The Night of the Long Knives commences. On 17 March 1935, 700 pastors of the Confessing Church, which opposed the Nazis, were arrested. Rhm was given the nickname "The Machine Gun King of Bavaria" in the early 1920s, since he was responsible for storing and issuing illegal machine guns to the Bavarian Freikorps units. And let it be known for all time to come that if anyone raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his lot. coalition This fear was Hitler announced that he would occupy this new role. Night of the Long Knives (TV Movie 2005) - IMDb This betrayal is seen by the image of SA members looking fearful in . In two brutal days in 1934 Adolf Hitler and his senior staff would capture and execute Ernst Roehm, the rest of the senior leaders of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and perhaps 1000 other enemies and threats to his control of Germany. Chancellor Adolf Hitler, urged on by Hermann Gring and Heinrich Himmler, ordered a series of political extrajudicial executions . [76], According to Albert 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. 1. The Night of the Long Knives. "[63] 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 GermanPolish relations up to the outbreak of the war. Enraged, Hitler tore the epaulets off the shirt of Obergruppenfhrer August Schneidhuber, the chief of the Munich police, for failing to keep order in the city the previous night. Search ID: CS308675. From 20 August onwards, the NAZI GERMANY: The Night of the Long Knives 1934 - YouTube Night of the Long Knives: Directed by Lance Miccio, Grant Slawson. Not content solely with the leadership of the SA, Rhm lobbied Hitler to appoint him Minister of Defence, a position held by the conservative General Werner von Blomberg. Browse 1,447 happy its friday cartoon stock photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more stock photos and images. 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 Freikorps were nationalistic organizations primarily composed of disaffected, disenchanted, and angry German combat veterans founded by the government in January 1919 to deal with the threat of a Communist revolution when it appeared that there was a lack of loyal troops. [25] During the summit in Venice, Mussolini upbraided Hitler for tolerating the violence, hooliganism and homosexuality of the SA, which Mussolini stated were ruining Hitler's good reputation all over the world. The Night of the Long Knives was a major purge of the SA and Nazi Party. The message of the cartoon "They Salute with Both Hands Now" is that in the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler turned on his previously loyal supporters, the SA, in order to consolidate his position by eliminating the threat of Ernst Rohm and the SA and winning over the Army. By the end of it, Hitler's party had been shaken by a major crisis, and the long knives were put quietly back in their box while all the Fhrer kept out was a wary ear. In his speech to the Reichstag on 13 July justifying his actions, Hitler denounced Schleicher for conspiring with Rhm to overthrow the government; Hitler alleged both were traitors working in the pay of France. 1 Quoted in Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 37-38. This photograph shows the SA as they marched victoriously through the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin the same day. Because their plans for the army conflicted, Rhm's success could come only at Hitler's expense. The Nazis improvised. He stated that 61 people had been executed and 13 had committed suicide. It's Friday Cartoon Images67,818 Happy Friday Stock Photos and Images. Night of the Long Knives - HistoryNet A firefighter in the burnt out ruins of the Reichstag building. [21], Demands for Hitler to constrain the SA strengthened. It did not escape Klemperer's notice that many of the victims had played a role in bringing Hitler to power. Some estimates, however, put the total number killed at between 150 and 200. [19] The British historian Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, who knew Schleicher and his circle well, wrote that Bredow displayed a "lack of discretion" that was "terrifying" as he went about showing the list of the proposed cabinet to anyone who was interested. By June 1934 this had grown to over 3,000,000 members. [38], Although Hitler presented no evidence of a plot by Rhm to overthrow the regime, he nevertheless denounced the leadership of the SA. Goebbels soon radicalised each of these areas, ensuring that they advocated Nazi ideas. "It was plain that there was wide acceptance of the deliberately misleading propaganda put out by the regime. The S.A. were becoming lawless by the early 1930's and were causing some Germans to turn against the Nazis. [25] While Mussolini's criticism did not win Hitler over to acting against the SA, it helped push him in that direction.