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89.93% voted in favour of Hitler. Night of the Long Knives 1. Consumed with rage, Hitler denounced "the worst treachery in world history". [19] Schleicher criticized the current Hitler cabinet, while some of Schleicher's followers such as General Ferdinand von Bredow and Werner von Alvensleben started passing along lists of a new Hitler cabinet in which Schleicher would become vice-chancellor, Rhm minister of defence, Heinrich Brning foreign minister and Gregor Strasser minister of national economy. They had placed many in the first [69] The request that Neurath be replaced by Nadolny, the former Ambassador to the USSR, who had resigned earlier that year in protest against Hitler's anti-Soviet foreign policy, indicated that Hammerstein and Mackensen wanted a return to the "distant friendliness" towards the Soviet Union that existed until 1933. For AC/DC that's a pretty wierd thing to reference in a song. 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. ", Coincidentally, Hitler had been incarcerated at. Given that the purge claimed the lives of so many prominent Germans, it could hardly be kept secret. Hitler announced that he would occupy this new role. Hitler ordered both Heines and his partner taken outside the hotel and shot. : Why did Hitler order the massacre of hundreds of Nazis in June 1934? The Nazis used violence to increase their vote share. Others killed included Gregor Strasser, a former Nazi who had angered Hitler by resigning from the party in 1932, and Gustav Ritter von Kahr, the former Bavarian state commissioner who had helped crush the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. 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 the prisoners were tortured and abused. Night of the Long Knives, in German history, purge of Nazi leaders by Adolf Hitler on June 30, 1934. 7 Night of the Long Knives - 30 June 1934 . 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. The Night of the Long Knives. "[55] Reich Justice Minister Franz Grtner, a conservative who had been Bavarian Justice Minister in the years of the Weimar Republic, demonstrated his loyalty to the new regime by drafting the statute, which added a legal veneer to the purge. [i] Rhm, as one of the earliest members of the Nazi Party, had participated in the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, an attempt by Hitler to seize power by force in 1923. In Berlin, on Gring's personal orders, an armed SS unit stormed the Vice-Chancellery. This betrayal is seen by the image of SA members looking fearful in surrender, and SA leaders dead on the floor, killed by Hitler, who holds a smoking gun. [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. Following the Enabling Law, much of this harassment and imprisonment was legal. Despite his earlier agreement with Hitler, Rhm still clung to his vision of a new German army with the SA at its core. It established Hitler as "the supreme leader of the German people", as he put it in his 13 July speech to the Reichstag. In 1928, the popular Nazi song "Wetzt die langen Messer" (English: Sharpen the long knives) encourages the mass murder of Jewish people and the desecration of Synagogues (seemingly equating their own tactics with the treacherous Anglo-Saxons). The SA traced its dramatic rise in numbers in part to the onset of the Great Depression, when many German citizens lost both their jobs and their faith in traditional institutions. "[74] Hearing of the murder of former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and his wife, he also commented, "We have ceased to live under the rule of law and everyone must be prepared for the possibility that the Nazis will push their way in and put them up against the wall! [75] Lutze did little to assert the SA's independence in the coming years, and the organization lost its power in Germany. Gring declared that the communists had planned a national uprising to overthrow the Weimar Republic. Overall, what is the meaning of the cartoon? The SS also murders several conservative critics of the Nazi regime including . The Nazis used the SA and the newly expanded SS to harass and imprison any potential opponents of the Nazi Party. Also killed that night were hundreds of other perceived opponents of Hitler. Also available as: Gift Options Download Options. On 25 June, General Werner von Fritsch placed the Reichswehr on the highest level of alert. The Nazi grip on government extended across national, state and local levels. [47], Rhm was held briefly at Stadelheim Prison[j] in Munich, while Hitler considered his future. Gring alone had over a thousand people arrested. 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. 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. Just two months later, on 14 July 1933 the Nazis used the Enabling Act to ban all political parties except the Nazi Party. 1 Quoted in Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 37-38. Blomberg and many of his fellow officers were recruited from the Prussian nobility and regarded the SA as a plebeian rabble that threatened the army's traditional high status in German society. org. On 24 March 1933, the Enabling Act was passed, allowing Hitler to make laws without the approval of the Reichstag. 