Night of the Long Knives
By 1934 Adolf Hitler appeared to have complete control over Nazi Germany, but like most dictators, he constantly feared that he might be ousted by others who wanted his power. To protect himself from a possible coup, Hitler used the tactic of divide and rule and encouraged other leaders such as Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler and Ernst Röhm to compete with each other for senior positions.
Albert Speer pointed out in his book, Inside the Third Reich (1970): "After 1933 there quickly formed various rival factions that held divergent views, spied on each other, and held each other in contempt. A mixture of scorn and dislike became the prevailing mood within the party. Each new dignitary rapidly gathered a circle of intimates around him. Thus Himmler associated almost exclusively with his SS following, from whom he could count on unqualified respect... As an intellectual Goebbels looked down on the crude philistines of the leading group in Munich, who for their part made fun of the conceited academic's literary ambitions. Göring considered neither the Munich philistines nor Goebbels sufficiently aristocratic for him and therefore avoided all social relations with them; whereas Himmler, filled with the elitist missionary zeal of the SS felt far superior to all the others." (1)
Röhm complained to Herman Rauschning about not being appointed a minister in the Nazi government. Röhm told Rauschning: "Adolf is a swine... He only associates with the reactionaries now. His old friends aren't good enough for him. Getting matey with the East Prussian generals. They're his cronies now... Are we revolutionaries or aren't we? The generals are a lot of old fogies. They will never have a new idea... I don't know where he's going to get his revolutionary spirit from. They're the same old clods, and they'll certainly lose the next war." (2)
Opposition to Ernst Röhm
Industrialists such as Albert Voegler, Gustav Krupp, Alfried Krupp, Fritz Thyssen and Emile Kirdorf, who had provided the funds for the Nazi victory, were unhappy with Röhm's socialistic views on the economy and his claims that the real revolution had still to take place. Walther Funk reported that Hjalmar Schacht and his friends in big business were worried that the Nazis might begin "radical economic experiments". (3)
General Werner von Blomberg, Hitler's minister of war, and Walther von Reichenau, chief liaison officer between the German Army and the Nazi Party, became increasingly concerned about the growing power of Ernst Röhm and the Sturmabteilung (SA). They feared that the SA was trying to absorb the regular army in the same way that the SS had taken over the political police. (4) Reichenau was concerned by a letter he received from Röhm: "I regard the Reichswehr now only as a training school for the German people. The conduct of war, and therefore of mobilization as well, in the future is the task of the SA." (5)
Many people in the party disapproved of the fact that Röhm, and many other leaders of the SA, including his deputy, Edmund Heines, were homosexuals. Konrad Heiden, a German journalist who investigated these rumours later claimed that Heines was at the centre of this homosexual ring. "The perversion was wide-spread in the secret murderers' army of the post-war period, and its devotees denied that it was a perversion. They were proud, regarded themselves as 'different from the others', meaning better." (6)
Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler were all concerned with the growing power of Röhm, who continued to make speeches in favour of socialism. As Peter Padfield has pointed out, the Sturmabteilung (SA) "now a huge, heterogeneous and generally discontent army of four million, threatened the hereditary leadership of the Army, the Junker landowners, the bureaucracy, and the heavy industrialists" with talk of a second revolution. (7)
However, Hitler allowed Röhm to continue in his post. According to Ernst Hanfstaengel, during this period, Hitler was frightened of Röhm because Karl Ernst had information about the leader's sexuality: "Ernst, another homosexual SA officer, hinted in the early 1930s that a few words would have sufficed to silence Hitler had he complained about Röhm's behavior." (8)
Rudolf Diels Report
Göring suggested to Rudolf Diels, the head of the Gestapo, that he was too close to Röhm. "I warn you, Diels, you can't sit on both sides of the fence." (9) Göring ordered Diels to carry out an investigation into Röhm and the SA. He reported back with details of homosexual rings centering on Röhm and other SA leaders, and on their corruption of Hitler Youth members. Göring complained to Diels: "This whole camarilla around Chief of Staff Röhm is corrupt through and through. The SA is the pacemaker in all this filth (in the Hitler Youth movement). You should look into it more thoroughly." (10)
Diels presented his report to Adolf Hitler in January 1934 at his retreat at Obersalzberg. Diels provided information that Röhm had been conspiring with Gregor Strasser and Kurt von Schleicher against the government. It was also suggested that Röhm had been paid 12 million marks by the French to overthrow the Nazi government. (11) Hitler was furious and stated that "it is incomprehensible that Strasser and Schleicher, these arch-traitors, have survived to this day." After the meeting had ended Göring turned to Diels and said: "You understand what the Führer wants? These three must disappear and very soon." (12) He added that Strasser "can commit suicide - he is a chemist after all". (13)
Richard Overy has claimed that both Strasser and Von Schleicher were both politically inactive and posed no threat to Hitler. (14) Peter Stachura, the author of Gregor Strasser and the Rise of Nazism (1983) believes that Strasser was faithfully keeping a written promise to Hitler that he would renounce politics, shunning his former political associates and doing everything possible to deny rumours that he was involved in any conspiracy. (15)
Night of the Long Knives
