# Adolf Hitler's Own Book Mein Kampf (My Battle)/Chapter 21

Chapter XXI
The Storm Troops
Periods in which a national body flowers exist only when the best level of its people rule.
Periods of normal state development occur when the middle group holds the balance of power.
Periods of a nation’s decline come when the worst elements attain power.
Now the odd thing is, that the middle group makes itself felt, as leader, only when the two extremes are battling one another—as soon as one extreme or the other is victorious, the mass quickly submits itself to its domination. The middle class will never itself engage in a fight, but will readily follow the best elements when they are strong, and will never put up any sort of resistance to the evil when they dominate.
After the World War Germany’s best element had sacrificed itself at the front, the great middle mass had done its duty too, but meanwhile the rotters, as shirkers, had neatly survived.
It was this latter scum which then proceeded to make the revolution, because there was now lacking the opposition of the best elements, which had died.
When, after the Armistice, the armies began to return home, the revolutionaries—who were “internationalists”, and who looked down on “militarism”—began nervously to ask a question: “What will the soldiers do? Will they stand for this?”
The Jews, behind all this, were terrified, and the revolution was restrained somewhat to avoid open provocation—this was the only way to fool old generals and old state officials, disarming them from the start, and keeping them from leading the army against the revolutionary government, which they could easily have smashed.
To save the revolution the violent element—radical Independent and Spartacist storm battalions—which had done the really active battling—was pushed aside, the Social Democratic Party holding the conquered position. This could not be done, of course, without a fight—so the “government” had to suppress its old friends, thus becoming the representative of “peace and order”. Immediately the duped Bourgeois came to the side of these treacherous betrayers of the German nation—thinking they were thus helping to prevent “real” revolution—and so the revolution now had strength of numbers.
Thus, in December, 1918, and January, 1919, this was the situation:
A revolution had been made by pimps and rascals, supported by the Marxists. After it was accomplished the revolution seemed too moderate to suit the extremists, who immediately began to throw hand grenades, to shoot machine guns, to occupy public buildings—and in general to threaten the somewhat moderate revolution.
To stop an extreme revolution, an alliance was declared between the supporters of the new set-up and the supporters of the old, in order together to fight the extremists.
In this way a people, nine-tenths of whom did not carry out a revolution, seven-tenths of whom rejected it, six-tenths of whom hated it, nevertheless had this revolution imposed upon them by a mere one-tenth.
Terror Cannot Be Broken
With the formation of the Nazi party, a movement for the first time appeared whose goal was not—like that of the Bourgeois parties—a restoration of the past, but the establishment of a racial state.
From the first day the young movement clung to the belief that while its idea was to be represented spiritually, its defense depended upon physical strength.
In the eternal evidence of history lies the truth that terror, fighting as the instrument for the conquest of the world by a new view, cannot be broken by a formal state authority.
Since the present German state is absolutely subjugated by Marxist rulers, it is the duty of the Nazi movement to defend itself—and the new idea which it offers to the world—against the attacks of the victory-drunk internationalists.
After a riotous meeting held in the Munich Hofbrauhaus the fighting troops of the movement were forever named “Storm Troops” in honor of the courage they showed that night. The group was not permitted by the leaders of the movement to join with the so-called “national defense organizations” organized by other parties and groups—for it was to have nothing to do with the protection of the nation-rapers who had deceived the people with their revolution.
It was also decided that our storm troops were not to form a special “secret organization”. What we need is not a few hundred daring plotters, but hundreds of thousands of fanatical fighters. Our work is to be done in giant mass demonstrations, and not in secret conspiracies.
The Marxists must be shown that the future boss of the streets is the Nazi Party—and that some day this group will be master of the state.
When Assassination Is Justified
A special danger of secret organizations is that members may come to underestimate the greatness of their task, and so the opinion develops that the fate of a race could be altered favorably by a single assassination. This belief may be historically justified whenever a people is tortured under the tyranny of some oppressor—when it is known that only his superior talents preserve the strength and terror of his terrible rule.
In such a case it may happen that a man ready to sacrifice himself suddenly appears to destroy the hated individual. Only the republican mentality of thugs conscious of their own guilt will consider such a deed hateful—while the greatest poet of our national freedom has glorified just such a deed in his “Wilhelm Tell”.
