Brownshirts Quotes

Fascists organized their political parties as paramilitary organizations.

Fascists were variously described as “brown shirts” or “black shirts” at the time.

His response was typical of the German intelligencia and the upper middle class at the time. They neither took the old militarists nor Hitler’s Fascist Brownshirts very seriously, even when they were seizing power. The Nazis and the militarists had attributed the harsh terms that the Treaty of Versailles ending WWI was attributed to a cabal of Jews who had embedded themselves in key positions advising the American, English, and French leadership so they could dominate the world. But first, they had to weaken Germany because the Jews knew that the German leadership was aware of their plans and would be their strongest obstacle. This fantastic conspiracy theory came from the notorious forgery, The Protocol of the Enders of Zion which had been published and distributed heavily among the German right wing. Hitler and his henchmen used this existing libel, to dupe most Germans, among whom there was extensive anti-Semitism, into thinking that the Jews were responsible for most of the serious ills of Germany at the time—the terrible economy and inflation, the weakened military, the loss of the Sudetenland and their overseas colonies, the sexual immorality in Germany, the Communist agitators, the perception of most of the civilized world that the Germans were dangerous militarists who had to be contained.

The coup started with the takeover of a large German Beer Hall where the political leaders of Bavaria were holding a meeting. Hitler and his Brownshirt thugs burst into the Hall. Hitler jumped up on a chair and shouted this statement waving a pistol in the air. Hitler was bluffing however, At the time he did not have the police or army supporting him, although they did soon after. This was the beginning of Hitler’s rise to power, the ruination of Germany, and tragedy for the world.