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#309836 07/22/2015 09:02 AM
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Hi guys,

Are there any theories why the SA did not introduce a chained dagger for officers, as the SS and NSKK did? I have a few ideas which I will outline below:

1. Cost: the SA was a much bigger organisation and it would have been quite a task to manufacture chained daggers for every officer and senior NCO.

2. Ideology: did the SA still hold to a more egalitarian ethos based on its early socialist principles?

3. No incentive from the top: Would a chained example have undermined the prestige of the chained Honour Daggers worn by many of the most senior members of the SA?

Best regards

Arminius

Arminius #309839 07/22/2015 02:21 PM
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By 1936 when the SS and NSKK introduced their chained daggers, the SS was very powerful and the NSKK had broken away from the SA and was independent but with close ties to the SS. The SA by then was powerless and served as a fund raiser and a source of manpower for the armed forces.

I think that if the subject ever came up, the SS vetoed it.

Arminius #309840 07/22/2015 02:59 PM
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Probably not cost. SA members were expected to purchase the service dagger from their own funds.
Before the Rohm purge the SA did appear to champion the "socialism" inherent in the National Socialist movement. After the purge of the SA leadership the SA were no longer the vanguard of the NSDAP - that mantle had passed to the ideologically "correct" SS, freed of their previous subordination to the SA.
I do not think creation of a chained SA service dagger would have undermined the prestige of an awarded high leaders Honour dagger, nor that of the M37 "Feldherrnhalle Leader's" dagger. Likewise the SS-M36 chained service dagger does not diminish the status of the SS high leader honour dagger. Jmho.

Barry Brown #309858 07/23/2015 10:24 AM
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Interesting points. I didn't mean to propose that a chained SA leaders dagger would have undermined the chained Honour Dagger. More probably those senior members of the SA who would be in a position to push for a chained dagger already had an Honour Dagger, so there was no incentive.

I've done a lot of research on the SS and Wehrmacht, but not so much on the SA. Although it's relevance as an organisation diminished rapidly from the summer of 1934 onwards, there was still a high symbolic importance attached to it, and particularly the Old Guard of the Party. I imagine that many of those early comrades got their Honour daggers, and there was little need to decorate the next generation with fancy dagger upgrades. What kind of person wanted to join the SA after 1934/5? It was obvious that it was a fading star in German politics.

Arminius #310967 09/06/2015 01:46 AM
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I think we quite often underestimate the SA post purge...there are many instances of Hitler having to court the SA, if only for the symbolism and manpower that the SA could bring to bear. It should be noted that the SA's greatest growth occurred after the purge, through 1935-'38.

It was also left to the SA to be the instigators of Krystallnacht in 1938, with some of the oldest and most trusted SA foot regiments chosen to take the lead. Of course, this also lends the theory of plausible deniability to the SS, who were looked upon to clean up in the aftermath of that period, after the SA had taken care of business.

Even during the war, the SA was the chief (paramilitary) trainer of military age men, not so for the A-SS, who numbered in the millions as well.


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