Uniforms and insignia of the Sturmabteilung
Nazi Party members would also mix components from all three types of uniforms with little to no standardisation except a swastika armband worn on the left arm.
From 1923 to 1925, the SA did not officially exist since Hitler had been imprisoned for his actions in the Munich Putsch and the Nazi Party banned in Germany.
It was Roßbach who effectively invented the "Nazi brownshirt" uniform since, during Roßbach's Austrian exile in 1924, a large store of military surplus brown denim shirts intended for tropical uniforms in East Africa,[1] which were originally bought in 1921, was taken over by the Schill Youth in Germany.
The reborn SA then received its first formal uniform regulations and also began using the first recognisable system of rank insignia.
Along with a brown shirt uniform, SA members would wear swastika armbands with a kepi cap.
These new titles and ranks were denoted by an insignia system which consisted of silver pips pinned to a wearer's collar.
The pip system was adopted from the Stahlhelm veteran's group which was closely connected to the SA both in dual membership and ideological design.
By this time, the SA had also begun to use unit insignia for its junior members which consisted of a numbered collar patch, showing both battalion and regiment affiliation, worn opposite the badge of rank.
Röhm's appointment was as the result of Hitler personally assuming command of the SA as the Oberster SA-Führer.
Hitler would hold this title until the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945 and, after 1930, it was the SA Chief of Staff who was the effective leader of the organisation.
