Reinhard Heydrich died in 1942 after being targeted in Operation Anthropoid
Tina Gayle’s new book (Reinhard Heydrich Iron Heart), gives a real insight look into the life of Reinhard Heydrich. This book reveals new first hand evidence that will explode some of the myths and stories about this SS General. The book is very well researched and well presented. Reinhard Heydrich was a name that even intimidated Hitler with the terrible massacres and plans he had against the Jews. Especially the policies he implemented during his service in Czechoslovakia are one of the extreme points of ruthlessness. Tens of thousands of Jews were killed for the sake of Heydrich.
There are few buildings in Prague that are more impressive than the Wallenstein Palace. Built in the 17th century, it is a huge and sumptuous Baroque edifice.
Now housing the Czech Senate, the building has always been associated with power, and at no time was that more evident than on the evening of Tuesday, May 26, 1942.
For gathered in its Main Hall was the cream of the Nazi community that ruled what had once been Czechoslovakia, but was by that time the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
The Nazis were there to listen to a string quartet performing a selection of pieces by a German composer who had died four years before. His name was Bruno Heydrich, and the pieces were from an opera he had written in 1895 called Amen.
Set in a forest in central Germany, the work’s protagonist is called Reinhard, a heroic figure who battles an evil peasant leader.
The opera had been a success, and when his first child was born in March 1904, Bruno and his wife decided to name him after its hero. Thirty-eight years later, this son was now the host at the Wallenstein Palace.
Reinhard Heydrich was in the prime of his life and career. A general in the SS; the head of the Reich Security Main Office, which oversaw the Gestapo and most other Nazi security forces; and, since September 1941, the acting Reichsprotector of Bohemia and Moravia, Heydrich identified with the leading figure in his father’s opera.
As he and his wife, Lina, entered the Main Hall, the Nazi functionaries and their Czech collaborators saluted the couple.
Heydrich (right) alongside Nazi figureheads Heinrich Himmler (centre) and Karl Wolff (left) in Nuremberg in 1936
Heydrich looked every inch the despotic ruler of 7.5 million souls, his SS uniform bristling with medals and honours.
An accomplished musician, he would have enjoyed the entertainment, and possibly reflected on how successfully he had brought the Czechs into line. His mixture of draconian autocracy, such as hundreds of summary executions, as well as kinder measures — for example, increasing food rations — had proved remarkably effective, and earned him the gratitude of Hitler.
Heydrich might also have thought about his leading role in the extermination of the Jews, and mused on how effectively the Nazi policies, discussed at a conference he’d chaired in January in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee, were being put into genocidal practice.
After the concert, Heydrich surprised many by hosting a banquet at the grand Hotel Avalon. Not renowned for his affability, the normally cold Reichsprotector was, in the words of one witness, a ‘master of etiquette, entertaining, interested in everyone, a charming conversationalist’.
Nazi monster: Heydrich, pictured in 1940, died from his injuries after an attack by Czech and Slovak soldiers
Afterwards, he and his wife were driven back to their luxurious country house ten miles outside Prague. At that point, Heydrich might have felt on top of the world.
But in just ten hours, he would be lying in a hospital, fighting for his life, after a grenade was thrown at his car by a member of the Czech resistance. And a week later, just like the hero of his father’s opera, Reinhard Heydrich would be dead.
The assassination of Heydrich was a pivotal moment of World War II.
Although it deprived the Nazis of one of their darkest and most effective stars, it caused the regime not only to unleash horrific reprisals that would see the slaughter of 1,700 men, women, and children, but also to increase the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews to the death camps.
This weekend sees the release of a film about Heydrich’s killing, starring Jamie Dornan, the serial killer from BBC2’s The Fall, and Peaky Blinders’ Cillian Murphy as his assassins. Called Anthropoid, after the codename of the operation given by Britain’s secretive Special Operations Executive (SOE) which had planned it, the film is not only a recreation of the killing, but an examination of whether it caused more harm than good to the beleaguered Czechs.
Himmler (left) one of Hitler's right hand men, leaving his hotel with Heydrich in Vienna
But while the moral conundrums of Heydrich’s assassination have often been discussed and portrayed, what is far less scrutinised is the personality of the man himself.
