Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

304 DER FUEHRERman officers, and Rohm, the discharged German captain, was engagedwith the rank of Bolivian lieutenant-colonel. Rohm seems to have donea good job as a military adviser. He wrote his German friends letters fullof bitter complaints that there was so little understanding forhomosexuality in the country; yet he cynically promised 'to spreadculture.'Hitler temporarily abandoned hope of regaining control of the S.A.He did what he had done in 1923: he split the organization and drew outthe reliable sections, bringing them closer to himself. In 1923, before hisputsch, he had set up within the S.A. a troop swearing personal loyaltyto him, the 'Hitler shock troop,' led by an old friend named JosefBerchtold. When the S.A. virtually fell apart in 1925, after the breakwith Rohm, a new band of the most reliable men with a similarsoundingname was formed to take its place, again under Berchtold.Instead of Sturm Abteilung (S.A.) it was called Schutz Staffel (defensecorps), abbreviated as S.S. Instead of the brown S.A. shirt, these menwore a black Fascist uniform. Berchtold did not understand the spirit ofhis task; he did not have the heart to draw his troop out of the partymass. For the idea of a chosen band insulted the broad section ofmembers which was still permeated by the democratic mood of the oldfounders — Berchtold himself among them. 'The party expects you allto come,' said the founding proclamation of the S.A. in 1921. Now, in1926 Hitler said that 'a small band of the best and most determined is farmore valuable than a large mass of camp-followers'; therefore 'thenumerical strength is closely restricted.' And thus it remained. Themotley S.A. troops under Pfeffer's leadership carried on their halfindependentexistence; many of them had no further regard for Hitlerthan a half-contemptuous admiration for his boom-boom oratory; thenew S.S. troop represented only a few black dots amid the brown mass.At first everything was intentionally made hard for them. They had towear a relatively expensive uniform, cut according to regulation, andthis black splendor, including the belt with the motto devised by Hitler,'My honor is loyalty,' on the buckle, had to be paid for out of the men'sown pockets. For the S.S. men must learn to make sacrifices for theirconvictions. The result was that poor party