In 1919 and 1920, however, there existed a dangerous possibility that some member of a secret organization might attempt to take revenge upon the destroyers of his country in the belief that in this way he could end the misery of his people—such an attempt would have been folly because Marxism had conquered not because of the talent of some individual, but through the cowardice of the Bourgeois world.
The bitterest criticism that can be made of our Bourgeoisie is that they capitulated to a revolution that was not led by any great leader. It can be understood how a people can surrender to a Robespierre, a Danton, or a Marat, but it is disgraceful to fall prostrate before a stupid Scheidemann, a fat Herr Erzberger, a Friedrich Ebert and such fool political weaklings. To do away with any one of these would have been nonsense—or at least, it would have done no good, for there were countless such leeches ready and waiting to take their place.
The same view holds in regard to the question of doing away with so-called traitors. It is madly illogical to kill someone who has betrayed a cannon while close by in the highest offices sit villains who sold a realm, who have two million dead on their consciences, who are responsible for millions of crippled—but who meanwhile, unruffled, concern themselves with their republican business.
I believe that one should not hang little thieves in order to allow big ones to run loose: some day a German National court will have to condemn and kill ten thousand or so of the criminals who organized the November treason and are responsible for what followed.
This will serve as an eternal example to all little betrayers of cannons.
If our Storm Troop was to be neither a military defence organization nor a secret brigade, there were certain consequences.
(1) Training was to be conducted according to Party expediency, and not according to military standards.
Physical agility was to be taught—and to me boxing and jiu-jitsu have always seemed more important than careless rifle practice. Build six million powerful athletic bodies in the nation—and in less than two years, if it is necessary, they can be trained into a marvelous army!
(2) Since the movement was not to be secret—and was never to allow anyone to consider it as such—its size and strength was to be flaunted before the wide world.
Instead of meeting in secret, it was to march openly through the streets. The uniforms of the members of the organization were to be made familiar to everyone.
(3) The inner organization of the Storm Troops, as well as the uniforms to be worn, were to be suited to expediency, and not to customs set by the army.
I was guided by these principles in 1920 and 1921 as I developed the spirit of the Storm Troopers, and by 1922 we had a comparatively large fighting force at our disposal.
Three events had special influence in the further development of our Storm Troop:
(a) The general demonstration of all patriot groups against the defence laws of the republic held on the Königsplatz in Munich late in the summer of 1922.
We participated with six groups of Storm Troops from Munich composed of one hundred men each, which marched into the Square followed by the units of our political party—with about fifteen flags waving and two bands playing. We were the only colorful group there—all the others lacked even flags—and when we arrived on the Square there was an outburst of enthusiasm.
“When a people is driven toward destruction by any government power, then rebellion of that people—and every individual member of that people—is not merely a right but a holy duty.”
Mein Kampf—Chapter III
I had the honor of being permitted to speak before a mass of about sixty thousand people.
Street Fights
Our success was overwhelming, and another great factor in this victory was that in the course of the day our Storm Troops smashed some reds who tried to interfere as we marched through the streets—we demonstrated our determination to rule the streets in the future.
A few weeks after this our Storm Troops had redoubled their number of members!
(b) The 1922 event in Coburg.
Some racial organizations announced a “German Day” in Coburg, and I was invited to speak and to bring some followers with me. I ordered out 800 Storm Troops, who were to go by special train from Munich to the little Bavarian village.
This was the first such train Germany had ever seen. The train stopped at different points along the way, to let new Storm Troops get aboard, and this aroused great interest. Many people saw our flags for the first time.
When we reached the station at Coburg a committee representing the “German Day” met us, and told us of an agreement with the local labor unions, meaning the Independents and the Communist Party, depriving us of the right of entering the town with flags waving and with music—we had brought our band—and we were not to march in a single column, but in separate companies.
I immediately turned down and denounced these shameful conditions, and we marched in with our flags unfurled and our bands playing. We were met by a hostile crowd before the station, but we marched undaunted through the streets, escorted by the frightened local police, and on to the Hofbrauhaus in the middle of the town. We did not know it, but it had previously been arranged that not the Hofbrauhaus, but a shooting gallery, to be our headquarters.
