These ranks were used from around 1928 till the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945. The regular party members who were not involved in political leadership, were not given these ranks and they had no NSDAP uniform, except the NSDAP membership badge. The initial reason of forming these ranks and insignia was to provide district leadership during elections in those years when NSDAP was trying to come into power in Germany. Then after 1933, when the Third Reich has been fully established, NSDAP ranks were used to run a political chain of command operating side by side with the ruling government in Germany. There were early Nazi Party titles like "Führer" which Hitler called himself after he replaced the leader of NSDAP, Deputy Führer and few administrative titles like Party Secretary and Party Treasurer but the focus of the piece are the ranks and insignia of the NSDAP era.
These first set of ranks were established in 1932, these include:
1. The Block Leader, which was known as Blockleiter
2. The Cell Leader was known as Zellenleiter
3. The Local Group Leader was called Ortsgruppenleiter
4. The County Leader was referred to as Kreisleiter
5. The Regional Leader was called Gauleiter
6. The State Inspector was referred to as Landesinspekteur
7. The National Inspector, which was known as Reichsinspekteur
Then a higher rank of the National Organizational Leader, known as "Reichsorganisationsleiter" was also established as the most senior Reich Inspector of the party but was not given other insignia except the one already worn by the National Inspector rank. Also in 1932, some major changes happened to the Nazi uniforms which was the inclusion of a series of braided shoulder boards, to be worn with the Nazi collar insignia.
Nazi Party came up with the following political staff ranks which they used between 1933 and 1939:
• Mitarbeiter (Colleague)
• Stellenleiter (Department Leader)
• Hauptstellenleiter (Head Department Leader)
• Amtsleiter (Office Leader)
• Dienstleiter (Service Leader)
• Hauptdienstleiter (Head Service Leader)
The political leadership ranks were as follows:
• Stützpunktleiter (Base Leader)
• Ortsgruppenleiter (Local Group Leader)
• Kreisleiter (District Leader)
• Stellvertreter Gauleiter (Deputy Province Leader)
• Gauleiter (Province Leader)
• Reichsleiter (Deputy Führer)
Then the Nazi Party's armband system was introduced in 1939 to handle the issue of some political leaders not having outward system of representing their titles other than verbal and written correspondence.
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