What is seldom queried is how this product of a sophisticated and happy family became a man who exterminated millions.
To get to the roots of Heydrich’s evil, we must start with his childhood.
Born in the city of Halle, 100 miles south-west of Berlin, Heydrich was a frail and slight boy, dogged by illness. Nevertheless, he was determined this would not stop him competing keenly in his favourite sports, such as fencing, sailing and football.
We should not read too much into Heydrich’s single-mindedness. Such confidence came from his extremely secure upbringing, rather than anything inwardly sinister.
His father’s music conservatory was a huge success, and the family lived in a grand style, with a house full of fine furniture. His mother, Elisabeth, was independently wealthy, and while she employed governesses to help raise Heydrich and his brother and sister, she was not a haughty or distant figure.
The film about Operation Anthropoid is released this weekend
Young Reinhard did well at school, especially in science, and his early ambition was to be a chemist. As well as loving sports, he also enjoyed detective and spy novels, which would set him in good stead when he founded the SS intelligence service, the SD.
Naturally, as the son of a composer, Heydrich was taught music from an early age. By the time he was six, he was able to read music and to play the violin and the piano.
In essence then, there was nothing abnormal about the young Heydrich, no sign that he was a ‘monster’ or sadistic in any way. He was a bright, talented and cultured boy, who was ambitious, but not excessively so.
Neither does it appear that the Great War had any greater impact on Heydrich than on any other teenager. Like many patriotic youths in Germany and in Britain, he was keen to join up, but he was too young.
While he never experienced the trenches, Heydrich witnessed violence in his hometown. From 1919 to 1920, Halle, like so many German cities, was a hotbed of political violence, in which nationalist Freikorps units, consisting largely of aggrieved soldiers, fought with Communists, while government troops tried to keep order.
Reinhard Heydrich (right) salutes the Nazi flag at Prague Castle in 1941
The young Heydrich did not care for Communism — a hardly unusual stance — and joined a ‘defence force’ mustered by a Frei-korps unit. According to Robert Gerwarth, author of a magisterial biography of Heydrich called Hitler’s Hangman, there is no evidence Heydrich fought with the Freikorps.
‘His actual involvement in paramilitary activity was, therefore, largely confined to showing off his over-sized steel helmet to his teenage friends,’ writes Professor Gerwarth.
In addition, it appears that Heydrich was not politically motivated. Although he would later claim to be a member of pre-Nazi Right-wing organisations, there is little or no evidence to support this.
Heydrich (left) pictured alongside Himmler and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler at Hradcany Castle in Prague in 1939
However, Heydrich’s slight involvement with the Freikorps crucially taught him that violence was a seemingly legitimate part of the political process.
His flirtation with militarism led him to join the navy in 1922, and it was there that his ruthlessness and ambition emerged.
Although many post-war reminiscences of Heydrich by fellow cadets would be coloured by what he became, it seems that Heydrich, with his cultured upbringing, violin playing and shyness, was a loner.
In addition, there were rumours that he was partly Jewish, which did not endear him to the anti-semitic officer cadre.
The rumours were baseless, but would continue to haunt him, and it is easy to see how Heydrich’s rabid desire to mastermind the extermination of the Jews was a way of showing his Nazi colleagues he was not ‘tainted’ by Jewish blood.
A loner he may have been, but Heydrich was ambitious, and was adept at politicking. He had a knack for showing himself in a good light, and when he received his commission, he was predicted to go far.
However, his ambition soon twisted into arrogance — a quality that would prove to be the undoing of his naval career.
Heydrich (second from left) at a meeting with heads of the Gestapo, Artur Nebe, Franz Josef Huber, Heinrich Himmler and Heinrich Mueller in Berlin
The unravelling started when he met a young lady called Lina von Osten in December 1930. Instantly attracted to each other, they were engaged just before Christmas.
But a young woman in Berlin — whose identity has never been established — also thought she was engaged to Heydrich, and complained to his senior officers.
A military court of honour was convened, in which Heydrich displayed such a supercilious attitude towards the woman that the court threw him out of the navy because his ‘insincerity’, and a series of self-exculpatory lies, did not befit an officer.
