SYMHC Classics: Night of the Long Knives

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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, everybody. Coming up on the show, we are going to talk about someone who was suspected of distributing Nazi propaganda in the United States in the early nineteen thirties. One part of that context is, of course, what was happening in Germany during this time, but that's a little outside the scope of that upcoming episode. So today we are bringing out our May episode on the Night of the Long Knives as a Saturday classic. This episode covers how Adolf Hitler came to power, leading up to a massive purge of his political opponents. In four Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio Hello book for the podcast I'm Holly from I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So we don't often talk about Nazi history. No, we don't. It's I mean, you might think we would more because of the Internet where it's all Nazi talk all the time. But it's one of those things that people have hashed out a lot, and it's uh not something most people miss in history class. But in talking with people lately, I have discovered that some of the finer points maybe people don't always recall. Yeah, some of the details get a little lost like we know the broadstor everybody knows the broad strokes, but particularly around like Hitler's rise to power and sort of the steps that happened that enabled him to basically claim that he ruled everything in Germany, those get a little fuzzy for people. Yeah, I think for a lot of folks there, knowledge of Hitler sort of begins in World War Two and not all the stuff before that. Right, there's a lot of knowledge of concentration camps and the things associated with that and all of those atrocities of war, But there was a long lead up to that, right, And we aren't even covering all of it because it's one of those figures where he has been so studied by by people that are scholars of German history and Nazi history in particular, that there's no way we can include every detail of his life. And there are also pieces in here that we're going to refer to you that are individual incidents in history. We have one or the other of us talked about doing as whole episodes before, and I think I referenced in my notes that one of them could become a whole episode in the future. But what we're sort of talking about is Night of the Long Knives, But what we're actually doing is a lot of stuff leading up to that and why it was an important moment, and then the night along and then the Night of the Long Knives is actually the last segment. So for just a quick context, over the course of several days in n Adolf Hitler, who was at the time the Nazi Party leader and Reich Chancellor, directed an action which eliminated basically all of his political enemies as well as some personal enemies, and enabled him to declare himself here. But first, as I said, we're going to need to talk about what proceeded. That's areas of murders that have come to be known as the Night of Long Knives. It also goes by a couple of other names, and we'll talk about those. So we're gonna do kind of a brief history of Hitler's rise to power. Yes, the National Socialist German Workers Party the Nazi Party was founded in nineteen nineteen under the banner of the German Workers Party, and one of the primary drivers for its establishment was some dissatisfaction at the terms that were set in the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War One. These terms called for Germany to make reparations. Yeah, those certainly were not the only terms, but that's the big one that really caused a lot of problems in terms of public opinion in Germany and UH. The party was actually founded initially by a locksmith named Anton Drexler, but he was quickly usurped by an enthusiastic upstart Adolf Hitler, and that change in leadership was also what brought about the name change from the German Workers Party to the National Socialist German Workers Party. From the most moment that he took the helm of the group, Hitler started working on a plan which would be this guiding ideology of the party going forward. It was a twenty five point program that included goals of abandoning the Treaty of Versailles and expanding German territory. And there was also a strong threat of anti semitism throughout, including the ideology that only those with German blood should have citizenship and by that logic quote hence no Jew can be a countryman. And thanks to UH, the socialist aspects at the time which shifted away from that and the distrust of the German government in the twenty five point program, which drew the working class. The Nazi Party experienced a really steady increase in membership in the early nineteen twenties. In the fall of nine, the group had accumulated tens of thousands of members and felt sort of so confident in their their power that they thought they could wield with that membership that they mounted what became known as the Beer Hall Pooch, also called the Hitler pooch or the Munich pouch Uh. That's basically an attempted coup de ta and that happened on November eighth and ninth. The hope on the part of the Nazi Party was that their attempted