Night of the Long Knives
장검의 밤
The purge carried out in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934, in which Hitler, urged on by Göring and Himmler, had Ernst Röhm, the SA leadership and critics of the regime killed without trial. Nazi propaganda called it the suppression of a “Röhm Putsch”, an alleged SA coup.
In depth
Röhm’s SA had swollen to nearly three million men and was demanding a “second revolution” and a militia to replace the army, which alarmed the generals, the conservatives and Hindenburg. The SS, Heydrich’s SD and the Gestapo carried out most of the killings; Röhm was shot in Stadelheim prison by Theodor Eicke. The dead included the SA leader Edmund Heines, Gregor Strasser, the former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and his wife, Gustav von Kahr, who had put down the 1923 putsch, and aides of Vice-Chancellor Papen. At least 85 people died, with some estimates in the hundreds, and more than 1,000 were arrested. A law of 3 July retroactively legalised the killings as “self-defence of the state”, and when Hindenburg died in August the army swore an oath to Hitler personally.