Night of the Long Knives
Kurt Daluege, chief of the Ordnungspolizei; Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS; and Ernst Röhm, head of the SA, August 1933 | |
| Native name | Unternehmen Kolibri |
|---|---|
| Date | 30 June to 2 July 1934 (three days) |
| Location | Nazi Germany |
| Also known as | Operation Hummingbird, Röhm Putsch (by the Nazis), The Blood Purge |
| Type | Purge |
| Cause |
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| Organised by | |
| Participants | |
| Outcome |
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| Casualties | |
| Officially 85; estimates range up to 1,000.[1] | |
The Night of the Long Knives (German: Nacht der langen Messer, pronounced [ˈnaxt dɛɐ̯ ˈlaŋən ˈmɛsɐ] ⓘ), also called the Röhm purge or Operation Hummingbird (German: Aktion Kolibri), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Chancellor Adolf Hitler, urged on by Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, ordered a series of extrajudicial executions intended to consolidate his power and alleviate the German military's concerns about the role of Ernst Röhm and the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazis' paramilitary organization, known colloquially as "Brownshirts". Nazi propaganda presented the murders as a preventive measure against an alleged imminent coup by the SA under Röhm—the so-called Röhm Putsch.
The primary instruments of Hitler's action were the Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary force under Himmler and its Security Service (SD), and the Gestapo (secret police) under Reinhard Heydrich, which between them carried out most of the killings. Göring's personal police battalion also took part. Many of those killed in the purge were leaders of the SA, the best-known being Röhm himself, the SA's chief of staff and one of Hitler's longtime supporters and allies. Leading members of the Strasserist faction of the Nazi Party, including its leader Gregor Strasser, were also killed, as were establishment conservatives and anti-Nazis, such as former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and Bavarian politician Gustav Ritter von Kahr, who had helped suppress Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. The murders of SA leaders were also intended to improve the image of the Hitler government with a German public increasingly critical of thuggish SA tactics.
Hitler saw the SA's independence and its members' penchant for street violence as a direct threat to his newly gained political power. 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 Röhm's ambition to merge the army and the SA under his leadership. Additionally, Hitler was uncomfortable with Röhm's outspoken support for a "second revolution" to redistribute wealth. In Röhm's view, President Paul von Hindenburg's appointment of Hitler as chancellor on 30 January 1933 had brought the Nazi Party to power but had left the party's larger goals unfulfilled. Finally, Hitler used the purge to attack or eliminate German critics of his new regime, especially those loyal to Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, and to settle scores with enemies.[a]
At least 85 people died during the purge, although the final death toll may have been higher,[b][c][d] with some estimates running from 700 to 1,000.[1] More than 1,000 perceived opponents were arrested.[2] The purge strengthened and consolidated the military's support for Hitler. 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. The Night of the Long Knives marked Hitler's absolute consolidation of judicial power and was a turning point in the establishment of Nazi Germany.[3] Hitler went on to call himself "the administrator of justice of the German people" in his speech to the Reichstag on July 13, 1934.
- ^ a b 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;
– Kershaw Hubris 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 - ^ Evans 2005, p. 39.
- ^ Johnson 1991, pp. 298–299.
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