consequences of the night of the long knives consequences of the night of the long knives

The Nazis consolidation of power can be grouped into three main themes: pseudo-legality, terror and intimidation and pseudo-moderation. [3] It established Hitler as the supreme administrator of justice of the German people, as he put it in his 13 July speech to the Reichstag. was 10.99. [70] It is noteworthy that even those officers who were most offended by the killings, like Hammerstein and Mackensen, did not blame the purge on Hitler, whom they wanted to see continue as Chancellor; they at most wanted a reorganization of the Cabinet to remove some of Hitler's more radical followers. 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 Night of the Long Knives was a turning point for the German government. 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. Local governments proved more difficult to infiltrate, and even at the end of 1945 only 60% of local mayors were Nazi Party members. 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]. On 25 April 1933, the Law Against Overcrowding in Schools and Universities was issued, restricting the number of Jewish students. "[65] Another rare exception was Field Marshal August von Mackensen, who spoke about the murders of Schleicher and Bredow at the annual General Staff Society meeting in February 1935 after they had been rehabilitated by Hitler in early January 1935. The Night of the Long Knives was "an act of carnage" which had come out of the blue. [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. [21], As a means of isolating Rhm, on 20 April 1934, Gring transferred control of the Prussian political police (Gestapo) to Himmler, who, Gring believed, could be counted on to move against Rhm. How Did the Night of the Long Knives Help Hitler | Bartleby They had placed many in the first Goebbels engineered the media coverage following the attack to present it as a preventative measure, in response to the SAs plan to overthrow the government. The Night of Long Knives occurred on June 30, 1934. 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. Night of the Long Knives - Consolidation of power - WJEC - BBC 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. To make both of these impacts, Hitler had to overcome many hard . Religion and The Bloody Chamber. This essentially meant that the Nazis used the atmosphere of panic following the Reichstag Fireto put forward the Enabling Law. In response, Hitler met Blomberg and the leadership of the SA and SS on 28 February 1934. An atmosphere of panic and terror followed the event. At first, its architects seemed split on how to handle the event. He left Neudeck with the intention of both destroying Rhm and settling scores with old enemies. [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. [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. I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders in this treason, and I further gave the order to cauterise down to the raw flesh the ulcers of this poisoning of the wells in our domestic life. These acts removed peoples ability to oppose the Nazi Party, in any form. Nazi propaganda presented the murders as a preventive measure against an alleged imminent coup by the SA under Rhm the so-called Rhm Putsch. Its membership plummeted from 2.9 million in August 1934 to 1.2 million in April 1938. The Night of the Long Knives was the least important factor, as it did no help much towards Hitler's consolidation of power. Through these aspects the Nazis suppressed any opposition to their power, and were able to start the road from democracy to a dictatorship. While Rhm's homosexuality did not endear him to conservatives, they were more concerned about his political ambitions. Night of the Long Knives, in German history, purge of Nazi leaders by Adolf Hitler on June 30, 1934. SA violence in Prussia gravely concerned Gring. Just two months later, on 14 July 1933 the Nazis used the Enabling Act to ban all political parties except the Nazi Party. Night of the Long Knives summary | Britannica Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934. Hitler and the rest of the Nazi leadership disagreed with their approach. [44] The murdered included at least one accidental victim: Willi Schmid, the music critic of the Mnchner Neuste Nachrichten newspaper, whose name was confused with one of the Gestapo's intended targets. With Hitler's arrival in Bad Wiessee between 06:00 and 07:00, the SA leadership, still in bed, were taken by surprise. Whilst Gleichschaltung aimed to reach every aspect of rule in Germany, this was not always possible. 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. In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people. 25 terms. But the Night of the Long Knives they kill over 100 people, not just Rhm and his closest associate, but also others who are on a hit list that Hitler, Gring, and Himmler and others put together. 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. [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. Goebbels soon radicalised each of these areas, ensuring that they advocated Nazi ideas. The purge of the SA was kept secret until it was announced by Adolf Hitler on July 13. This photograph was taken the same day, showing the Reichstag still burning. The process primarily took place between 1933-1934. However, there were also other events which helped Hitler in achieving the position of a dictator. However, the threat of a declaration of martial law from Hindenburg, the only person in Germany with the authority to potentially depose the Nazi regime, put Hitler under pressure to act. "[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. [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. 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. The Enabling Law allowed them to do this under the guise of legality. Some of those executed by Hitler were once considered close allies and friends. persecution Also known as the "brownshirts" or "stormtroopers," the SA became notorious for their street battles with the Communists. [73] Hitler's speech was not reported in the German press, but the army was appeased by the speech. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Purge in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934, Papen, nonetheless, remained in his position although people quite close to him were murdered, including, "At least eighty-five people are known to have been summarily killed without any formal legal proceedings being taken against them. He also wanted to appease leaders of the Reichswehr, the German military, who feared and despised the SA as a potential rival, in particular because of Rhm's ambition to merge the army and the SA under his own leadership. 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). [4] The violent confrontations between the two contributed to the destabilization of the Weimar Republic. On 15 April 1945, Bergen-Belsen camp was liberated by the British Army. [47], Rhm was held briefly at Stadelheim Prison[j] in Munich, while Hitler considered his future. The SA and the SS had also been on a month long campaign of violence to scare or imprison other opponents to the party. What were the consequences of the Night of the Long Knives? Rhm was the leader of the Nazi Brownshirts . 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. [78], The term "long knives" as a metonym for treachery and violence had been used to describe the Treason of the Long Knives since this incident was recorded in the 9th century Historia Brittonum. If that was indeed true then, as a legal matter, the law was entirely unnecessary and redundant. Terror and intimidation became one of the main ways that the Nazis sought to control or suppress their opposition, and Germans in general. It was named Der Fhrer schtzt das Recht ("The Fhrer Upholds the Law"). [31] On 27 June, Hitler moved to secure the army's cooperation. July 13th 1962: The Night of the Long Knives - Politics.co.uk 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. Fearing that the paramilitary SA had become too powerful, Hitler ordered his elite SS guards to murder the organization's leaders, including Ernst Rhm. Each resource gives suggested teaching strategies and are differentiated . "It was plain that there was wide acceptance of the deliberately misleading propaganda put out by the regime. Wilhelm Miklas, and recalled his minister from Vienna. What were the consquence of the night of the long knives June - Answers pardoned Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dismissed seven members of his Cabinet, one-third of the total. , which opened just a few days before the vote on the 20 March 1933. Rhm's contempt for the party's bureaucracy angered Hess. The loyalty of the SS men would prove useful to both when Hitler finally chose to move against Rhm and the SA. In response to conservative pressure to constrain Rhm, Hitler left for Neudeck to meet with Hindenburg. 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. "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.'" This decree gave the Nazis a legal basis for the [37] Arriving back at party headquarters in Munich, Hitler addressed the assembled crowd. Rhm is pictured here on the left next to Rudolf Hess, who was the deputy Fhrer from 1933-1941. 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. Hitler entitled the purge the 'Night of the Long Knives' - a reference to the lyrics from a popular Nazi song. In August 1932 there were approximately 445,000 members of the SA. To ensure quality for our reviews, only customers who have purchased this resource can review it . President Hindenburg died at the age of 87 on 2 August 1934. , , who had previously been a separate organisation, now swore a personal allegiance to Hitler. [75] Hitler expressly told him to stop SA funds from being spent on limousines and banquets, which he considered evidence of SA extravagance. of any opponents, who were be framed as traitors to the republic. Night of the Long Knives: Summary & Victims | StudySmarter Sixty years ago today, Harold Macmillan carried out a cabinet reshuffle which became known as the 'Night of the Long Knives'. Let the nation know that its existence which depends on its internal order and security cannot be threatened with impunity by anyone! Finally, Hitler used the purge to attack or eliminate German critics of his new regime, especially those loyal to Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, as well as to settle scores with old enemies.[a]. 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. Significance of the Night of the Long Knives for Hitler's Power Hitler's task would not be simple, however, as the SA made up a large part of Nazism's most devoted followers. The SA also ran a violent campaign of terror against any and all opponents of the Nazi regime. On the 23 March 1933, Hitler proposed the Enabling Law to the Reichstag. It followed a secret deal between himself and units of his personal bodyguard, the SS. Night of the Long Knives - Cunning History Teacher On the night of June 30, 1934, Rhm and many more leaders of the SA were shot by members of Heinrich Himmlers SS (Schutzstaffeln; German: Protective Echelon). 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. This new law gave Hitler the power to rule by decree rather than passing laws through the Reichstag and the president. It was a mass murder planned by the SS for the SA and their members. Hitler told the crowd that "undisciplined and disobedient characters and asocial or diseased elements" would be annihilated. Both Kurt von Schleicher, Hitler's predecessor as Chancellor, and his wife were murdered at their home. Hitler told the gathered officials, "The stream of revolution has been undammed, but it must be channelled into the secure bed of evolution. Lippert was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison.