"Germany's Stormtroopers engaged in a vicious siege of violence that propelled the National Socialists to power in the 1930s. Known also as the SA or Brownshirts, these "ordinary" men waged a loosely structured campaign of intimidation and savagery across the nation from the 1920s to the "Night of the Long Knives" in 1934, when Chief of Staff Ernst RΓΆhm and many other SA leaders were assassinated on Hitler's orders. In this deeply researched history, Daniel Siemens explores not only the roots of the SA and its swift decapitation but also its previously unrecognized transformation into a million-member Nazi organization, its activities in German-occupied territories during World War II, and its particular contributions to the Holocaust. The author provides portraits of individual members and their victims and examines their milieu, culture, and ideology. His book tells the long-overdue story of the SA and its devastating impact on German citizens and the fate of their country." -- Publisher's description.;Introduction: a night of violence -- Turmoil in post-war Germany and the origins of the Nazi SA -- Stormtrooper street politics: mobilization in times of crisis -- The brown cult of youth and violence in the Weimar Republic -- Terror, excitement, and frustration -- The "RΓΆhm purge" and the myth of the homosexual Nazi -- The transformation of the SA between 1934 and 1939 -- Streetfighters into farmers? The brownshirts and the "Germanization" of the European east -- Stormtroopers in the Second World War -- SA diplomats and the Holocaust in Southeastern Europe -- "Not guilty": the legacy of the SA in Germany after the Second World War -- Conclusion: Stormtroopers and National Socialism.