By 1934, Adolf
Hitler appeared to have complete control over 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, including Hermann Goering, Joseph
Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, and Ernst Röhm, to compete
with each other for senior positions.
One of the consequences of this policy was that these
men developed a dislike for each other. Röhm was particularly hated because as leader of the Sturm Abteilung (SA)
he had tremendous power and had the potential to remove any one of his
competitors. Goering and Himmler asked Reinhard
Heydrich to assemble a dossier on Röhm. Heydrich, who also feared
him, manufactured evidence that suggested that Röhm had been paid 12 million marks by the French to overthrow Hitler.
Hitler liked Ernst
Röhm and initially refused to believe the dossier provided
by Heydrich. Röhm had been one of his first supporters and, without his ability to obtain
army funds in the early days of the movement, it is unlikely that the
Nazis would have ever become established. The SA under Roehm's leadership
had also played a vital role in destroying the opposition during the
elections of 1932 and 1933.
However, Hitler had his own reasons for wanting Röhm removed. Powerful supporters of Hitler had been complaining about Röhm for some time while his generals were afraid that the SA, a
force of over 3 million men, could absorb the much smaller German Army
into its ranks thus making Röhm would become their overall leader.
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 Roehm's socialistic views
on the economy and his claims that the real revolution had still to
take place. Many people in the party also disapproved of the fact that Röhm and many other
leaders of the SA were homosexuals.
Adolf
Hitler was also aware that Röhm and the SA had the power to remove him. Hermann
Goering and Heinrich Himmler played on this fear by constantly feeding him with new information on
Roehm's proposed coup. Their masterstroke was to claim that Gregor Strasser,
whom Hitler hated, was part of the planned conspiracy against him. With
this news Hitler ordered all the SA leaders to attend a meeting in the
Hanselbauer Hotel in Wiesse.
Meanwhile Goering and Himmler were drawing
up a list of people outside the SA that they wanted killed. The list
included Strasser, Kurt von Schleicher, Hitler's predecessor as chancellor,
and Gustav von Kahr, who crushed the Beer
Hall Putsch in 1923.
On June 29, 1934, Hitler, accompanied by the Schutzstaffel
(SS), arrived at Wiesse, where he personally arrested Ernst
Röhm. During the next 24 hours, 200 other senior SA officers
were arrested on the way to Wiesse. Many were shot as soon as they were
captured, but Hitler decided to pardon Röhm because of his past services to the movement. However, after much pressure
from Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler, Hitler
agreed that Röhm should
die. At first Hitler insisted that Röhm should be allowed to commit suicide but, when he refused, Röhm was shot by two SS men.
Röhm was replaced by Victor Lutze as head of the SA. Lutze was a weak man
and the SA gradually lost its power in Hitler's Germany. The Schutzstaffel
(SS) under the leadership of Himmler grew rapidly during the next few years, replacing the SA as the dominant
force in Germany.
The purge of the SA was kept secret until it was announced
by Adolf Hitler on July
13. 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."
The Night of the Long Knives was a turning point in
the history of Hitler's Germany. Hitler had made it clear that he was
the supreme ruler of Germany who had the right to be judge and jury,
and had the power to decide whether people lived or died.