In February, 1934, Hitler had a meeting with Group Captain Frederick Winterbotham. Hitler told him that there should be only three major powers in the world, the British empire, the American empire and the future German empire. "All we ask is that Britain should be content to look after her empire and not interfere with Germany's plans of expansion." He then went on to deal with the subject of Communism. "He stood up and, as if he was an entirely different personality, he started to yell in a high-pitched staccato voice... He ranted and raved against the Communists." It was later speculated that Hitler was letting Britain know he intended to purge the left-wing of the Nazi Party. (16)
Heinrich Himmler and Karl Wolff went to visit Ernst Röhm at the SA headquarters at the end of April. According to Wolff he "implored Röhm to dissociate himself from his evil companions, whose prodigal life, alcoholic excesses, vandalism and homosexual cliques were bringing the whole movement into disrepute". He then said with moist eyes, "do not inflict me with the burden of having to get my people to act against you". Röhm, also with tears in his eyes, thanked his old comrade for giving him this warning. (17)
On 4th June, 1934, Hitler held a five-hour meeting with Röhm. According to Hitler's account he told Röhm that he had heard that "certain conscienceless elements were preparing a Nationalist-Bolshevik revolution, which could lead only to miseries beyond description". Hitler informed Röhm that some people suspected that he was the leader of a group who "praise the Communist paradise of the future, which, in reality, would only lead to a battle for Hell." (18)
After the meeting Röhm told friends that he was convinced that he could rely on Hitler to take his side against "the gentlemen with uniforms and monocles". (19) Louis L. Snyder argues that Hitler had in fact decided to give his support to Röhm's enemies: "Hitler later alleged that his trusted friend Röhm had entered a conspiracy to take over political power. The Führer was told, possibly by one of Röhm's jealous colleagues, that Röhm intended to use the SA to bring a socialist state into existence... Hitler came to his final decision to eliminate the socialist element in the party." (20)
On 11th June 1934, Hjalmar Schacht had a private meeting with the Governor of the Bank of England, his personal friend and business associate, Montagu Norman. Both men were members of the Anglo-German Fellowship group and shared a "fundamental dislike" of the "French, Roman Catholics, Jews". (21) Schacht told Norman that there would be no "second revolution" and that the SA were about to be purged. (22)
Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, Hermann Göring and Theodore Eicke worked on drawing up a list of people who were to be eliminated. It was known as the "Reich List of Unwanted Persons". (23) The list included Ernst Röhm, Edmund Heines, Karl Ernst, Hans Erwin von Spreti and Julius Uhl of the SA, Gregor Strasser, Kurt von Schleicher, Hitler's predecessor as chancellor, Gustav von Kahr, who crushed the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, Herbert von Bose and Edgar Jung, two men who worked for Franz von Papen and Fritz Gerlich, a journalist who had investigated the death of Hitler's niece, Geli Raubal. (24)
Also on the list was Erich Klausener, the President of the Catholic Action movement, who had been making speeches against Hitler. It was feared that he was building up a strong following from within the Catholic Church. On 24th June, 1934, Klausener had organized a meeting held at Hoppegarten racecourse, where he spoke out against political oppression in front of an audience of 60,000. (25)
On the evening of 28th June, 1934, Hitler telephoned Röhm to convene a conference of the Sturmabteilung (SA) leadership at Hanselbauer Hotel in Bad Wiesse, two days later. "The call served the double purpose of gathering the SA chiefs in one out-of-the-way spot, and reassuring Röhm that, despite the rumours flying about, their mutual compact was safe. No doubt Röhm expected the discussion to centre on the radical change of government in his favour promised for the autumn." (26)
The following day Hitler held a meeting with Joseph Goebbels. He told him that he had decided to act against Röhm and the SA. Hitler felt he could not take the risk of "breaking with the conservative middle-class elements in the Reichswehr, industry, and the civil service". By eliminating Röhm he could make it clear that he rejected the idea of a "socialist revolution". Although he disagreed with the decision, Goebbels decided not to speak out against "Operation Humingbird" in case he was also eliminated. (27)
On 29th June, Karl Ernst got married and as he planned to go on his honeymoon and therefore could not attend the SA meeting at the Hanselbauer Hotel. Ernst Röhm and Hermann Göring both attended the wedding. (28) Later that day he alerted the Berlin SA that he had heard rumours that there was a danger of a putsch against Hitler by the right-wing of the party. (29)
At around 6.30 in the morning of 30th June, Hitler arrived at the hotel in a fleet of cars full of armed Schutzstaffel (SS) men. (30) Erich Kempka, Hitler's chauffeur, witnessed what happened: "Hitler entered Röhm's bedroom alone with a whip in his hand. Behind him were two detectives with pistols at the ready. He spat out the words; Röhm, you are under arrest. Röhm's doctor comes out of a room and to our surprise he has his wife with him. I hear Lutze putting in a good word for him with Hitler. Then Hitler walks up to him, greets him, shakes hand with his wife and asks them to leave the hotel, it isn't a pleasant place for them to stay in, that day. Now the bus arrives. Quickly, the SA leaders are collected from the laundry room and walk past Röhm under police guard. Röhm looks up from his coffee sadly and waves to them in a melancholy way. At last Röhm too is led from the hotel. He walks past Hitler with his head bowed, completely apathetic." (31)
Edmund Heines was found in bed with his chauffeur and along with Röhm were taken to Stadelheim Prison. At the Munich railroad station, the SA leaders were beginning to arrive. As they alighted from the incoming trains they were taken into custody by SS troops. It is estimated that about 200 senior SA officers were arrested during what became known as the Night of the Long Knives. (32)
