Who was the SA?

Answer 1

The SA began as the paramilitary wing of the Nazi party (NSDAP), and the SS was originally a small sub-division that provided Hitler and other top Nazis with bodyguards. For more detail please see the related questions below.

Answer 2

The SA (Storm-Abteilung or Stormtroopers) were Hitler's own private army that he set up in 1921. They were mostly young men who dressed in brown uniforms and were sometimes known as the Brownshirts. Supposedly the SA was formed to protect speakers at Nazi meetings from intimidation by left wing opponents. In practise however, the SA often started the violence themselves by breaking up the meetings of the Social Democratic Party which often ended in drunken brawls. The SS had been private body guards for Hitler and other Nazi leaders. SS stands for Schutz-Staffel or 'protection squad'. It had only 500 men but Heinrich Himmler was responsible for building it into an elite force of 50 0000 men. In 1934 they helped Hitler crush the SA and the role of the SS also changed. They become the main means of terrorising or intimidating Germans into obedience. The SS had almost unlimited power to arrest people without trial, search houses or confiscate property. They also ran the concentration camps.

Answer 3

The SA is the abbreviation for the Sturmabteilung. These were the original "storm troopers" who were the strong-arm of Hitler and terrorized the Jewish population. The SA was a paramilitary organization of the NSDAP - the German Nazi party--were very important to Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s until they were superseded by the SS. SA troopers were often called "brownshirts", for the colour of their uniforms, and to distinguish them from the Schutzstaffel (SS), who wore black and brown uniforms. The SA was eliminated when the SS eliminated many of its leaders during the purge that was called "the Night of the Long Knives".