SA Uniform help

[Ullergaard]

I think it reads: M 2/5 or 8

[HPL2008]

Thanks. It would have to be an early armband.

Wim Saris has kindly helped me out here:

He confirmed that Leoben was part of Südmark and informed me that the 3rd Standarte in question would have to be the Gebirgs-Schützenstandarte 3, which was presented its SA standard in 1933.
(This was before the above picture was posted. I'm not sure that's a "3" on the stamp, either.)

Anyway, Leoben is in Austria and the Austrian NSDAP was outlawed the same year (19 June 1933) and remained so until Austria's annexation in 1938.

Wim tells me that the transfer of the former Motor-SA was regulated by orders of September 1934 and that the use of stamps on SA armbands was discontinued in February 1936, i.e. both took place well before the SA in Leoben could go public again.

All of this would date the armband to no later than 1933.

[ExaltedFrog]

I will admit it's hard to make out but I've got the armband here, right up to my eye, and I can confirm that it is a 3

[ExaltedFrog]

Thanks for helping clear this up. Is there anyway I could contact Saris?

[ExaltedFrog]

If he was a member of the motor-SA would his uniform be any different to that of a typical SA-Man? i.e would he still have worn the pink collar patches and kepi?

Also, didn't the Anschluss happen in '38? How could he have been a member of the SA before this? or did the SA exist in austria before the annex

[HPL2008]

If he was a member of the motor-SA would his uniform be any different to that of a typical SA-Man? i.e would he still have worn the pink collar patches and kepi?

The Motor-SA's uniforms differed from that of the regular SA in that they wore black (rather than brown) breeches and boots and, for driving duty, a leather crash helmet. Motor units also wore a distinctive sleeve diamond, the Kraftfahrraute. All of these were carried over into the NSKK.

Collar patch- and cap top color were as for the regular SA. However, we have since seen that the armband would have to be an early (pre-annexation) one. The rose-pink color for Südmark only came about post-annexation in 1938. Prior to that, the Austrian SA had red-brown since 1929.

Also, didn't the Anschluss happen in '38? How could he have been a member of the SA before this? or did the SA exist in austria before the annex

Yes, of course. The SA had existed in Austria since the 1920s and up until June 1933, when the NSDAP and all its organisations were outlawed in Austria. The Austrian Nazis carried on underground, with their most (in)famous action being the attempted coup of July 1934 in which they murdered the Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss. Many Austrian Nazis also fled to Germany as political refugees following the ban (both before and after the coup) where they even formed an Austrian Legion of SA- and SS men.