A great mass of people had followed us through the streets, and no sooner were we inside the Hofbrauhaus, than they tried to push in in our wake. So the police locked the door. This was intolerable, and I had meanwhile learned that this wasn’t where we really belonged, so I demanded that the police open the door—which they did after some hesitation.
​We marched through the streets to the shooting gallery, and then the reds began to hurl stones at us. Our patience ended, and we attacked—after fifteen minutes nothing red was in sight.
Freedom For Whom?
All through the night individual Nazis were assaulted, so then we really went after the enemy and by morning the red terror, from which Coburg had suffered for years, was definitely broken.
With typical Marxist-Jewish underhandedness, the reds now began to accuse us of coming to Coburg “to attack the peaceful workers”. They announced a great workers’ demonstration for 1:30 in the afternoon, so I led the Storm Troops to the Square to see if they would attack us. But there we found only a few hundred people instead of the advertised thousands, and some of these turned and ran, while the rest stood about innocuously. A few red brigades did try to attack us, but they speedily lost a taste for this.
When we marched away, the people who had so long been terrorized took courage, saluting us and shouting, and occasionally staging real outbursts of spontaneous joy.
Then at the station the railway workers announced they would not run our train. I told the mob leaders that I intended to capture a few of them, and that we ourselves would operate the train, taking with us in the engine, and in the coach, a few hostages. I pointed out that the trip would be dangerous, and that we might all break our necks, but that at least this would occur in union with our red companions—advocates of Equality and Fraternity.
So the train left punctually, and the next morning we were safely back in Munich.
This day made a lasting impression, not only upon the vastly encouraged Storm Troops but on the rest of Germany, which now began to see in the Nazi movement something which would probably one day halt the Marxist insanity. Only the democratic-minded complained because instead of allowing our skulls to be smashed we met a wild attack with fists and sticks and not with pacifist songs.
Back in Coburg we won over some of the Marxist workers, who had been taught by the fists of the Nazi workers that we were fighting for ideals, for they knew that one only battles in that way for a real faith.
A still greater result of the Coburg incident was that now we systematically launched an attack upon the red terror in all places where it had all meetings of their opponents. We restored the right of free assembly to the people.
    (Hitler here frankly admits the use of violence to suppress political enemies in the name of “free speech”. His method was to use the privileges of free speech and assembly guaranteed by the Constitution in order to seize power and then deny those rights to others. There is of course no “right of free assembly” in Germany today.)
Citadel after citadel of the reds fell victim to our Storm Troops and our propaganda, throughout Bavaria.
(c) The French occupied the Ruhr early in 1923.
This is of great significance for the development of the Storm Troops, but in the interest of the nation I cannot at this time speak of this in any detail.
The occupation of the Ruhr, which was not particularly surprising to us, gave birth to the hope that from now on the German policy of cowardly retreat was at an end. The Storm Troops could not escape being impressed into this national service, so in the spring and summer of 1923 it was transformed into a military organization.
This transformation of the Storm Troop was injurious if the reason that promoted its change—the supposition that active resistance against France was to be renewed—was incorrect.
The end of the year 1923, terrible as it may seem for the moment, may have been a blessing in that at a blow it ended this change in the Storm Troop, which had been made useless by the attitude of the German Reich’s government.
The Nazi Party, reborn in the year 1925, must again set up the Storm Troops according to the first principles.
The Storm Troops must not be a defense league or a secret organization—it must develop a guard of a hundred thousand men for the Nazi racial idea.
    (Hitler’s comic opera beer-hall putsch—a wild attempt to overthrow the government in Bavaria at the time of the Ruhr crisis—was halted with machine guns, and several Nazis were killed and wounded. It is said that at the first shot fired by the government forces Hitler threw himself to the ground with such frantic haste that he broke his collar bone. He escaped, but was subsequently arrested and sentenced to prison, and it was while serving this sentence that he wrote Mein Kampf.
    (The Nazi Party broke up and the Storm Troops were disorganized, but in 1925 both were recreated. Hitler—who had been badly frightened—insisting that the Storm Troops be constructed as an auxiliary protection force of the party, but not as a fighting force designed for violent revolution.)