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The article states "Carstens joined the NSDAP in 1940, reportedly to avoid detrimental treatment when he was a law clerk. Carstens had, however, joined the SA, the Nazi paramilitary organisation, already in 1933". My question is could you just be a "hanger on" of the SA, and not be a member of the SA? Didn't you have to belong to the Nazi party first? Dr. Dan (talk) 21:30, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The SA was a body "of use" to the NSDAP. The NSDAP was the offical political party of Nazis. The NSDAP wasn't that much popular in the german volk as it was serveral years later, when the NSDAP gained total power in german politics. Carstens followed the spirit of that time that you have to serve first if you want something from the state (typical far right and sometimes left-opinion) and to be able to study with a bright future a head he had to join a "Kameradschaft", a body of the SA, to get influence as a future lawyer. Maybe not as a Nazi but under the Nazi obligations. It seems today that he wasn't a crystal clear Nazi. But he wasnt forced to study in Frankfurt Main and also to join the SA there. He could have studied elsewhere. He already knew about the raising influence of the Nazis when he was in his first year of studies, when Ernst Krieck, a nazi, gained the effective chair of the university. There was a reason for Carstens to study under the Nazi rulership even when it wasn't the ideology or polictial behaviour. So, i wouldn't say he was not just a "hanger on" guy. He may tried to use the SA and NSDAP for his own purpose. That make him not less to be blamed! And to answer your question directly, no you didn't had to join the political arm of the Nazi in this time but you had shown your yourself to the new ruler as a loyal and formidable citizen to make a flawless future in germany at this time. Later on, he was forced to join the NSDAP, because that was an obligation to get excess to the final exam and to become a lawyer (in 1937).
The NSDAP forced membership was formed at this time as the political sphere changed to a dictatorship and war raised (not just in germany but in polen for example too, see polish politics and the expulsion of miniorties there and elsewhere [germans and ukrainiens and others in poland for example] before the war with germany started!) 2A02:810A:8A80:4CD8:4574:B0FA:E8B1:CBB6 (talk) 11:44, 20 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
