The June 30, 1934 bloodbath known as the Night of the Long Knives is the signature event that defines what the Hitler Regime was all about: a criminal enterprise, a political mafia family as was the Stalin Regime, the regime of Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il, Sadam Hussein, and a number of other fringe group leaders who rose to power over their countries.
When the bloodbath began, Hitler was still the last Chancellor of the German Weimar Republic. President Paul Von Hindenburg had appointed him to this post on January 30, 1933. At the beginning, all the Nazi faithful were close in rank to Adolf Hitler and celebrated his victory as their own.
However, by the end of March 1933, the paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party, the stormtroopers known as the SA and under the chief of staff Ernst Rohm felt betrayed. Now they wanted a second Nazi revolution, they wanted to annex the Wehrmacht, the German Army as part of itself.
Neither Hitler wanted that nor did the Reichwehr want this. What's more, the President and the Minister of War, General Blomberg had told Hitler to rein in Ernst Rohm or there would be martial law. The Nazi regime of Hitler would be swept aside.
Furthermore, the President was in bad health and would die sometime in 1934. Hitler had also found out this information from a leak in the President's Doctor's office.
Hitler had a high regard for Rohm and was grateful to the SA. He wanted to do no harm to the SA. But then, Hitler was in a conflict with Rohm who now caused him trouble with the President and with the Army, which support, he needed in order to become the absolute leader of the German government.
Hitler moreover had held a meeting that included the War Ministry and the SA in its presence. They signed a formal agreement. After the meeting, Ernst Rohm invited all concerned to his house for a luncheon. After the luncheon ended and the military officers had left, Ernst Rohm confessed that he had no intention of honoring the agreement he had signed.d
What Ernst Rohm had not suspected was that one of his underlings in the SA, a high ranking official of this SA, went to Hitler with the secret information.
Ernst made made a huge mistake in not keeping members of his inner circle watched. This underling who was close to him, who knew his thoughts, was far more loyal to Hitler than he was to Rohm. This lack of caution on Rohm's part would cost him his life as well as the lives of more than eighty five people, including people who were not members of the SA.
The Massacre took place so that Hitler could get the loyalty of the German Army to swear an oath to himself personally on the very funeral ceremony of President Von Hinderburg. They did it. They swore to him personally en masse on August 20, 1934.
The Massacre that took place during the time span of three days cost the lives not only of numerous SA leaders, including Ernst Rohm whom Hitler almost spared, but it cost the lives of non-SA German politicians including General Kurt Von Schleicher and his wife at their home. They had been shot dead by SS thugs. Gregor Strasser, a one time Nazi leader who quit over a falling out with Hitler, was also shot dead at a prison that was selected as the place where the shootings would occur.
This article will not go into the morbid details of this massacre. Numerous books, some of them Hitler biographies and others which are histories of the SS, document the details. This article merely discusses the significance of the event and explores what were the German generals thinking when this happened. It wonders what the German people were thinking.
Here was a man who was power hungry who sacrificed people who had been loyal to him, who had helped him rise to power - and who not sacrificed them from their jobs or political power - but in order to satisfy his ambition for absolute power, ordered the Mafia-like mass murder of eighty five or more people.
The article will not probe in detail the specific actions and movements. Hitler himself participated in the arrests of the victims who later were shot. He had shown up at the Bavarian Ministry of Justice and on the spot ordered two SA men arrested and then shot.
He confronted his supposed best friend, Ernst Rohm in the hotel room in an inn in a resort in Bad Wiesse where the SA were gathering. He showed up in Ernst Rohm's hotel room with a gun in his hand and told him to his face that he'd been put under arrest.
Two days later, Ernst Rohm was shot dead in his jail cell by two SS officers, one of them Theodore Eicke who was camp commandant of Dachau.
This event or chain of killings reminds me of the Baptism Scene of the Godfather movie. Remember when Michael Corleone was baptizing his sister's baby while his henchmen were killing all of the heads of the Five New York Mafia families? That's what happened here with this massacre. In the novel by Mario Puzo, the author wrote that the Corleone Family took over most of the major rackets in New York after the killing. It was the biggest and strongest organized family.
Likewise, following the Night of the Long Knives massacres, Hitler was now the absolute master of all of Germany. The lawmakers formally had approved Hitler's motion to combine the posts of Chancellor and President of Germany.
This massacre had certainly benefited Hitler. His major rivals in politics on both the Right and Left wiped out had left the floor to Hitler. The SA without a strong leader to challenge Hitler's dominion was reduced to a puppy that follows its human master.
The SS which had been only a branch of the SA was now the exclusive militia of the Nazi Party under Himmler who also had the Gestapo after he made a deal with Goering.
