Storm Troopers

(Credit: WikiCommons)

The term originally dates back to World War 1, but had another historical meaning during the rise of the Nazi party.

World War I

By 1915, the Western front of the first World War was deadlocked in trench warfare, neither side being able to dislodge the other to any meaningful degree. The Germans created units they called “storm troops,” or sturmtruppen that were specially trained and had special weapons to break through the French defenses at key points, and enter their trench system.

“Storm,” in this sense is used as a verb. It’s not “a storm” like the weather phenomenon, but “to storm,” meaning to rush, attack or overrun. These troops were specifically training and equipped to overrun defenses. They “stormed” the enemy positions. A “storm trooper” was literally a solider who rushed at the enemy.

In German/Nazi lore, the “storm troops” acquired legends as an elite military force. This name has often been interchanged with “shock troops.”

The Rise of Nazism

After World War 1, the term continued to be used in a modified form. The sturmabteilung or “storm detachment” was a civilian, paramilitary force that supported the Nazi party throughout the 20s and 30s. They were colloquially known as the “SA” or “Brownshirts.”

(Clearly, at this point, no one was rushing the trenches of the enemy. We can assume the term just lived on due to a desire to link back to the legends of the original storm troops.)

The SA were originally an unmanaged, ad hoc group, mainly providing “security” at Nazi rallies. But they eventually acquired a power structure and official sanction. The “Hitler Youth” was formed under the SA. They slowly acquired more and more power until the leadership was purged by Hitler in 1934 in what became known as “The Night of the Long Knives.”

Star Wars

In 1977, the word was used by George Lucas in the original Star Wars. It appears as stage direction on page 2 of the script (PDF):

The nervous Rebel troopers aim their weapons. Suddenly a tremendous blast opens up a hole in the main passageway and a score of fearsome armored spacesuited stormtroopers make their way into the smoke-filled corridor.

(Note the concatenation as a single word: “stormtrooper.” That might have been a Lucas invention, as historical references are two words: “storm trooper.”)

The usage here is accurate, as the stormtroopers were “storming” the captured rebel ship. Note too the usage of “fearsome” in the direction, implying some elite status.

However, over the ensuing course of the Star Wars franchise, the stormtroopers became known as the rank-and-file of the Imperial forces, mocked for their incompetence and inability to aim.

I found the first spoken, in-character reference on page 43, when Obi Wan says:

“And these blast points, too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise.”

(Given how stormtroopers were characterized in the rest of the franchise, that statement is retroactively hilarious.)

Someone on Reddit asked:

Are the Stormtroopers in Star Wars supposed to be a direct reference to the N*zi Stormtroopers?

Some answers:

It’s curious that people don’t realize this more quickly. Mister Lucas was anything but subtle. The original Star Wars movies had a lot of different influences; samurai films, westerns, the dam busters, the Vietnam War and yes, World War 2. The Empire is definitely inspired by the German Third Reich in aesthetics, style and certain words.

[…] Yes, as others here have said. There’s even a shot when Vader arrives on the Death Star that’s basically the same shot from Triumph of the Will.

Some people clarified that it wasn’t the Nazi storm troopers, but rather the soldiers from World War 1.

The stormtroopers you showed here are the Sturm Abteilung, the nazi shocktroopers after ww I and during the third reich , they were agitators and thugs, but not soldiers. the stormtroopers from star wars are based on the german Sturmtrüppen, elite imperial soldiers of world war I

[…] No and yes. technically Stormtroopers of Germany went back since WW1 with imperial Germany as a elite fast attack force on the trenches so I believe it more generally a reference to the Stormtroopers of Germany as a hole that leans N*zi.

This is a key point, since the “storm troopers” of the two world wars were very different in purpose, structure, and authority. The first usage was descriptive, while the second usage was more of a branding exercise.

Modern White Supremacy

The prefix was linked back to its Nazi history in 1991 when the domain name stormfront.org was registered by Don Black, a white supremacist who used it as a promotional tool for the political ambitions of David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. (It was originally a dial-up bulletin board system, but eventually became a website.)

Since that time, stormfront.org has become the most popular white supremacist forum on the internet.

In an interview for the 2003 book Contemporary Voices of White Nationalism in America, Black stated:

INTERVIEWER: Why did you choose the name “Stormfront”? To many, the term conjures up images of Nazi stormtroopers. Is that the image you want to convey?

(Note: technically, there were no “Nazi stormtroopers.” This usage is not accurate, because the soliders to which the “storm” prefix was applied were from World War 1. The Nazi group were not a military unit.)

(Also note the concatenated word: “stormtroopers.” Is this an effect of Lucas’s usage? Did Star Wars change the default format of the word?)

Black replied:

BLACK: Well, it could convey a number of things. It could convey any kind of political front – especially a somewhat militant one. But there’s also the weather analogy. We believe that the idea of a storm can evoke images of cleansing. Even though tumultuous, a storm ultimately results in a cleansing. So I wouldn’t read too much into the name. It’s basically just a neat name that has the projected kind of aura that we would like to surround our movement with.

Why I Looked It Up

I had just always wondered. I think someone in an episode of Archer might have mentioned the term, and my mind wandered a bit.

Postscript

A later episode of Archer used the phrase “Nazi Stormtroopers” many times. I finally posted a question on the History StackExchange about whether or not this was a valid usage of the phrase:

My understanding is that the “storm troopers” were specialized infantry in World War 1 (not Nazis), and a paramilitary group in the years leading up to World War 2 (yes, very much Nazis).

In Archer, Season 9, Episode 7, (set in 1938) the term “Nazi stormtrooper” is used over and over to refer to what appeared to be soldiers of the German army (see image below).

Is this a correct usage for the term?

Annoyingly, the question was downvoted and eventually closed for being “too basic.” But I did get a couple of answers:

Infantry were Sturmtruppen (storm troopers), the party thugs were the Sturnabteilung (storm detachment).

Sturm literally means storm, and in a military context it means assault. This can refer both to troops in a Sturmbatallion or Sturmkompanie and to regular troops employing the tactics of these specialized battalions.

There are a bunch of other comments that debated the validity of the question itself. They get a little condescending, honestly.