coup in Bavaria, where the party was headquartered, would inspire the German army, which was really rife with frustration, to carry this momentum forward and lead to an overthrow of the government in Berlin. To that end, Hitler and other leaders along with the stern bat Lugen, which is also known as the Stormtroopers or the Essay and I'm going to apologize for all of my German pronunciation in this episode. I'm sure it is terrible. They begin at a beer hall in Munich where the government leaders were meeting, with the intention to overthrow them, and then they would march on Berlin to enact a full takeover of Weimar Germany. But the plan was in fact a failure, so instead of culminating in the government takeover, the whole thing was shut down really quite quickly. The beginning of the coup had gone as planned. They easily suppressed the politicians that were in the beer hall, but when they moved on to their next location at the building of the Bavarian War Ministry, they were fired upon by police and a riot followed. We could, and perhaps on day we will do a whole episode just on the beer hall puch like that's been on my list for a while. You and I have talked about it. But the outcome was that Adolf Hitler was arrested and charged with treason along with nine other men, and was ultimately sitting sentenced to five years in prison, and the Nazi Party was banned. It was during his incarceration at Lansburg Jail for the beer Hall Pusch that Hitler dictated mine coomp to his personal secretary, Rudolf Hess, who had also been convicted and was serving his sentence alongside Hitler. Hitler did not, however, serve his full sentence. Pretty much from the moment of his incarceration, the remnants of the Nazi Party, even though that was technically outlawed, they still existed in a form not under that name. UH dedicated their resources and energy to pressuring the German government to release him, so he served about nine months of his sentence. After his release, Adolf Hitler set about re establishing the Nazi Party. The ban on its existence was legally lifted after Hitler appealed to the Bavarian Prime Minister and assured him that the group would abide by the rules of the constitution. Hitler organized and the reinvigorated party with extreme care. In the years that followed, and through deft framing of the Beer Hall putch, November nine became Reich Day of mourning for the Nazis who had been killed during the riot, and it became a rallying point for the party. Germany's economic depression at the end of the nineteen twenties really left an opening for Hitler's Nazi rhetoric to win over supporters from Germany's working class, desperate out of work. Germans responded to the criticisms of the existing government that they had felt caused their troubled situations, so they were very happy to join on with the people making those criticism, which were the Nazi Party. So elections started going to the Nazi Party starting in about nineteen thirty. In nineteen thirty two, the Nazi Party reached a major milestone. It became the largest party in the German Parliament, although it did not hold a majority. This was a massive shift from the previous election, in which the Nazi Party had only won a handful of seats in the Reichstag. Hitler actually ran for president that same year, but he lost to Paul von Hindenburg. Hindenberg, who was eighty four at the time and not in terrific health, had won the presidency in nineteen five and he had been asked to run again in nineteen thirty two because it was believed that he was the only man who could win against Adolf Hitler. But Hitler had garnered a significant following and he established himself as a political force even without that election win. In January of nineteen thirty three, Hendenberg selected Adolf Hitler as chancellor in an effort to appease the Nazi Party. Hitler began as chancellor on January and immediately advised President Hendenberg that the Reichstag, which was set at a stalemate because no political party had managed to establish a majority. He suggested that the rice Stag be dissolved and that new elections be held, and a new election was called for on March fifth. Three. Yeah, just for a little bit of context, Hindenburgh thought that, you know, with a vice chancellor there was not a Nazi and some other people in prominent political positions, like surely they would be able to keep this Hitler guy in check. No, that didn't work out, and then the Reichstag building burned under mysterious circumstances on February ninety three. Debate about the cause of the fire has actually continued right up to present day. You will hear historians discussing it and debating the various theories. But one of the most popular theories is that Joseph Gebbel's planned the fire with the intent to pin it on the Communists, and as the Communist Party was the was one of the Nazi Party's legitimate right those in the upcoming election. This plan was intended intended to cast a shadow over that party and lose them some votes. The day after the fire, Hitler leaned on Hindenburg to deliver an emergency decree which stated, quote restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press, on the rights of assembly and