One of Röhm's boyfriends, Karl Ernst, and the head of the SA in Berlin, had just married and was driving to Bremen with his bride to board a ship for a honeymoon in Madeira. His car was overtaken by Schutzstaffel (SS) gunman, who fired on the car, wounding his wife and his chauffeur. Ernst was taken back to SS headquarters and executed later that day. (33)
A large number of the SA officers were shot as soon as they were captured but Adolf Hitler decided to pardon Röhm because of his past services to the movement. However, after much pressure from Göring and Himmler, Hitler agreed that Röhm should die. Himmler ordered Theodor Eicke to carry out the task. Eicke and his adjutant, Michael Lippert, travelled to Stadelheim Prison in Munich where Röhm was being held. Eicke placed a pistol on a table in Röhm's cell and told him that he had 10 minutes in which to use the weapon to kill himself. Röhm replied: "If Adolf wants to kill me, let him do the dirty work." (34)
According to Paul R. Maracin, the author of The Night of the Long Knives: Forty-Eight Hours that Changed the History of the World (2004): "Ten minutes later, SS officers Michael Lippert and Theodor Eicke appeared, and as the embittered, scar-faced veteran of verdun defiantly stood in the middle of the cell stripped to the waist, the two SS officers riddled his body with revolver bullets." Eicke later claimed that Röhm fell to the floor moaning "Mein Führer". (35)
Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary: "Executions nearly finished. A few more are necessary. That is difficult, but necessary... It is difficult, but is not however to be avoided. There must be peace for ten years. The whole afternoon with the Führer. I can't leave him alone. He suffers greatly, but is hard. The death sentences are received with the greatest seriousness. All in all about 60." (36)
Time Magazine reported that the men had been executed as a result of a conflict between the SS and SA. It claimed that Hermann Göring and Gustav Krupp had been involved in the conspiracy. It reported that "Röhm was shot in the back next day by a firing squad". The magazine also reported that the Nazi government insisted that Herbert von Bose had committed suicide "until it could no longer be concealed that his death was due to six bullets". (37)
Goebbels broadcast the Nazi account of the executions on 10th July. He thanked the German press for "standing by the government with commendable self-discipline and fair-mindedness" and accused the foreign press of issuing false reports so as to create confusion. He stated that these newspapers and magazines had been involved in a "campaign of lies" which he compared to the "atrocity-story campaign waged against Germany" during the First World War. (38)
Hitler made a speech where he stated that he acted as "the Supreme Justiciar of the German Volk" and had used this violence "to prevent a revolution". A retrospective law was passed to legitimize the murders. The German judiciary made no protest about the use of the law to legalize murder. These events, however, had a major impact on the outside world: "The killings of 30 June and succeeding days were also an important moment in the history of the Nazi movement. Before the people of Germany, and the outside world, the leaders of the Party were revealed as calculating killers." (39)
Aftermath
It is not known exactly how many people were murdered between 30th June and 2nd July, when Hitler called off the killings. "Bodies were found in fields and woods for weeks afterwards and files of petitions from relatives of the missing remained active for months. What seems certain is that less than half were SA officers." (40)
Herman Rauschning argued that the execution of the leaders of the SA showed that Hitler believed that the German Army posed no real threat to his government: "They had got their wish: Röhm was removed. The independence of the Reichswehr was assured. That was enough for them. They had no use for civil unrest. They reserved the right to make a special investigation into the shooting of the two generals, von Schleicher, the former Reich Chancellor, and von Bredow. They allowed their one opportunity of shaking off the National Socialist yoke to go by. Without political insight, uncertain and vacillating in everything except their military calling, they were anxious to return as quickly as possible to ordered and regular activities. This failure of the high officials and officers, and also of the big industrial and agricultural interests, was symptomatic of their further attitude. They were no longer capable of any statesmanlike action. In every crisis, they would again be in the opposition, but would always recoil before the final step, the overthrow of the regime." (41)
Hitler told Albert Speer what happened at Bad Wiesse: "Hitler was extremely excited and, as I believe to this day, inwardly convinced that he had come through a great danger. Again and again he described how he had forced his way into the Hotel Hanselmayer in Wiessee - not forgetting, in the telling, to make a show of his courage: We were unarmed, imagine, and didn't know whether or not those swine might have armed guards to use against us. The homosexual atmosphere had disgusted him: In one room we found two naked boys! Evidently he believed that his personal action had averted a disaster at the last minute: I alone was able to solve this problem. No one else! His entourage tried to deepen his distaste for the executed SA leaders by assiduously reporting as many details as possible about the intimate life of Röhm and his following." (42)
The purge of the SA was kept secret until it was announced by Hitler on 13th July. It was during this speech that Hitler gave the purge its name: Night of the Long Knives (a phrase from a popular Nazi song). Hitler claimed that 61 had been executed while 13 had been shot resisting arrest and three had committed suicide. Others have argued that as many as 400 people were killed during the purge. In his speech Hitler explained why he had not relied on the courts to deal with the conspirators: "In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I become the supreme judge of the German people. I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders in this treason."
