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.6 A (political) soldier derivedparticular pleasure from the act of fulfilling a duty precisely when italso involved an element of self-conquest.However, the question ofwhat goals and ideals an (enlightened) individual should pursue uncon-ditionally, as an expression of maximum morality in one s life choices,is certainly one that Kant himself would answer differently than some-one like Adolf Eichmann, who tried to justify his actions by explicitlyciting Kant during his 1961 trial in Jerusalem.7IAs Michael Wildt has plainly put it, National Socialism emerged fromthe spirit and violence of the First World War. 8 The heyday of the Nazimovement, and especially its Sturmabteilung or SA, had been shapedsince the late 1920s by an experience of the front line that was more ide-alized than real.By this time, the membership of the Party and the SAconsisted mostly of those born after 1900; these were not veterans of thefront line, but instead members of the so-called Kriegsjugendgeneration( war-youth generation ).9 As such, they had experienced the war onlyas non-participating spectators.However, these were precisely the oneswho would yearn to finally serve as soldiers, and later did so by join-ing the SA, Freikorps ( free corps ), as well as other paramilitary groups.At the age of 16, Heinrich Himmler wrote in his diaries of his burningdesire to serve in the war; being himself born in 1900, his age and even-tual career profile in the Third Reich were prototypical for this politi-cally radicalized war-youth generation.10For these young men, the war s end denied them the chance to provethemselves through military combat.Therefore, they bore a particulargrudge against the Weimar Republic, which they saw not only as theresult of betrayal and defeat, but as also depriving them personally ofthis supposed opportunity.11 Participation in the Nazi movement thus The Pleasures of being a Political Soldier 207served a compensatory function.The disgraceful defeat of the FirstWorld War would be redressed by a victory over those domestic ene-mies who were allegedly to blame, and the numerous young NationalSocialists of the war-youth generation would finally get the chance totest themselves militarily.12 For many of the Nazi movement s membersand sympathizers, violent resistance against the new state was not onlylegitimate, it was actually a national duty.In 1963, Friedrich WilhelmHeinz looked back at how he and other members of the Freikorps viewedthemselves in the struggle against their declared enemies, the .com-munists.the fatherlandless, the climbers and wheeler-dealers, theunscrupulous and the traitors.They considered the elimination of theseto be their duty to the Fatherland. 13Therefore, it is no wonder that it was precisely the ones lacking first-hand experience of the war front who would most eagerly internalize themilitary forms and symbolism of the SA.This (para)military self-imageculminated in the concept of the political soldier.Here, the soldierlyself-image and its corresponding traits became closely connected to boththe behaviour and public perception of SA members.14 The external trap-pings of this military habitus included uniforms (which were not alwaysstandardized), public appearances with regimental flags, and marchingin formation.This also meant adopting a National Socialist death cultthat openly borrowed from the symbolic language of the memorial cul-ture surrounding the First World War.15 The National Socialist brownarmy , especially under Ernst Röhm (who even took the title of Stabschefor Chief of Staff ), tried to evoke the traditional grey army of the GermanKaiser, as seen in the numbering system of the SA regiments, which werebased on the regimental numbers of the old army.The former army serv-ice regulations were also generally adopted as SA service regulations; forexample, if a needy SA member requested housing in SA quarters, herequired a permit similar to that of a soldier in barracks.16However, equally important were the value system and rules of con-duct that defined the everyday political life of an SA member.Being asoldier meant joining a structure of command and obedience, as wellas accepting a commitment to duty that ultimately encompassed theentire person.One was either on duty or temporarily off duty , leav-ing hardly any room for a residual civilian life.Even more significantwas that the soldierly self-image implied an acceptance of violence as amatter of course.Both the SA member and the National Socialist had tobe willing to give and receive deadly violence: one was .prepared forbattle and death.17 This mentality allowed National Socialists to feel noshame or guilt concerning brutally violent crimes, such as the murder 208 Daniel Mühlenfeldof an ethnically Polish worker by SA members in Potempa (Polish:PotÄ™pa), Upper Silesia.18This mindset also affected how National Socialists perceived theirbroader environment.In believing that they were suffering increas-ing persecution under a regime they considered illegitimate,19 NationalSocialists saw political skirmishes simply as a continuation of the FirstWorld War by other means, to freely adapt a well-known maxim byClausewitz.The difference was not so much in the mobilized potentialfor violence, but simply in the more limited armamentarium of theseskirmishes, generally involving fists, blunt instruments, knives andpistols.But how did the general public respond to this self-proclaimedpolitical virtuousness, with its central precepts of traditional values,self-restraint and self-discipline ?20 In looking at the rise of NationalSocialism amid the crisis of the Weimar Republic, recent attention hasfocused on the importance of political expectations in the shaping ofpublic opinion.21 In this context, the electoral choice for a particularparty signified a shift in political focus towards the future, with vot-ers banking on a time to come
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