association, and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communication, and warrants for house searches. Orders for confiscations, as well as restrictions on property are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed, and this was framed as being quote for the protection of the people and the state. Hitler levied leveraged control over the country's politics, culture, and society to further stack the deck in favor of a Nazi party success at the polls. In the upcoming election, Hermann Goering, who had become head of police, used the brute power of his force to suppress most opposition, and the Nazis did not win an outright majority, but Hitler's next move made that a non issue. We're coming up on the Enabling Act of nineteen thirty three, but before we get to that, we will pause for a word from one of our sponsors. As part of Hitler's consolidation of power, he wanted to diminish the authority of the reichs Dog, which was bymar Germany's legislative branch, and take that authority for himself. With the votes of the supporting members of the Reichstag and many members of the reichs Dog not voting due to strong arm tactics on the part of the essay in the s s, including corralling many in what was called protective detention, it was easy to get the Enabling Act of nineteen thirty three passed on March. The vote took place in the corl Opera House, which was being used as the seat of the reichs Dog in the aftermath of the fire which had burned down the municipal building where they normally held that business. Hitler had ordered that the Nazi party symbol, the Swatstika, be hung in massive scale in the temporary reich stock Chamber. Germany's Supreme Court accepted the passage of the Enabling Act with no challenge, despite the dicey nature of the vote, and some judges seemed to be unaware that anything out of the ordinary parliamentary business had even taken place. So the Enabling Act was also called the Law to Remedy the Distress of People and the Reich, and one of the key passages in that act read quote. In addition to procedures prescribed by the Constitution, laws of the Reich may also be enacted by the Government of the Reich, and this meant that Hitler, as Chancellor and head of the Reich Cabinet, could decree laws by himself by passing the approval of the reich stock. In essence, it legally sealed his dictatorship. Not only could Hitler and act laws, he could also enter into alliances or agreements with other countries without consulting the Reichstag or having his decisions ratified by them. He could also undo existing laws of the Weimar Constitution, again without any checks or balances. With this passage of the Enabling Act, the Reichstag had basically made itself obsolete. By ninety four, it was apparent that s a Chief of Staff Ernst Rome had turned the Stormtrooper military into a mighty force, and at that point it boasted almost three million men and we uh I need to point out that at the same time, the German army had only one thousand men. That was a capped number that had been outlined in the Treaty of Versailles, so the Nazi Party actually had far more military might than the Weimar government. Naturally, there was some concern that the Essay was far too powerful. Both President Hindenburg and Vice Chancellor Franz von Poppen were troubled by the Nazi forces, but Hitler had his own concerns about homes military. While Hitler knew that he needed the Essay as part of his support structure, the aims of the Nazi military had evolved to a point that was also problematic for Hitler's goals. The essays leadership wanted to oust the remaining non Nazis from the government and replace them with their own people. But Adolf Hitler, having learned from the beer Hell Putsch that using brute force could backfire by turning people against the party, recognize that consolidating power might be better achieved by working with the elites and sort of more subtly ousting them, and he had uh the party leaders that were not part of the Essay, and he also had the shoot Staffle, which was the s S on the same page as him. The disparity and approaches to bring the Nazi Party to ultimate power led to some friction. Hitler had also cultivated animosity among the Nazi leadership, making it clear that they should compete with one another to gain in his favor. By the spring of Heinrich Hitler and Reinard Haydrich, both leaders in the s S, and Prussian Prime Minister Erman Guring, we're discussing ways to get Hitler to rid the party of Ernst Chrome. At the same time that Hendenburg and German military leaders were raising concerns that the Nazi Party was becoming increasingly radicalized. Himler, Hedrik and Gurring, we're starting rumors at Chrome, already seen as the leader of the most radical arm of the party, was plotting a move to take over the party. Rome actually had no such plan. He was a friend of Hitler's, but his image as an extremist made it really, really easy for those rumors to gain traction. Hitler was in danger of losing power if the vocally extreme elements of the Nazi Party forced the German government's hand. But even as his party was threatened by growing external and internal pressures, he was hesitant when it came to deciding what to do about the