Sidney Strube, Daily Express (3rd July, 1934)
Adolf Hitler announced that Ernst Röhm had been killed because he had "broken all laws of decent contact". He had created a sect within the SA "sharing a common orientation, who formed the kernal of a conspiracy not only against the moral conceptions of a healthy Volk, but also against state security". Röhm was also accused of promoting men "without regard to National Socialist and SA service, but only because they belonged to the circle of this orientation". (43) Joseph Goebbels made the same point when he said Röhm and his cronies had led a life of unparalleled debauchery" and had come close to tainting the entire leadership of the party "with their shameful and disgusting sexual aberrations." (44)
The Daily Mail praised Hitler for taking such action: "Herr Adolf Hitler, the German Chancellor, has saved his country. Swiftly and with exorable severity, he has delivered Germany from men who had become a danger to the unity of the German people and to the order of the state. With lightening rapidity he has caused them to be removed from high office, to be arrested, and put to death. The names of the men who have been shot by his orders are already known. Hitler's love of Germany has triumphed over private friendships and fidelity to comrades who had stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the fight for Germany's future." (45)
The Times welcomed the fact that "the Führer has started cleaning up" but could not understand the timing as "the offences of Röhm and his associates were admittedly known for years, the 'clean up' was not undertaken long ago." (46) The Manchester Guardian welcomed the fact that "the criminal lunatics, or some of them, have been destroyed." (47) Only the journalist Sefton Delmer, who was based in Berlin working for the Daily Express gave a critical account of what happened and published a list of those murdered. This resulted in him being expelled from Germany." (48)
Heinrich Himmler made a speech to Gestapo officials on 11th October, 1934: "For us as Secret State Police and as members of the SS, 30 June was not - as several believe - a day of victory or a day of triumph, but it was the hardest day that can be visited on a soldier in his lifetime. To have to shoot one's own comrades, with whom one has stood side by side for eight or ten years in the struggle for an ideal, and who had then failed, is the bitterest thing which can happen to a man. For everyone who knows the Jews, freemasons and Catholics, it was obvious that these forces - who in the final analysis caused even 30 June in so much as they sent numerous individuals into the SA and the entourage of the former Chief of Staff and drove him to catastrophe - these forces were very much annoyed at the rout on 30 June. Because 30 June signified no more and no less than the detonation of the National Socialist state from within, blowing it up with its own people. There would have been chaos, and it would have given a foreign enemy the possibility of marching into Germany with the excuse that order had to be created in Germany." (49)
Joseph Goebbels later regretted the killing of Ernst Röhm: "I point out to the Führer at length that in 1934 we unfortunately failed to reform the Wehrmacht when we had an opportunity of doing so. What Röhm wanted was, of course, right in itself but in practice it could not be carried through by a homosexual and an anarchist. Had Röhm been an upright solid personality, in all probability some hundred generals rather than some hundred SA leaders would have been shot on 30 June. The whole course of events was profoundly tragic and today we are feeling its effects. In that year the time was ripe to revolutionize the Reichswehr." (50)
Primary Sources
(1) Comments made by Ernst Röhm to Kurt Ludecke (January, 1934)
Hitler can't walk over me as he might have done a year ago; I've seen to that. Don't forget that I have three million men, with every key position in the hands of my own people, Hitler knows that I have friends in the Reichswehr, you know! If Hitler is reasonable I shall settle the matter quietly; if he isn't I must be prepared to use force - not for my sake but for the sake of our revolution.
