The loyalty of the SS men would prove useful to both when Hitler finally chose to move against Rhm and the SA. Paul von Hindenburg was the president of the Weimar Republic from the 12 May 1925 until his death on the 2 August 1934. Goebbels became responsible for controlling the national media, film, theatre, arts, and other cultural aspects. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The Nazis also took several more steps to reduce their political opposition legally. The Night of the Long Knives | Facing History & Ourselves Gring instructed police stations to burn "all documents concerning the action of the past two days". He wanted the Nazi Party to focus on socialist policies to support . Hitler had become a chancellor in 1933 henceforth he had the power to establish his power. Hitler's entire life was one of making key-life and death-strategic decisions, successfully. 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. He left Neudeck with the intention of both destroying Rhm and settling scores with old enemies. By some estimates, as many as 1,000 were rounded up, never to be seen again. "[77], Rhm was purged from all Nazi propaganda, such as The Victory of Faith, the Leni Riefenstahl film about the 1933 Nuremberg rally, which showed Rhm frequently alongside Hitler. The Night of Long Knives, also known as the Rhm Putsch, was the purge of the SA leadership and other political opponents from 30 June 1934 to 2 July 1934. July 13th 1962: The Night of the Long Knives - Politics.co.uk Reichswehr This fear was The news of it was received with consternation and disgust in the other European capitals, but the shock was greatest in Rome. One of the men Gring recruited to assist him was Willi Lehmann, a Gestapo official and NKVD spy. Within weeks of Rhms death, Hitler made an attempt to settle the question of union with Austria through simple violence. Tes paid licenceHow can I reuse this? It also provided a legal grounding for the Nazis, as the German courts and cabinet quickly swept aside centuries of legal prohibition against extrajudicial killings to demonstrate their loyalty to the regime. [21], Demands for Hitler to constrain the SA strengthened. [69] The memo went on to demand that Hindenburg punish those responsible, and criticized Blomberg for his outspoken support of the murders of Schleicher and Bredow. In this photo, Rhm is talking to a group of SA men, who appear to be listening intently. Both Kurt von Schleicher, Hitler's predecessor as Chancellor, and his wife were murdered at their home. She even compared him to Frederick the Great, the 18th-century king of Prussia.[2]. [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. The Night of the Long Knives was the term given to the process whereby Hitler, in 1934, purged the Nazi Party of all those who were a threat to Hitler. This decree gave the Nazis a legal basis for the The Liberals' future leader, Jeremy Thorpe, mocked Macmillan by observing . Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. The Night of the Long Knives was "an act of carnage" which had come out of the blue. Whilst Gleichschaltung aimed to reach every aspect of rule in Germany, this was not always possible. Given that the purge claimed the lives of so many prominent Germans, it could hardly be kept secret. [l] Luise Solmitz, a Hamburg schoolteacher, echoed the sentiments of many Germans when she cited Hitler's "personal courage, decisiveness and effectiveness" in her private diary. [70] It is noteworthy that even those officers who were most offended by the killings, like Hammerstein and Mackensen, did not blame the purge on Hitler, whom they wanted to see continue as Chancellor; they at most wanted a reorganization of the Cabinet to remove some of Hitler's more radical followers. [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. By the end of May 1934, Hitler had been chancellor for 16 . [42] The Gestapo also murdered Erich Klausener, the leader of Catholic Action, and a close Papen associate. To make both of these impacts, Hitler had to overcome many hard . President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor on 30 January 1933. Political instability in the Weimar Republic, Hyperinflation and the invasion of the Ruhr, Strength and weaknesses of the Weimar Republic. 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. After this date, the SS lead by Heinrich Himmler was to become far more powerful in Nazi Germany. Once the Enabling Law was in place, the Nazis could bypass the Reichstag and rule by decree seemingly creating laws that stabilised Germany and got rid of its internal enemies. It would become known in Welsh as "twyll y cyllyll hirion" (English: Deceit of the long knives) (first recorded around 1587) and in English as the "Treachery/Plot/Treason of the long knives" (recorded around 1604). 