essay. In early June, Adolf Hitler convinced Room that the heads of the essay should take an extended leave, which began on June eight. But there was still an ongoing and growing concern that the Nazi Party was becoming a lawless entity, and nationalist opposition against it began to swell. It was the threat of a more organized move against the Nazi Party that finally tipped the scales for Hitler, and by the end of the month he had made a decision to get rid of all the problematic elements of the essay. He issued orders to roam on June to gather the leaders of the essay at a spot in by Visa Bavaria. And next up, we're gonna talk about the Night of the Long Knives specifically, which is actually used to refer to events that took place over the course of several days. But before we get into that, we're gonna pause and take a little sponsor break. Two days later, the s s by Theodore Ica, commandant of Dako, captured the assembled essay leaders and moved them to Stobleheim Prison in Munich. Most of the men were shot, although Rome was spared until the next day because Hitler remained indecisive for a bit about whether to execute him or not. When Rome was shot on July one, he allegedly uttered the words Hyle Hitler as he died, But the executions at Stottleheim weren't the only ones carried out by the s S. Once Hitler had decided to take action, he opted to eliminate all possible threats to his leadership in the Nazi Party, and to that end, the SS killed and estimated one fifty to two hundred people between June and July two. This was an execution mission that was called Operation Hummingbird and also came to be known as the Night of the Long Knives or as the Home Purge. There are only eighty five people identified by name as victims of a purge, so exactly the exact number of people that Hitler had killed outside of any sort of legal process is difficult to discern since they went ahead with this without filing any paperwork on it. Yeah, it's very hard to track exactly how many people met their end victims of The purge included both political enemies and, as we mentioned earlier, people with whom Hitler had personal Vendetta's General Kurt von Schleicher, the man who preceded Hitler as Reich Chancellor, Schliker's friend, Major General Kurt Vondreidau, Schleiker's wife. Also Gustav von Kar, who was the Bavarian Chief of State who had withheld support for the nineteen three Beer Hall Pusch, So going all the way back more than a decade of sort of vendetta he was checking off his list. That particular man was hacked apart with axes in a particularly brutal killing. Uh and former Nazi leader Gregor Strasser, who had attempted to make a deal wish like when he was Reich Chancellor that would have stopped Hitler from rising to power, was also killed. So is Bernhard Stemfel, a former priest who was rumored to have damning knowledge related to the death of Jelly Rouble, which was Hitler's niece who had allegedly committed suicide. That is another one of those stories that could be its own episode. Potentially Basically anyone Hitler thought might challenge him or have information that could hurt him. At least one victim was killed due to a mix up of identity. Munich music critic Willie Schmidt was murdered, but the s S had intended to target uh An Essay commander of the same name and Vice Chancellor Franz von Poppin, who had been one of the loudest voices warning of the Nazi Party growing more radical, was also a target, but escaped to have visit AIDS though we're not so fortunate. The day after Operation Hummingbird concluded, so that was July three, a law was issued by the Reich Cabinet at Hitler's order, and this law framed the executions as an emergency action, claiming that they needed to be carried out to protect Germany against agents who threatened the nation, and thus retroactively making the mass murders legal. It's well known today that the Nazi Party party widely used propaganda, and the period after the Night of Long Knives as a prime example of how false information was used to gain public favor and to damage enemies. Under the direction of Google's a story of treason and treachery was spun out, which cemented the idea that people who had been killed, the people who had been killed Hitler's order, were all dangerous enemies of the state. Additionally, Rome's homosexuality, which allegedly people had known about, became a focus of interests, so while it had been a point of relatively common knowledge, Hmmler took advantage of this moment to claim that other homosexuals that Rome associated with had been a threat to national security. Himler further leveraged this piece of propaganda to launch a series of legal actions against homosexuality, including new laws against homosexual acts and much more severe punishments for anyone who was found guilty of homosexuality. On July thirteenth, four Hitler made a speech to the Reichstag in which he justified this entire operation, and as Supreme ruler of Germany, he claimed he had used his power to defend the country, and that event in nineteen thirties Germany is often pointed to as the moment that really cemented Hitler's rise to power. And by that event, I mean the whole night of the Long Knives, not his speech that Tracy