His sacking was a personal disaster, but Lina stuck by him. What made matters worse was that his family’s wealth had dwindled because of the economic crisis in Germany in the Twenties — caused by its huge reparations after the Great War and hyper-inflation — and Heydrich could not rely on his father for financial support.
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Unwilling to accept job offers he saw as being beneath him, and still yearning to be in uniform, by the middle of 1931 Heydrich was amenable to an introduction made by a family friend to a man who was looking to establish an intelligence service for his political party. The man was Heinrich Himmler, and the group was the Nazi party.
Despite inexperience in intelligence work, Heydrich, drawing on his knowledge of spy and detective fiction, convinced the head of the SS he was the right man. In June, he was offered the post, and joined the Nazis.
Until then, Heydrich had been apolitical, unlike Lina and her family, who were passionate devotees of the Nazis. Lina was delighted with his new job, and described her husband’s meeting with Himmler as ‘the greatest moment of my life, of our life’.
It was a meeting that was to have terrible consequences for millions over the next few years.
Heydrich built up the SD intelligence service — and, as part of it, the Gestapo — into one of the most horrific organs of state repression the world has seen.
It was Heydrich who masterminded the shootings of hundreds of thousands of Jews and others. It was Heydrich who chaired the Wannsee Conference that would provide the blueprint for the ‘final solution of the Jewish question’.
And it was Heydrich who Hitler described as ‘one of the best National Socialists, one of the staunchest defenders of the concept of the German Reich and one of the greatest opponents of all enemies of this Reich’.
So what turned this cashiered young officer from a monied, musical family into such a loathsome figure?
The face of evil: Reinhard Heydrich, who died in 1942 after an attack by Czech resistance fighters
The metamorphosis started because Heydrich was ambitious, and eager to please his masters. It was not the politics of the Nazi movement that appealed to him, but the opportunity it gave for power and status.
But as he got sucked into the system, he became eager to prove that he was more true to Nazism than those who had signed up far earlier. It was the zeal of the convert, but with one extra ingredient — the influence of his wife and her family. So convinced was Lina of the rightness of Hitler’s mission that she would remain an apologist for the regime until she died in 1985.
As Heydrich became more immersed in Nazism, he sincerely believed his actions were ethical. He really did regard Jews as a deadly threat to society, and that their destruction would benefit humanity.
He undoubtedly had a conscience, but ambition and inverted moral certainty, further hardened by war, ensured that he did not waver.
‘It is almost too difficult for an individual,’ he said of the toughness required to fight his enemies, ‘but we must be hard as granite, or else the Fuhrer’s work will be in vain; much later people will be grateful for what we have taken upon us.’
Although it is hard to take the words of Himmler at face value, there may have been a scintilla of truth to the oration he made at Heydrich’s funeral, when he declared that ‘with Heydrich, I know what it cost this man to be so hard and severe, despite the softness of his heart’.
Finally, Heydrich could always assuage what was left of his conscience by convincing himself that violent means justified political ends.
The hit on Nazi chief Heydrich is dramatised in blockbuster Athropoid
In his eyes, democratic methods were weak, and could not counter the Jews and Communists. Brutality was essential to combat enemies of the Reich, not fine speeches and compromises.
Ultimately, Heydrich committed such barbarism because he felt it to be necessary. He was not born evil, and did not regard himself as such.
His daughter, Silke, speaking in 1971, would deny that her father was intrinsically bad.
‘Was my father an evil man?’ she asked an interviewer rhetorically. ‘If he really was, I should be able to feel this within myself. I have watched myself for a long time and didn’t feel anything of the sort.’
At the end of Heydrich’s father’s opera Amen, the hero is killed. As he dies on stage, he croaks out: ‘May God have mercy upon us!’
Yet surely the man who was given that hero’s name deserved no mercy, in life or in death.
However, while Heydrich certainly merits damnation, we should always try to understand why men such as him become men like him — for the ability to play the violin, to be cultured, urbane and intelligent, does not mean that a man is incapable of a lifetime of monstrous evil.
