Night of the Long Knives

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In late 1934–early 1935, Werner von Fritsch and Werner von Blomberg, who had been shamed into joining Hammerstein and Mackensen's rehabilitation campaign, successfully pressured Hitler into rehabilitating Generals von Schleicher and von Bredow. Fritsch and Blomberg suddenly now claimed at the end of 1934 that as army officers they could not stand the exceedingly violent press attacks on Schleicher and Bredow that had been going on since July, which portrayed them as the vilest traitors, working against the Fatherland in the pay of France. In a speech given on January 3, 1935, at the Berlin State Opera, Hitler stated that Schleicher and Bredow had been shot "in error" on the basis of false information, and that their names were to be restored to the honour rolls of their regiments at once. Hitler's speech was not reported in the German press, but the army was appeased by the speech. However, despite the rehabilitation of the two murdered officers, the Nazis continued in private to accuse Schleicher of high treason. During a trip to Warsaw in January 1935, Göring told Jan Szembek that Schleicher had urged Hitler in January 1933 to reach an understanding with France and the Soviet Union, and partition Poland with the latter, and Hitler had Schleicher killed out of disgust with the alleged advice. During a meeting with Polish Ambassador Józef Lipski on May 22, 1935, Hitler told Lipski that Schleicher was "rightfully murdered, if only because he had sought to maintain the Rapallo Treaty." The statements that Schleicher had been killed because he wanted to partition Poland with the Soviet Union were later published in the Polish White Book of 1939, which was a collection of diplomatic documents detailing German–Polish relations up to the outbreak of the war.

Former Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was in exile in Doorn, Netherlands, was horrified by the purge. He asked, "What would people have said if I had done such a thing?" 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!"

Hitler named Viktor Lutze to replace Röhm as head of the SA. Hitler ordered him, as one prominent historian described it, to put an end to "homosexuality, debauchery, drunkenness, and high living" in the SA. Hitler expressly told him to stop SA funds from being spent on limousines and banquets, which he considered evidence of SA extravagance. Lutze did little to assert the SA's independence in the coming years, and the SA lost its power in Germany. Membership in the organization plummeted from 2.9 million in August 1934 to 1.2 million in April 1938.

According to 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."

Röhm was purged from all Nazi propaganda, such as The Victory of Faith, the Leni Riefenstahl film about the 1933 Nuremberg rally, which showed Röhm frequently alongside Hitler. A copy of the original film, before Röhm was edited out, was found in the 1980s in the German Democratic Republic's film archives.

Following the purge, "Night of the Long Knives" entered English as an expression for treacherous violence or the ruthless removal of opponents or unwanted associates.

The Night of the Long Knives represented a triumph for Hitler, and a turning point for the German government. It established Hitler as "the supreme leader of the German people", as he put it in his July 13 speech to the Reichstag. Hitler formally adopted this title in April 1942, thus placing himself de jure and as de factoabove the reach of the law. Centuries of jurisprudence proscribing extrajudicial killings were swept aside. Despite some initial efforts by local prosecutors to take legal action against those who carried out the murders, which the regime rapidly quashed, it appeared that no law would constrain Hitler in his use of power. Years later, in November 1945, while being interviewed by psychologist Gustave Gilbert in his cell during the Nuremberg trials, Göring angrily justified the killings to Gilbert, "It's a damn good thing I wiped them out, or they would have wiped us out!"

• Victims of the Night of the Long Knives
• White Book of the Purge, a 1934 book about the Night of the Long Knives
• The Damned (1969 film), a film that dramatizes the Night of the Long Knives
• Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass
• Glossary of Nazi Germany
• List of Nazi Party leaders and officials

Informational notes

1. ^ Papen, nonetheless, remained in his position although people quite close to him were murdered, including Edgar Jung, the writer of the Marburg speech Papen had given which was critical of the Nazi regime.
2. ^ "At least eighty-five people are known to have been summarily killed without any formal legal proceedings being taken against them. Göring alone had over a thousand people arrested." Evans 2005, p. 39.
3. ^ "The names of eighty-five victims [exist], only fifty of them SA men. Some estimates, however, put the total number killed at between 150 and 200." Kershaw 1999, p. 517.
4. ^ Johnson places the total at 150 killed. Johnson 1991, p. 298.
5. ^ In the November 1932 parliamentary elections, the Nazi Party won 196 seats in the Reichstag out of a possible 584. The Nazis were the largest party in the legislature but were still considerably short of a majority.
6. ^ Through the Enabling Act of 1933 Hitler abrogated the nation's legislative power and was thereafter effectively able to rule through promulgation of decrees that avoided the legislative processes of the Weimar Constitution
7. ^ "The most general theory—that National Socialism was a revolution of the lower middle class—is defensible but inadequate." Schoenbaum 1997, pp. 35–42.
8. ^ "But in origin the National Socialists had been a radical anti-capitalist party, and this part of the National Socialist programme was not only taken seriously by many loyal Party members but was of increasing importance in a period of economic depression. How seriously Hitler took the socialist character of National Socialism was to remain one of the main causes of disagreement and division within the Nazi party up to the summer of 1934." Bullock 1958, p. 80.
9. ^Frei 1987, p. 126.
10. ^ Coincidentally, Hitler had been incarcerated at Stadelheim Prison for about five weeks following the Nazi's disruption of an opposing party's political rally in January 1921.
11. ^ Gürtner also declared in cabinet that the measure did not in fact create any new law, but simply confirmed the existing law. If that was indeed true then, as a legal matter, the law was entirely unnecessary and redundant. Kershaw 1999, p. 518
12. ^ "It was plain that there was wide acceptance of the deliberately misleading propaganda put out by the regime." Kershaw 2001, p. 87.
13. ^Cite error: The named reference Evans p. 72 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "Evans p72" is not used in the content (see the help page).

