Consumed with rage, Hitler denounced "the worst treachery in world history". Hitler ordered him, as one prominent historian described it, to put an end to "homosexuality, debauchery, drunkenness, and high living" in the SA. Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934. [63] Since Schleicher was a good friend of the French Ambassador Andr Franois-Poncet, and because of his reputation for intrigue, the claim that Schleicher was working for France had enough surface plausibility for most Germans to accept it. Night of the Long Knives 30 June 1934. On 30 June 1934 these tensions came to a head. In conclusion, this lesson plan on Night of the Long Knives Rohm Source Investigation, provides an in-depth examination of one of the most controversial events in modern history. Night of the Long Knives: newspaper coverage, Third Reich: The Rhm affair and the Night of the Long Knives, This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/event/Night-of-the-Long-Knives, Spartacus Educational - Night of the Long Knives, History Learning Site - The Night of the Long Knives, Alpha History - The Night of the Long Knives, German soldiers swearing allegiance to Adolf Hitler. The long term impact brought forth by the consequences or legacy of the Nazi party included a population decrease and an increase in deaths. The Night of Long Knives occurred on June 30, 1934. This act legalised removing anyone of non-Ayran descent from the civil service. On 19 April 1943, the beginning of the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto was met with organised armed resistance by its residents. : Why did Hitler order the massacre of hundreds of Nazis. [28] Hitler had hesitated for months in moving against Rhm, in part due to Rhm's visibility as the leader of a national militia with millions of members. Night of the Long Knives, (June 30, 1934) Purge of Nazi leaders by Adolf Hitler. "It was plain that there was wide acceptance of the deliberately misleading propaganda put out by the regime. . On 1 April 1933, the Nazi Party led a nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses across Germany. Rhm's contempt for the party's bureaucracy angered Hess. Under pressure from Hitler, Rhm reluctantly signed a pledge stating that he recognised the supremacy of the Reichswehr over the SA. What were Hitler's and the Nazi Party's ideas? The SA were dramatically reduced in size, dropping by 40% to 1.8 million by 1935. The decree also removed basic personal freedoms, such as the freedom of speech, the right to own property, and the right to trial before imprisonment. While many officers were impressed by Hitler's promises of an expanded army, a return to conscription, and a more aggressive foreign policy, the army continued to guard its traditions of independence during the early years of the Nazi regime. Hess, present among the assembled, even volunteered to shoot the "traitors". The Night of the Long Knives | Facing History & Ourselves Night of the Long Knives, in German history, purge of Nazi leaders by Adolf Hitler on June 30, 1934. [h], The action Hitler took would not only defang Rhm and the SA as a potential threat to Hitler's personal control of the Nazi Party, but would also serve to strengthen his relationship with the Wehrmacht the German armed forces which had long considered the SA to be their primary rival, the SA at times outnumbering the military in manpower.[10]. Night of the Long Knives - Consolidation of power - WJEC - BBC 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. This included Vice-Chancellor Papen and those in his immediate circle. Local governments proved more difficult to infiltrate, and even at the end of 1945 only 60% of local mayors were Nazi Party members. Second, German Pres. [15] In January 1934, Rhm presented Blomberg with a memorandum demanding that the SA replace the regular army as the nation's ground forces, and that the Reichswehr become a training adjunct to the SA.[16]. [69] The memo asked that Hindenburg instead create a directorate to rule Germany, comprising the Chancellor (who was not named), General Werner von Fritsch as Vice-Chancellor, Hammerstein as Minister of Defense, the Minister for National Economy (also unnamed), and Rudolf Nadolny as Foreign Minister. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Night of the Long Knives (1962) - Wikipedia Quick Reference. The Night of the Long Knives, June 1934 - gcsehistory.com By the end of May 1934, Hitler had been chancellor for 16 months and dictator for 14 (under the Enabling Act of March 24, 1933), but two obstacles to his absolute power remained. [11] Rhm saw violence as a means to political ends. The Nazis used the guise of moderationto conceal their rapid consolidation of power. Leading officers in the SS were shown falsified evidence on 24 June that Rhm planned to use the SA to launch a plot against the government (Rhm-Putsch). 