The Tea Baggers are useful conservative idiots
The Sturmabteilung or Storm Division, usually translated as stormtroop(er)s) abbreviated SA, functioned as a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It played a key role in thew rise of German fascism in the 1920s and 1930s.
SA men were often called "brownshirts" for the colour of their uniforms; this distinguished them from the Schutzstaffel (SS), who wore black and brown uniforms (similar to Benito Mussolini's blackshirts). The men is the SA were working class men who established a paramilitary German organization.
Brown-coloured shirts were chosen as the SA uniform because a large batch 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.
The SA was also the first Nazi paramilitary group to develop pseudo-military titles for bestowal upon its members. The SA ranks were adopted by several other Nazi Party groups such as the the SS.
The SA was very important to Adolf Hitler's rise to power, but was largely irrelevant after he took control of Germany in 1933; it was effectively superseded by the SS after the Night of the Long Knives.
The precursor to the SA had acted informally and on an ad hoc basis for some time before this. Hitler, with an eye always to helping the party to grow through propaganda.
The future SA developed by organizing and formalizing the groups of ex-soldiers and beer hall brawlers who were to protect gatherings of the Nazi Party from disruptions by Social Democrats and Communists.
By September 1921 the name Sturmabteilung was being used informally for the group. Hitler, it should be noted, was the official head of the Nazi Party by this time
Under their popular leader, Stabschef Ernst Röhm, the SA grew in importance within the Nazi power structure, initially growing in size to thousands of members. In 1922, the Nazi Party created a youth section, the Jugendbund, for young men between the ages of 14 and 18 years. Its successor was called the Hitler Youth or Hitler Jugend.
There were also key socioeconomic conflicts between the SS and SA. SS members generally came from the middle class, while the SA had its base among the unemployed and working class. This is very similar to the difference between the working class Tea Party members and the upper middle class frats boys and sorority sisters in the Republican Party.
Hitler eliminated the SA and Röhm during the Night of the Long Knives. The SA took socialism too seriously and also wanted control of the nation's ground forces.
President Paul von Hindenburg would not stand for this, and threatened to impose martial law if Hitler did not act against Röhm. Hitler ordered the arrest and subsequent execution of the leadership of the SA and actually led the attack on the SA known as the Night of the Long Knives.
Tea Partiers are arming themselves
In the end the SA were useful idiots for the rise of a fascist state in Germany. The same scenario could be repeated in the US with the recent rise of violence and vandalism in the US since the health care reform was signed into law.
source: Wikipedia
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