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. Give Hitler four years to rebuild it! 2. Open navigation menu The day after the Reichstag fire, the 28 February 1933, Hindenburg signed a decree giving Hitler emergency powers. One moment in a twelve-year history of the Third Reich that is underappreciated is the Night of the Long Knives, also known as the Rhm Purge, at the end of June 1934. A telegram purportedly from the ailing Hindenburg, Germany's highly revered military hero, expressed his "profoundly felt gratitude", and congratulated Hitler for "nipping treason in the bud",[61] although Hermann Gring later admitted during the Nuremberg trials that the telegram was never seen by Hindenburg, and was actually written by the Nazis. However, this power was limited, as the Nazis were just one party in a three party [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. night of the long knives phrase. The Night of the Long Knives was a major purge of the SA and Nazi Party. 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. [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. The murders of SA leaders were also intended to improve the image of the Hitler government with a German public that was increasingly critical of thuggish SA tactics. It was all three of these men that were responsible for this night, because Hitler asked Goering and Goebbels to compile a list of disloyal SA members,; this list formed the basis of those killed on the Night of the Long Knives. The SA (sometimes known as the "Stormtroopers" or "Brownshirts") was the paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party that played a key role in the Nazi . Nov 3, 2012 - Explore S o l s h e i 's board "Yay, it's Friday! 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. "[83], Before its execution, the purges instigators referred to the plans under the codename Hummingbird (German: Kolibri), the word used to command execution squads into action on 30 June. , issuing the Act for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service on the 7 April 1933. Hitler told the crowd that "undisciplined and disobedient characters and asocial or diseased elements" would be annihilated. Search ID: CS308675. [7] Complaints of "overbearing and loutish" behaviour by stormtroopers became common by the middle of 1933. [17] While Hitler did not take immediate action against Rhm for his intemperate outburst, it nonetheless deepened the rift between them. Adolf Hitler . Opposition from outside the Nazi party was being strangled . The Centre Partys vote was crucial. With Hitler's arrival in Bad Wiessee between 06:00 and 07:00, the SA leadership, still in bed, were taken by surprise. He wrote about the cartoon in his book, Years of Wrath (1949): "Nazi Party members and S.S. men got out of hand, clamouring for jobs in a Nazified industry and in an army under Nazi control; but Hitler had promised the . He had banned opposition parties, taken control of the press, outlawed troublesome unions and thrown communists and other political dissidents into concentration camps. By the end of 1934, the Nazis had managed to infiltrate and take control of every major aspect of German government. He lifted his arm in the Nazi salute and called out "Heil Hitler, I love Germany. By 1935, over 1,600 newspapers had been closed. Hitler used the SS and the Army to kill the SA on the Night of the Long knives, and doing so helped him to win them over as it showed his preference for them over the thug-like Stormtroopers. 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]. [21] At the end of May, Brning and Schleicher, two former chancellors, received warnings from friends in the Reichswehr that their lives were in danger and they should leave Germany at once. [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. "[46], Some SA members died saying "Heil Hitler" because they believed that an anti-Hitler SS plot had led to their execution. Refusing to take his own life, he was shot on 1 July 1934 by two SS guards. 1. "They give . [25] Neurath's manoeuvre to put pressure on Hitler paid off, with Mussolini agreeing to the request (Neurath was a former ambassador to Italy, and knew Mussolini well). [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. [68] Besides working for the rehabilitation of Schleicher and Bredow, Hammerstein and Mackensen sent a memo to Hindenburg on 18 July setting out in considerable detail the circumstances of the murders of the two generals and noted that Papen had barely escaped. 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. This photograph shows the SA as they marched victoriously through the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin the same day. Others were appalled at the scale of the executions and at the relative complacency of many of their fellow Germans. He stated that 61 people had been executed and 13 had committed suicide. [63], Former Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was in exile in Doorn, Netherlands, was horrified by the purge. The Nazis immediately used the Enabling Law to remove civil rights. To a lesser extent, the Sturmabteilung (SA), a Nazi paramilitary organization, remained somewhat autonomous within the party. [23] Himmler envied the independence and power of the SA, although by this time he and Heydrich had already begun restructuring the SS from a bodyguard formation for Nazi leaders (and a subset of the SA) into its own independent elite corps, one loyal to both himself and Hitler. This represents how Hitler betrayed the SA, as they had been