(1933) | |
Stabschef of the Sturmabteilung | |
---|---|
In office 5 January 1931 – 1 July 1934 | |
Leader | Adolf Hitler (as Oberste SA-Führer) |
Preceded by | Otto Wagener |
Succeeded by | Viktor Lutze |
Personal details | |
Born | 28 November 1887 Munich, Bavaria, German Empire |
Died | 1 July 1934 (aged 46) Stadelheim Prison, Munich, Germany |
Cause of death | Execution |
Resting place | Westfriedhof, Munich |
Nationality | German |
Political party | National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) |
Other political affiliations | German Workers' Party |
Parents | Guido Julius Josef Röhm (father) Sofia Emilie (mother) |
Signature | |
Military service | |
Allegiance | German Empire Weimar Republic Bolivia Nazi Germany |
Branch/service | Royal Bavarian Army Reichswehr Bolivian Army Sturmabteilung |
Years of service | 1906–1923 |
Rank | Hauptmann Lieutenant colonel (Bolivia) Stabschef(Sturmabteilung) |
Battles/wars | World War I |
Awards | Iron Cross First Class |
Ernst Julius Günther Röhm (German: [ˈɛɐ̯nst ˈʁøːm]; 28 November 1887 – 1 July 1934) was a German military officer and an early member of the Nazi Party. As one of the members of its predecessor, the German Workers' Party, he was a close friend and early ally of Adolf Hitler and a co-founder of the Sturmabteilung (SA, 'Storm Battalion'), the Nazi Party's militia, and later was its commander. By 1934, the German Army feared the SA's influence and Hitler had come to see Röhm as a potential rival, so he was executed during the Night of the Long Knives.
- 2Sturmabteilung leader
Early career[edit]
Ernst Röhm was born in Munich, the youngest of three children—he had an elder sister and brother—of Emilie and Julius Röhm. His father Julius, a railway official, was described as strict, but once he realized that his son responded better without exhortation, allowed him significant freedom to pursue his interests.[1] Although the family had no military tradition, Röhm entered the Royal Bavarian 10th Infantry Regiment Prinz Ludwig at Ingolstadt as a cadet on 23 July 1906 and was commissioned on 12 March 1908.[2][3] At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, he was adjutant of the 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment König. The following month, he was seriously wounded in the face at Chanot Wood in Lorraine and carried the scars for the rest of his life.[4] He was promoted to first lieutenant (Oberleutnant) in April 1915.[5] During an attack on the fortification at Thiaumont, Verdun, on 23 June 1916, he sustained a serious chest wound and spent the remainder of the war in France and Romania as a staff officer.[6] He was awarded the Iron Cross First Class before being wounded at Verdun, and was promoted to captain (Hauptmann) in April 1917.[7][8] Among his comrades, Röhm was considered a 'fanatical, simple-minded swashbuckler' who frequently displayed contempt for danger.[9] In his memoirs, Röhm reported that during the autumn of 1918, he contracted the deadly Spanish influenza and was not expected to live, but that he recovered after a lengthy convalescence.[10]
Following the armistice on 11 November 1918 that ended the war, Röhm continued his military career as a captain in the Reichswehr.[9] He was one of the senior members in Colonel von Epp's Bayerisches Freikorps für den Grenzschutz Ost ('Bavarian Free Corps for Border Patrol East'), formed in Ohrdruf in April 1919, which finally overturned the Munich Soviet Republic by force of arms on 3 May 1919. In 1919 he joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), which the following year became the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP).[11] Not long afterward he met Adolf Hitler, and they became political allies and close friends.[12] Röhm resigned or retired from the Reichswehr on 26 September 1923.[11] Throughout the early 1920s, Röhm remained an important intermediary between Germany's right-wing paramilitary organizations and the Reichswehr.[13] Additionally, it was Röhm who persuaded his former army commander, Colonel von Epp, to join the Nazis, an important development since Epp helped raise the sixty-thousand marks needed to purchase the Nazi periodical, the Völkischer Beobachter.[14]
When the Nazi Party held its 'German Day' celebration at Nuremberg during early September 1923, it was Röhm who helped bring together some 100,000 participants drawn from right-wing militant groups, veteran's associations, and other paramilitary formations—which included the Bund Oberland, Reichskriegsflagge, the SA, and the Kampfbund—all of them subordinate to Hitler as 'political leader' of the collective alliance.[15]