A full chapter was dedicated to this event, the scenario that preceded it and what followed in John Toland's book, Adolf Hitler, published in 1976. I could not find a more detailed version of this massacre than what Mr. Toland narrated in that book.
When the bloodbath began, Hitler was still the last Chancellor of the German Weimar Republic. President Paul Von Hindenburg had appointed him to this post on January 30, 1933. At the beginning, all the Nazi faithful were close in rank to Adolf Hitler and celebrated his victory as their own.
However, by the end of March 1933, the paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party, the stormtroopers known as the SA and under the chief of staff Ernst Rohm felt betrayed. Now they wanted a second Nazi revolution, they wanted to annex the Wehrmacht, the German Army as part of itself.
Neither Hitler wanted that nor did the Reichwehr want this. What's more, the President and the Minister of War, General Blomberg had told Hitler to rein in Ernst Rohm or there would be martial law. The Nazi regime of Hitler would be swept aside.
Furthermore, the President was in bad health and would die sometime in 1934. Hitler had also found out this information from a leak in the President's Doctor's office.
Hitler had a high regard for Rohm and was grateful to the SA. He wanted to do no harm to the SA. But then, Hitler was in a conflict with Rohm who now caused him trouble with the President and with the Army, which support, he needed in order to become the absolute leader of the German government.
Hitler moreover had held a meeting that included the War Ministry and the SA in its presence. They signed a formal agreement. After the meeting, Ernst Rohm invited all concerned to his house for a luncheon. After the luncheon ended and the military officers had left, Ernst Rohm confessed that he had no intention of honoring the agreement he had signed.d
What Ernst Rohm had not suspected was that one of his underlings in the SA, a high ranking official of this SA, went to Hitler with the secret information.
Ernst made made a huge mistake in not keeping members of his inner circle watched. This underling who was close to him, who knew his thoughts, was far more loyal to Hitler than he was to Rohm. This lack of caution on Rohm's part would cost him his life as well as the lives of more than eighty five people, including people who were not members of the SA.
The Massacre took place so that Hitler could get the loyalty of the German Army to swear an oath to himself personally on the very funeral ceremony of President Von Hinderburg. They did it. They swore to him personally en masse on August 20, 1934.
The Massacre that took place during the time span of three days cost the lives not only of numerous SA leaders, including Ernst Rohm whom Hitler almost spared, but it cost the lives of non-SA German politicians including General Kurt Von Schleicher and his wife at their home. They had been shot dead by SS thugs. Gregor Strasser, a one time Nazi leader who quit over a falling out with Hitler, was also shot dead at a prison that was selected as the place where the shootings would occur.
This article will not go into the morbid details of this massacre. Numerous books, some of them Hitler biographies and others which are histories of the SS, document the details. This article merely discusses the significance of the event and explores what were the German generals thinking when this happened. It wonders what the German people were thinking.
Here was a man who was power hungry who sacrificed people who had been loyal to him, who had helped him rise to power - and who not sacrificed them from their jobs or political power - but in order to satisfy his ambition for absolute power, ordered the Mafia-like mass murder of eighty five or more people.
The article will not probe in detail the specific actions and movements. Hitler himself participated in the arrests of the victims who later were shot. He had shown up at the Bavarian Ministry of Justice and on the spot ordered two SA men arrested and then shot.
He confronted his supposed best friend, Ernst Rohm in the hotel room in an inn in a resort in Bad Wiesse where the SA were gathering. He showed up in Ernst Rohm's hotel room with a gun in his hand and told him to his face that he'd been put under arrest.
Two days later, Ernst Rohm was shot dead in his jail cell by two SS officers, one of them Theodore Eicke who was camp commandant of Dachau.
This event or chain of killings reminds me of the Baptism Scene of the Godfather movie. Remember when Michael Corleone was baptizing his sister's baby while his henchmen were killing all of the heads of the Five New York Mafia families? That's what happened here with this massacre. In the novel by Mario Puzo, the author wrote that the Corleone Family took over most of the major rackets in New York after the killing. It was the biggest and strongest organized family.
Likewise, following the Night of the Long Knives massacres, Hitler was now the absolute master of all of Germany. The lawmakers formally had approved Hitler's motion to combine the posts of Chancellor and President of Germany.
This massacre had certainly benefited Hitler. His major rivals in politics on both the Right and Left wiped out had left the floor to Hitler. The SA without a strong leader to challenge Hitler's dominion was reduced to a puppy that follows its human master.
The SS which had been only a branch of the SA was now the exclusive militia of the Nazi Party under Himmler who also had the Gestapo after he made a deal with Goering.
A full chapter was dedicated to this event, the scenario that preceded it and what followed in John Toland's book, Adolf Hitler, published in 1976. I could not find a more detailed version of this massacre than what Mr. Toland narrated in that book.
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