Original Items: Only One Available. Here we have a great 1939 SA Sports competition badge from SA Gruppe Hochland, offered in very good condition. It still retains the backing plate and the SA "Brownshirt" colored felt insert, and a pin attachment is on the back to fasten it to the uniform. It measures approximately 2 1/8" in diameter, and we can see a faint maker mark on the back of the backing plate which looks to read WITTMANN / MÜNCHEN.

The design of the badge is a round border with an Edelweiß flower in the center, found in the mountains of Southern Germany and Austria and long associated with mountain troops. This is surmounted by a gladius style sword with a 1939 date on the blade, and it has the SA emblem over the handle. The border around the edge has the following inscription:

SA·GRUPPE HOCHLAND

SA-GRUPPEN WETTKÄMPFE

This translates to "SA Group Highlands, SA Group Competitions", The SA region Hochland (Highlands) was made from the mountainous areas of Southern and Western Bavaria. The major city in this region was München (Munich), the core of the NSDAP movement in Germany.

A great example of a hard to find badge, ready to display!

The S.A.-
The Sturmabteilung, literally Storm Detachment, was the NSDAP Party's original paramilitary. It played a significant role in Adolf AH's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for NSDAP rallies and assemblies, disrupting the meetings of opposing parties, fighting against the paramilitary units of the opposing parties, especially the Red Front Fighters League (Rotfrontkämpferbund) of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), and intimidating Romani, trade unionists, and, especially, Jews – for instance, during the NSDAP boycott of Jewish businesses.

The SA were also called the "Brownshirts" (Braunhemden) from the color of their uniform shirts, similar to Benito Mussolini's blackshirts. The SA developed pseudo-military titles for its members, with ranks that were later adopted by several other NSDAP Party groups, chief amongst them the Schutzstaffel (SS), which originated as a branch of the SA before being separated. Brown-colored shirts were chosen as the SA uniform because a large number of them were cheaply available after World War I, having originally been ordered during the war for colonial troops posted to Germany's former African colonies.

The SA became disempowered after Adolf AH ordered the "blood purge" of 1934. This event became known as the Night of the Long Knives (die Nacht der langen Messer). The SA continued to exist, but was effectively superseded by the SS, although it was not formally dissolved until after NSDAP Germany's final capitulation to the Allies in 1945.