Röhm led the Reichskriegsflagge militia at the time of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch.[a] He rented the cavernous main hall of the Löwenbräukeller, supposedly for a reunion and festive comradeship. Meanwhile, Hitler and his entourage were at the Bürgerbräukeller.[17] It was here that Röhm planned to announce the revolution and use the units at his disposal to obtain weapons from secret caches with which to occupy crucial points in the centre of the city.[18] When the call came, he announced to those assembled in the Löwenbräukeller that the Kahr government had been deposed and Hitler had declared a 'national revolution' which elicited wild cheering. Röhm then led his force of nearly 2,000 men to the War Ministry,[19] which they occupied for sixteen hours.[b] Once in control of the Reichswehr headquarters, Röhm awaited news, barricaded inside.[20] The subsequent march into the city center led by Hitler, Hermann Göring, and General Erich Ludendorff with banners flying high, was ostensibly undertaken to 'free' Röhm and his forces.[21]
While crowds cheered—whipped into a frenzy by Strasser—shouting Heil, the armed ragtag assembly wearing red swastika armbands accompanying Hitler and company encountered blue-uniformed Bavarian State Police, who were prepared to counter the Putsch.[22] Around the time the marchers reached the Feldherrnhalle near the city center, shots rang out, scattering the participants. Before the exchange of gunfire ended, there were fourteen dead Nazis lying in the street and four policemen; the putsch had failed and the Nazis' first bid for power had lasted less than twenty-four hours.[23]
Defendants in the Beer Hall Putsch trial. From left to right: Pernet, Weber, Frick, Kriebel, Ludendorff, Hitler, Bruckner, Röhm, and Wagner.
Following the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 9 November 1923, Röhm, Hitler, General Ludendorff, Lieutenant Colonel Hermann Kriebel and six others were tried in February 1924 for high treason. Röhm was found guilty and sentenced to fifteen months in prison, but the sentence was suspended and he was placed on probation.[11] Hitler was found guilty and sentenced to five years' imprisonment, but served only nine months at Stadelheim Prison (under permissively lenient conditions), during which time he dictated most of the first volume of Mein Kampf ('My Struggle').[24][25]
In April 1924, Röhm became a Reichstag deputy for the völkisch (racial-national) National Socialist Freedom Party.[26] He made only one speech, urging the release of Lieutenant Colonel Kriebel. The seats won by his party were much reduced in the December 1924 election, and his name was too far down the list to return him to the Reichstag. While Hitler was in prison, Röhm helped to create the Frontbann as a legal alternative to the then-outlawed Sturmabteilung (SA). Hitler did not fully support the ambitious plans that Röhm had for this organization, which proved problematic. Hitler was distrustful of these paramilitary organizations because competing groups like the Bund Wiking, the Bund Bayern und Reich, and the Blücherbund were all vying for membership and he realized from the failed putsch that these groups could not be legitimized so long as the police and Reichwehr stayed loyal to the government.[26] When in April 1925 Hitler and Ludendorff disapproved of the proposals under which Röhm was prepared to integrate the 30,000-strong Frontbann into the SA, Röhm resigned from all political groups and military brigades on 1 May 1925. He felt great contempt for the 'legalistic' path the party leaders wanted to follow and sought seclusion from public life.[11] In 1928, he accepted a post in Bolivia as adviser to the Bolivian Army, where he was given the rank of lieutenant colonel. In the autumn of 1930, Röhm received a telephone call from Hitler requesting his return to Germany.[11]
Sturmabteilung leader[edit]
Röhm with Hitler, August 1933
In September 1930, as a consequence of the Stennes Revolt in Berlin, Hitler assumed supreme command of the SA as its new Oberster SA-Führer. He sent a personal request to Röhm, asking him to return to serve as the SA's Chief of Staff. Röhm accepted this offer and began his new assignment on 5 January 1931.[27] He brought radical new ideas to the SA, and appointed several close friends to its senior leadership. Previously, the SA formations were subordinate to the Nazi Party leadership of each Gau. Röhm established new Gruppe, which had no regional Nazi Party oversight. Each Gruppe extended over several regions and was commanded by a SA-Gruppenführer who answered only to Röhm or Hitler.[28]