just referenced. While the essay continued to exist as a tool of destruction, after the purge that swift and violent action against Rome and other leaders within the Essay exercised any thoughts of ambition for the military forces to really challenge Hitler's power or even stand as a major player in the regime's power structure. Because the purge was a strike on the Essay, it also gained Hitler favor with the German army that had seen the Nazi military as a challenger. Prior to the purge, the s S had been a branch of the Essay, but Hitler officially recognized them as a separate and independent entity on July four. This gave Himmler a position of increased power, able to confer directly with Hitler, and made it possible for the SS to take control of the police force as well as assumed command of the concentration camp system. Within a couple of years, the s S had completely supplanted the previously existing German police force. Hindenberg died of lung cancer in early August nineteen thirty four, and after he was gone, and leading up to that, he was infirmed, so it also meant that he was not particularly powerful, But after he had died, the last vestiges of democratic government in Germany were systematically undone. On August nineteen, Hitler proclaimed himself here, and because of the alliance that had formed in the wake of Operation Hummingbird, the German army supported him. The Night of the Long Knives was used as a representative action on the part of the s S by Himmler. It proved. He would later say that the s S was loyal and willing to do anything required to preserve the nation. He invoked it in the nineteen forties when speaking of the Final Solution, assuring the high ranking members of the Nazi regime that his men were willing and able to carry out atrocities for the quote annihilation of the Jewish people. It's important to remember, too, that the world outside Germany had a really wide range of reactions to the Night of the Long Knives. British cartoonist David Lowe published a drawing of essay officers surrendering in fear before Hitler holding a smoking gun and Gurring dressed as a barbarian and carrying a bloody spear, and the caption on it read they salute with both hands. Now there's also a truly chilling right up the The Daily Mail, which wrote a lot of pro Hitler and pro fascist pieces during this period, and here is a quote from it. Harry Adolf Hitler, the German Chancellor, has saved his country swiftly and with exorable severity. He has delivered Germany from men who had become a danger to the unity of the German people and to the order of the state. With lightning rapidity. He has caused them to be removed from high office, to be arrested and put to death. The names of the men who have been shot by his orders are already known. Hitler's love of Germany has triumphed over private friendships and fidelity to comrades who had stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the fight for Germany's future. But it's so creepy to read that's uh in present day, because of course now we know that with Hitler, assuming the role of sure, events were in motion that would lead to World War two. Of course, in atrocities on an epic scale that as people do know about, uh well, And even even without that piece of the context, it's pretty horrifying for a paper to be praising a mass murder carried out in as extra judicial. Yeah, and It's interesting. It came up briefly in our our episode with Victoria Price actually that when Vincent Price was traveling, I forget what the years were, early early on and all of that, like even he and he was very young at the time when changed his position pretty drastically, but he initially came away thinking, wow, that's a really organized like state. They're really going to fix Germany. And of course a lot of people thought that, and it there was such a sort of false representation going on that it's easy to see how some people were lured in by the whole thing. Yes, especially before the murder. Yes, yeah, of course, Uh yeah, I don't know how you hear about all of that, like someone going, oh, over the last two days, I killed all of my enemies, and you go, that seems like a really smart, good move, Like, I don't know how you say that, but no, And it also reads very like there are historical accounts of you know, monarchs hundreds of years ago eliminating enemies and hearing such a similar story of a dictator doing the same thing, and I'm in the modern world. To me, yeah, why is seeing seeming more horrifying because it's seems like we as a as species should have learned to not do that. But maybe that's we as a species should have learned. It doesn't always work. I know. Thank you so much for joining us on this Saturday, since its episode is out of the archive. If you heard an email address or a Facebook U r L or something similar over the course of the show, that could be obsolete now. Our current email address is History Podcast at i heart radio dot com. Our old health stuff works email address no longer works, and you can find us all over social media at missed in History. And you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, the I heart Radio app, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.