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In June 2020, as demonstrations swept across the U.S. in response to the police-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and protesters called for the defunding of police departments, social media users circulated a meme asserting that German dictator Adolf Hitler had similarly defunded and eliminated police departments so as to better control elections: But the essence of this meme was contrary to historical fact. As the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum observed, neither a wholesale purge nor a wholesale resignation of policemen occurred in Germany during the Nazi era: In a separate article, the Museum noted that Hitler posed as a champion of law and order and maintained the trust of the police because the Nazi state in fact alleviated many of the frustrations the police [had previously] experienced: The Sturmabteilung (SA), also known as brownshirts or stormtroopers, were the Nazi Party's paramilitary wing, and the SA did disrupt meetings of, and wage terror campaigns against, opposing political parties. However, that activity primarily took place before Hitler became chancellor of Germany and the Nazi Party seized control of the country in January 1933, as Germany subsequently held only one more contested federal election, which took place in March 1933. After that, Hitler -- spurred by Göring -- grew increasingly mistrustful of the SA and purged its leadership during the Night of the Long Knives several months later.
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