Part 2 - Hitler's Three Percent
When Hitler needed to soften and legitimize the reputation of his notorious “brown shirts”, he reorganized them into the “Frontbann.” When BJ Soper needed to soften and legitimize the reputation of the “Oregon Zone Five Three Percent” he reorganized it into “People’s Rights Zone Five.”
Yesterday, we talked about Hitler’s failed coup and his gradual rise to power in the 1920’s and 30’s. But how did he gain that power? He didn’t do it alone. For any monster to take power, he needs muscle.
Hitler’s muscle was the Sturmabteilung. The Storm Detachment, SA, or simply colloquially known as the “brown shirts” for their khaki pseudo-uniform. History teaches us that (no matter the century) you can reliably find your storm troopers in the same places. The SA were street thugs, bar brawlers, and bullies. Some were veterans of the First World War, but most were simply angry young men who wanted to play dress-up in a Soldier’s uniform. Just as modern people like BJ Soper and Jerrad Robison claim to be super patriots but have gone their entire adult lives without ever finding their way to an Army recruiter’s office, the rank and file of the SA were just schoolyard bullies who craved a flag to make them feel special. In fact, at one point membership in the SA outnumbered the actual Army. What the brown shirts wanted most of all was to simply get drunk in the beer halls, and beat up immigrants and leftists.
Modern conservatives are obsessed with the detail that the Nazi party was the National “Socialist” German Workers Party, but Hitler himself always hated the name and only allowed it’s addition because he believed it would fool some moderates. His militia hated it even more. Just as “Proud Boys” spent the summer of 2020 drunkenly patrolling the streets of cities like Portland attacking anyone they believed to be “antifa”, the early Sturmabteilung would get shit faced and go out hunting for anyone they thought was an immigrant, gay, a Jew, or a communist. The SA would organize what they called “Zusammenstöße” (clashes or collisions) in which they would hold events specifically designed to provoke clashes with people they referred to as communists, but were often simply anti-Nazi.
Sound familiar?
After the “Beer Hall Putsch” (Hitler’s failed coup that we discussed yesterday) Bavaria outlawed the Sturmabteilung. Their reputation for violence and insurrection had made them a political liability, so they were rebranded into the Frontbann. Similarly, in the fall of 2020 and winter of 2021, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter banned all “Three Percent” groups and pages. So they rebranded themselves into groups like “People’s Rights.” The true psychopaths like Colby Black Mudgett, Kyle Wayne Zollman, Matt Heagy, and Bart Lewis have been pushed to the background. To the front have come the yoga moms and the “concerned parents” of People’s Rights. Instead of BJ Soper’s lap dog and on-paper leader of the “Three Percent” Jerrad Robison showing up with assault rifles to terrorize people marching for racial justice, the newly made over Oregon Sturmabteilung are wearing button down shirts and organizing rallies in front of High Schools.
Join us tomorrow when we discuss the ways that the early Nazi party indoctrinated the youth and weaponized the education system to help themselves rise to power.
***A photo of Hitler’s SA with a swastika in the background transitioning into 3% militia zone 5 taken in the summer of 2020 in Prineville. Militia is in bulletproof vests with open carrying. Some with American flag face masks. 3% militia emblem is in the upper right hand corner. Words at the top of the photo in white and red. “Part Two: Hitler’s Three Percent”***
