They not only kept out of the spotlight because of the nature of their work but, in 1934 and 1935 at least, because a number of them who had spied on Roehm and his confederates in the S.A. were bumped off by a secret band that called itself “Roehm’s Avengers” and took care to pin that label on the bodies. One of the interesting, if subordinate, tasks of the S.D. was to ascertain who voted “No” in Hitler’s plebiscites.