[25]. In 1934, Hitler purged the SA, killed a bunch of its leaders to eliminate the Strasserist faction and made it a largely irrelevant organization. It's been called "the night of the long knives in the tropics.". It established Hitler as "the supreme leader of the German people", as he put it in his 13 July speech to the Reichstag. [32] Blomberg and General Walther von Reichenau, the army's liaison to the party, gave it to him by expelling Rhm from the German Officers' League. This included Vice-Chancellor Papen and those in his immediate circle. On 27 February 1933, as the campaign moved into its final, frantic days, theReichstag, the German Parliament building, was set on fire and burnt down. Although President Hindenburg and the Reichstag continued to exist, Hitler could now govern by decree. British cartoon by David Low, 1934. The Enabling Law allowed them to do this under the guise of legality. [73] However, despite the rehabilitation of the two murdered officers, the Nazis continued in private to accuse Schleicher of high treason. The night was 29th June 1934, the Night of the Long Knives. "They salute with both hands now." - The London Evening - reddit It was the culmination of a chaotic week in Westminster, which saw furious calls for an overhaul . Hitler orders a violent purge of the top leadership of the Nazi Party paramilitary formation, the SA (Sturmabteilungen; Assault Detachments). [69] The memo went on to demand that Hindenburg punish those responsible, and criticized Blomberg for his outspoken support of the murders of Schleicher and Bredow. "[65] Another rare exception was Field Marshal August von Mackensen, who spoke about the murders of Schleicher and Bredow at the annual General Staff Society meeting in February 1935 after they had been rehabilitated by Hitler in early January 1935. Paul von Hindenburg was the president of the Weimar Republic from the 12 May 1925 until his death on the 2 August 1934. wikipedia notes: The Night of the Long Knives (German: Nacht der langen Messer) or "Operation Hummingbird," was a purge of Adolf Hitler's potential political rivals in the Sturmabteilung (SA). Opposition from outside the Nazi party was being strangled Communists were banned and concentration camps set up. Many members of the SA, including its leader Ernst Rhm, were demanding that the Nazi party carry out its socialist agenda and that the SA take over the army. In this photo, Rhm is talking to a group of SA men, who appear to be listening intently. Now that the NSDAP had seized the reins of power in Germany, he said, it was time to consolidate its control. The Night of the Long Knives - Nazi Germany [6], Hitler's appointment as chancellor, followed by the suppression of all political parties except the Nazis, did not end the violence of the stormtroopers. Selected Clips from the movie Bent that depict the Night of the Long Knives. How useful is the cartoon in helping us to understand the events that occurred during The Night of the Long Knives? The Night of the Long Knives, which was originally published in Amazing Science Fiction Stories in 1960, feels surprisingly current the character names are the most dated-feeling aspect of the story. The Party had generally been aligned with the Social Democrats and Catholic Church during the rise of Nazism, being critical of Nazi ideology, but voting nonetheless for the Enabling Act of 1933 which granted Hitler dictatorial authority. By the end of May 1934, Hitler had been chancellor for 16 . In addition to this, there was a mutual dislike between the traditional conservative elite who maintained many key positions in the government and the army during the first years of the Third Reich and the SA. [g] Many stormtroopers believed in the socialist promise of National Socialism and expected the Nazi regime to take more radical economic action, such as breaking up the vast landed estates of the aristocracy. Adolf Hitler was in a furious temper when his flight touched down in Munich at 4.30am on 30 June 1934. With Greg Stebner. . It will first explore this topic in chronological order, from the Reichstag Fire through to the death of President Hindenburg, and then explore it thematically in the last section. "[67] The extent of the massacre and the relative ubiquity of the Gestapo, however, meant that those who disapproved of the purge generally kept quiet about it. By early 1934, this vision directly conflicted with Hitler's plan to consolidate power and expand the Reichswehr. Add to Favorites. Why did Hitler turn on the SA in the Night of the Long Knives? Hitler then ordered Himmler and Goering to eliminate the threat posed by the leaders 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. You give Hitler power and time by voting HITLER!. Leading members of the leftist-leaning 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 Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. Goebbels became responsible for controlling the national media, film, theatre, arts, and other cultural aspects. A very large number of the Freikorps believed that the November Revolution had betrayed them when Germany was alleged to be on the verge of victory in 1918. Officially 85; estimates range up to 1,000. Select from premium Night Of The Long Knives of the highest quality. It is otherwise known as coordination or Nazification. The loyalty of the SS men would prove useful to both when Hitler finally chose to move against Rhm and the SA. Night of the Long Knives 1. [41] Several leaders of the disbanded Catholic Centre Party were also murdered in the purge. They had defended his meetings, and attacked opponents. The Night of the Long Knives. Give Hitler four years to rebuild it! The SA also ran a violent campaign of terror against any and all opponents of the Nazi regime. Pressured by German army commanders, whose support he would need to become President, Hitler directs the SS to murder SA Chief of Staff Ernst Rhm and his top commanders. I also almost always agree with what his cartoons are saying. info)), or the Rhm purge (German: Rhm-Putsch), also called Operation Hummingbird (German: Unternehmen Kolibri), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. 