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. The Liberals' future leader, Jeremy Thorpe, mocked Macmillan by observing . After Hitler and most of the army officers had left, however, Rhm declared that he would not take instructions from "the ridiculous corporal" a demeaning reference to Hitler. If that was indeed true then, as a legal matter, the law was entirely unnecessary and redundant. Fearing that the paramilitary SA had become too powerful, Hitler ordered his elite SS guards to murder the organizations leaders, including Ernst Rhm. Rhm was very critical of Hitler's policies of working with rich businessmen and the army. In this photo, Rhm is talking to a group of SA men, who appear to be listening intently. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini sent four army divisions up the Brenner Pass and to the Carinthian frontier, and the Italian press vehemently denounced German imperialism and bad faith. The Nazis also took steps to ensure they couldnt be openly opposed in the press. Lippert was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison.[50]. On 17 June 1934, conservative demands for Hitler to act came to a head when Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, confidant of the ailing Hindenburg, gave a speech at Marburg University warning of the threat of a "second revolution. [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. Once the Enabling Law was in place, the Nazis could bypass the Reichstag and rule by decree seemingly creating laws that stabilised Germany and got rid of its internal enemies. The Nazis secured 43.9% of the vote, an improvement of almost 10% on the previous Novembers election. As the stormtroopers were hustled off to prison, Hitler assembled a large group of SS and regular police, and departed for the Hanselbauer Hotel in Bad Wiessee, where Ernst Rhm and his followers were staying.[36]. Significance of the Night of the Long Knives for Hitler's Power [20] Although Schleicher was in fact unimportant by 1934, increasingly wild rumours that he was scheming with Rhm to re-enter the corridors of power helped stoke the sense of crisis. The widows of the murdered SA leaders received between 1,000 and 1,600 marks a month, depending on the rank of the murdered person. What were the consquence of the night of the long knives June - Answers [63], Former Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was in exile in Doorn, Netherlands, was horrified by the purge. [73] However, despite the rehabilitation of the two murdered officers, the Nazis continued in private to accuse Schleicher of high treason. However, there were also other events which helped Hitler in achieving the position of a dictator. The speed and scale of the reshuffle caused it to be associated by its critics with the 1934 Night of the Long Knives in Nazi Germany . He took seriously the socialist promise of National Socialism and demanded that Hitler and the other party leaders initiate wide-ranging socialist reform in Germany. And realize that this is Germany that was a Rechtsstaat, the Germans always say, a state with laws. In response, Hitler met Blomberg and the leadership of the SA and SS on 28 February 1934. persecution isabellaaellis. Hitler remained indecisive and uncertain about just what precisely he wanted to do when he left for Venice to meet Benito Mussolini on 15 June. On 30 April 1945, Hitler took his own life in his bunker underneath the Reich chancellery in Berlin. 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. concentration camp Gleichschaltung was applied across every possible aspect of government policy. Free Essay: Night of The long Knives - 597 Words | Studymode [45] Then, on 13 July 1934,[52] Hitler justified the purge in a nationally broadcast speech to the Reichstag: If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this. 15 Apr 2023. By early 1934, this vision directly conflicted with Hitler's plan to consolidate power and expand the Reichswehr. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dismissed seven members of his Cabinet, one-third of the total. ", Night of the Long Knives (disambiguation), The History Place Triumph of Hitler Night of the Long Knives, German Culture The Third Reich Consolidation of Power, The German Embassy in the United States The Era of National Socialism, National Political Institutes of Education, National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), National Socialist German Doctors' League, National Socialist League for Physical Exercise (NSRL), Bulgarian National Socialist Workers Party, German National Socialist Workers' Party (Czechoslovakia), Finnish National Socialist Labor Organisation, German National Movement in Liechtenstein, National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands, National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark, Nationalist Liberation Alliance (Argentina), South African Gentile National Socialist Movement, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Night_of_the_Long_Knives&oldid=1148917121, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from June 2022, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing explicitly cited English-language text, Pages using Sister project links with wikidata mismatch, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Operation Hummingbird, Rhm Putsch (by the Nazis), The Blood Purge. Kurt von Schleicher's stepdaughter received 250 marks per month up to the age of 21, and the son of General von Bredow received a monthly allowance of 150 marks.