In August 1932 there were approximately 445,000 members of the SA. Although President Hindenburg and the Reichstag continued to exist, Hitler could now govern by decree. Some of Hitlers other enemies were also murdered, including the last chancellor of the Weimar Republic, Kurt von Schleicher; Gregor Strasser, who until 1932 had been second only to Hitler in the Nazi Party; Bavarian ex-separatist Gustav von Kahr; conservative critic Edgar Jung; and Catholic professor Erich Klausener. [53][54], Wanting to present the massacre as legally sanctioned, Hitler had the cabinet approve a measure on 3 July that declared, "The measures taken on June 30, July 1 and 2 to suppress treasonous assaults are legal as acts of self-defence by the State. ", "The names of eighty-five victims [exist], only fifty of them SA men. , was then given the choice of suicide or murder. Mussolini used the affair occasioned by the murder of Giacomo Matteotti as an example of the kind of trouble unruly followers could cause a dictator. By June 1934 this had grown to over 3,000,000 members. This topic will explore how the Nazis managed to eliminate their opposition and [40] Those not immediately executed were taken back to the Leibstandarte barracks at Lichterfelde, given one-minute "trials", and shot by a firing squad. , which opened just a few days before the vote on the 20 March 1933. The elections were neither free or fair. . By the end of May 1934, Hitler had been chancellor for 16 . (29-30 June 1934) The name coined by Hitler for a weekend of murders throughout Germany. Hitler entitled the purge the 'Night of the Long Knives' - a reference to the lyrics from a popular Nazi song. Officially 85; estimates range up to 1,000. ", "After the 'Night of the Long Knives,' [Reich Minister for Justice Franz Grtner] nipped in the bud the attempts of some local state prosecutors to initiate proceedings against the killers. [37] Sepp Dietrich received orders from Hitler for the Leibstandarte to form an "execution squad" and go to Stadelheim Prison where certain SA leaders were being held. The atmosphere of uncertainty following the Reichstag Fire secured many voters for the Nazi party. 5. impact of nazi foreign policy mrmarr 4.9K views . The Reichstag, the German lower house of parliament, was set on fire on the 27 February 1933. Gring alone had over a thousand people arrested. Captain Ernst Rhm of the Reichswehr served as the liaison with the Bavarian Freikorps. In addition to this, there was a mutual dislike between the traditional conservative elite who maintained many key positions in the government and the army during the first years of the Third Reich and the SA. Only the SPD opposed it. [68] Hammerstein, who was a close friend of Schleicher, had been much offended at Schleicher's funeral when the SS refused to allow him to attend the service and confiscated the wreaths that the mourners had brought. Night of the Long Knives, in German history, purge of Nazi leaders by Adolf Hitler on June 30, 1934. Hitler claimed that 61 had been executed while 13 had been shot resisting arrest and three had committed suicide. The SA traced its dramatic rise in numbers in part to the onset of the Great Depression, when many German citizens lost both their jobs and their faith in traditional institutions. On the 4 October 1933, it was declared that all editors must be Aryan. The process primarily took place between 1933-1934. They murdered Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in his chancellery, but the putsch failed in its main purpose. Fearing that the paramilitary SA had become too powerful, Hitler ordered his elite SS guards to murder the organization's leaders, including Ernst Rhm. Local governments proved more difficult to infiltrate, and even at the end of 1945 only 60% of local mayors were Nazi Party members. On 25 June, General Werner von Fritsch placed the Reichswehr on the highest level of alert. In conclusion, this lesson plan on Night of the Long Knives Rohm Source Investigation, provides an in-depth examination of one of the most controversial events in modern history. She even compared him to Frederick the Great, the 18th-century king of Prussia.[2]. persecution Many of the prisoners were tortured and abused. The Nazi Party used the atmosphere of panic to their advantage, encouraging anti-communism. Thereupon the German generals agreed to the merging of the office of president of the Reich and supreme head of the armed forces with that of chancellor, in Hitlers person. The Bill passed by 444 votes for to 94 against on the 24 March 1933. Some of those executed by Hitler were once considered close allies and friends. SS men stormed the hotel, and Hitler personally placed Rhm and other high-ranking SA leaders under arrest. The generals, whose chief spokesman was the minister of defense, Werner von Blomberg, were certainly impressed by the efficiency with which Rhm and his SA clique had been eliminated. consolidate The SA also ran a violent campaign of terror against any and all opponents of the Nazi regime. Night of the Long Knives - SlideShare Once inside Rhm's cell, they handed him a Browning pistol loaded with a single cartridge and told him he had ten minutes to kill himself or they would do it for him. Hence, the Freikorps were in opposition to the new Weimar Republic, which was born as a result of the November Revolution, and whose founders were contemptuously called "November criminals". Goebbels became responsible for controlling the national media, film, theatre, arts, and other cultural aspects. 