The SA by this time numbered over a million members. Their initial assignment of protecting Nazi leaders at rallies and assemblies was taken over by the Schutzstaffel (SS) in relation to the top leaders.[29][30] The SA did continue its street battles against the communist, forces of rival political parties and violent actions against Jews and others deemed hostile to the Nazi agenda.[31]
Under Röhm, the SA often took the side of workers in strikes and other labor disputes, attacking strikebreakers and supporting picket lines. SA intimidation contributed to the rise of the Nazis and the violent suppression of right-wing parties during electoral campaigns, but its reputation for street violence and heavy drinking was a hindrance, as was the open homosexuality of Röhm and other SA leaders such as his deputy Edmund Heines.[32] In June 1931, the Münchener Post, a Social Democratic newspaper, began attacking Röhm and the SA regarding homosexuality in its ranks and then in March 1932, the paper obtained and published some private letters of his that left no doubt about his homosexuality; these letters were confiscated by the Berlin police back in 1931 and subsequently passed along to the journalist Helmuth Klotz.[33]
Hitler was aware of Röhm's homosexuality. Their friendship shows in that Röhm remained one of the few intimates allowed to use the familiar German du (the German familiar form of 'you') when conversing with Hitler.[12] In turn, Röhm was the only Nazi leader who dared to address Hitler by his first name 'Adolf' or his nickname 'Adi' rather than 'mein Führer'.[34]Their close association led to rumors that Hitler himself was homosexual.[35] Unlike many of the Nazi paladins, Röhm never fell victim to Hitler's 'arresting personality' nor did he come fully under his spell, which made him unique in the Nazi hierarchy.[36]
As Hitler rose to national power with his appointment as chancellor in January 1933, SA members were appointed auxiliary police and ordered by Göring to sweep aside 'all enemies of the state'.[28]
Second revolution[edit]
Röhm and the SA regarded themselves as the vanguard of the 'National Socialist revolution'. After Hitler's national takeover they expected radical changes in Germany, including power and rewards for themselves, unaware that, as Chancellor, Hitler no longer needed their street-fighting capabilities.[37] Nevertheless, Hitler did name Röhm to the cabinet as a minister without portfolio.[38]
Along with other members of the more radical faction within the Nazi Party, Röhm advocated a 'second revolution' that was overtly anti-capitalist in its general disposition.[39] These radicals rejected exploitative capitalism and they intended to take steps to curb monopolies and promoted the nationalization of land and industry.[39] Such plans were threatening to the business community in general, and to Hitler's corporate financial backers in particular—including many German industrial leaders he would rely upon for arms production—so to keep from alienating them Hitler swiftly reassured his powerful industrial allies that there would be no such revolution as espoused by these Party radicals.[40]
With Orpo Chief Kurt Daluege and SS Chief Heinrich Himmler, in August 1933
![Reinhard Heydrich Nose Reinhard Heydrich Nose](/uploads/1/2/4/7/124781582/542560770.jpg)
Many SA 'storm troopers' had working-class origins and longed for a radical transformation of German society.[41] They were disappointed by the new regime's lack of socialistic direction and its failure to provide the lavish patronage they had expected.[42] Furthermore, Röhm and his SA colleagues thought of their force as the core of the future German Army, and saw themselves as replacing the Reichswehr and its established professional officer corps.[43] By then, the SA had swollen to over three million men, dwarfing the Reichswehr, which was limited to 100,000 men by the Treaty of Versailles. Although Röhm had been a member of the officer corps, he viewed them as 'old fogies' who lacked 'revolutionary spirit'. He believed that the Reichswehr should be merged into the SA to form a true 'people's army' under his command, a pronouncement that caused significant consternation within the army's hierarchy and convinced them that the SA was a serious threat.[44] At a February 1934 cabinet meeting, Röhm then demanded that the merge be made, under his leadership as Minister of Defence.[45]
SA leader Ernst Röhm in Bavaria in 1934