[59]. During the years of the rise of the Nazi Party, the SA had been instrumental in helping the party to gain support. Blomberg, Hitler and Goebbels. The strike, which will end just before midnight, comes after a High Court . Gring's personal police battalion also took part in the killings. "[35] Having heard nothing in the allotted time, they returned to Rhm's cell at 14:50 to find him standing, with his bare chest puffed out in a gesture of defiance. Excellency, save Germany for the fourth time! [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. The SA and the SS had also been on a month long campaign of violence to scare or imprison other opponents to the party. The SA also ran a violent campaign of terror against any and all opponents of the Nazi regime. Hitler's desire to consolidate his power and settle old scores, Desire of Ernst Rhm and the SA to continue "the National Socialist revolution" versus Hitler's need for relative social stability so that the economy could be refocused to rearmament and the German people acclimated to the need for expansion and war, Hitler's need to bring the Reichswehr under his control, Significant reduction in the regime's opposition, Strengthening of relationship between Hitler and the military. Chancellor Adolf Hitler, urged on by Hermann Gring and Heinrich Himmler, ordered a series of political extrajudicial executions intended to consolidate his power and alleviate the concerns of the German military about the role of Ernst Rhm and the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazis' paramilitary organization, known colloquially as "Brownshirts". The Third Reich was henceforth a totalitarian structure with one man as head of state, commander in chief, and leader of the only political party. 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. Rhm is pictured here on the left next to Rudolf Hess, who was the deputy Fhrer from 1933-1941. Hitler's task would not be simple, however, as the SA made up a large part of Nazism's most devoted followers. Having earlier imprisoned or exiled prominent Social Democrats and Communists, Hitler used the occasion to move against conservatives he considered unreliable. Hitler told the gathered officials, "The stream of revolution has been undammed, but it must be channelled into the secure bed of evolution. [24] Before Hitler left, and at the request of Presidential State Secretary Otto Meiner, Foreign Minister Baron Konstantin von Neurath ordered the German Ambassador to Italy Ulrich von Hassell without Hitler's knowledge to ask Mussolini to tell Hitler that the SA was blackening Germany's good name. illusion [2] The purge strengthened and consolidated the support of the military for Hitler. This would allow them to rule unopposed and unhindered by coalition governments. 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. 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. [41] Several leaders of the disbanded Catholic Centre Party were also murdered in the purge. [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. 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. [72] 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. Following the purge, the Nazis sculpted the media coverage to portray the event as a preventative measure against a revolutionary, violent, and uncontrollable force, rather than a series of political murders. The Nazis used the SA and the newly expanded SS to harass and imprison any potential opponents of the Nazi Party. Hitler saw the independence of the SA and the penchant of its members for street violence as a direct threat to his newly gained political power. [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. To ensure quality for our reviews, only customers who have purchased this resource can review it . [69], Hindenburg never responded to the memo, and it remains unclear whether he even saw it, as Otto Meiner, who decided that his future was aligned with the Nazis, may not have passed it along. The Night of the Long Knives was a turning point for the German government. Night Of The Long Knives: What Happened & Why? | HistoryExtra , Some of those executed by Hitler were once considered close allies and friends. Max Heydebreck, an SA leader in Rummelsburg, denounced the army to his fellow brownshirts, telling them, "Some of the officers of the army are swine. Politics latest updates: NHS 'on the brink' says nursing union as , which opened just a few days before the vote on the 20 March 1933. Goering, Himmler, and Heydrich, Hitler's new head of internal security for the SS, got together and drew up a list of opponents to Hitler's new Government, while Goebbels publicly accused Ernst Rhm of planning a takeover or 'Putsch'. [45][41] As Himmler's adjutant Karl Wolff later explained, friendship and personal loyalty were not allowed to stand in the way: Among others, a charming fellow [named] Karl von Spreti, Rhm's personal adjutant. , who had previously been a separate organisation, now swore a personal allegiance to Hitler. Terror and intimidation became one of the main ways that the Nazis sought to control or suppress their opposition, and Germans in general. The purge list is drawn up. Wilhelm Miklas, and recalled his minister from Vienna. President Hindenburg died at the age of 87 on 2 August 1934. 