(2) Ernst Röhm, announcement to the Sturm Abteilung (SA) (May, 1934)
In 1934 I will require all the energies of every SA fighter. I recommend, therefore, to all SA leaders to begin organizing leave already in June. Therefore, for a limited number of SA leaders and men, June, and for the majority of the SA, July, will be a period of complete relaxation in which they can recover their strength. I expect the SA to return on 1st August completely rested and refreshed in order to serve in those honourable capacities which nation and fatherland rested and refreshed in order to serve in those honourable capacities which nation and fatherland expect of it.
(3) After the war Edward von Kleist of the German Army recalled the events of June, 1934.
Round about 24 June 1934, I as the army commander in Silesia was warned by the Chief of the General Staff (Ludwig Beck) that an attack by the SA on the German Army was imminent and that I should unobtrusively keep my troops on the alert. During the tense days following, I received a flood of reports and information which gave a picture of feverish preparations on the part of the SA. In this situation, I considered that bloodshed could only be avoided by a man-to-man talk.
On the afternoon of 28 June, therefore, I asked SA Commander Heines to come and see me; I told him to his face that I knew of his preparations and I gave him a warning. He replied that he knew all about my measures and had thought that they were preparations for an attack on the SA. He had only put the SA on alert in order to resist an attack. He gave his word as an officer and SA leader that he had not planned or prepared any surprise attack upon the Army.
During the night of 28-29 June, Heines rang me up again. He had just learned that the Army throughout the Reich, was on the alert for an SA putsch. I said to him that "I have the impression that we - Army and SA - are being egged on against each other by a third party." By that I mean Himmler.
(4) Erich Kempka, was Hitler's chauffeur on 29th June, 1934. In 1946 he gave an interview where he described what happened when Hitler arrived at the Hotel Hanselmayer that night.
Hitler entered the room where Edmund Heines was staying. I heard him shout: "Heines, if you are not dressed in five minutes I'll have you shot on the spot!" I withdrew a few steps and a police officer whispers to me that Heines had been in bed with an 18 year old Obertruppfuher.
Hitler entered Roehm's bedroom alone with a whip in his hand. Behind him were two detectives with pistols at the ready. He spat out the words; "Roehm, you are under arrest."
Roehm's doctor comes out of a room and to our surprise he has his wife with him. I hear Lutze putting in a good word for him with Hitler. Then Hitler walks up to him, greets him, shakes hand with his wife and asks them to leave the hotel, it isn't a pleasant place for them to stay in, that day.
Now the bus arrives. Quickly, the SA leaders are collected from the laundry room and walk past Roehm under police guard. Roehm looks up from his coffee sadly and waves to them in a melancholy way. At last Roehm too is led from the hotel. He walks past Hitler with his head bowed, completely apathetic.
(5) Time Magazine (9th July, 1934)
No matter what brutalities they might commit nor how queerly they might act, Nazi Storm Troop leaders under Adolf Hitler have always banked on his reputation of never letting an old comrade down.
Compared to the refined abruptness of Benito Mussolini or the violence of Josef Stalin in disposing of defective political tools, Adolf Hitler was, until last week, the Gentle Dictator. The accepted Brown House axiom "Once your friend. Der Führer is always your friend!" remained a potent Storm Troop recruiting slogan. One had only to scan the greedy, sensual, plug-ugly face of Storm Troop Chief of Staff Ernst Röhm; one had only to reflect that all Germany knew of his bull-like philandering with effeminate young men, to decide that since Chancellor Hitler stomached Captain Roehm there was probably no comrade he would not stomach. Historically last week Adolf Hitler retched at last and in his retching there was blood.
Fatefully the smudge-mustached little Chancellor left Berlin by air one day last week for Essen, deep plans and savage suspicions gyrating in his brain. With him flew spectacular Reichsminister General Hermann Wilhelm Göring, the bull-necked Nazi war ace who controls Prussia's Secret Police. They discussed recent Nazi squabbles in Berlin which to both seemed disgraceful - and ominous....
In flight with Hitler to Essen, Göring showed Hitler certain other suspicious evidence gathered by his Secret Police. The Chancellor and the General then conferred with one of the Nazi Party's earliest and richest backers, Dr. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach who led Der Führer proudly through the Krupp Works. Chancellor Hitler, after inspecting Westphalian labor camps, flew on to Bonn. General Göring flew back to Berlin. "Have my plane made ready," he commanded mysteriously.
Taking off in the dead of night, Chancellor Hitler flew from Bonn to Munich where he arrived at 4 a. m. He accused Storm Troop leaders of treacherously plotting a coup against himself, brandished General Göring's proofs under their noses, flew into a passion and tore the Nazi insignia off their brown uniforms. S. S. troops with machine guns meanwhile bottled up the S. A. leaders in Chancellor Hitler's trap. Then leaping into a car the Chancellor dashed for queer Captain Roehm's luxurious snuggery.