Citations

1. ^ Larson, Erik (2011) In the Garden of Beasts New York: Broadway Paperbacks p. 314 ISBN 978-0-307-40885-3; citing:
   – memoranda in the W. E. Dodd papers;
   – Wheeler-Bennett, John W. (1953) The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918–1945, London: Macmillan p. 323;
   – Gallo, Max (1972) The Night of the Long Knives New York: Harper & Row, pp. 256, 258;
   – Rürup, Reinhard (ed.) (1996) Topography of Terror: SS, Gestapo and Reichssichherheitshauptamt on the "Prinz-Albrecht-Terrain", A Documentation Berlin: Verlag Willmuth Arenhovel, pp. 53, 223;
   – KershawHubris p. 515;
   – Evans (2005), pp. 34–36;
   – Strasser, Otto and Stern, Michael (1943) Flight from Terror New York: Robert M. McBride, pp. 252, 263;
   – Gisevius, Hans Bernd (1947) To the Bitter End New York: Houghton Mifflin, p. 153;
   – Metcalfe, Phillip (1988) 1933 Sag Harbor, New York: Permanent Press, p. 269
2. ^ Evans 2005, p. 39.
3. ^Johnson 1991, pp. 298–299.
4. ^Kershaw 1999, p. 515.
5. ^Reiche 2002, pp. 120–121.
6. ^Toland 1976, p. 266.
7. ^Shirer 1960, p. 165.
8. ^Evans 2005, p. 23.
9. ^Kershaw 1999, p. 501.
10. ^Kershaw 1999, p. 435.
11. ^Evans 2005, p. 20.
12. ^Frei 1987, p. 13.
13. ^Evans 2005, p. 24.
14. ^Wheeler-Bennett 2005, pp. 712–739.
15. ^Bessel 1984, p. 97.
16. ^Evans 2005, p. 22.
17. ^Wheeler-Bennett 2005, p. 726.
18. ^Evans 2005, p. 26.
19. ^Collier & Pedley 2005, p. 33.
20. ^ Wheeler-Bennett 1967, pp. 315–316.
21. ^Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 316.
22. ^ Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 317.
23. ^Evans 2005, p. 29.
24. ^Williams 2001, p. 61.
25. ^Wheeler-Bennett 1967, pp. 317–318.
26. ^ Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 318.
27. ^Von Papen 1953, pp. 308–312.
28. ^Von Papen 1953, p. 309.
29. ^Wheeler-Bennett 2005, pp. 319–320.
30. ^ Evans 2005, p. 31.
31. ^Evans 2005, p. 30.
32. ^Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 321.
33. ^O'Neill 1967, pp. 72–80.
34. ^Bullock 1958, p. 165.
35. ^Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 322.
36. ^ Shirer 1960, p. 221.
37. ^Bullock 1958, p. 166.
38. ^ Kershaw 1999, p. 514.
39. ^ Evans 2005, p. 32.
40. ^Cook & Bender 1994, pp. 22, 23.
41. ^Cook & Bender 1994, p. 23.
42. ^
43. ^Evans 2005, p. 34.
44. ^Evans 2005, pp. 33–34.
45. ^Spielvogel 1996, pp. 78–79.
46. ^ Evans 2005, p. 36.
47. ^The Waffen-SS 2002.
48. ^United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
49. ^Evans 2005, p. 33.
50. ^Kershaw 2008, p. 312.
51. ^
52. ^Kershaw 1999, p. 517.
53. ^{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
54. ^Shirer 1960, p. 226.
55. ^Fest 1974, p. 469.
56. ^Fest 1974, p. 468.
57. ^Evans 2005, p. 72.
58. ^Kershaw 1999, p. 519.
59. ^
60. ^
61. ^Roderick Stackelberg, Sally A. Winkle. The Nazi Germany Sourcebook: An Anthology of Texts. p. 173
62. ^Fest 1974, p. 470.
63. ^Gallo 1972, p. 277.
64. ^ Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 327.
65. ^Collier & Pedley 2005, pp. 33–34.
66. ^Höhne 1970, pp. 113–118.
67. ^Schwarzmüller 1995, pp. 299–306.
68. ^Klemperer 1998, p. 74.
69. ^ Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 328.
70. ^ Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 329.
71. ^Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 330.
72. ^Wheeler-Bennett 1967, pp. 329–330.
73. ^ Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 336.
74. ^ Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 337.
75. ^ Macdonogh 2001, pp. 452–453
76. ^ Kershaw 1999, p. 520.
77. ^Evans 2005, p. 40.
78. ^Speer 1995, pp. 90–93.
79. ^Trimborn, Jürgen (2008) Leni Riefenstahl: A Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-1-4668-2164-4.
80. ^
81. ^Gilbert 1995, p. 79.

Bibliography

Further reading

• Wiskemann, Elizabeth. "The Night of the Long Knives." History Today (June 1964) 14#6 pp 371–380.

• The History Place – Triumph of Hitler – Night of the Long Knives
• Shortly about “Night of Long Knives”
• German Culture – The Third Reich – Consolidation of Power
• The German Embassy in the United States – The Era of National SocialismArchived November 20, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
• The Holocaust Museum – The Third Reich
• Hitler's Bodyguard (2008–09 British documentary TV series). See Episode 4 ("Night of the Long Knives") on Amazon Prime Video. See IMDb page for that episode.

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