led to believe that they would gain power alongside Hitler. Hitler announced to those present that the SA would act as an auxiliary to the Reichswehr, not the other way around. [1] More than a thousand perceived opponents were arrested. Courtesy of The Wiener Holocaust Library Collections. The Night of the Long Knives. This meant, as well as removing other personal freedoms, that the Nazis could now imprison their political opposition for an indefinite period for any, or no, reason. to control. The tension between the SA and the Nazi leadership grew. [13], If the regular army showed contempt for the masses belonging to the SA, many stormtroopers returned the feeling, seeing the army as insufficiently committed to the National Socialist revolution. On the 23 March 1933, Hitler proposed the Enabling Law to the Reichstag. In British politics, the "Night of the Long Knives" was a major Cabinet reshuffle that took place on 13 July 1962. Adolf Hitler was in a furious temper when his flight touched down in Munich at 4.30am on 30 June 1934. [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. 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). Hold me on this night of the long knives Hold me on this night of the long knives It's coming (Shame about your neighbourhood) It's coming (Shame about your neighbourhood) There's a flood on the street, there's a tide and it's coming in now Yet the concrete burns at the back of your skull And they're saying it's a wave but it feels like a . The elections were neither free or fair. of any opponents, who were be framed as traitors to the republic. 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. approved a bill legalising the purge as emergency defence measures. During the years of the rise of the Nazi Party, the SA had been instrumental in helping the party to gain support. Opposition from outside the Nazi party was being strangled Communists were banned and concentration camps set up. . Once inside Rhm's cell, they handed him a Browning pistol loaded with a single cartridge and told him he had ten minutes to kill himself or they would do it for him. Your Excellency has thrice before saved Germany from foundering, at Tannenberg, at the end of the War and at the moment of your election as Reich President. [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]. It's helped us to become more accustomed to acts of grim self-interested political butchery; but for those witnessing these events as they happened, they were simply unprecedented. As such, the Nazis consolidation of power relied on maintaining the illusion of a stable democracy. Additionally, Hitler was uncomfortable with Rhm's outspoken support for a "second revolution" to redistribute wealth. The SA also ran a violent campaign of terror against any and all opponents of the Nazi regime. Originally, though, the term denotes an event in Anglo-Saxon history, first reported by the Welsh historian Nennius in his ninth-century Historia Brittonum . The SS found Breslau SA leader Edmund Heines in bed with an unidentified eighteen-year-old male SA senior troop leader. . Fearing that the paramilitary SA had become too powerful, Hitler ordered his elite SS guards to murder the organization's leaders, including Ernst Rhm. 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. Goebbels became responsible for controlling the national media, film, theatre, arts, and other cultural aspects. 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. During a trip to Warsaw in January 1935, Gring told Jan Szembek that Schleicher had urged Hitler in January 1933 to reach an understanding with France and the Soviet Union, and partition Poland with the latter, and Hitler had Schleicher killed out of disgust with the alleged advice. Having earlier imprisoned or exiled prominent Social Democrats and Communists, Hitler used the occasion to move against conservatives he considered unreliable. by Roy Morris Jr. 8/20/2018. By mid-1934, Hitler seemed to be master of all Germany. A variety of studies 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). It was named Der Fhrer schtzt das Recht ("The Fhrer Upholds the Law"). The Night of the Long Knives: Hitler's Rise to Power - Part 2 | History DocumentaryWatch 'The Night of Long Knives - Part 1' here: https://youtu.be/7CeX6jBau. 1. Definition of Long Knives in the Idioms Dictionary. However, to gain power Adolf Hitler built up a close and friendly relationship with Germany's industrialists. The German Army generals, by condoning the unprecedented events of the Night of the Long Knives, effectively cast their lot with Hitler and began the long journey with him that would eventually lead them to the brink of world conquest and later to the hanging docks at Nuremberg after the war. 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 . "[26] According to his memoirs, von Papen, a Catholic aristocrat with ties to army and industry, privately threatened to resign if Hitler did not act. The Reichstag, the German lower house of parliament, was set on fire on the 27 February 1933. Low's cartoons have always appealed to me because of his ability to depict characters like Hitler and Mussolini in a recognisable but often funny way. By May, lists of those to be "liquidated" started to circulate amongst Gring and Himmler's people, who engaged in a trade, adding enemies of one in exchange for sparing friends of the other. Hitler and Himmler unleashed the Gestapo against old enemies, as well. 