1 Quoted in Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 37-38. Other sets by this creator. On 19 April 1943, the beginning of the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto was met with organised armed resistance by its residents. Reviews Something went wrong, please try again later. Politics latest updates: NHS 'on the brink' says nursing union as If passed, the law would establish the conditions needed for dictatorial rule. On 1 April 1933, the Nazi Party led a nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses across Germany. The Night of the Long Knives was "an act of carnage" which had come out of the blue. Some estimates, however, put the total number killed at between 150 and 200. 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[42] The Gestapo also murdered Erich Klausener, the leader of Catholic Action, and a close Papen associate. The Night of the Long Knives | Facing History & Ourselves [21] Brning fled to the Netherlands while Schleicher dismissed the tip-off as a bad practical joke. Hitler's desire to consolidate his power and settle old scores, Desire of Ernst Rhm and the SA to continue "the National Socialist revolution" versus Hitler's need for relative social stability so that the economy could be refocused to rearmament and the German people acclimated to the need for expansion and war, Hitler's need to bring the Reichswehr under his control, Significant reduction in the regime's opposition, Strengthening of relationship between Hitler and the military. The Centre Partys vote was crucial. He was now a dictator. "[74] Hearing of the murder of former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and his wife, he also commented, "We have ceased to live under the rule of law and everyone must be prepared for the possibility that the Nazis will push their way in and put them up against the wall! leaders knew consequences of questioning Hitler - role of SA was reduced - membership dropped from 2.9 million to 1.6 million. ", Coincidentally, Hitler had been incarcerated at. The Party had generally been aligned with the Social Democrats and Catholic Church during the rise of Nazism, being critical of Nazi ideology, but voting nonetheless for the Enabling Act of 1933 which granted Hitler dictatorial authority. Despite this improvement, the Nazis still did not command a majority in the Reichstag. The Night of the Long Knives is regarded as an important political episode that had far-reaching consequences, not only in Nazi Germany but across the world. The destiny of our country is at stake. Goebbels engineered the media coverage following the attack to present it as a preventative measure, in response to the SAs plan to overthrow the government. NHS services across England will face major disruption throughout today as nurses walk out in a 28-hour strike over pay. [15] In January 1934, Rhm presented Blomberg with a memorandum demanding that the SA replace the regular army as the nation's ground forces, and that the Reichswehr become a training adjunct to the SA.[16]. It will first explore this topic in chronological order, from the Reichstag Fire through to the death of President Hindenburg, and then explore it thematically in the last section. The Night of the Long Knives was a turning point for the German government. The murders of SA leaders were also intended to improve the image of the Hitler government with a German public that was increasingly critical of thuggish SA tactics. This night of brutal murder and elimination of the Sturm Abteilung (SA) gave Hitler the support of the army, which he need for both the creation of a totalitarian state and his future foreign policy and also relieved the pressures on Hitler. How Night Of Long Knives Affected Hitler's Rise To Power Chancellor Adolf Hitler, urged on by Hermann Gring and Heinrich Himmler, ordered a series of political extrajudicial executions . Religion and The Bloody Chamber. [31] On 27 June, Hitler moved to secure the army's cooperation. Civil Service In reality, the laws that the Nazis put forward secured their future as the sole ruling party in Germany. The Foreign Office even complained of instances where brownshirts manhandled foreign diplomats. Hitler saw the independence of the SA and the penchant of its members for street violence as a direct threat to his newly gained political power. [41] Several leaders of the disbanded Catholic Centre Party were also murdered in the purge. Many of those killed in the purge were leaders of the SA, the best-known being Rhm himself, the SA's chief of staff and one of Hitler's longtime supporters and allies. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. The Peoples Court, a court created by the Nazis in April 1934 with judges chosen specifically for their Nazi beliefs, replaced the Supreme Court. On the 30 January 1933 Hitler was appointed as chancellor of the Weimar Republic. To make both of these impacts, Hitler had to overcome many hard . The Gestapo arrested and later executed Papen's close associate Edgar Jung, the author of Papen's Marburg speech, and disposed of his body by dumping it in a ditch. The Night of the Long Knives L.O. In Berlin, on Gring's personal orders, an armed SS unit stormed the Vice-Chancellery. Rhm left the Reichswehr in 1923 and later became commander of the SA. Night of the Long Knives | Date, Victims, Summary, & Facts You give Hitler power and time by voting HITLER!. [k] Signed into law by Hitler, Grtner, and Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick, the "Law Regarding Measures of State Self-Defence" retroactively legalized the murders committed during the purge. The Night of the Long Knives: the bloody purge that secured Hitler's power. . As the leader of the SA, Rhm was seen as a threat to Hitlers power. