Original German WWII NSDAP & SA Multi-piece Cotton Armband with Printed Insignia

Original Item: Only One Available. This is a very nice service used original German WWII Early-War Style National Socialist Party Ärmelbinde (Armband), brought home by a U.S.G.I. after the war. The National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP), commonly known in English as the NSDAP Party, was a political party in Germany between 1919 and 1945. It was known as the German Workers’ Party (DAP) before the name was changed in 1920. The party’s last leader, Adolf AH, was appointed Chancellor of Germany by president Paul von Hindenburg in 1933. AH rapidly established a totalitarian regime known as the Third Reich. This standard armband was worn by party members in the NSDAP and SA, and was also worn by many service members and other personnel during the war. It features a red cotton band with a sewn on white cloth circle, which bears a printed black swas (hook cross) insignia. Measures approximately 16 1/2″ x 4 1/4″, and is sewn together in the back. There is no RZM tag present, and it looks to be somewhat more crude than most we see, so it is probably late war. The armband shows overall light staining and age toning, with some darker stains and worked in dirt on the reverse. Tis definitely looks to have seen a good amount of use during the war, and doesn’t look like it spent its life in a depot like so many others on the market. In very nice condition and ready to display! The Sturmabteilung, literally Storm Detachment, was the NSDAP Party’s original paramilitary. It played a significant role in Adolf AH’s rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for NSDAP rallies and assemblies, disrupting the meetings of opposing parties, fighting against the paramilitary units of the opposing parties, especially the Red Front Fighters League (Rotfrontkämpferbund) of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), and intimidating Romani, trade unionists, and, especially, Jews – for instance, during the NSDAP boycott of Jewish businesses. The SA were also called the “Brownshirts” (Braunhemden) from the color of their uniform shirts, similar to Benito Mussolini’s blackshirts. The SA developed pseudo-military titles for its members, with ranks that were later adopted by several other NSDAP Party groups, chief amongst them the Schutzstaffel (SS), which originated as a branch of the SA before being separated. 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. The SA became disempowered after Adolf AH ordered the “blood purge” of 1934. This event became known as the Night of the Long Knives (die Nacht der langen Messer). The SA continued to exist, but was effectively superseded by the SS, although it was not formally dissolved until after NSDAP Germany’s final capitulation to the Allies in 1945.