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

ADOLPHE LEGALITE 399founded, the leader had to report his organization to a higher S.A.leader, and had to be confirmed by him — and thereupon the S.A. wasstronger by four to twelve men. In honor of the founder, the squad borehis name for all time. Three to six squads formed a 'troop,' two to threetroops a 'storm'; the storm, embracing seventy to a hundred and twentymen, was and is the actual marching and fighting cell of the BrownArmy. Up to 1930, scant squads and troops had maintained themselveswith difficulty in many places; in the crisis they rapidly grew to bestorms, the storms grew into 'standards' (a thousand to three thousandmen) — and so on up to the 'brigade' and the 'group' (later Obergruppeor 'superior group'), which counted up to a hundred thousand men. ByJanuary, 1931, the S.A. included approximately one hundred thousandmen. Exactly a year later, Hitler claimed over three hundred thousand,while the party membership stood at eight hundred thousand. Anotheryear later, shortly before Hitler came to power, Rohm mustered someeight hundred thousand storm troopers in his eight Obergruppen.Was this already the workers' army which the Reichswehr once haddesired ? The truth was that the Reichswehr — its leadership — had notalways stuck to the original concept of Ludendorff, its lost supremecaptain, or of Rohm, its own rebellious spirit, or of Hitler, its outgrownformer tool. 'The era of mass armies is over,' Seeckt had said; 'the futurewill bring small, highly efficient armies which are suited to carrying outquick and decisive operations'; it would be 'the aim of a modern strategyto bring about a decision with mobile, expert, and maneuverable forces,before any masses can be set in motion'; this small army of the futurewould not 'let the numerically superior but qualitatively inferior massdeploy its forces, but above all will prevent it from forming solidmaterial fronts'; and a mass army in the old sense 'is therefore cannonfodder in the worst sense, when confronted by a small number of trainedtechnicians. . . . Therefore the modern small army must consist of longtermprofessional soldiers; as far as possible of volunteers.' The rest ofthe nation has to serve on the home front and constantly to produce themost modern equipment; for the secret of good armament was not tohave large, probably obsolete stocks of arms