SA Beer tankard

[Patrick W]

I just found this very cool and unusual SA beer stein and was wondering if anyone had seen this or a similar one previously?

Sadly it has been broken and repaired but the design is pretty interesting - also the use of the word 'Nazis'

There is a maker mark on the bottom - I can read Munchen and not much else.

Anyway hope you like it!

Best regards

Patrick

[Erich B.]

I think I've seen this specific stein in the past, or one like it that was also repaired. The bottom looks like it's marked "Mich. Widmann, München." The last line appears to be the Str. address but I can't make out the street name. Very unusual design, and the "Hitlers Nazis" wording harks to the nickname they were called by the anti-Nazi groups.
Erich

[Patrick W]

Many thanks Erich

I studied the makers mark a bit more and had come out the same but couldn't find any reference now to a Michael Widmann making pottery in Munich

[Patrick W]

Found it!

Ganghoferstrasse 18!

[Patrick W]

And here it is now!

[Erich B.]

If you have a chance to go in, check to see if they have any more!
Thanks for finding the info on the maker and picturing the building!
Erich

[Br. James]

"...the "Hitlers Nazis" wording harks to the nickname they were called by the anti-Nazi groups."

Right you are, Erich...Churchill played off on this negative reference, too, when he pronounced the word "NAW-zies!" This beer stein could have been produced in an effort to make fun of the SA, or to ridicule it publicly. Perhaps that's how it got broken in the first place?!

Br. James

[ivbaust]

... This beer stein could have been produced in an effort to make fun of the SA, or to ridicule it publicly. ..

I think this stein belonged to a stormtrooper.

The words on the stein say:

“Der Furcht so fern, dem Tod so nah, Heil dir S.A.
Freiheit und Brot
Hitlers Nazis vom Huntestrand”

“The fear so far, the death so near, hail you S.A.
Freedom and bread
Hitlers Nazis from Huntestrand” (a Region in northern Germany)

Taking especially the first sentence into consideration, I assume that this stein belonged to stormtrooper from the region Huntestrand. The first sentence is a glorification and positive expression about the SA. No fear of death. I assume this stein (and others) have been custom made for a group of stormtroopers in this area for their meetings, where lots of beer has been served. They created their own steins and this one has survived.

Also party members themselves used the short name of “NAtionalsoZIalisten” (NAZI) as nickname.

[Br. James]

Thanks, Ingo, though I am not convinced that this stein was produced as a positive reflection of the zeal of inspiration desired among all SA members. I also translated the text on this piece, as well as acknowledging the artwork which also appears to glorify membership in the SA, but the presence of that word "Nazis" still puts me off. The area of Huntestrand is near Bremen in northern Germany and I believe that was one of the areas, like Berlin, where the fighting between the SA and the various communist militia groups was heavy in the late 1920s/early '30s and, to me, this would provide the interest by such groups in denigrating the NSDAP and it's political soldiers.

Perhaps it's just me...??

Br. James

[Erich B.]

I'm sure this was a pro-NS/SA stein produced in small numbers for the area SA. Not being conversant in the Bavarian dialect, I don't know if it's true, but I've read that the term "Nazi" or "Natzi" was a Bay'rische nickname for "Ignatz" with rural unsophisticated implications. When the early SA called themselves Nazis, as on this stein, they would have been making fun of the anti-Nazi groups that used the term to malign them and that the insults didn't bother them.
Erich

[Br. James]

I've heard that story, too, Erich, and it didn't seem to be something that the NSDAP, or the Bavarian SA, liked to hear.

Br. James

[ivbaust]

Excerpt from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism):


“...

Etymology

The full name of the party was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (English: National-Socialist German Workers' Party) for which they officially used the acronym NSDAP.
The term "Nazi" was in use before the rise of the NSDAP as a colloquial and derogatory word for a backwards farmer or peasant, characterizing an awkward and clumsy person. In this sense, the word Nazi was a hypocorism of the German male name Ignatz (itself a variation of the name Ignatius) – Ignatz being a common name at the time in Bavaria, the area from which the NSDAP emerged.[6][7]
In the 1920s, political opponents of the NSDAP in the German labour movement seized on this and – using the earlier abbreviated term "Sozi" for Sozialist (English: Socialist) as an example[8] – shortened NSDAP's name, Nationalsozialistische, to the dismissive "Nazi", in order to associate them with the derogatory use of the term mentioned above.[9][7][10][11][12][13]
The first use of the term "Nazi" by the National Socialists occurred in 1926 in a publication by Joseph Goebbels called Der Nazi-Sozi ["The Nazi-Sozi"]. In Goebbels' pamphlet, the word "Nazi" only appears when linked with the word "Sozi" as an abbreviation of "National Socialism".[14]
After the NSDAP's rise to power in the 1930s, the use of the term "Nazi" by itself or in terms such as "Nazi Germany", "Nazi regime" and so on was popularised by German exiles outside the country, but not in Germany. From them, the term spread into other languages and it was eventually brought back into Germany after World War II.[10]
The NSDAP briefly adopted the designation "Nazi"[when?] in an attempt to reappropriate the term, but it soon gave up this effort and generally avoided using the term while it was in power.[10][11] For example, in Hitler's book Mein Kampf, originally published in 1925, he never refers to himself as a "Nazi."[15] A compendium of conversations of Hitler from 1941 through 1944 entitled Hitler's Table Talk does not contain the word "Nazi" either.[16] In speeches by Hermann Göring, he never uses the term "Nazi."[17] Hitler Youth leader Melita Maschmann wrote a book about her experience entitled Account Rendered[18]. She did not refer to herself as a "Nazi," even though she was writing well after World War II. In 1933 581 members of the National Socialist Party answered interview questions put to them by Professor Theodore Abel from Columbia University. They similarly did not refer to themselves as "Nazis."[19] In each case, the authors refer to themselves as "National Socialists" and their movement aus "National Socialism," but never as "Nazis."

...”

[ivbaust]

I’m pretty sure that this was a “pro SA” stein, which belonged to a stormtrooper.

A unique piece! Thanks for showing

[Patrick W]

Thanks Guys, and yes it is 100% a pro- SA piece and likely it belonged to someone in that SA unit.

[rebeldevil89]

"Hitlers Nazis" wording harks to the nickname they were called by the anti-Nazi groups.

Agreed, and to add on that I think this might have been in a mocking tone towards the Bolsheviks, similar to the "Teufelhunden" title the US Marines so proudly proclaim.
The name one's enemy gives is often a source of pride, making this piece even more interesting.

The stein look legit to me, and certainly pro-SA.