| THE NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES or OPERATION "HUMMING BIRD" THE COLD BLOOD MURDER OF FRIENDS AND FOES by SERIAL KILLER HITLER |
The Night of the Long Knives -also known as the Blood Purge or Operation
Humming-bird- on the 30th of June 1934 is without doubt the most
atrocious episode of the sort of civil war that opposed the Nazis to their
opponents, their rivals but also to some of their nazis brothers-in-arms. It
showed to the world the horrendous nature of the regime and the cruel
streak of Hitler. The exact number of men killed is unkown but historians
believed that as much as 2000 were executed. A long list of over a
hundred men and women officially murdered in cold blood, sometimes
shouting "Heil Hitler!!", can be consulted here. Even after this orgy of blood
a lot of people outside Germany still refused to see in Hitler more than a
nut who would be soon ousted from office.
Alarmed by the rise of the SA paramilitary forces (800,000 members) of
Captain Ernst Roehm, an overt homosexual whose socialist leanings were
much more genuine than those of Hitler, the main leaders of the NSDAP,
Goering and Goebbels, persuaded Hitler that Roehm, other nazis
dignitaries and some members of the Wehrmacht, were preparing a
"Coup". They wanted to get rid of Hitler, Goebbels said, to install some sort
of "Communist" or even "liberal" regime.
A barrack-room brotherhood connected with pederasty
This can be argued with. To many outside Germany, Roehm's Socialism
was a "barracks socialism", ie born in the military barracks of post-WW1
Germany. In his Diary, Trostky will even write that "in the figure of Roehm
himself, this barrack-room brotherhood is very organically connected with
pederasty." Roehm had won for himself in Munich the surname of "Fraulein
Anna". Nevertheless Goering easily convinced Hitler that Baron Krupp and
Fritz Thyssen, financial backers of the party, were threatening to withdraw
their support of the nazis unless the "National Bolsheviks" in the party were
silenced.
As fanatic Germans and heroes of WWI, they were very close but both of
them wanted to control Germany, Adolf with the Party and a populist
doctrine, Ernst with the SA and a socialist medley where camaraderie and
homosexuality laid in a confused proximity. On top of that, Röhm wanted to
dominate the Army and was making no secret about that and the Army
dread it. When the purge started, the Generals keep quiet and repaid
Hitler later on by taking the Oath of total allegiance. Hitler built his power
tio supremacy with the tacit complacency of the Army. Their
independence was doomed since the beginning.
The diplomacy of liquidation
Eventually the prevailent homosexuality atmosphere surrounding the SA
and their leader caused some eyebrows to rise in the entourage of Hitler,
notably with Magda Goebbels and some other women of influence close to
the Thyssens, Krupps and other Kirdof. So Hitler decided that he would
recourse to the solution suggested by Goebbels ie "the diplomacy of
liquidation." The principal men marked for death were Ernst Roehm, leader
of the SA, Gregor Strasser, spiritual leader of the nazi party members who
joined the ranks because of its social aims, General Kurt von Schleicher,
who loomed as the only possible successor to Hitler to the Chancellery
and Otto Strasser, Gregor's brother, because his Black Front organization
was the only vigorous opposition to Hitlerism.
More, as soon as 1929 Alfred Thyssen had asked Hitler to get rid of Gregor
Strasser if he wanted more funds and four years later Hitler was too happy
to oblige even if funding was not henceforth his main problem. Gregor
Strasser who resigned from the direction of the Party in 1932 hated the anti-
semitism of the party ("the Rosenberg line"), disliked its fascist tendencies
("the Mussolini line) and vigorouslyu opposed any subsidies from the Ruhr
combine ("the Krupp line"). At the beginning of 1932, Hitler had secret
meetings with Alfred Thyssen and other industry barons and it was agreed
that the party :
Hitler makes the speeches and I do the real work
Contrary to legend, Roehm did not appreciate Hitler. In his Memoirs, he
wrote :"Fammende proteste und massen-versammlungen sind zur
Erzeugung einer Hochstimmung sicher wertwoll und vielleicht oft sogar
unentbehrlich; wenn aber nicht ein Mann da ist, der hinter diesem
Nebelangriff die praktische Vorbereitung zur Tat triff und entscchlossen ist
zu handeln, bleiben sie wirkungslos."(1)
The idea which has some truth is partly directed against Hitler : he made
speeches while I, Roehm, tended to business. According to Roehm, the
soldier must come before the politician. It is probably why Hitler decided in
the end to get rid of him.
