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.

An inspiration!

This is Horst Wessel.

Attribution

As you might expect from the fancy duds, Horst was an officer in the Nazi SA, the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. When he was a teen during the 1920s, he founded his own youth group, the Knappschaft, to "raise our boys to be real German men". He also joined the Wiking Liga, which had the purpose of "the revival of Germany on a national and ethnic basis through the spiritual education of its members". 

Hmm. I think I read something similar on Twitter recently.

During the Weimar Republic, German political parties engaged in street violence against other parties. Horst was one of those who engaged in street fighting, mostly with the Communists. Once he had joined the SA at the wizened age of 19, he engaged in fun activities like public speaking, recruiting, the Nuremberg rallies, terror and murder. In January, 1930, Horst was injured, eventually resulting in his death, when a Communist knocked on his door and shot him point-blank. 

The Nazis, led by propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, made Horst a Nazi martyr, which he remained until the end of the Third Reich in 1945. The Nazis made films about him, named plazas and ships after him, and made The Horst Wessel Song, which he had written before he died, a mainstay of Nazi gatherings. Horst died before the Nazis came to power, but they used his death to inspire their hatred for the next 15 years.

No reason, but here's an interesting article about Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by Capitol police while trying to lead a charge into the U.S. House Chambers where members of Congress were sheltering during the insurrection on January 6, 2021. You should read it.

Today's lesson in foreign languages!

Here's a fun German word for you!

Lebensraum (living space) - Definition

The territory that a state or nation believes is needed for its natural development, especially associated with Nazi Germany.

The need for "living space" was the justification Hitler gave for re-occupying territories lost during WWI, and then for the conquests of Austria, the Sudetenland, the Czechoslovak Republic, the Republic of Lithuania, Danzig, and eventually Poland, which started WWII.

I was just thinking about the Panama Canal, Canada, Greenland, and Mexico and for no real reason, that word popped into my head.

Enjoy!