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. Omissions? (29-30 June 1934) The name coined by Hitler for a weekend of murders throughout Germany. coalition . 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. For new Germany unit - 1890-1945. The Nazis immediately used the Enabling Law to remove civil rights. In a new pair Rally Coach this worksheet. Some of Hitlers other enemies were also murdered, including the last chancellor of the Weimar Republic, Kurt von Schleicher; Gregor Strasser, who until 1932 had been second only to Hitler in the Nazi Party; Bavarian ex-separatist Gustav von Kahr; conservative critic Edgar Jung; and Catholic professor Erich Klausener. The Gestapo arrested and later executed Papen's close associate Edgar Jung, the author of Papen's Marburg speech, and disposed of his body by dumping it in a ditch. "A very calm and easy going mailman," the diarist Victor Klemperer wrote, "who is not at all National Socialist, said, 'Well, he simply sentenced them.'" IRA's Night of Long Knives' part in peace process - IrishCentral.com [21] By the beginning of June everything was set and all that was needed was permission from Hitler. This also lead to the Oath Of Loyalty which was. [73] Hitler's speech was not reported in the German press, but the army was appeased by the speech. Despite this improvement, the Nazis still did not command a majority in the Reichstag. Hitler, knowing that military strength was necessary for his foreign policy and that antagonizing the generals could be fatal to himself, decided to sacrifice Rhm. On 7 April 1943, the SS shut down the Chemno death camp for the first time. It was named Der Fhrer schtzt das Recht ("The Fhrer Upholds the Law"). He asked, "What would people have said if I had done such a thing? He then told Hitler that Hindenburg was close to declaring martial law and turning the government over to the Reichswehr if Hitler did not take immediate steps against Rhm and his brownshirts. The resources all include suggested teaching strategies, retrieval practice, differentiated materials and come in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change. You were murdered June 30-July 2, 1934, the Night of the Long Knives. was 10.99. Goebbels soon radicalised each of these areas, ensuring that they advocated Nazi ideas. : Why did Hitler order the massacre of hundreds of Nazis. Zanu PF's Night of the Long Knives - Nehanda Radio [79] This story would be popularized across western Europe in the 12th century as part of the History of the Britons by Geoffrey of Monmouth, which introduced many of the Arthurian legends to Germany.[80][81]. Some estimates, however, put the total number killed at between 150 and 200. Night of the Long Knives | History | tutor2u The Night of the Long Knives was a helping event in Hitler becoming a dictator. The next German minister there was Papen, with the mission of steering Austro-German relations into a friendly and normal channel again. Soon after arriving in Vienna, he told the U.S. minister, George S. Messersmith, that all of southeastern Europe, to the borders of Turkey, was Germanys natural hinterland and that achieving control of Austria was to be the first step in that direction. The Night of the Long Knives (in addition to Hindenburgs deatha few months later) helped Hitler and the Nazi Party to consolidate absolute power in Germany by removing their political opposition. Prisons soon became stretched for space. 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. However, it did so under the guise of legality, and protecting the German people and their democracy. The Night of the Long Knives, in June 1934, saw the wiping out of the SA's leadership and others who had angered Hitler in the recent past in Nazi Germany. Reorganisation and the Bamberg Conference, The role of economic instability in the Nazi rise to power, The role of political instability in the Nazi rise to power, The role of the conservative elite in the Nazi rise to power. The Night of the Long Knives was extremely significant in the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship and ultimately Hitler's power. Hitler told the crowd that "undisciplined and disobedient characters and asocial or diseased elements" would be annihilated. In August 1932 there were approximately 445,000 members of the SA. [71], In late 1934early 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. Centuries of jurisprudence proscribing extrajudicial killings were swept aside. On 13 July 1934 the Reichstag 9. Gleichschaltung was the process of the Nazi Party taking control over all aspects of Germany.
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