So Hitler always gifted at disguising his real intentions arranged two SA
gatherings : one in Munich and one in the Rhine city of Wiessee. The first
one was prepared by Robert Wagner, Gauleiter of Baden and Minister of
the Interior : he summoned a special banquet with SA dignitaries at the
Ministry under the pretext of a visit of their Fuhrer. When the banquet was
under way, Hitler boarded a plane from Berlin to Munich and as the plane
landed on the bavarian airport, Wagner was advised by phone to
pronounce the key words :"I just received word, he said, that our Fuhrer is
now at the Munich airport. We shall wait no longer but shall proceed with
the important business of the evening."
A bloody battelfield in shambles
At these words, strapping SS men leaped to their feet and killed the SA
leaders who have been designated as the target of their macabre task : two
SA men per SS guard. Tens of SA members were killed in only a few
minutes and when Hitler arrived at the Ministry the place was a bloody
battlefield in shambles. Among the surviving guests to the banquet was the
leader of the SA squadron, Ernst Udet, a aviation hero of the size of
Lindbergh who asked Hitler what all this massacre was about : "Nothing is
wrong, assured him Hitler, please leave here at once and no harm will
come to you." Lucky Udet had not been marked for death and escaped alive.
On leaving the Ministry, Hitler, Sepp Dietrich, Julius Schaub, personal
adjutant of the Fuhrer and an alcoholic, William Bruckner, another Hitler's
adjutant and Hitler's ex-chauffeur Emil Maurice drove to Wiessee where
Capt. Roehm and many of the SA sub-leaders were already assembled in
anticipation of Hitler's visit.
Even Catholic Heydrich turned cold blood murderer
The party pulled to a halt in front of the Wiessee Inn were Gestapo agents,
uniformed SS troopers and 40 Berlin police officers were waiting. Hitler and
a small group mounted to the 2rd floor of the Inn still calm in this dawn hour
of the day. Then a second massacre began. The first victim was Count
Spretti, chief of the Munich Standate who was whipped by a blackjack held
by Reinhard Heydrich. Then the poor Count was strangled by two SS men.
The second victim was group leader Edmund Heines who was shot by
Emil Maurice before he could reach for his gun under his pillow. Then
some SS men threw a pair of slugs into his boyfriend's face and chauffeur
who was sleeping in the same bed. The poor guy died instantly. Heines's
brother will be given the same treatment later on this same day.
I
The Captain was manacled and his feet bound with rope and he was
transferred to a prison at Stadelheim near Munich where he was given a
gun loaded with only one shot to commit suicide. When he refused to
please Hitler in such a way he was cold bloodedly shot four times by SS
guards.
Direction, the camps
At the same time, the murderous group transferred from the Wiessee Inn to
Munich a load of SA sub-leaders who were later conveyed to a
concentration camp and then drove to the Brown House, national
headquarters for the nazi movement, where a phalanx of SS thugs had
taken possession of the building. On arrival, Hitler ordered all those found
on the premises to be hauled off to a concentration camp. But it was not yet
over. Hitler had still some grudge to settle.
He then went for old General von Kahr, a hero of WWI, whose swift action in
1923 had brought to a unglorious end the putsch of the Munich Brewery
and was responsible for the humiliation of Adolf Hitler. The old General
was found in his suburban home garden and asked to shout "Heil Hitler".
Von Kahr refused and was at blank point shot in the face after having had
an arm broken by one of the SS guard. Hitler was waiting in his car outside
the house and when the two SS thugs got back to the car, they just said that
the assignment was completed :"Good!' only said Hitler.
The slaughter was not yet over. In the same prison where Roehm was
held, another WWI hero who had been awarded the Order of Max Jospeh,
Ritter von Krauser was put in front of a firing squad who ordered him to face
the wall. He refused, turned around and was shot. Then it was the turn of
group leader Karl Ernst, a powerful SA leader from the early days, to whom
it was reproached to be homosexual. Karl Ernst born in 1904 had been a
member of the Freikorps Roßbach, was an ex-hotel doorman, protegé of
Paul Röhrbein and Ernst Röhm, was arrested on the dock at Bremen
(where he was preparing to leave for Maderia on honeymoon). He never
understood what was happening to him and died in front of the firing squad
shouting "Heil Hitler!". Then it was the turn of Dr. Walter Förster, a
Hirschberg lawyer who had taken part in legal proceedings against
National Socialists.
