Today: Headlines from 4 April 1925

Today 100 Years Ago: 4 April 1925

Welcome back to the time-machine desk, where we scan the front pages of exactly a century ago and ask: How did people wake up to the news on this date in 1925, and what echoes still reach us in 2025?

1) Berlin: A Small Guard With a Dark Future – The Schutzstaffel Is Born

What happened?
On 4 April 1925, inside the smoky backrooms of the National-Socialist headquarters on Schellingstraße, Adolf Hitler signed off on a new, hand-picked security detail. Officially called the Schutzkommando (Protection Command) and placed under the command of Julius Schreck, the unit numbered barely two dozen men. The mission: act as Hitler’s personal bodyguards at rallies still plagued by fistfights and political assassinations.

Within months the group would be renamed the Schutzstaffel (SS), don black-shirted uniforms, and begin its ominous rise. By the 1930s it had swollen into an organisation that ran state security, concentration camps, and, ultimately, some of the worst crimes of the 20th century.

Why did it matter?
• It signalled the professionalisation of Nazi intimidation tactics, moving beyond street-brawling SA thugs to an elite corps devoted to Hitler alone.
• It showed how extremist movements formalise and legitimise violence as political capital.
• The SS’s creation is a grim reminder that turning points can look inconsequential in the moment – a handful of men taking an oath – yet reshape the century.

Looking back from 2025
A hundred years later, Europe again debates the dangers of private militias and radical online echo chambers. The 1925 SS blueprint warns us how quickly fringe groups can leap from protection squads to state-within-a-state if civic institutions look the other way.

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Fast Facts From 4 April 1925

Even with only one truly seismic headline on the docket, papers that morning were also buzzing with:

• Tea prices tumble in London after bumper harvests in Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
• New York’s subway carries its three-billionth passenger since opening in 1904.
• French fashion houses preview shorter hemlines for summer – a scandal for traditionalists, a delight for flappers.

Small slices of everyday life which, alongside the SS story, remind us that history is never one-dimensional; culture, commerce, and politics all tumble through the same 24-hour news cycle.

Final Reflection

From a modest guard detail in Munich beer halls to a symbol of totalitarian terror, the events of 4 April 1925 prove that history’s biggest storms often start with barely a breeze. As we scroll through our 2025 feeds, may we keep an eye on the ‘small’ stories; one of them could be tomorrow’s global headline.