The Night of the Long Knives

●      The night of Long Knives was a mass purge of the leading Nazi members in the SA
by Adolf Hitler. It started on the 30th of June and ended on the 2nd of July 1934. It
was secretly known to the soldiers by the code name Operation Hummingbird.
●      Hitler was eager to get rid of any opposition, including his rivals within the Nazi
Party. He began to fear that the paramilitary, the SA, was growing too powerful and
independent. His most important rival within the SA was Ernst Rohm.
●      Ernst Rohm was the leader of the SA who wanted more Socialist policies to be
incorporated into the Nazi ideology. He directly criticised how Hitler was working with
the rich industrialists and army generals, and looking after them specifically. Rohm
also wanted to tax the rich more in order to help the poor and give them more
money. This was not in line with the central ideas of the Nazi party, and went against
Hitler’s core ideologies.
●      Hitler heard a rumour that Ernst Rohm was planning to overthrow him. As a result,
he ordered his elite SS guards to murder 450 leading members of the SA, including
Rohm. Despite this, Hitler said that only 61 were killed and 13 injured.
●      The SS and the Gestapo rounded up Rohm, his allies, and anybody who Hitler
thought was going to be a threat to him, and they were killed. Rohm was arrested,
and after he refused to kill himself in his jail cell, he was shot. Most of the killings
were done by gunshot.
●      Kurt von Schleicher, who was a former Chancellor of Germany, was also killed. So
was his wife. This was because he actively disagreed with Hitler, and Hitler
perceived him as an enemy.
●      Many people were relieved that the SA leaders were killed because they felt the SA
was getting out of control and becoming too violent. They had been terrorising the
German people, and many feared them.
●      The Night of the Long Knives was a turning point for the German government
because this event established Hitler’s extreme power. The SA was now completely
under Hitler’s control.
Hitler named this purge the Night of the Long Knives in one of his speeches. He got this
name from a popular Nazi song.    .