54 Night Of The Long Knives Premium High Res Photos In Rhm's view, President Hindenburg's appointment of Hitler as chancellor on 30 January 1933, had brought the Nazi Party to power, but had left unfulfilled the party's larger goals. [63], Former Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was in exile in Doorn, Netherlands, was horrified by the purge. At least 85 people died during the purge, although the final death toll may have been in the hundreds,[b][c][d] with high estimates running from 700 to 1,000. Also in 1932, the Nazi critic Carl von Ossietzky would use the term to describe the then unrealised plans for a violent uprising: At the beginning of 1932 the Nazis seemed on the verge of a dictatorship, and the air was full of the stretch of blood. While Rhm's homosexuality did not endear him to conservatives, they were more concerned about his political ambitions. The Nazi adoption of the phrase for an upcoming violent event was well known even to the foreign press, with the 2 August 1932 issue of The Times reporting that: Prominent Nazi leaders have played upon the imaginations of their followers..with such phrases as the night of the long knives and a vengeance for every Nazi killed.[79]. PDF 1. Why did Hitler turn on the SA in the Night of the Long Knives? To take control of cultural policy, the Nazis appointed Joseph Goebbels as Minister for Public Engagement and Propaganda on the 13 March 1933. Many of those killed in the purge were leaders of the SA, the best-known being Rhm himself, the SA's chief of staff and one of Hitler's longtime supporters and allies. [41], The regime did not limit itself to a purge of the SA. by Gring and Himmler, who gave Hitler news of Rhm organising a potential Despite his earlier agreement with Hitler, Rhm still clung to his vision of a new German army with the SA at its core. ", Coincidentally, Hitler had been incarcerated at. Fearing that the paramilitary SA had become too powerful, Hitler ordered his elite SS guards to murder the organization's leaders, including Ernst Rhm. Gestapo officers attached to the SS unit shot Papen's secretary Herbert von Bose without bothering to arrest him first. The Night of the Long Knives - slideshare.net [78], The term "long knives" as a metonym for treachery and violence had been used to describe the Treason of the Long Knives since this incident was recorded in the 9th century Historia Brittonum. An Anglo-Saxon Anecdote: The Real Night of the Long Knives [l] Luise Solmitz, a Hamburg schoolteacher, echoed the sentiments of many Germans when she cited Hitler's "personal courage, decisiveness and effectiveness" in her private diary. Rhm Affair | Holocaust Encyclopedia History Unfolded: US Newspapers and the Holocaust [34], At about 04:30 on 30 June 1934, Hitler and his entourage flew to Munich. 1922 1923 1925 1943 1944 Albert Speer Art Auschwitz autobahn British Pathe Cartoon cartoons Catholic Church Chancellor Dada Denmark Disney Document Documentary Film Final Solution Four Year Plan Goebbels Hindenburg Hitler Holocaust Hyperinflation Jews July Bomb Plot . The destiny of our country is at stake. Several of Hitler's lieutenants feared Rhm's growing power and restlessness, as did Hitler. What does night of the long knives expression mean? [35] Goebbels emphasised this aspect in subsequent propaganda justifying the purge as a crackdown on moral turpitude. [12] Although nicknamed the "Rubber Lion" by some of his critics in the army for his devotion to Hitler, Blomberg was not a Nazi, and therefore represented a bridge between the army and the party. Surrounding this scene, members of the Army and SS stand with their weapons pointing towards the SA members. Gring's personal police battalion also took part in the killings. Hence, the Freikorps were in opposition to the new Weimar Republic, which was born as a result of the November Revolution, and whose founders were contemptuously called "November criminals". In response, Hitler met Blomberg and the leadership of the SA and SS on 28 February 1934. [2] The purge strengthened and consolidated the support of the military for Hitler. British cartoon by David Low, 1934 - SlideServe With Hitler's arrival in Bad Wiessee between 06:00 and 07:00, the SA leadership, still in bed, were taken by surprise. On 1 July, at Hitler's behest, Theodor Eicke, Commandant of the Dachau concentration camp, and his SS adjutant Michael Lippert visited Rhm. The Night of Long Knives, also known as the Rhm Putsch, was the purge of the SA leadership and other political opponents from 30 June 1934 to 2 July 1934. On 24 March 1933, the Enabling Act was passed, allowing Hitler to make laws without the approval of the Reichstag. Upon returning to Berlin, Goebbels telephoned Gring at 10:00 with the codeword Kolibri to let loose the execution squads on the rest of their unsuspecting victims. David Low responded to what became known as the Night of the Long Knives by producing a cartoon that deeply angered Hitler. The Night of the Long Knives - History Place Join MyTutor Squads for free (and fun) help with Maths, Coding & Study