Uniforms and insignia of the Schutzstaffel shoulderboards on both sides. In March 1936, the camp "service" was formally established as the third branch of the SS, the "Totenkopfverbände" or skull units. At about this same time, for similar reasons, the military SS formations (the "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler" and the "SS-Verfügungstruppe") adopted a service uniform in what was termed "earth-grey" ("erdgrau"). This also was based on the black uniform, but without the red "Hakenkreuz" armband, its place on the left sleeve being taken by an eagle-and-swastika patch, and worn with trousers and shoes or calf-high jackboots. In June 1938 this uniform was authorized for full-time "Allgemeine-SS"
The Nazis Strike the British Union of Fascists and the German American Bund. Meanwhile, within Germany the Nazis are beginning an enormous process of rearmament. Germany then begins its territorial expansion with the first target being Austria, Hitler's "full-scale invasion test". He then uses his Sudeten "stooges" under Konrad Henlein to "soften up" Czechoslovakia and annex the Sudetenland with the help of a Britain and France desperate to avoid war. Hitler's use of the concept of self-determination as a justification for these annexations is ridiculed by reference to prominent German Americans thoroughly loyal to the Allied cause, including Admiral Chester Nimitz, Henry J.