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. [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]. Under pressure from Hitler, Rhm reluctantly signed a pledge stating that he recognised the supremacy of the Reichswehr over the SA. How useful is the cartoon in helping us to understand the events that occurred during The Night of the Long Knives? "[77], Rhm was purged from all Nazi propaganda, such as The Victory of Faith, the Leni Riefenstahl film about the 1933 Nuremberg rally, which showed Rhm frequently alongside Hitler. If passed, the law would establish the conditions needed for dictatorial rule. [41], The regime did not limit itself to a purge of the SA. [35] Schneidhuber was executed later that day. Lippert was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison.[50]. July 14-20, 1934 News articles, editorials, opinion pieces, letters-to-the-editor, and . Join MyTutor Squads for free (and fun) help with Maths, Coding & Study Skills. A combat veteran of World War I, Rhm had recently boasted that he would execute 12 men in retaliation for the killing of any stormtrooper. 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. [73] Hitler's speech was not reported in the German press, but the army was appeased by the speech. The Night Of The Long Knives. Hess, present among the assembled, even volunteered to shoot the "traitors". A more succinct understand of the years between 1920 - 1945 of Hitler would be hard to find. The SA evolved out of the remnants of the Freikorps movement of the post-World War I years. This act was reinforced by the German Civil Service code of 26 January 1937, which retired any judges or judicial official who would not intervene in cases and rule in favour of the Nazis. . Definitions by the largest Idiom Dictionary. This photograph was taken the same day, showing the Reichstag still burning. However, there were also other events which helped Hitler in achieving the position of a dictator. The Liberals' future leader, Jeremy Thorpe, mocked Macmillan by observing . Behind the backdrop there are a group of bodies laying on the foor with the Nazi Swastika on their arms, this could be the SA. Do Damage By Placing Guns, Knives And Rockets In. "[9], Hitler's speech signalled his intention to rein in the SA, whose ranks had grown rapidly in the early 1930s. 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. [35] Papen was unceremoniously arrested at the Vice-Chancellery, despite his insistent protests that he could not be arrested in his position as Vice-Chancellor. Called the Nacht der langen Messer in Germany, this event occurred over a series of days and entailed the Nazi regime's murder of those Hitler considered to be political enemies. [30] At Hitler's direction, Gring, Himmler, Heydrich and Victor Lutze drew up lists of people in and outside the SA to be killed. By early 1934, this vision directly conflicted with Hitler's plan to consolidate power and expand the Reichswehr. No one in the SA spoke more loudly for "a continuation of the German revolution" (as one prominent stormtrooper, Edmund Heines, put it) than Rhm himself. [84], The Night of the Long Knives represented a triumph for Hitler, and a turning point for the German government. Over the next two days, most of the SA leadership were placed under arrest and murdered without trial. Behind Hitler is a backdrop of the Swastika. 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]. In response to conservative pressure to constrain Rhm, Hitler left for Neudeck to meet with Hindenburg. Hitler feared that the SA and Ernst Rhm, their leader, were a potential threat to his leadership. A copy of the original film, before Rhm was edited out, was found in the 1980s in the German Democratic Republic's film archives. Surrounding this scene, members of the Army and SS stand with their weapons pointing towards the SA members. The SS was moving into position for the first of its many deadly tasks. "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.'" [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. The Bill passed by 444 votes for to 94 against on the 24 March 1933. [42] The Gestapo also murdered Erich Klausener, the leader of Catholic Action, and a close Papen associate. Battle to save 'Night of the Long Knives' hotel where Hitler turned on Brownshirts' leader Ernst Rhm - the only man standing in his way to absolute power - in deadly 1934 purge. coalition With James Darren, Robert Colbert, Malachi Throne, David Watson. This new law gave Hitler the power to rule by decree rather than passing laws through the Reichstag and the president. , which opened just a few days before the vote on the 20 March 1933. Now that the NSDAP had seized the reins of power in Germany, he said, it was time to consolidate its control. 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. info)) or "Operation Hummingbird" (Kolibri) was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany.It happened between 30 June and 2 July 1934 when the Nazi regime executed at least 90 people for political reasons. The humbling of the SA ended the threat it had posed to the army but, by standing by Hitler during the purge, the army bound itself more tightly to the Nazi regime. Historian Gavin Mortimer explains how Hitler nearly came unstuck as early as 1934 - and that the bloody purge that followed was a warning of horrors to come.