Skills. The Night of the Long Knives - History Learning Site He asked, "What would people have said if I had done such a thing? [17] While Hitler did not take immediate action against Rhm for his intemperate outburst, it nonetheless deepened the rift between them. On the 28 February 1933, President Hindenburg signed the Emergency Decree for the Protection of the German People. [33] On 28 June Hitler went to Essen to attend the wedding celebration and reception of Josef Terboven; from there he called Rhm's adjutant at Bad Wiessee and ordered SA leaders to meet with him on 30 June at 11:00. [4] The violent confrontations between the two contributed to the destabilization of the Weimar Republic. [66], Rumours about the Night of the Long Knives rapidly spread. Rhm, who was initially Consumed with rage, Hitler denounced "the worst treachery in world history". [82] However, the term was soon adopted by the Nazis themselves to invoke what they saw as justifiable and necessary measures taken by Germanic peoples against an enemy. Just two months later, on 14 July 1933 the Nazis used the Enabling Act to ban all political parties except the Nazi Party. Additionally, Hitler was uncomfortable with Rhm's outspoken support for a "second revolution" to redistribute wealth. Moreover, it was not just the Reichswehr that viewed the SA as a threat. From the airport they drove to the Bavarian Interior Ministry, where they assembled the leaders of an SA rampage that had taken place in city streets the night before. Hitler told the gathered officials, "The stream of revolution has been undammed, but it must be channelled into the secure bed of evolution. 3. As the leader of the SA, Rhm was seen as a threat to Hitlers power. The undersigned Generals and senior officers swear to preserve to the last breath their loyalty to you and the Fatherland. Courtesy of The Wiener Holocaust Library Collections. The Night of Long Knives, one of most noteworthy events during Hitler's rule, was a purge that occurred on the 30th June 1934. Night of the Long Knives - slideshare.net At first, its architects seemed split on how to handle the event. [48] Eicke and Lippert then shot Rhm, killing him. The Night of the Long Knives - Jewish Virtual Library However, it did so under the guise of legality, and protecting the German people and their democracy. The atmosphere of terror that had followed the Reichstag Fire, and Hindenburgs and von Papens support, made the proposal seem legitimate and, to some, necessary. "[14], Despite such hostility between the brownshirts and the regular army, Blomberg and others in the military saw the SA as a source of raw recruits for an enlarged and revitalized army. Finally, Hitler used the purge to attack or eliminate German critics of his new regime, especially those loyal to Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, as well as to settle scores with old enemies.[a]. ", "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. Facebook Twitter Email Copy Link. The Night of Long Knives - The Holocaust Explained A few weeks after the purge, Hitler rewarded the SS . Terror and intimidation became one of the main ways that the Nazis sought to control or suppress their opposition, and Germans in general. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2020-03-19 01:01:54 Boxid IA1794905 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier urn:oclc:record:1150935398 Mussolini used the affair occasioned by the murder of Giacomo Matteotti as an example of the kind of trouble unruly followers could cause a dictator. How did the Night of the Long Knives help to create a dictatorship out of a democracy? Carried out primarily by the SS and the Gestapo, over 150 people were murdered and hundreds more were arrested. 54 Richard J. Evans At the same time, the apparatus of the police state began to look a good deal less coercive than it had done in the 1950s. The leaders of the SA were ordered to attend a meeting at a hotel in Bad Wiesse, Bavaria. June 30, 1934 - July 12, 1934 News articles about the arrest and murder of leadership within the SA, as well as political opponents of the Nazis ("Night of the Long Knives"). Hitler wanted to consolidate his power and settle old scores. [56] Germany's legal establishment further capitulated to the regime when the country's leading legal scholar, Carl Schmitt, wrote an article defending Hitler's 13 July speech. [m] Years later, in November 1945, while being interviewed by psychologist Gustave Gilbert in his cell during the Nuremberg trials, Gring angrily justified the killings to Gilbert, "It's a damn good thing I wiped them out, or they would have wiped us out! [49] In 1957, the German authorities tried Lippert in Munich for Rhm's murder. 3. Hitler_Steps_to_dictatorship - johndclare.net By 1934 there were more than a million of them. In Berlin, on Gring's personal orders, an armed SS unit stormed the Vice-Chancellery. However, to gain power Adolf Hitler built up a close and friendly relationship with Germany's industrialists. The Night of Long Knives was the purge of the SA leadership and other political opponents from the 30 June 1934 to the 2 July 1934. They had placed many in the first Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dismissed seven members of his Cabinet, one-third of the total. On the 5 March 1933, the elections took place, with an extremely high turnout of 89%.