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. On the 31 January 1933, Hitler, conscious of his lack of a majority in the Reichstag, immediately called for new elections to try and strengthen his position. A firefighter in the burnt out ruins of the Reichstag building. ", Night of the Long Knives (disambiguation), The History Place Triumph of Hitler Night of the Long Knives, German Culture The Third Reich Consolidation of Power, The German Embassy in the United States The Era of National Socialism, National Political Institutes of Education, National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), National Socialist German Doctors' League, National Socialist League for Physical Exercise (NSRL), Bulgarian National Socialist Workers Party, German National Socialist Workers' Party (Czechoslovakia), Finnish National Socialist Labor Organisation, German National Movement in Liechtenstein, National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands, National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark, Nationalist Liberation Alliance (Argentina), South African Gentile National Socialist Movement, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Night_of_the_Long_Knives&oldid=1148917121, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from June 2022, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing explicitly cited English-language text, Pages using Sister project links with wikidata mismatch, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Operation Hummingbird, Rhm Putsch (by the Nazis), The Blood Purge. , was then given the choice of suicide or murder. For new Germany unit - 1890-1945. The humbling of the SA ended the threat it had posed to the army but, by standing by Hitler during the purge, the army bound itself more tightly to the Nazi regime. [37] Meanwhile, the SS arrested the other SA leaders as they left their train for the planned meeting with Rhm and Hitler. You give Hitler power and time by voting HITLER!. It established Hitler as "the supreme leader of the German people", as he put it in his 13 July speech to the Reichstag. Gring declared that the communists had planned a national uprising to overthrow the Weimar Republic. Politics latest updates: NHS 'on the brink' says nursing union as As the leader of the SA, Rhm was seen as a threat to Hitlers power. "Rhm was given the opportunity to draw the consequences of his treacherous behaviour," said Hitler in . , which opened just a few days before the vote on the 20 March 1933. Many members of the SA, including its leader Ernst Rhm, were demanding that the Nazi party carry out its socialist agenda and that the SA take over the army. With Hitler's arrival in Bad Wiessee between 06:00 and 07:00, the SA leadership, still in bed, were taken by surprise. 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. It did not escape Klemperer's notice that many of the victims had played a role in bringing Hitler to power. Moreover, it was not just the Reichswehr that viewed the SA as a threat. Blomberg and many of his fellow officers were recruited from the Prussian nobility and regarded the SA as a plebeian rabble that threatened the army's traditional high status in German society. He was now a dictator. On 1 April 1933, the Nazi Party led a nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses across Germany. Updates? [69] Finally, Hammerstein and Mackensen asked that Hindenburg reorganize the government by firing Baron Konstantin von Neurath, Robert Ley, Hermann Gring, Werner von Blomberg, Joseph Goebbels and Richard Walther Darr from the Cabinet. [m] Years later, in November 1945, while being interviewed by psychologist Gustave Gilbert in his cell during the Nuremberg trials, Gring angrily justified the killings to Gilbert, "It's a damn good thing I wiped them out, or they would have wiped us out!"[85]. 9. What were the consequences of the Night of the Long Knives? 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. ultimate power over Germany, whilst maintaining an On 11 April 1945, the US army liberated Buchenwald camp. The army almost unanimously applauded the Night of the Long Knives, even though the generals Kurt von Schleicher and Ferdinand von Bredow were among the victims. The destiny of our country is at stake. As chancellor, Hitler did not command the army, which remained under the formal leadership of Hindenburg, a highly respected veteran field marshal. info)), or the Rhm purge (German: Rhm-Putsch), also called Operation Hummingbird (German: Unternehmen Kolibri), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Fearing that the paramilitary SA had become too powerful, Hitler ordered his elite SS guards to murder the organization's leaders, including Ernst Rhm. Over 150 people were murdered and hundreds more were arrested. However, soon after the purge Hitler himself would name the events the "Night of the long knives" in a public speech on 13 July 1934 defending the actions (despite the violence taking place over several days). Having earlier imprisoned or exiled prominent Social Democrats and Communists, Hitler used the occasion to move against conservatives he considered unreliable. By the end of May 1934, Hitler had been chancellor for 16 months and dictator for 14 (under the Enabling Act of March 24, 1933), but two obstacles to his absolute power remained. Terror and intimidation became one of the main ways that the Nazis sought to control or suppress their opposition, and Germans in general. Shortly after Hindenburgs death, Hitler announced that offices of the chancellor and the president were to be combined to create one position, the Fhrer and chancellor. Many of those that were harassed by the SA and the SS or imprisoned in camps were terrified to speak out about their ordeal fearing that they would be further abused or re-imprisoned. Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen only narrowly escaped inclusion among the victims, and he was dismissed from the vice-chancellorship three days later (July 3). It was a mass murder planned by the SS for the SA and their members. , issuing the Act for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service on the 7 April 1933. On the night of June 30, 1934, Rhm and many more leaders of the SA were shot by members of Heinrich Himmlers SS (Schutzstaffeln; German: Protective Echelon). To ensure quality for our reviews, only customers who have purchased this resource can review it . As such, the Nazis consolidation of power relied on maintaining the illusion of a stable democracy. On 13 July 1934 the Reichstag A telegram purportedly from the ailing Hindenburg, Germany's highly revered military hero, expressed his "profoundly felt gratitude", and congratulated Hitler for "nipping treason in the bud",[61] although Hermann Gring later admitted during the Nuremberg trials that the telegram was never seen by Hindenburg, and was actually written by the Nazis. [4] The violent confrontations between the two contributed to the destabilization of the Weimar Republic. , One key example of an event posed as moderate was the Night of Long Knives. If passed, the law would establish the conditions needed for dictatorial rule. On 15 April 1945, Bergen-Belsen camp was liberated by the British Army. Blomberg, Hitler and Goebbels. 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. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. He also wanted to appease leaders of the Reichswehr, the German military, who feared and despised the SA as a potential rival, in particular because of Rhm's ambition to merge the army and the SA under his own leadership. Omissions? "A chancellor", he wrote, "sentences and shoots members of his own private army! They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. isabellaaellis. This hysteria helped to turn the public against the communists, one of the Nazis main opponents, and 4000 people were imprisoned. Wiskemann, Elizabeth, "The Night of the Long Knives", This page was last edited on 9 April 2023, at 02:08. The support of respected individuals such as von Papen and Hindenburgs son, Oskar von Hindenburg, gave the Nazis further legitimacy for these actions. This also lead to the Oath Of Loyalty which was. Hitler ordered both Heines and his partner taken outside the hotel and shot. [32] Blomberg and General Walther von Reichenau, the army's liaison to the party, gave it to him by expelling Rhm from the German Officers' League. [8], On 6 July 1933, at a gathering of high-ranking Nazi officials, Hitler declared the success of the National Socialist, or Nazi, seizure of power. Following the Enabling Law, much of this harassment and imprisonment was legal. It targeted potential threats to Hitler's power, particularly within the NSDAP's fast-growing and politically vocal paramilitary wing, the Sturmabteilung or SA. [68] Besides working for the rehabilitation of Schleicher and Bredow, Hammerstein and Mackensen sent a memo to Hindenburg on 18 July setting out in considerable detail the circumstances of the murders of the two generals and noted that Papen had barely escaped. Night Of The Long Knives: Hitler's Purge Of The Nazi Party "[35] Having heard nothing in the allotted time, they returned to Rhm's cell at 14:50 to find him standing, with his bare chest puffed out in a gesture of defiance. [56] Germany's legal establishment further capitulated to the regime when the country's leading legal scholar, Carl Schmitt, wrote an article defending Hitler's 13 July speech. You were murdered June 30-July 2, 1934, the Night of the Long Knives. Hitler and the rest of the Nazi leadership disagreed with their approach. 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. [3] It established Hitler as the supreme administrator of justice of the German people, as he put it in his 13 July speech to the Reichstag. For the full article, see Night of the Long Knives . The 'Night of the Long Knives' is a name given to an internal purge within the National Socialist movement in mid-1934. retrospectively The Enabling Law allowed them to do this under the guise of legality. [1] More than a thousand perceived opponents were arrested. 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. Zanu PF's Night of the Long Knives - Nehanda Radio The SS found Breslau SA leader Edmund Heines in bed with an unidentified eighteen-year-old male SA senior troop leader. Let the nation know that its existence which depends on its internal order and security cannot be threatened with impunity by anyone! Religion and The Bloody Chamber. A poster from the March 1933 elections. Officially 85; estimates range up to 1,000. Not content solely with the leadership of the SA, Rhm lobbied Hitler to appoint him Minister of Defence, a position held by the conservative General Werner von Blomberg. The crowd, which included party members and many SA members fortunate enough to escape arrest, shouted its approval. The Bill passed by 444 votes for to 94 against on the 24 March 1933. 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. He dismissed seven ministers - one-third of the cabinet - and . By early 1934, this vision directly conflicted with Hitler's plan to consolidate power and expand the Reichswehr. However, this power was limited, as the Nazis were just one party in a three party 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. "[14], Despite such hostility between the brownshirts and the regular army, Blomberg and others in the military saw the SA as a source of raw recruits for an enlarged and revitalized army. On 17 June 1934, conservative demands for Hitler to act came to a head when Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, confidant of the ailing Hindenburg, gave a speech at Marburg University warning of the threat of a "second revolution. He took seriously the socialist promise of National Socialism and demanded that Hitler and the other party leaders initiate wide-ranging socialist reform in Germany. [75] Lutze did little to assert the SA's independence in the coming years, and the organization lost its power in Germany. Hitler travelled to Munich by plane with . The Night of the Long Knives - Jewish Virtual Library [27] While von Papen's resignation as vice-chancellor would not have threatened Hitler's position, it would have nonetheless been an embarrassing display of independence from a leading conservative. [41], The regime did not limit itself to a purge of the SA. On the 28 February 1933, President Hindenburg signed the Emergency Decree for the Protection of the German People. [21] By the beginning of June everything was set and all that was needed was permission from Hitler. [40] Those not immediately executed were taken back to the Leibstandarte barracks at Lichterfelde, given one-minute "trials", and shot by a firing squad. 15 Apr 2023. The undersigned Generals and senior officers swear to preserve to the last breath their loyalty to you and the Fatherland. and "[65] Another rare exception was Field Marshal August von Mackensen, who spoke about the murders of Schleicher and Bredow at the annual General Staff Society meeting in February 1935 after they had been rehabilitated by Hitler in early January 1935. 95.7% of the population voted. Under pressure from Hitler, Rhm reluctantly signed a pledge stating that he recognised the supremacy of the Reichswehr over the SA. [25] Neurath's manoeuvre to put pressure on Hitler paid off, with Mussolini agreeing to the request (Neurath was a former ambassador to Italy, and knew Mussolini well). Sixty years ago today, Harold Macmillan carried out a cabinet reshuffle which became known as the 'Night of the Long Knives'. First was his old comrade Ernst Rhm, chief of staff of the SA (Sturmabteilung; German: Assault Division), or Brownshirts. [76], According to Albert Speer, "the Right, represented by the President, the Minister of Justice, and the generals, lined up behind Hitler the strong left wing of the party, represented chiefly by the SA, was eliminated. Whilst the purge focused on the SA, the Nazis also used the event to eliminate other political opponents, such as the former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher. [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. In a new pair Rally Coach this worksheet. [He] died with words "Heil Hitler" on his lips. [66], Rumours about the Night of the Long Knives rapidly spread. Rhm, who was initially