The Night of the Long Knives
“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 of the German people.”
— Adolf Hitler July 13, 1934
When Hitler rose to power in early 1933, he owed much of his success to the muscle of his Nazi Storm Troopers, the SA (Sturmabteilung), a violent, ruthless army headed by Ernst Röhm, Hitler’s long-time devotee and friend. Röhm and his Storm Troopers brought Germany to submission by gaining control of the streets gangster-style and violently eliminating any of Hitler’s political enemies.
However, by 1934 a threatening, revolutionary force such as the SA was no longer necessary since Hitler was firmly in power. Hitler wanted to “go legit” and win over the regular army generals, the leaders of industry, as well as the German people. Most everyone in Germany disliked the SA, who saw them as the bullying, murderous thugs they were. Hitler knew he needed to curtail their power to increase and solidify his own.
In April of 1934 Hitler and the head of the German army Werner von Blomberg signed a secret agreement. Hitler promised Blomberg’s army absolute control of the military with precedence over the SA. In return, Blomberg pledged the army’s backing when…
