Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

sublime idealism but who became the victims of their own deeds, because they could not
ameliorate the lot of their fatherland to the slightest degree.
If then the Storm Detachment must not be either a military defence organization or a secret
society, the following conclusions must result:
1. Its training must not be organized from the military standpoint but from the standpoint of
what is most practical for party purposes. Seeing that its members must undergo a good
physical training, the place of chief importance must not be given to military drill but rather
to the practice of sports. I have always considered boxing and ju-jitsu more important than
some kind of bad, because mediocre, training in rifle-shooting. If the German nation were
presented with a body of young men who had been perfectly trained in athletic sports, who
were imbued with an ardent love for their country and a readiness to take the initiative in a
fight, then the national State could make an army out of that body within less than two years
if it were necessary, provided the cadres already existed. In the actual state of affairs only the
Reichswehr could furnish the cadres and not a defence organization that was neither one
thing nor the other. Bodily efficiency would develop in the individual a conviction of his
superiority and would give him that confidence which is always based only on the
consciousness of one's own powers. They must also develop that athletic agility which can be
employed as a defensive weapon in the service of the Movement.
2. In order to safeguard the Storm Detachment against any tendency towards secrecy, not
only must the uniform be such that it can immediately be recognized by everybody, but the
large number of its effectives show the direction in which the Movement is going and which
must be known to the whole public. The members of the Storm Detachment must not hold
secret gatherings but must march in the open and thus, by their actions, put an end to all
legends about a secret organization. In order to keep them away from all temptations towards
finding an outlet for their activities in small conspiracies, from the very beginning we had to
inculcate in their minds the great idea of the Movement and educate them so thoroughly to
the task of defending this idea that their horizon became enlarged and that the individual no
longer considered it his mission to remove from circulation some rascal or other, whether big
or small, but to devote himself entirely to the task of bringing about the establishment of a
new National Socialist People's State. In this way the struggle against the present State was
placed on a higher plane than that of petty revenge and small conspiracies. It was elevated to
the level of a spiritual struggle on behalf of a philosophical war, for the destruction of
Marxism in all its shapes and forms.
3. The form of organization adopted for the Storm Detachment, as well as its uniform and
equipment, had to follow different models from those of the old Army. They had to be
specially suited to the requirements of the task that was assigned to the Storm Detachment.
These were the ideas I followed in 1920 and 1921. I endeavoured to instil them gradually into
the members of the young organization. And the result was that by the midsummer of 1922
we had a goodly number of formations which consisted of a hundred men each. By the late
autumn of that year these formations received their distinctive uniforms. There were three
events which turned out to be of supreme importance for the subsequent development of the
Storm Detachment.
1. The great mass demonstration against the Law for the Protection of the Republic. This
demonstration was held in the late summer of 1922 on the Königs-platz in Munich, by all the
patriotic societies. The National Socialist Movement also participated in it. The march-past of
our party, in serried ranks, was led by six Munich companies of a hundred men each,
followed by the political sections of the Party. Two bands marched with us and about fifteen
flags were carried. When the National Socialists arrived at the great square it was already