Scharführer was a
Nazi
Party title that was used by several
paramilitary organizations from 1925 to
1945. Translated as “Squad
Leader,” the title of Scharführer
can trace its origins to the
First
World War,
where a Scharführer
was often a Sergeant or Corporal who commanded
special action or shock trooper squads.
Scharführer is most recognizable
as a rank of the SS and title of the SA. Scharführer was first used
as a title in the Sturmabteilung as early as 1921 and
became an actual rank in 1928. Scharführer was
the first NCO rank of the SA, and was denoted by a single
pip centered on a collar patch. In 1930, veteran Scharführers
were appointed to the new rank of SA-Oberscharführer,
denoted by an additional silver stripe to the Scharführer
collar patch.
The SS originally used the same insignia
for Scharführer as the SA, but this changed in 1934 with a reorganization of the SS rank structure.
At that time, the old rank of SS-Scharführer became
known as SS-Unterscharführer with the title of
SS-Scharführer becoming equivalent to an SA-Oberscharführer.
The rank of SS-Truppführer was removed from the
SS, to be replaced by SS-Oberscharführer and the
new rank of SS-Hauptscharführer. The early Waffen-SS created an even higher rank, known as SS-Sturmscharführer.
Within the SA, Scharführer was
senior to the rank of SA-Rottenführer while in
the SS, a Scharführer was senior to that of SS-Unterscharführer.
The rank of Scharführer was also used by some lesser
known Nazi Party organizations; among them the National
Socialist Flyers Corps (NSFK), National Socialist Motorist
Corps (NSKK) and the Hitler
Youth (HJ).