Hitler shouted and insulted the dying
Many other SA leaders followed the horrible path to death of those men : a
relatively complete list of the victims of the purge can be consulted here. At
Stadelheim prison, Hitler watched a lot of those executions shouting each
time insults and hateful words like " Schweinhund ! Traitors ! Filthy scum !"
His rage was boundless, his features contorted with hatred.
He put on a brave fight but was subdued and taken to a forest nearby where
he tried to escape after starting another brave fight. He was beaten
unconscious by the six thugs and transported to Prinz Albrechtstrasse
prison in Munich where Reinhard Heydrich himself shot him, then kicked
him in the groin, prodded the body onto his back and placed another shot
through the forehead. A week later, his wife Elsa received at home a small
bronze urn with the words :"Gott mit uns" engraved on its side and under
that was written "Gregor Strasser, 1892-1934." But the nazi horror show
was not yet over.
On the hot morning of this 30th of June, General von Schleicher was seated
in a comfortable chair of his house in Wannsee near Berlin when he
received the visit of six other SS thugs who asked him whether he was
General von Schleicher. The General had not yet finished to reply by the
affirmative that he got a volley of bullets that left him dead and in a pool of
blood on the carpet. When his upset wife who had rushed to the room saw
her husband dead she started crying in despair and shouted at the
intruders who silenced her by another straight shot in her forehead. Twenty
additional shots were fired in the bodies of the murdered couple.
Last victim, Father Staempfle, a Jesuit priest
The following victim was General von Bredow, von Schleicher's assistant,
who was murdered later this day by two SS men who were waiting for him
on the doorstep of his house and shot at him through the pockets of their
SS outfits. The army complacently kept silent about the murders and paid
Hitler back when it gave an oath of total alliegance to the Führer some time
later. Some General officers even thought that Schleicher had ceased to be
a military man and more a politician meaning he had look for his swaful
fate.
With this last murder, Hitler decided that all the bad influences in nazi
Germany had been eradicated and that he could rest in peace for some
time. This bloody purge however failed to get hold of Otto Strasser, Gregor's
brother, and Chief of the Black Front whose anti-hitler propaganda was
infuriating Hitler. Otto escaped to Austria, then to Czechoslovakia,
Switzerland, France, the Bahamas and eventually Canada where he stayed
until 1955.
When he was presented with the menu of the various banquets, the SA
leaders had in their quarters, Hitler learned that they had enjoyed
themselves with delicacies such as frogs' legs, birds' tongues, sharks'
fins, seagulls' eggs and vintage French wines and Champagnes. He then
said :"So here we have those Revolutionaries ! And our revolution was
to tame them !". He did not show one sole second a sentiment of
compassion or guilt. Hitler, as would say later Albert Speer, was void of
human emotions.
The Night of the Long Knives started the era of absolute power of
demented Hitler upon his people and Germany. The German people
understood that opposing the Nazis was a futile and dangerous game and
those who refused to get the message, like Otto Strasser, were forced into
death, exile or oblivion. Eleven years of terror could begin unimpaired. Hitler
and his minions Himmler, Goering and Goebbels, were the masters of
Germany and henceforth the German people were down to their last
gesture of freedom : throwing the infamous "Hitler blick" behind their back
to check whether they could speak freely and unobserved.
Three centuries after the murder of French Protestants leaders by
Catherine di Medici and her son Charles IX, Germany at last had too it Saint
Bartholomew massacre. History is only a long dinner where the same
courses are passed over again and again.
(1) "Protests and mass meetings are surely very well and perhaps often
even indispensable for the production of a high emotion ; if however one
does not get to the practical job beyond the attack to prepare the act and to
pass to the act, they remain ineffective."
