Today: Headlines from April 5, 1925

Looking Back a Century

Every morning in 2025 we scroll, swipe, and tap our way through the news. But imagine cracking open a paper on this very date in 1925. Radio, not smartphones, carried headlines; smoky cafés, not comment sections, hosted the debate. Let’s step into that world and see what dominated conversation exactly 100 years ago.

1. Munich, Germany – A New Guard Is Born

April 4, 1925: In the aftermath of the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Adolf Hitler’s inner circle quietly reorganised his personal bodyguard into a separate formation: the Schutzstaffel, better known to history simply as the SS. What began as a few dozen hand-picked men in crisp brown shirts would, over the next 18 years, metastasise into one of the most feared organisations the world has ever known.

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What Actually Happened

• The Nazi Party leadership assigned Heinrich Himmler—then still a relatively obscure agitator—the task of turning this tiny guard unit into an elite corps loyal solely to Hitler.
• Early SS members drilled in Munich beer-hall back rooms and paraded at small rallies, projecting discipline that contrasted with the rowdier, street-brawling SA.
• No one outside far-right circles paid much attention—German newspapers of the day buried the story in single-paragraph items.

A 2025 Lens

• Scale: In 1925 the SS numbered only 200 men. By 1945 it would command over a million.
• Tech & Surveillance: Their weapons were pistols and typewriters, not drones and facial recognition. Yet the lesson endures: extremist ideas, once organised, can grow exponentially when left unchecked.
• Modern Echoes: In an era of encrypted chat rooms and algorithm-boosted propaganda, today’s small extremist cells can reach global audiences far faster than a Munich beer-hall leaflet press ever could.

Quick Glimpses at the Same Week

While the SS took its first steps in Germany, several quieter milestones also unfolded between April 4–6 1925:

• Science: Astronomer Cecilia Payne submitted the final draft of the Ph.D. thesis that would soon prove stars are made mostly of hydrogen—an insight still dazzling astrophysics a century later.
• Culture: Rehearsals began on Broadway for a daring new play, The Jazz Singer, foreshadowing the talkies that would revolutionise cinema two years later.

(Those stories reached print a little later in the month, so we’ll revisit them another day.)

Why This Matters

History rarely announces its turning points with fanfare. The SS’s birth occupied barely a whisper on page four, yet it presaged tragedies that reshaped the 20th century. When we scan our 2025 feeds, it’s worth asking: which seemingly minor headline today might echo just as loudly in 2125?