This first volume presents the lives and careers of 13 men who held the two highest ranks in Hitler's Sturmabteilung from its inception in 1920 until the defeat of the Third Reich in 1945. It is the first and only comprehensive examination of the senior SA leadership. Sir Ian Kershaw writes of the series: "I know of no comparable compilation."

An unswervingly loyal, highly disciplined militant force is as essential to the establishment and maintenance of a dictatorship as the dictator himself. Many factors contributed to the emergence of the Third Reich, and prominent among them were the actions of Hitler’s earliest paramilitary force, the Sturmabteilungen (SA, Storm Troops), and the men chosen by the Führer to lead it. Although Hitler ultimately culled the SA of its most revolutionary elements, there remained within it and the other party-affiliated organizations a spirit of fanatical, sometimes mindless worship of its supreme leader. This first volume, based on official personnel files and other contemporary documentation, analyzes the lives and careers of the thirteen highest-ranking SA leaders—men who held the ranks of Oberster SA-Führer and SA-Stabschef.