Did You Know?

For Years, Hitler’s Storm Trooper Brown Shirts Did Not Wear Brown Shirts

November 11, 2026

At the end of WWI, the Treaty of Versailles limited the multi-million-man strong German army to a cap of 100,000 men in 1919. Consequently, a flood of angry, disgruntled and disenchanted German war veterans were left unemployed and disillusioned with Germany’s new Weimar Republic government. These discharged millions became vulnerable to the allure of the Freikorps (Free Corps) movement—a wave of militant paramilitary organizations that was popping up all over Germany. Freikorps militias vowed to defend Germany from foreign threats and, internally, also brawled with Communists. While millions were removed from the army’s payroll, Ernst Röhm and Adolf Hitler were not among the layoffs. Röhm continued to be employed as a military officer involved in overseeing financial and administrative aid to the paramilitaries, for the German military saw the Freikorps militias as a necessity to offset national vulnerabilities caused by the 100,000 man military cap. Meanwhile, Hitler was a military spy sent in 1919 to surveil a radical German Workers’ Party branch in Munich, an organization to which Röhm also belonged. It was the precursor of the Nazi party. Hitler, rather than remaining loyal to the army, was instead won over to the party’s cause and left the military in 1920 to become the party propagandist. That year, the party rebranded to the Nazi name. With Ernst Röhm and Adolf Hitler in place, and the Freikorps movement thriving, the birth of a new paramilitary organization, the Sturm Abteilung, was set in motion (also spelled as Sturmabteilung—the SA, known as Storm Troopers or Storm Division). Curiously, although the group was later nicknamed the Brown Shirts for their khaki uniforms, the earliest iterations of the SA did not usually wear brown or khaki.

Hitler technically founded the SA in 1921, but the renamed and re-uniformed group had its roots in preexisting Freikorps organizations cultivated by Ernst Röhm. Yet, Röhm—unlike Hitler—was still actively serving as an army officer, so he kept his influence with the SA informal and undocumented. Titular command of the SA was given to other Nazis, such as Hermann Göring. Even so, Röhm was involved in organizing, training, and recruiting for the SA, and he used his army role to supply and finance the Storm Troopers. Hitler, the one-time aspiring artist, had less influence over the early SA, but he did have a say in their uniforms. Hitler’s chosen wardrobe for the Nazi Storm Troopers involved a tightly woven cotton windbreaker for the torso, and a soft flat-top ski cap for the head. Tall boots pulled up over pants were also encouraged to complete the ensemble. In the early years, the SA dress code was more like guidelines than a strict uniform, with members wearing different kinds and colors of windbreakers, sporting different configurations of buttons and pockets. Grey, instead of brown or khaki, was known to have been among the most popular colors in the early years of the SA.

Hitler, despite being technically the founder of the Storm Troopers, soon realized that the SA and its leaders could be a threat to himself and the Nazi Party’s political leadership. Therefore, Hitler developed a second paramilitary force, one loyal only to him, by 1933. This Stosstrupp Hitler (Shock Troop Hitler) would later morph into the infamous Shutz Staffel (SS, or Security Staff). In 1923, Hitler surrounded himself with his newly formed personal shock troop force during his failed Beer Hall Putsch against the regional Bavarian government. Röhm, betraying his army employers, was also involved in the rebellion and occupied the War Ministry building with his own paramilitary unit during the short-lived revolt. Röhm aside, the rest of the army sided with the government. Consequently, Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch was crushed, and the Nazi leaders were arrested, albeit briefly. The failed revolt could have been the end of the Nazi Party, but instead Hitler unfortunately learned from the events of the putsch. He realized he needed a legitimate and legal path to the chancellorship and that developing an alliance with the German military would be a key to his authoritarian ambitions.

Hitler, during his imprisonment, would go on to write his Mein Kampf manifesto. Röhm, for his role in the putsch, was kicked out of the army. This cut off the government aid that he had been able to funnel to the Nazis, but being removed from the army also allowed Röhm to more openly involve himself in Nazi paramilitary leadership. In the aftermath of the putsch, the SA had been banned, but Röhm continued to develop the paramilitary group under the cover of a shell organization called the Frontbann. In 1925, the SA was brought back and reorganized, and by that time, Röhm and Hitler had implemented a new standardized khaki shirt uniform that was originally sourced from surplus colonial gear.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Image labeled “Munich, présentation des étendards des gardes de Hitler,” by Agence Rol and dated 27 January 1923, [Public Domain] via BnF and Wikimedia).

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