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). It did not escape Klemperer's notice that many of the victims had played a role in bringing Hitler to power. [20] Although Schleicher was in fact unimportant by 1934, increasingly wild rumours that he was scheming with Rhm to re-enter the corridors of power helped stoke the sense of crisis. While many officers were impressed by Hitler's promises of an expanded army, a return to conscription, and a more aggressive foreign policy, the army continued to guard its traditions of independence during the early years of the Nazi regime. [64] One retired captain, Erwin Planck, seemed to realize this: "If you look on without lifting a finger", he said to his friend, General Werner von Fritsch, "you will meet the same fate sooner or later. : Why did Hitler order the massacre of hundreds of Nazis. "A chancellor", he wrote, "sentences and shoots members of his own private army! "A very calm and easy going mailman," the diarist Victor Klemperer wrote, "who is not at all National Socialist, said, 'Well, he simply sentenced them.'" They had placed many in the first Deprived of Communist party meetings to disrupt, the stormtroopers would sometimes run riot in the streets after a night of drinking; they would attack passers-by and then attack the police who were called to stop them. 95.7% of the population voted. On 13 July 1934 the Reichstag Hitler remained indecisive and uncertain about just what precisely he wanted to do when he left for Venice to meet Benito Mussolini on 15 June. [63], Former Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was in exile in Doorn, Netherlands, was horrified by the purge. After Hitler and most of the army officers had left, however, Rhm declared that he would not take instructions from "the ridiculous corporal" a demeaning reference to Hitler. [21], Demands for Hitler to constrain the SA strengthened. "[26] According to his memoirs, von Papen, a Catholic aristocrat with ties to army and industry, privately threatened to resign if Hitler did not act. [22] Himmler named his deputy Reinhard Heydrich to head the Gestapo on 22 April 1934. A copy of the original film, before Rhm was edited out, was found in the 1980s in the German Democratic Republic's film archives. He stated that 61 people had been executed and 13 had committed suicide. Chancellor Adolf Hitler, urged on by Hermann Gring and Heinrich Himmler, ordered a series of political extrajudicial executions intended to consolidate his power and alleviate the concerns of the German military about the role of Ernst Rhm and the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazis' paramilitary organization, known colloquially as "Brownshirts". Hitler announced that he would occupy this new role. [g] Many stormtroopers believed in the socialist promise of National Socialism and expected the Nazi regime to take more radical economic action, such as breaking up the vast landed estates of the aristocracy. [82] However, the term was soon adopted by the Nazis themselves to invoke what they saw as justifiable and necessary measures taken by Germanic peoples against an enemy. You must first remember and recite all the points made earlier in the circle then add your own point. You were murdered June 30-July 2, 1934, the Night of the Long Knives. 25 terms. Germany feared revolution. Refusing to take his own life, he was shot on 1 July 1934 by two SS guards. oppression The SA and the SS had also been on a month long campaign of violence to scare or imprison other opponents to the party. The Nazis used the SA and the newly expanded SS to harass and imprison any potential opponents of the Nazi Party. The atmosphere of terror that had followed the Reichstag Fire, and Hindenburgs and von Papens support, made the proposal seem legitimate and, to some, necessary. These acts removed peoples ability to oppose the Nazi Party, in any form. They will . ", "The most general theory that National Socialism was a revolution of the lower middle class is defensible but inadequate. Finally, Hitler used the purge to attack or eliminate German critics of his new regime, especially those loyal to Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, as well as to settle scores with old enemies.[a]. [23] Himmler envied the independence and power of the SA, although by this time he and Heydrich had already begun restructuring the SS from a bodyguard formation for Nazi leaders (and a subset of the SA) into its own independent elite corps, one loyal to both himself and Hitler. Political instability in the Weimar Republic, Hyperinflation and the invasion of the Ruhr, Strength and weaknesses of the Weimar Republic. Others killed included Gregor Strasser, a former Nazi who had angered Hitler by resigning from the party in 1932, and Gustav Ritter von Kahr, the former Bavarian state commissioner who had helped crush the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. A very large number of the Freikorps believed that the November Revolution had betrayed them when Germany was alleged to be on the verge of victory in 1918. Blomberg, Hitler and Goebbels. Having earlier imprisoned or exiled prominent Social Democrats and Communists, Hitler used the occasion to move against conservatives he considered unreliable.