Original German Early WWII SA Wool Armband with RZM A4/180 Tag – Sturmabteilung Original Items

Original Item: Only One Available. This is an excellent worn condition, early war high quality SA wool armband with multi-piece construction. Featuring a moire material white circle with a black Swas (swas) patch, which is stitched onto the wool backing. Edges of arm band are finely stitched indicating a very high quality production. Measures 19″ x 4.25″, and has never sewn together at the end but appears to have been cut, perhaps when being removed from a uniform. The top also has dark bronze colored thread remnants, another indication that this was worn.

The inner side still features the original RZM tag which is crisp, with just a bit of folding from storage. The tag has a correct “B” tax code and features the RZM logo as well as the ink stamped numerical designation of the hersteller (manufacturer) A4/180 over lot No. 332142. There are minor moth nips present.

The Sturmabteilung, literally Storm Detachment, was the NSDAP Party’s original paramilitary. It played a significant role in Adolf AH’s rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for NSDAP rallies and assemblies, disrupting the meetings of opposing parties, fighting against the paramilitary units of the opposing parties, especially the Red Front Fighters League (Rotfrontkämpferbund) of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), and intimidating Romani, trade unionists, and, especially, Jews – for instance, during the NSDAP boycott of Jewish businesses.

The SA were also called the “Brownshirts” (Braunhemden) from the color of their uniform shirts, similar to Benito Mussolini’s blackshirts. The SA developed pseudo-military titles for its members, with ranks that were later adopted by several other NSDAP Party groups, chief amongst them the Schutzstaffel (SS), which originated as a branch of the SA before being separated. Brown-colored shirts were chosen as the SA uniform because a large number 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 became disempowered after Adolf AH ordered the “blood purge” of 1934. This event became known as the Night of the Long Knives (die Nacht der langen Messer). The SA continued to exist, but was effectively superseded by the SS, although it was not formally dissolved until after NSDAP Germany’s final capitulation to the Allies in 1945.