[50]. It did not escape Klemperer's notice that many of the victims had played a role in bringing Hitler to power. 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. 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. Hitler had become a chancellor in 1933 henceforth he had the power to establish his power. [53][54], Wanting to present the massacre as legally sanctioned, Hitler had the cabinet approve a measure on 3 July that declared, "The measures taken on June 30, July 1 and 2 to suppress treasonous assaults are legal as acts of self-defence by the State. By the end of 1934, the Nazis had managed to infiltrate and take control of every major aspect of German government. The Liberals' future leader, Jeremy Thorpe, mocked Macmillan by observing . [68] Hammerstein, who was a close friend of Schleicher, had been much offended at Schleicher's funeral when the SS refused to allow him to attend the service and confiscated the wreaths that the mourners had brought. [2] The purge strengthened and consolidated the support of the military for Hitler. 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. 20 terms. He wanted the Nazi Party to focus on socialist policies to support . The first concentration camp, Dachau, opened in a broken-down munitions factory on the 20 March 1933, imprisoning primarily political prisoners. The generals, whose chief spokesman was the minister of defense, Werner von Blomberg, were certainly impressed by the efficiency with which Rhm and his SA clique had been eliminated. Gestapo officers attached to the SS unit shot Papen's secretary Herbert von Bose without bothering to arrest him first. . Many of the prisoners were tortured and abused. [41] Several leaders of the disbanded Catholic Centre Party were also murdered in the purge. Gring alone had over a thousand people arrested. 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. Most officers are too old and have to be replaced by young ones. This topic will explore how the Nazis managed to eliminate their opposition and : Why did Hitler order the massacre of hundreds of Nazis. Shortly after Hindenburgs death, Hitler announced that offices of the chancellor and the president were to be combined to create one position, the Fhrer and chancellor. Under pressure from Hitler, Rhm reluctantly signed a pledge stating that he recognised the supremacy of the Reichswehr over the SA. "[14], Despite such hostility between the brownshirts and the regular army, Blomberg and others in the military saw the SA as a source of raw recruits for an enlarged and revitalized army. Rhm, who was initially They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. 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. 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. 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. Paul von Hindenburg was still alive and in office and, if he wished, could have stopped all of Hitlers plans by handing power over to the Reichswehr. [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. It established Hitler as "the supreme leader of the German people", as he put it in his 13 July speech to the Reichstag. The Night of the Long Knives. [62] General von Reichenau went so far as to publicly give credence to the lie that Schleicher had been plotting to overthrow the government. The atmosphere of uncertainty following the Reichstag Fire secured many voters for the Nazi party. The Night of the Long Knives, June 1934 - gcsehistory.com You give Hitler power and time by voting HITLER!. [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. Consequences of the Night of the long Knives Death of Hindenburg and Fuhrer Army Oath Plenary - hierarchy task. With Hindenburg gone, there was no longer a limit to Hitlers power. [30] At Hitler's direction, Gring, Himmler, Heydrich, and Victor Lutze drew up lists of people in and outside the SA to be killed. Complete a Diamond 9 of the consequences of the Night of the Long Knives. 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. Tes paid licenceHow can I reuse this? [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]. ultimate power over Germany, whilst maintaining an Only the SPD opposed it. With these measures in place, the Nazification of the judicial system was complete. On the 2 May 1933 trade unions were banned. Hitler, however, disclaimed all responsibility for the coup, sent a telegram of condolence to Austrian Pres. Despite this, on the whole, Gleichschaltung was largely successful. You were murdered June 30-July 2, 1934, the Night of the Long Knives. Paul von Hindenburg was the president of the Weimar Republic from the 12 May 1925 until his death on the 2 August 1934. Although many Germans approached the official news of the events as described by Joseph Goebbels with a great deal of scepticism, many others took the regime at its word, and believed that Hitler had saved Germany from a descent into chaos. [1] More than a thousand perceived opponents were arrested. [69] Mackensen and Hammerstein ended their memo with: Excellency, the gravity of the moment has compelled us to appeal to you as our Supreme Commander. A poster from the March 1933 elections. [6], Hitler's appointment as chancellor, followed by the suppression of all political parties except the Nazis, did not end the violence of the stormtroopers. [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. There were 4 main reasons why the Night of the Long Knives occurred: Ernst Rhm had become too powerful with 3 million SA loyal to him. 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. By early 1934, this vision directly conflicted with Hitler's plan to consolidate power and expand the Reichswehr. Night of the Long Knives - Wikipedia For the full article, see Night of the Long Knives . SS men stormed the hotel, and Hitler personally placed Rhm and other high-ranking SA leaders under arrest. Following the Enabling Law, much of this harassment and imprisonment was legal. 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.