According to official communiques there was no one in bed with Captain Röhm when Chancellor Hitler burst in, but in the adjoining bedroom Nazi Police Chief Edmund Heines of Breslau was nabbed with a young storm trooper between the sheets. "Certain sights were disclosed in the seizing of the rebels" read the communique "so pitiful that all feelings of compassion must end... Chief of Staff Ernst Röhm's well known unhappy malady was gradually becoming unbearable, driving him into severest conflicts with his own conscience.... Der Führer has ordered this plague ruthlessly stamped out."
In the stamping out which followed scores of Storm Troop leaders, brownshirt potentates whose word has been law in their bailiwicks, were either shot by firing squads or were left alone in prison with a revolver which they used to commit suicide. The chancellor tried his hardest to make Col. Röhm shoot himself, twice sent him a pistol which came back with the defy, "If I am shot Hitler will have to do it himself!"
"Why should I honor a traitor by shooting him!" fumed the Dictator. After long hours of bickering delay Prisoner Röhm was shot in the back next day by a firing squad...
In Berlin the pouncing of Captain Göring's Secret Police was savage in the extreme. Riot trucks bristling with rifles dashed up and down the main streets while newspapers were rigidly prevented from printing a word about what was going on. No Cabinet Minister seemed to be trusted for the offices of all were occupied by Secret Police and S. S. Storm Troops who shot an aide of Vice Chancellor von Papen as they swept in. This aide, Herr von Bose, was officially reported a suicide until it could no longer be concealed that his death was due to six bullets. With rumors crackling that the Vice Chancellor himself had been killed correspondents rushed to his home where he was said to be in "protective custody." S. S. Storm Troops guarded the house but Reichswehr soldiers, sent by President von Hindenburg to guard his favorite statesman, stood watch inside. Two days later Lieut.-Colonel von Papen offered to resign. General Göring was expected to take his post if Hitler accepted the resignation.
Both Reichsbank President Dr. Hjalmar Schacht and ex-Crown Prince Wilhelm denied over the telephone rumors that they had been shot. But the Government announced ominously that "a few more executions may soon be made known" and it was established that a Nazi trooper had shot the Chief of the Catholic Action Society, Herr Erich J. G. Klausener, charged with having been slated to be Minister of Transportation in some conspirator's government.
The crowning sensation of last week's killings came when Secret Police pushed into the swank suburban mansion of General Kurt von Schleicher, immediate predecessor of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor and the officer to whom it fell in 1918 to tell All Highest Wilhelm II that his army was no longer faithful to the Crown and that he had best flee to Holland.
General von Schleicher was for years the master intrigant and "Field Grey Eminence" of the German Reichswehr. The Hohenzollerns have always looked to him as their smartest stalking horse for a return of the Monarchy. Not long ago Paris heard rumors that Chancellor Hitler would be ousted by a military coup led by General von Schleicher.
These rumors and whatever proofs General Göring may have had last week cost General von Schleicher dear. According to the official Nazi version General von Schleicher resisted arrest by the Secret Police ''with a weapon in his hand," Frau von Schleicher flung herself before her husband to protect him and the Secret Police shot them both "in self defense." Later an eyewitness reported that six men in civilian garb had driven into the von Schleicher driveway, summoned the General and his wife, riddled them with bullets in gangster style, sped away without a word...
Shocked British editors deplored Adolf Hitler's "gangster methods." Only head of a foreign state to comment was spry little Chancellor of Austria Engelbert Dollfuss, an extremely devout Catholic. "Does it not now become apparent," he observed piously, "that when one leaves the path of Christian thought, the path of Justice, one enters a path of Error from which there is no turning back? . . . Does not the light at last dawn upon us that one can not make a people happy with violence?"
The light for which Germans waited most anxiously was some dawning indication from President von Hindenburg of his attitude toward last week's massacre. Troubled more than usual by his prostate, the 86-year-old Reichsprasident was at his country estate at Neudeck in East Prussia attended by physicians so numerous that they were called a "major medical council." There were rumors that Old Paul was dead, promptly denied by his State Secretary Dr. Otto Meissner. Forty-eight hours after the shooting began the Hitler Government released two telegrams calculated to set all doubts at rest.
(6) President Erich Ludendorff, telegram to Adolf Hitler (1st July, 1934)
I gather from reports submitted to me that by energetic intervention you courageously, at the risk of your own life, suppressed all treasonable machinations at the outset, you saved the German people from grave danger. I therefore convey to you expressions of sincere, heartfelt thanks and appreciation.
