Night of the Long Knives

The purge was the result of the political struggle between the Nazi leaders subordinate to Hitler - Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, on the one hand - and Ernst Röhm, the leader of the SA, on the other. Hitler encouraged political infighting amongst his subordinates, and the power of Röhm and his violent organization scared his rivals. Himmler had evidence manufactured to defame Röhm and presented it to Hitler.

While Hitler had been personally rather fond of Röhm he was under pressure to reduce his influence. German military leaders were unhappy with Röhm's proposal that the German army be absorbed into the larger SA, and the industrialists that supported Hitler were concerned over Röhm's socialist leanings. Members of the Nazi party also viewed Röhm and some other SA leaders with distaste because they were homosexuals.

With all these groups arrayed against Röhm, Hitler decided to act. He ordered all the SA leaders to attend a meeting at the Hanselbauer Hotel in Wiesse[?], near Munich. On June 29 Hitler arrived with a strong SS force; he was present as Röhm was arrested, and in the following hours other SA leaders were also arrested, and many of these, were shot out of hand. Apparently Hitler intended to pardon Röhm, but eventually decided to have him die. It is believed that Röhm was offered a chance of suicide but was eventually shot.

On July 3, the Reich government decided upon the Law Regarding Measures of State Self-Defense, consisting of a single article simply declaring the "measures taken" to be "legal State self-defense."

Hitler announced the purge on 13 July, claiming 61 had been executed and 13 shot while resisting arrest. "I become the supreme judge of the German people. I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders".

Victor Lutze became the new leader of the SA. The organization was soon marginalized in the Nazi power structure. Hitler had gained some measure of gratitude from the Reichswehr and had also boosted Himmler and his SS.

A more accurate and complete rendering of the above quotation of Hitler would be: "If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge (oberster Gerichtsherr) of the German people". - from William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1959.

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