In questo giorno, il 30 giugno 1934 – La notte dei lunghi coltelli iniziò in Germania nazista> Adolf Hitler lanciò una brutale purga politica, ordinando l’assassinio di dozzine di membri della SA (Sturmabteilung), incluso il loro leader Ernst Röhm.
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Was Adolf Hitler homophobic? It’s more likely than you think.
One of the darkest turning points in Nazi Germany, a clear reminder of how dictators consolidate power through fear and betrayal. That night of the long Knives wasn’t just a purge it was the final signal that opposition even from within would be met with lethal force
Good riddance.
Fascists doing fascist things…my empathy is reserved for the antifascists and random victoms, not those who worked to get fascists into power.
we’re going to have this in America soon and thank fuck!
Thank goodness he is dealing with the extremists in the party.
I really can’t believe people don’t think we aren’t close to this!
The SA was too powerful, they had to be put down. Otherwise, they had enough force to defy Hitler.
So yeah, full-blown dictatorship, only one person is allowed to call the shots, as it were.
A dark turning point in history. June 30, 1934 marked the moment Hitler fully consolidated power eliminating not just rivals, but allies who had outlived their usefulness.
The SA had helped him rise, but once they threatened his control and the military’s loyalty, he cut them loose. Cold, calculated, and brutal classic dictatorship playbook.
The Nazis also killed and imprisoned many opposition figures and figures associated with Hitlers conservative vice Chancellor Franz von Papen during the purge (who resigned shortly afterwards). Most prominent victims that weren’t members of the NSDAP/SA were Gustav von Kahr, who was the official who put down the Beerhall putsch in 1923, Erich Lindemann, pneumatologist, leader of the Jewish veterans society, Kurt von Schleicher, General, last Chancellor before Hitler took power, and Fritz Gerlich, journalist who was one of the most prominent writers against Hitler.
What most people don’t know is that this was not just a coup against the until then strongest mass-organisation within the party. It was the final answer to the question which of the two internal factions would lead the party into the future.
Traditionally, the NSDAP was founded from a socialist party, the German Worker’s Party (DAP), and Hitler’s takeover and reinvention of the party with a focus on his völkische Ideology (an ideology centred around “The Aryan People” as a monolithic community that had to be united and purified so it could take its rightful place as the masters of humanity) didn’t sit well with all members. Until the late 1920 there was frequent infighting between the traditional socialists who wanted real “national socialism” and the Hitlerians, who dreamed of a more bourgeoise society and were willing to make deals with the financial elites to achieve their goals.
While Hitler and his people were ultimately able to win over most of the party elites (the most prominent defector from the socialist camp and maybe their greatest loss was Joseph Goebbels) and thus bring the party under their control, the SA as the mass organisation on the streets was mostly recruited from the lower classes with promises of improvements for the lower classes in accordance with socialist principles. They were a bastion of the socialist wing, with their leadership around Röhm being the most influential socialists remaining within the party.
Hitler needed the SA’s might in the streets for his political takeover, but once this had been achieved and Hitler had the powers of the state at his disposal to deal with political enemies like the communists, the SA became a liability. For Röhm and most of the SA-Leadership only the first step had been taken and now that the party was in control of the state, they wanted to continue the revolution. Meanwhile Hitler was exactly where he wanted to be and didn’t want to risk his support among the economic elites, but his rivals had an popular organisation millions strong at their disposal.
The night of the long knives eliminated the entire remaining leadership of the socialist wing of the party and re-ordered the party hierarchy by demoting the SA to a more symbolic role (where they couldn’t cause any damage the party didn’t want) while its off-shoot, the SS (Schutzstaffel = Protection Squad) rose from a small bodyguard to the SA’s former place of being the party’s muscle.