The Night of the Long Knives

It's time for another history lesson, details from The United States Holocaust Memorial Museums' Holocaust Encyclopedia. I'm freestyling most of this, so click on the link if you want more refined details.

After Hitler became German Chancellor in late 1933, the Nazis had to reckon with the growing political power of their own paramilitary wing, the Sturmabteilung, aka the SA. The SA acted as the Nazi's shock troops during the 1920s and early 30s, creating anarchy and violence to terrorize the country. At the time Hitler became Chancellor, SA membership was 30 times the size of the German regular army, mandated by the Treaty of Versailles to no more than 100,000 troops.

The leader of the SA was Ernst Röhm, one of Hitler's only friends, one of the original Nazis, and fiercely loyal to Hitler. But as radicals in the SA felt the Nazis weren't doing enough to consolidate power against Hitler's industrial allies and the regular army, they agitated for continued revolution. It then occurred to the Nazis that the SA was an actual threat to their power. Since Hitler needed the army and the industrialists if he was going to make Germany a military power, and egged on by lies spread by Nazi leaders Himmler and Heydrich, it was decided that a purge of SA Leadership was needed to eliminate the threat.

The purge became known as The Night of the Long Knives.

Mostly committed by Heinrich Himmler's SS, the purge began on the night of June 30, 1934 and lasted until July 2. At the end of those days and nights of violence, between 100-200 targeted Germans were murdered, including Röhm and the other SA leaders around the country. Also killed were a number of non-Nazis, including Hitler's predecessor as Chancellor, Reichswehr General Kurt von Schleicher and his wife, a number of local politicians who had crossed the Nazis, and Willi Schmid, the music critic of a Munich newspaper, whose name was confused with one of the Gestapo's intended targets. In all, over 1,100 others were arrested and sent to concentration camps.

Afterwards, the Nazi-controlled Reichstag made the entire operation legal, and regular Germans celebrated the deaths as necessary to German security, believing Nazi propaganda about the event. The Night of the Long Knives cemented Nazi rule and made Hitler the unchallenged dictator of Germany until he was relieved of that title in 1945.

Hey, did you hear that Trump just pardoned more than 1,500 insurrectionists who had been jailed for their violent attack on Congress on January 6, 2021? And did you hear that Trump has been dismissing security details protecting some of his enemies, including John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, (both once loyal Trumpers) and Dr. Anthony Fauci?

Hmm. Don't know what made me think of that. Funny how the mind works.