GERMAN ARMY BACKS HITLER

Berlin, Germany • April 11, 1934

On this date in 1934 German Chan­cellor Adolf Hitler sec­retly met with Ger­man War Minis­ter Gen. Wer­ner von Blom­berg, the un­offi­cial repre­sen­ta­tive of the officer corps of the Reichs­wehr (Ger­man armed forces), and reached an agree­ment that sealed the fate of the post-World War I Wei­mar Republic. Behind titu­lar Presi­dent Paul von Hinden­burg’s back, Hitler secured the Army’s sup­port to become German pre­si­dent upon Hinden­burg’s immi­nent demise. Many high-ranking Army officers, like Gen. Ludwig Beck, Chief of the General Staff in 1934, placed their faith in Hitler to restore Germany’s place as a Euro­pean super­power after the forced disar­ma­ment and reduc­tion in size and equip­ment imposed on its armed forces by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.

In return for the Army’s support Hitler promised to rein in his Nazi Party’s brown-clad prae­to­rian guard, the 400,000-strong SA, short for the German Sturm­ab­teilung, or “storm troopers” (not to be confused with the elite SS, or Schutz­staffel). The SA’s thug­gery under its leader and one-time Hitler inti­mate, the portly homo­sexual Ernst Roehm, had greased Hitler’s rise to power. But now it threatened the Reichs­wehr’s position as the true national defense force. Roehm had always seen his SA as a peo­ple’s army and replace­ment for the Reichs­wehr (the SA also supplied him with young boys), whereas Hitler was favor­ably inclined toward the tra­di­tional power groups: the Reichs­wehr with its old-school Prussian traditions, the aristocracy, and the industrial and financial magnates.

Hitler’s cynical betrayal of the SA became known as “The Night of the Long Knives,” a decap­i­ta­tion of the SA leader­ship by another of Hitler’s crea­tions, the Schutz­staffel (“Protec­tion Squad­ron”), which began on June 30, 1934. Not only were Roehm and other in­fluen­tial SA officials elim­i­nated by the SS, but other mis­cel­la­neous figures such as Gen. Kurt von Schleicher, former Ger­man Chan­cellor thought to be scheming with Roehm, and Gregor Strasser, fallen leader of the left-wing faction of the Nazi Party. Hitler jus­ti­fied the mur­der of as many as 100 of his oppo­nents and the arrest of over a thou­sand “muti­neers” in a two-hour speech on July 13 to the Reichs­tag, now short thirteen members who had been killed in the “Roehm Putsch.”

The failing 86-year-old Hindenburg was given a tele­gram drafted by Nazi Party mem­bers, which he duti­fully sent to Hitler, con­gra­tulating him on having “nipped trea­son in the bud” and saving “the Ger­man nation from serious dan­ger.” Upon Hinden­burg’s death on August 2, 1934, Hitler’s cabi­net appointed their leader Fuehrer und Reichs­kanzler, a mer­ger of offices con­firmed in a national pleb­i­scite (89.9 per­cent voting in favor) on August 19, 1934.

Rise and Fall of Sturmabteilung (SA) Chief Ernst Roehm (1887–1934)

Left: Although the German public did not com­plain much when Sturm­ab­teilung (SA) acti­vi­ties were directed against Jews, com­mu­nists, and socialists, by 1934 there was gen­eral con­cern about the level of civic vio­lence for which Roehm’s “Brownshirts” were respon­sible. This photo shows Roehm’s (and by extension, Hitler’s) thug­gish work­force in front of a Jewish shop during the boy­cott of Jewish busi­nesses in Ger­many on April 1, 1933. The sign says: “Germans, Atten­tion! This shop is owned by Jews. Jews damage the German eco­nomy and pay their German em­ployees star­vation wages. The prin­cipal owner is the Jew Nathan Schmidt.”

Right: Hitler posing in Nuremberg’s Main Market Square, 14th-century brick Gothic Frauen­kirche (“Church of Our Lady”) as a back­drop, with SA mem­bers during the Fourth Nazi Party Con­gress, August 1–4, 1929. In the fore­ground, bedecked as usual in medals, is Hermann Goering. Goering, Nazi pro­pa­ganda chief Joseph Goebbels, and Schutz­staffel (SS) head Hein­rich Himm­ler plotted the demise of the SA. Goering per­sonally reviewed the list of detainees who were to be killed in the “Night of the Long Knives” (German, Nacht der langen Messer).

Left: Mustered out of the Kaiser’s army as a cap­tain, Ernst Roehm con­tinued his mili­tary career as an ad­ju­tant in the Reichs­wehr, the much dimin­ished defense force of the Weimar Republic (1919–1935). In 1919 he joined what became the Nazi Party and he and Hitler became close friends. He was tried along with Hitler for par­ti­ci­pa­tion in the Novem­ber 1923 Munich Beer Hall Putsch. From his prison cell in Lands­berg, Bavaria, Hitler gave Roehm per­mis­sion to rebuild the Sturm­ab­teilung any way he saw fit. Under both men the SA grew to num­ber over one mil­lion men who en­gaged in street battles with com­mu­nists and Jews. Hitler is pictured with SA Chief of Staff Roehm at the 1933 Nuremberg Party Rally.

Right: Hitler triumphant. SA troops parade past Hitler during the 1935 Nurem­berg Party Rally. Hitler admitted in a speech to the Reichs­tag on July 13, 1934, that the killings con­nected with the “Night of the Long Knives” had been illegal but claimed a plot had been under­way to over­throw the govern­ment. (For his Reich­stag speech Hitler ordered the German secret police (Gestapo) to pro­duce an “offi­cial” casual­ty list: 61 shot dead, 13 allegedly died resisting arrest, and 3 sui­cides.) A tame Reichs­tag passed a mea­sure that retroactively made the action legal.

Adolf Hitler, Ernst Roehm, and the Night of the Long Knives