Humming-bird- on the 30th of June 1934 is without doubt the most
atrocious episode of the sort of civil war that opposed the Nazis to their
opponents, their rivals but also to some of their nazis brothers-in-arms. It
showed to the world the horrendous nature of the regime and the cruel
streak of Hitler. The exact number of men killed is unkown but historians
believed that as much as 2000 were executed. A long list of over a
hundred men and women officially murdered in cold blood, sometimes
shouting "Heil Hitler!!", can be consulted here. Even after this orgy of blood
a lot of people outside Germany still refused to see in Hitler more than a
nut who would be soon ousted from office.
Alarmed by the rise of the SA paramilitary forces (800,000 members) of
Captain Ernst Roehm, an overt homosexual whose socialist leanings were
much more genuine than those of Hitler, the main leaders of the NSDAP,
Goering and Goebbels, persuaded Hitler that Roehm, other nazis
dignitaries and some members of the Wehrmacht, were preparing a
"Coup". They wanted to get rid of Hitler, Goebbels said, to install some sort
of "Communist" or even "liberal" regime.
A barrack-room brotherhood connected with pederasty
This can be argued with. To many outside Germany, Roehm's Socialism
was a "barracks socialism", ie born in the military barracks of post-WW1
Germany. In his Diary, Trostky will even write that "in the figure of Roehm
himself, this barrack-room brotherhood is very organically connected with
pederasty." Roehm had won for himself in Munich the surname of "Fraulein
Anna". Nevertheless Goering easily convinced Hitler that Baron Krupp and
Fritz Thyssen, financial backers of the party, were threatening to withdraw
their support of the nazis unless the "National Bolsheviks" in the party were
silenced.
As fanatic Germans and heroes of WWI, they were very close but both of
them wanted to control Germany, Adolf with the Party and a populist
doctrine, Ernst with the SA and a socialist medley where camaraderie and
homosexuality laid in a confused proximity. On top of that, Röhm wanted to
dominate the Army and was making no secret about that and the Army
dread it. When the purge started, the Generals keep quiet and repaid
Hitler later on by taking the Oath of total allegiance. Hitler built his power
tio supremacy with the tacit complacency of the Army. Their
independence was doomed since the beginning.
The diplomacy of liquidation
Eventually the prevailent homosexuality atmosphere surrounding the SA
and their leader caused some eyebrows to rise in the entourage of Hitler,
notably with Magda Goebbels and some other women of influence close to
the Thyssens, Krupps and other Kirdof. So Hitler decided that he would
recourse to the solution suggested by Goebbels ie "the diplomacy of
liquidation." The principal men marked for death were Ernst Roehm, leader
of the SA, Gregor Strasser, spiritual leader of the nazi party members who
joined the ranks because of its social aims, General Kurt von Schleicher,
who loomed as the only possible successor to Hitler to the Chancellery
and Otto Strasser, Gregor's brother, because his Black Front organization
was the only vigorous opposition to Hitlerism.
More, as soon as 1929 Alfred Thyssen had asked Hitler to get rid of Gregor
Strasser if he wanted more funds and four years later Hitler was too happy
to oblige even if funding was not henceforth his main problem. Gregor
Strasser who resigned from the direction of the Party in 1932 hated the anti-
semitism of the party ("the Rosenberg line"), disliked its fascist tendencies
("the Mussolini line) and vigorouslyu opposed any subsidies from the Ruhr
combine ("the Krupp line"). At the beginning of 1932, Hitler had secret
meetings with Alfred Thyssen and other industry barons and it was agreed
that the party :
- would eliminate the unions
- would let the industrialists have management freedom
- would launch a program of public works and of rearmament under
the control of the big business.
Hitler makes the speeches and I do the real work
Contrary to legend, Roehm did not appreciate Hitler. In his Memoirs, he
wrote :"Fammende proteste und massen-versammlungen sind zur
Erzeugung einer Hochstimmung sicher wertwoll und vielleicht oft sogar
unentbehrlich; wenn aber nicht ein Mann da ist, der hinter diesem
Nebelangriff die praktische Vorbereitung zur Tat triff und entscchlossen ist
zu handeln, bleiben sie wirkungslos."(1)
The idea which has some truth is partly directed against Hitler : he made
speeches while I, Roehm, tended to business. According to Roehm, the
soldier must come before the politician. It is probably why Hitler decided in
the end to get rid of him.
