The SA were the Nazi Party's civilian "enforcers" that existed before Hitler came to power. They did a lot of street fighting and harassment of political opponents. They wore brown military-type uniforms. They were eventually destroyed by Hitler because he was paranoid. The SS were military, but separate from the regular German army. They were composed of men who fit the Nazi ideals of Nordic physical perfection, and who were also fanatic Nazis. They usually got the best supplies and equipment. They wore black uniforms. I think they also ran the death camps.

The SS was basically like everyday soldiers tha did all the bitch shit and the SA were like the elite soldiers who got suprior rights, at the begging of hiler their were something like 100 SA soldiers to a couple of thousand SS soldiers. so SA were pretty much elite compared to the SS. also at the beginning most of the SA soldiers were very close friends of hitler, people he trusted

1) "The Sturmabteilung, abbreviated SA, (German for "Assault detachment" or "Assault section", usually translated as "stormtroop(er)s"), functioned as a paramilitary organization of the NSDAP – the German Nazi party. They played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s. SA men were often called "brownshirts", for the colour of their uniforms, and to distinguish them from the Schutzstaffel (SS), who wore black and brown uniforms (compare the Italian blackshirts). Brown-coloured shirts were chosen as the SA uniform because a large batch of them was cheaply available after World War I, having originally been ordered for German troops serving in Africa. The SA was also the first Nazi paramilitary group to develop pseudo-military titles for bestowal upon its members. The SA ranks would be adopted by several other Nazi Party groups, chief among them the SS. They were very important to Hitler's rise to power until they were superseded by the SS after the Night of the Long Knives." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung 2) "The Schutzstaffel (German for "Protective Squadron"), abbreviated SS- or (Runic)- was a major Nazi organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The SS grew from a small paramilitary unit to an powerful force that served as the Führer's "Praetorian Guard," the Nazi Party's "Shield Squadron" and a force that, fielding almost a million men, (both on the frontlines and as political police) managed to exert as much political influence as the regular German armed forces. Built upon the Nazi racial ideology, the SS, under Heinrich Himmler's command, was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Nazis during the Second World War, and most of the worst of those crimes. Initially smaller than the Ernst Röhm's Sturmabteilung (Storm Battalion abbreviated SA), the SS grew in size and power due to its exclusive loyalty to Hitler, as opposed to the SA, which was seen as semi-independent and a threat to Hitler's hegemony over the party. Under Himmler, the SS selected members according to the nazi racist ideology. Developing elite police and military units such as the Waffen-SS, Himmler used the SS to develop an order of men claimed to be superior in racial purity and abilities than other Germans and national groups, the model for the Nazi vision of a master race." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel

so to be clear...sorry i dont know....the SA was the basic military police organization and the SS was the elite ultra paramilitary?

The "SA" were the NAZI Party's goons, disrupting rallies, etc., for rival political parties starting the Communists, then the Socialists, then Social Democrats, the Christian Democrats; the last two here would be "Democrats" and "Republicans" here in the US. SA members wore long-sleeved, light khaki shirts, diagonal leather strap running from right shoulder to left hip, "spatz"'like dark brown riding trousers, black boots covering the entire calf, and brown hats that looked like the thsoe worn by the French Foreign Legion. The ensemble was capped off with a bright red arm band on the right upper arm with a white circle and a black swastika inside it. The SA were commanded by a guy named Ernst Roehm, a World War I national hero having been awarded the Iron Cross First Class and two Iron Crosses Second Class for heroism under fire in "The Great War." Rohm was also unabashedly very, very homosexual as were almost all the SA members. Its members had great beer hall parties complete with homosexual films shown from projectors onto giant screens and walls. This was one main reason Hitler and his newly-created SS (Scutzstaffel), commanded by Heinrich Himmler, got rid of Rohm and the SA's leadership class on the Night of the Long Knives 30 June '34. This "Long Knives Night" was less driven by Hitler's paranoia than his shrewd political skills. One story holds that Germany's last institution to hold out against a NAZI takeover, the German army, was planning actions against Hitler and his party, including possibly a coup e'tat, because of Roehm and the SA's antics. The German people also were not very warm to social events like homosexual orgies complete with homosexual porn films. Hitler got word of the army's rising anger against him and the likes of rohm, secretly met with the army, persuaded them to accept him as one of them who had fought for the Fatherland in World War I, joined their conspiracy and made it his own. He then used their support to carry it out. Hitler and four SS soldiers stormed Rohm's flat in Berlin about 1am (1 July, Hitler pulled out his Waltham pistol and roused Rohm out of bed with two of his homosexual SA homeys Rohm could not believe what Adolf was doing to him and expressed his bewilderment to Adolf. The SS guys took Rohm and his two homeys out to a secret location and shot them dead. At least one report from the time expressed that as many as 800 SA members and NAZI political opponents met their end that night. Hitler also took control of Germany's court system when critics who later expressed outrage against killing outside the legal system found that system under NAZI control and backed up by these new goons, the black-shirted SS. Hitler and Himmler took all the political heat for their "self-cleaning action" ridding the NAZIs of Rohm and the SA and their party's infiltration and takeover of Germany's legal system. Hitler's political genius showed itself here because the German people's beloved army was protected from any involvement at all in the barbarism and carnage of the "Long Knives Night". This was Hitler's promise to the army for its assistance in helping carry out this bloody evening. In exchange, the army was protected from public outrage at its involvement with a political party "eating its young". His takeover of one of the world's greatest, most advanced, and influential cultures was complete. Next came rearmament and refusal to pay any more World War I reparations (Hitler's formal announcement for these came 18 March 1935) followed by four years of war preparation. And on 1 September 1939 German forces invaded Poland, and the dogs of war would be unleashed for the world's most destructive war.