I have always believed or assumed that party membership was required as a prerequisite to SA or sS membership, but some of the things I have been reading suggest otherwise. Does anybody know if membership to the various NSDAP organizations such as SA, SS, NSKK etc was limited to NSDAP members? Thanks, Joe S

Joe,

In the SA, it was encouraged but not mandatory from what I have read. Probably the higher you got the more it was required. Also, if my memory is correct, new party memberships were frozen for some time after the 1933 election victory because of the surge of recent converts. Men who joined the SA then could not join the party.

If you page through the SS rank lists, there are a few men with no party number listed. These were officers. I have not read anything about party membership requirements for the rankers.

Dave