And now Trump has his brownshirts.
For those that want some history on this:
Hitler created the SS (Schutzstaffel, German for Protection Squadron) to be the personal bodyguards and police for his party and to carry out his dirty work intimidating political enemies. Over time the SS created a large surveillance and intimidation system.
He also created the SA (Sturmabteiling, German for Storm Department, though that doesn’t quite cover the full meaning) to be a personal army to his party. These were called ‘brownshirts’ because of the color of their uniform. What they basically did was disrupt political meetings of opponents, fight opposing groups, incite antisemitic riots, etc.
Basically, the SA provided him with mussle outside of the official police and army while the SS provided him with his own personal surveillance and intimidation system outside of the existing surveillance systems. They could pretty much do whatever they pleased and it was often easy for Hitler to claim that he had nothing to do with the violence that happened because SA and SS members had acted on their own enthusiasm.
When Hitler came to power be kept the SA and SS and used them to crack down on political enemies. After coming to power Hitler used these organizations to do his dirtiest work, the work that the police and army could not yet be relied upon to do. Basically, these organizations allowed him to do things a dictator would do before having the full loyalty of the police and army that a dictator would otherwise need to do his dirty work.
Once Hitler’s powerbase was secure, Hitler decided that the SA had too many opinions of it’s own and he killed most of his leadership and the SA was effectively superseded by the SS.
The SS continued during the rest of the Second World War to do the dirties work of the nazi regime, from killing squads and concentration camps to aryan breeding centres and cruel medical experiments.
QueerAnarchism 