin' is not discredited, though even in that case a Reichswehr-backed 'directory' is more likely, unless things go really off the rails.
Not good.
Okay, I guess we have to find another route for the mature ATL in which we have a later and smaller Holocaust with “only” two million persons perishing with us of course having no idea how relatively “lucky” we got.
I still think there’s some potential to the fractions within the Nazis. As well as just plain ol’ incompetence. Yes, incompetence. We think of the nazis as a machine, and that just wasn’t always the case.
Last edited: