Night of the Long Knives

While the Nazism is seen as a political phenomenon and a unified and cohesive doctrine, the truth is that it emanates from a series of movements that at some point moment diverged, and that Adolf Hitler sought to synthesize into one only for his personal gain, even having to resort to force to to get it.

This is the story of the most significant episode of this search for the thought unique on the part of the German dictator and his clique of collaborators: the so-called “night of the long knives”.

The night of the long knives (in German Nacht der langen Messer, although it is known as Röhm-Putsch, the Röhm coup) was an internal purge of the Nazi party to consolidate its power in the organs of the German state, and get rid of all elements uncomfortable for Hitler's personal power and his clique, carried out from June 30 to July 2, 1934.

This event is directly associated with the fall from grace of the SA (Sturmabteilung) and, more specifically, of his boss Ernst Röhm.

Röhm wanted to continue the National Socialist revolution once he achieved power, something that Hitler did not like. It was convenient, because once the goal of leading Germany was reached, he sought internal order to expand the dominions Germans.

Nazis of the first hour, many of the components of the SA came from the Freikorps who, after defeat in World War I, had fought to prevent the triumph of a revolution communist in Germany (and even beyond the country's borders), cherishing the ideals of the burgeoning far right.

These veterans had participated in all kinds of outrages and street battles against Jewish citizens and their businesses, as well as against the followers of the Communist Party.

Politically - and paradoxically - members of the SA were the most socialist in the world. movement Nazi (let us not forget that they define themselves as national-socialists), so they demanded that fulfilled leftist electoral promises, such as, for example, nationalizing the high aristocracy and put an end to speculation by large banking entities.

Street violence by the SA, which continued even after Hitler's rise to power, threatened to destabilize the regime.

In particular, all this concerned the actual power of the army, with whom the SA maintained a bitter rivalry. In fact, Röhm and his people saw a future in which his militias would replace the army, becoming an armada. popular that would surpass the old ruling Prussian aristocracy, whose weight was felt -and much- in the establishment armed.

The SA and Röhm had another powerful enemy among the Nazi organizations: the SS commanded by Heinrich Himmler, a shadow conspirator who covertly maneuvered much better than Röhm at discovered.

All these enmities, along with the philosophy of Röhm that directly attacked a good part of the social power and of those who had managed to reach the top of that power, allowed to create a weather anti-SA and anti-Röhm that the regime took advantage of to “clean up” its ranks.

The ultimatum of German President Paul von Hindenburg (who died just two months after these events) triggered the offensive against dissidents.

In the early morning of June 30, 1934, Hitler gave the orders for members of the SS and the police to arrest the main leaders of the SA, Röhm among them.

Facing the public, the homosexuality of Röhm -a sexual condition not accepted by the Nazi ideology- to justify the purge as an action against the “immoral”. Like Röhm, some other SA officials were also homosexual, and rumors spread that when they went to arrest them, they found some in full gay “orgies”. It was even said of Röhm, although it is a point on which many historians disagree, adducing this assertion to the propaganda concocted by the SS to justify the coup.

They did not act against the SA as a body, but against its leadership, since the organization at that time had about three million members, too large a number to be able to lock them all up or not provoke incidents.

In the future, the SA would continue to exist, although with much less weight than it had been up to that moment.

After the SA leadership was liquidated, Hitler and his clique turned to the hunt for other troublesome political elements.

This was the case of Vice Chancellor Franz Von Papel, a moderate right-wing politician who had helped raise Hitler to power, thinking that would be a good solution to end a difficult situation, and that from the position immediately below him, he could control you.

Von Papen - who after the war would be tried in Nuremberg, being acquitted - was arrested, although released after a few days and stripped of his position, being sent as ambassador to Austria.

On July 2, the events were explained to the German people, telling them that Röhm and the SA leadership had led an attempted coup that could have been aborted.

Röhm himself had been assassinated in prison, and many other high-ranking SA officials were captured on the same or subsequent days.

The elimination of internal political opponents left Hitler and his closest associates free hands to act on Germany. Now yes, the national-socialism Pan-Germanist spoke in unison through the voice of his führer.

Photos: Fotolia - Farida, Emmeewhite

Themes in Night of the Long Knives