Munich-born American historian Konrad Heiden was one of the first to document this phenomenon in his 1936 book Hitler: A Biography, remarking that in the Sturmabteilung (Brownshirts, SA) ranks there were "large numbers of Communists and Social Democrats" and that "many of the storm troops were called 'beefsteaks' – brown outside and red within".
[3] The switching of political parties was at times so common that SA men would jest that "[i]n our storm troop there are three Nazis, but we shall soon have spewed them out".
[4] The image of these "beefsteak" individuals wearing a brown uniform but having underlying "red" communist and socialist sympathies[5] implied that their allegiance to Nazism was superficial and opportunistic.
"[10] Röhm's radicalization came to the forefront in 1933–1934 when he sought to have his plebeian SA troopers engage in permanent or "second revolution" after Hitler had become Chancellor.
With 2.5 million stormtroopers under his command by late 1933,[9] Röhm envisaged a purging of the conservative faction, the "Reaktion" in Germany that would entail more nationalization of industry, "worker control of the means of production", and the "confiscation and redistribution of property and wealth of the upper classes.