(7) Albert Speer met Adolf Hitler the day after the Night of the Long Knives. He wrote about the meeting in his book, Inside the Third Reich (1970)
Hitler was extremely excited and, as I believe to this day, inwardly convinced that he had come through a great danger. Again and again he described how he had forced his way into the Hotel Hanselmayer in Wiessee - not forgetting, in the telling, to make a show of his courage: "We were unarmed, imagine, and didn't know whether or not those swine might have armed guards to use against us." The homosexual atmosphere had disgusted him: "In one room we found two naked boys!" Evidently he believed that his personal action had averted a disaster at the last minute: "I alone was able to solve this problem. No one else!"
His entourage tried to deepen his distaste for the executed SA leaders by assiduously reporting as many details as possible about the intimate life of Röhm and his following. Bruckner showed Hitler the menus of banquets held by the Röhm clique, which had purportedly been found in the Berlin SA headquarters. The menus listed a fantastic variety of courses, including foreign delicacies such as frogs' legs, birds' tongues, shark fins, seagulls' eggs, along with vintage French wines and the best champagnes. Hitler commented sarcastically: "So, here we have those revolutionaries! And our revolution was too tame for them."
(8) Time Magazine (23rd July, 1934)
Eight Deputies of the German Reichstag, or slightly more than 1% of its membership, are known to have been shot during Chancellor Hitler's blood purge. Thanking their stars last week, the other 99% turned out to cheer him. They were under no compulsion except that Reichstag Speaker Hermann Wilhelm Göring, whose secret police did much of the shooting, announced that any Deputy who did not appear would have to produce a doctor's certificate of illness.
No sluggard, Herr Hitler had written his great Purge Speech, as Germans called it, entirely alone last week, shutting himself off from friends and advisers. He moved his office from the exposed front of the Chancellory to the back. "Every German must hear this speech!", commanded the Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment. In their eagerness to obey, German radio dealers rigged up loud speakers in almost every public square throughout the Fatherland. When even this seemed like slacking, they rushed about installing unsold radio sets in private homes, lending them free for the occasion.
Since the Reichstag Building mysteriously went up in flames soon after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor, Berlin's vast Kroll Opera House was pressed into service last week by Speaker Göring. In a quarter-mile-wide cordon around it he threw his police and black-jacketed S. S. Storm Troops. Sweating carpenters rushed up a huge banner over the impromptu Reichstag portals: WE FIGHT AND PRAY FOR ADOLF HITLER.
The Ambassadors of the Great Powers, though invited to be present by Speaker Göring, stayed home to a man. But except for the gaping diplomatic box the rest of Kroll Opera House was pack-jammed. Tramp, tramp, tramp, the brown-shirted Deputies marched to their orchestra seats. The lone little man in civilian grey in a front seat was Deputy Dr. Alfred Hugenberg, onetime "Hearst of Germany'' before Nazis regimented the Press. Smartly the Reichstag aisles were closed by S. S. Storm Troops, pistols on hips.
Sirens screeched and an open motorcar swept up with Adolf Hitler. In simple khaki the little Chancellor entered with enormous Speaker Göring, gorgeous in his self-designed uniform as a General of Aviation. Deputies bellowed "Heil Hitler!" General Göring banged his bell, and then there was a long wait while the Chancellor fussed with his papers before he took the rostrum. When he spoke his voice at first lacked its usual barking force. "Deputies, men of the Reichstag," he husked, "by order of the Reich Government, the Reichstag's President Göring called you together today to afford me the possibility to explain.... I shall be ruthlessly frank. I shall observe only such restrictions as are imposed for reasons of State and, by feelings of shame."
Of the hour and a half speech which followed, during which Orator Hitler slowly worked himself up to normal platform frenzy, a half hour was devoted to a labored introduction rehearsing events "since the abdication of the Kaiser," for "fairness requires that our results be judged by what would have happened if we had not conquered!" Bolshevism would have happened, according to Chancellor Hitler, but he admitted with truly brutal frankness that what is happening now is a boycott of Germany such that her people face having to return this winter to eating Ersatz, the substitute foods they grew to loathe in wartime. Seemingly bowed at this point by Germany's woe the Chancellor wandered off into strange digressions: "Among countless documents I have been obliged to read this week I found the diary of a man who in 1918 was thrown into a course of resistance to the laws and now lives in a world wherein law per se seems to incite to resistance. A moving document! A glimpse at the mentality of humans who, without knowing it, have found their last confession of faith in Nihilism."
For the next hour Chancellor Hitler's address rambled darkly among the alleged plots of the men shot by his orders. Tears streamed down his face as he told of a five-hour soul struggle between himself and Storm Troop Chief of Staff Ernst Röhm. "I adjured him for the last time voluntarily to abandon this madness... The result of our conversation, however, turned out to be that Röhm, realizing he in no circumstances could count on me for his scheme, started preparations to eliminate me personally." The scheme (and Herr Hitler's allusions to it were maddeningly vague) was apparantly to get the German Army out from under control of its seasoned generals and into Nazi hands with Captain Roehm as Defense Minister.
