Germany – Third Reich: A rare SA Sturmabteilung ‘SA Kampfspiele Gera 1937’ Tinnie Badge commemorating participation in the sporting event held at Gera in Thuringia, the obverse depicting an embossed eagle clutching the SA Sports Badge. Aluminium form with silver wash, reverse complete with horizontal pin fitting, and bearing the embossed makers marks for ‘WERNSTEIN JENA’.
Condition: some tarnishing to the obverse, and light corrosion on bottom edge of reverse, overall Very Fine.
The Sturmabteilung was the Nazi Party’s original paramilitary wing. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi rallies and assemblies, disrupting the meetings of opposing parties, fighting against the paramilitary units of the opposing parties, especially the Rotfrontkämpferbund of the Communist Party of Germany, and intimidating Romani, trade unionists, and, especially, Jews. The SA were also called the Brownshirts, from the color of their uniform shirts. 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. After The Night of the Long Knives in 1934, Hitler withdrew support from the SA. The SA continued to exist, but was effectively superseded by the SS, although the paramilitary forces were not formally dissolved until after Nazi Germany’s final capitulation to the Allies in 1945.