So Hitler always gifted at disguising his real intentions arranged two SA
gatherings : one in Munich and one in the Rhine city of Wiessee. The first
one was prepared by Robert Wagner, Gauleiter of Baden and Minister of
the Interior : he summoned a special banquet with SA dignitaries at the
Ministry under the pretext of a visit of their Fuhrer. When the banquet was
under way, Hitler boarded a plane from Berlin to Munich and as the plane
landed on the bavarian airport, Wagner was advised by phone to
pronounce the key words :"I just received word, he said, that our Fuhrer is
now at the Munich airport. We shall wait no longer but shall proceed with
the important business of the evening."
A bloody battelfield in shambles
At these words, strapping SS men leaped to their feet and killed the SA
leaders who have been designated as the target of their macabre task : two
SA men per SS guard. Tens of SA members were killed in only a few
minutes and when Hitler arrived at the Ministry the place was a bloody
battlefield in shambles. Among the surviving guests to the banquet was the
leader of the SA squadron, Ernst Udet, a aviation hero of the size of
Lindbergh who asked Hitler what all this massacre was about : "Nothing is
wrong, assured him Hitler, please leave here at once and no harm will
come to you." Lucky Udet had not been marked for death and escaped alive.
On leaving the Ministry, Hitler, Sepp Dietrich, Julius Schaub, personal
adjutant of the Fuhrer and an alcoholic, William Bruckner, another Hitler's
adjutant and Hitler's ex-chauffeur Emil Maurice drove to Wiessee where
Capt. Roehm and many of the SA sub-leaders were already assembled in
anticipation of Hitler's visit.
Even Catholic Heydrich turned cold blood murderer
The party pulled to a halt in front of the Wiessee Inn were Gestapo agents,
uniformed SS troopers and 40 Berlin police officers were waiting. Hitler and
a small group mounted to the 2rd floor of the Inn still calm in this dawn hour
of the day. Then a second massacre began. The first victim was Count
Spretti, chief of the Munich Standate who was whipped by a blackjack held
by Reinhard Heydrich. Then the poor Count was strangled by two SS men.
The second victim was group leader Edmund Heines who was shot by
Emil Maurice before he could reach for his gun under his pillow. Then
some SS men threw a pair of slugs into his boyfriend's face and chauffeur
who was sleeping in the same bed. The poor guy died instantly. Heines's
brother will be given the same treatment later on this same day.
I
The Captain was manacled and his feet bound with rope and he was
transferred to a prison at Stadelheim near Munich where he was given a
gun loaded with only one shot to commit suicide. When he refused to
please Hitler in such a way he was cold bloodedly shot four times by SS
guards.
Direction, the camps
At the same time, the murderous group transferred from the Wiessee Inn to
Munich a load of SA sub-leaders who were later conveyed to a
concentration camp and then drove to the Brown House, national
headquarters for the nazi movement, where a phalanx of SS thugs had
taken possession of the building. On arrival, Hitler ordered all those found
on the premises to be hauled off to a concentration camp. But it was not yet
over. Hitler had still some grudge to settle.
He then went for old General von Kahr, a hero of WWI, whose swift action in
1923 had brought to a unglorious end the putsch of the Munich Brewery
and was responsible for the humiliation of Adolf Hitler. The old General
was found in his suburban home garden and asked to shout "Heil Hitler".
Von Kahr refused and was at blank point shot in the face after having had
an arm broken by one of the SS guard. Hitler was waiting in his car outside
the house and when the two SS thugs got back to the car, they just said that
the assignment was completed :"Good!' only said Hitler.
The slaughter was not yet over. In the same prison where Roehm was
held, another WWI hero who had been awarded the Order of Max Jospeh,
Ritter von Krauser was put in front of a firing squad who ordered him to face
the wall. He refused, turned around and was shot. Then it was the turn of
group leader Karl Ernst, a powerful SA leader from the early days, to whom
it was reproached to be homosexual. Karl Ernst born in 1904 had been a
member of the Freikorps Roßbach, was an ex-hotel doorman, protegé of
Paul Röhrbein and Ernst Röhm, was arrested on the dock at Bremen
(where he was preparing to leave for Maderia on honeymoon). He never
understood what was happening to him and died in front of the firing squad
shouting "Heil Hitler!". Then it was the turn of Dr. Walter Förster, a
Hirschberg lawyer who had taken part in legal proceedings against
National Socialists.