According to Chancellor Hitler he was and is the champion of the career Reichswehr generals and President von Hindenburg. The nefarious plotters, he said, included onetime Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher, Reichswehr careerist par excellence, Captain Röhm and "a foreign diplomat." Simple Storm Troopers, declared the Chancellor, knew nothing of this plotted coup against the Reichswehr. They naively supposed that what was wanted was a "new and in this case a bloody uprising - The Night of the Long Knives - as it was gruesomely described."
"Only a merciless bloody stroke," cried the Chancellor pounding the rostrum with his fist, "could smother the spreading revolt! ... In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German nation; thereby the Supreme Court of the German people during these 24 hours consisted of myself!" With burning indignation in his tone the Chancellor added: "If I am confronted with the opinion that only the due process of law could have balanced guilt and extirpation exactly, I issue a solemn protest against such a viewpoint."
To most observers the Chancellor seemed thus far to have been trying to convince the Reichswehr generals that he deserves the confidence of the strongest armed force in Germany. He closed with an appeal to Nazis and the S. A. Storm Troops, recently ordered not to wear their uniforms during July. Cried the Chancellor, his voice now rising with its old barking vigor: "In a few weeks time brown shirts will again dominate the streets of German towns... I should like to offer forgetfulness from this moment to all who were in part guilty of this act of insanity! . . . May they all beat their own breasts! May they all feel themselves responsible for the most precious gift that can exist for the German people: order within and domestic peace."
Exhausted as he left the tribune amid handclaps and cheers, Chancellor Hitler threw himself into a chair, his head back, breathing heavily. While Speaker Göring boomed a speech conveying the thanks of the Reichstag, Herr Hitler's head fell forward on his breast and he seemed not to hear General Göring's bellowings: "I myself begged the Traitor Roehm on my knees to remain loyal but he only laughed... The Leader's action against the mutineers is bound to win over to his side all Germans who are still on the sidelines."
As Speaker Göring subsided the tense Reichstag saw Chancellor Hitler pull himself together and stalk out amid relieved huzzas.
Correspondents who dashed about Berlin while the speech blared from loud speakers reported that it seemed to be received by the populace with unusual apathy. The Chancellor had been expected to read out a full list of the names of all who had been shot. He merely admitted in passing that the number is 77. Repeatedly since the blood purge diplomats of the Great Powers have been promised a German "White Book'' containing documentary evidence. After the Chancellor's speech high German officials said that the White Book will not be published "since it is now unnecessary." Snapped the London Times: "The speech carries no conviction at all... The natural assumption is that if any real proof were available, then the conspirators would not have been shot out of hand, but would have been given a public trial in which their guilt would have been made manifest."
(9) Heinrich Himmler, speech to Gestapo officials (11th October, 1934)
For us as Secret State Police and as members of the SS, 30 June was not - as several believe - a day of victory or a day of triumph, but it was the hardest day that can be visited on a soldier in his lifetime. To have to shoot one's own comrades, with whom one has stood side by side for eight or ten years in the struggle for an ideal, and who had then failed, is the bitterest thing which can happen to a man.
For everyone who knows the Jews, freemasons and Catholics, it was obvious that these forces - who in the final analysis caused even 30 June in so much as they sent numerous individuals into the SA and the entourage of the former Chief of Staff and drove him to catastrophe - these forces were very much annoyed at the rout on 30 June. Because 30 June signified no more and no less than the detonation of the National Socialist state from within, blowing it up with its own people. There would have been chaos, and it would have given a foreign enemy the possibility of marching into Germany with the excuse that order had to be created in Germany.
(9) The Daily Mail (2nd July, 1934)
Herr Adolf Hitler, the German Chancellor, has saved his country. Swiftly and with exorable severity, he has delivered Germany from men who had become a danger to the unity of the German people and to the order of the state. With lightening rapidity he has caused them to be removed from high office, to be arrested, and put to death.
The names of the men who have been shot by his orders are already known. Hitler's love of Germany has triumphed over private friendships and fidelity to comrades who had stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the fight for Germany's future.
Student Activities
Night of the Long Knives (Answer Commentary)
Adolf Hitler's Early Life (Answer Commentary)
The Hitler Youth (Answer Commentary)
German League of Girls (Answer Commentary)
The Political Development of Sophie Scholl (Answer Commentary)
The White Rose Anti-Nazi Group (Answer Commentary)
Kristallnacht (Answer Commentary)
Heinrich Himmler and the SS (Answer Commentary)
Trade Unions in Nazi Germany (Answer Commentary)
Adolf Hitler v John Heartfield (Answer Commentary)
Hitler's Volkswagen (The People's Car) (Answer Commentary)
Women in Nazi Germany (Answer Commentary)