Nazi dress: Hitler’s storm troopers and appearance management, 1921–1933

Fascism defies an easy definition. However, scholars of fascism have long recognized the linkage between style and fascist politics as a starting point for historical investigation. Surprisingly, scholarship on fascism has, so far, largely ignored the use of uniforms as one of the most important similarities of fascists across Europe. To the general public and the trained historian alike, a cultural historical approach to the study of fascism focusing on fascist uniforms opens up routes of investigation that can lead to fascinating new insights into a historical field awash in a multitude of monographs and articles. Over the last decades political and social historians have described and analysed most major aspects of German fascism. Nevertheless, the picture cannot be considered complete. A focus on fascist uniforms, and thus cultural history, promises to round out the picture of the allure of German fascism. Drawing on theories established by scholars of fashion and uniforms, and employing historical evidence in the form of archival documentation regarding Nazi uniforms and public behaviour, this article proposes that, as the Nazis evolved from 1921 to 1933, they used their dress in the process of appearance management in order to influence their public perception as masculine and plebeian, yet also disciplined.