Hitler shouted and insulted the dying
Many other SA leaders followed the horrible path to death of those men : a
relatively complete list of the victims of the purge can be consulted here. At
Stadelheim prison, Hitler watched a lot of those executions shouting each
time insults and hateful words like " Schweinhund ! Traitors ! Filthy scum !"
His rage was boundless, his features contorted with hatred.
He put on a brave fight but was subdued and taken to a forest nearby where
he tried to escape after starting another brave fight. He was beaten
unconscious by the six thugs and transported to Prinz Albrechtstrasse
prison in Munich where Reinhard Heydrich himself shot him, then kicked
him in the groin, prodded the body onto his back and placed another shot
through the forehead. A week later, his wife Elsa received at home a small
bronze urn with the words :"Gott mit uns" engraved on its side and under
that was written "Gregor Strasser, 1892-1934." But the nazi horror show
was not yet over.
On the hot morning of this 30th of June, General von Schleicher was seated
in a comfortable chair of his house in Wannsee near Berlin when he
received the visit of six other SS thugs who asked him whether he was
General von Schleicher. The General had not yet finished to reply by the
affirmative that he got a volley of bullets that left him dead and in a pool of
blood on the carpet. When his upset wife who had rushed to the room saw
her husband dead she started crying in despair and shouted at the
intruders who silenced her by another straight shot in her forehead. Twenty
additional shots were fired in the bodies of the murdered couple.
Last victim, Father Staempfle, a Jesuit priest
The following victim was General von Bredow, von Schleicher's assistant,
who was murdered later this day by two SS men who were waiting for him
on the doorstep of his house and shot at him through the pockets of their
SS outfits. The army complacently kept silent about the murders and paid
Hitler back when it gave an oath of total alliegance to the Führer some time
later. Some General officers even thought that Schleicher had ceased to be
a military man and more a politician meaning he had look for his swaful
fate.
With this last murder, Hitler decided that all the bad influences in nazi
Germany had been eradicated and that he could rest in peace for some
time. This bloody purge however failed to get hold of Otto Strasser, Gregor's
brother, and Chief of the Black Front whose anti-hitler propaganda was
infuriating Hitler. Otto escaped to Austria, then to Czechoslovakia,
Switzerland, France, the Bahamas and eventually Canada where he stayed
until 1955.
When he was presented with the menu of the various banquets, the SA
leaders had in their quarters, Hitler learned that they had enjoyed
themselves with delicacies such as frogs' legs, birds' tongues, sharks'
fins, seagulls' eggs and vintage French wines and Champagnes. He then
said :"So here we have those Revolutionaries ! And our revolution was
to tame them !". He did not show one sole second a sentiment of
compassion or guilt. Hitler, as would say later Albert Speer, was void of
human emotions.
The Night of the Long Knives started the era of absolute power of
demented Hitler upon his people and Germany. The German people
understood that opposing the Nazis was a futile and dangerous game and
those who refused to get the message, like Otto Strasser, were forced into
death, exile or oblivion. Eleven years of terror could begin unimpaired. Hitler
and his minions Himmler, Goering and Goebbels, were the masters of
Germany and henceforth the German people were down to their last
gesture of freedom : throwing the infamous "Hitler blick" behind their back
to check whether they could speak freely and unobserved.
Three centuries after the murder of French Protestants leaders by
Catherine di Medici and her son Charles IX, Germany at last had too it Saint
Bartholomew massacre. History is only a long dinner where the same
courses are passed over again and again.
(1) "Protests and mass meetings are surely very well and perhaps often
even indispensable for the production of a high emotion ; if however one
does not get to the practical job beyond the attack to prepare the act and to
pass to the act, they remain ineffective."
Ernst Roehm, leader of the
SA, homosexual, socialist,
hero of WWI, the #1 target of
the purge.
SA, homosexual, socialist,
hero of WWI, the #1 target of
the purge.
Sentenced to death without any
form of trial
form of trial
| The oath of service of the soldiers of the Armed forces shall be: "I swear by God this sacred oath: I will render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the German nation and people, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and will be ready as a brave solider to risk my life at my time for this oath.' |
| (1) "Protests and mass meetings are surely very well and perhaps often even indispensable for the production of a high emotion ; if however one does not get to the practical job beyond the attack to prepare the act and to pass to the act, they remain ineffective." |
Blinded by furor,
Hitler let his
henchmen commit
the most atrocious
crimes
Hitler let his
henchmen commit
the most atrocious
crimes
| Schleicher was TIME magazine man of the year in 1932 before his assassination |
| Otto Strasser is the unknowh hero of German resistance to Nazis because he was a staunch nazi supporter in the 20s. He should be more recognized for what he did from Czechoslovakia to fight Hitler at great risks |
| Furthermore Ernst Roehm has always been Hitler's rival. As soon as 1925 he sent to Adolf Hitler a memorandum asking to free the SA from the NSDAP's authority. When he came back from Columbia where he helped the Government to fight the war against Paraguay, Hitler put him back in charge of the SA in place of Ernst von Salomon. Ernst Roehm and Adolf Hitler used the familiar German "du" to talk to each other instead of the formal "sie". |
Too many nice virile bodies in the SA troops with socialist penchants and homosexual inclinations, it was too much to bear for Hitler, his barons financiers and his female mentors. They had to be disposed of. |
| The second gathering had been summoned by a telegram reading :"All leaders and sub-leaders of the SA groups will attend a meeting at General Headquarters of the Chief of Staff at Wiesse on 30th of June at 10. A.Hitler." The reason for it was the wedding of Josef Terboven, a gigolo and a snitch who had been propulsed into nazi hierarchy by millionaire Emil Kirdof, one of the earliest financial backers of the NSDAP and a rabid anti-communist. |
It was then the turn of Ernst Roehm himself
and Hitler entered his room. As soon as he
was inside, Hitler started a ferocious yelling
against his old friend and accomplice
reproaching him treason, treachery and
duplicity. When Roehm asked him the
reason of this cascade of abuses, Hitler
ordered him to be arrested without
answering the question.
and Hitler entered his room. As soon as he
was inside, Hitler started a ferocious yelling
against his old friend and accomplice
reproaching him treason, treachery and
duplicity. When Roehm asked him the
reason of this cascade of abuses, Hitler
ordered him to be arrested without
answering the question.
| Hitler and Emile Maurice |
| Reinhard Heydrich |
| But the pièces de résistance had not yet been served to the maddening passion of Hitler. In the afternoon of the 30th of June, six burly men showed up at Gregor Strasser's home and asked him to follow them. Strasser who had not an inkling of what was going on nevertheless refused to acquiesce and started a fight with the six men. |
In 1956, he was granted back German citizenship which Hitler had stripped from him and tried
to resume political activity in Federal Germany. But he was marked as an ex-nazi sympathizer,
was aging and did not achieved any success. Blamed for his anti-semitic stances before WW2,
he has been nevertheless one of the most serious and courageous opponents to Hitler, held
genuine socialist views and led an adventurous life that he discribed very well in "Flight from
Terror" published by McBride in New York in 1943 in full war. After the war his nazi past
discredited all his attempts to play a leading role in post WWII Germany. He died in 1974. Last
but not least, one of the last victims of this blood purge was Father Staempfle, a Jesuit priest
who had edited "Mein Kampf" in 1923 and whose talent and intellectual attainment had made
the book coherent and readable. Hitler did not like to owe anything to anybody.
to resume political activity in Federal Germany. But he was marked as an ex-nazi sympathizer,
was aging and did not achieved any success. Blamed for his anti-semitic stances before WW2,
he has been nevertheless one of the most serious and courageous opponents to Hitler, held
genuine socialist views and led an adventurous life that he discribed very well in "Flight from
Terror" published by McBride in New York in 1943 in full war. After the war his nazi past
discredited all his attempts to play a leading role in post WWII Germany. He died in 1974. Last
but not least, one of the last victims of this blood purge was Father Staempfle, a Jesuit priest
who had edited "Mein Kampf" in 1923 and whose talent and intellectual attainment had made
the book coherent and readable. Hitler did not like to owe anything to anybody.
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At the end of his murderous journey, Hitler had
no other way out than committing suicide
himself. Here is a photograph of the sofa on
which he and Eva Braun took their life. Notice in
the yellow circle the pistol Hitler used to blow his
head off.
no other way out than committing suicide
himself. Here is a photograph of the sofa on
which he and Eva Braun took their life. Notice in
the yellow circle the pistol Hitler used to blow his
head off.