This horrified the army, with its traditions going back to Frederick the Great. The army officer corps viewed the SA as an 'undisciplined mob' of 'brawling' street thugs, and was also concerned by the pervasiveness of 'corrupt morals' within the ranks of the SA. Reports of a huge cache of weapons in the hands of SA members caused additional concern to the army leadership.[45] Unsurprisingly, the officer corps opposed Röhm's proposal. They insisted that discipline and honor would vanish if the SA gained control, but Röhm and the SA would settle for nothing less. In addition the army leadership was eager to co-operate with Hitler given his plan of re-armament and expansion of the established professional military forces.[43]
In February 1934, Hitler told British diplomat Anthony Eden of his plan to reduce the SA by two-thirds. That same month, Hitler announced that the SA would be left with only a few minor military functions. Röhm responded with complaints, and began expanding the armed elements of the SA. Speculation that the SA was planning a coup against Hitler became widespread in Berlin. In March, Röhm offered a compromise in which 'only' a few thousand SA leaders would be taken into the army, but the army promptly rejected that idea.[46]
On 11 April 1934, Hitler met with German military leaders on the ship Deutschland. By that time, he knew President Paul von Hindenburg would likely die before the end of the year. Hitler informed the army hierarchy of Hindenburg's declining health and proposed that the Reichswehr support him as Hindenburg's successor. In exchange, he offered to reduce the SA, suppress Röhm's ambitions, and guarantee the Reichswehr would be Germany's only military force. According to war correspondent William L. Shirer, Hitler also promised to expand the army and navy.[47]
Although determined to curb the power of the SA, Hitler put off doing away with his long-time ally. A political struggle within the party grew, with those closest to Hitler, including Prussian premier Hermann Göring, Propaganda MinisterJoseph Goebbels, and Reichsführer-SSHeinrich Himmler, positioning themselves against Röhm. To isolate the latter, on 20 April 1934, Göring transferred control of the Prussian political police (Gestapo) to Himmler, who he believed could be counted on to move against Röhm.[48]
Both the Reichswehr and the conservative business community continued to complain to Hindenburg about the SA. In early June, defence minister Werner von Blomberg issued an ultimatum to Hitler from Hindenburg: unless Hitler took immediate steps to end the growing tension in Germany, Hindenburg would declare martial law and turn over control of the country to the army.[49] The threat of a declaration of martial law from Hindenburg, the only person in Germany with the authority to potentially depose the Nazi regime, put Hitler under pressure to act. Hitler decided the time had come both to destroy Röhm and to settle scores with old enemies. Both Himmler and Göring welcomed Hitler's decision, since both had much to gain by Röhm's downfall—the independence of the SS for Himmler, and the removal of a rival for Göring.[50]
Death[edit]
In preparation for the purge known as the Night of the Long Knives, both Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SS Security Service, assembled a dossier of manufactured evidence to suggest that Röhm had been paid 12 million Reichsmarks (equivalent to € 48 million 2009) by the government of France to overthrow Hitler. Leading officers in the SS were shown falsified evidence on 24 June that Röhm planned to use the SA to launch a plot against the government (Röhm-Putsch).[51] At Hitler's direction, Göring, Himmler, Heydrich, and Victor Lutze drew up lists of people in and outside the SA to be killed. One of the men Göring recruited to assist him was Willi Lehmann, a Gestapo official and NKVD spy. On 25 June, General Werner von Fritsch placed the Reichswehr on the highest level of alert.[52] On 27 June, Hitler moved to secure the army's cooperation.[53] Blomberg and General Walther von Reichenau, the army's liaison to the party, gave it to him by expelling Röhm from the German Officers' League.[54] On 28 June, Hitler went to Essen to attend a wedding celebration and reception; from there he called Röhm's adjutant at Bad Wiessee and ordered SA leaders to meet with him on 30 June at 11:00 a.m.[50] On 29 June, a signed article in Völkischer Beobachter by Blomberg appeared in which Blomberg stated with great fervour that the Reichswehr stood behind Hitler.[55]
Hotel Lederer am See (former Hanselbauer Hotel) in Bad Wiessee before its planned demolition in 2017
On 30 June 1934, Hitler and a large group of SS and regular police flew to Munich and arrived between 06:00 and 07:00 at Hanselbauer Hotel in Bad Wiessee, where Röhm and his followers were staying.[56] With Hitler's early arrival, the SA leadership, still in bed, were taken by surprise. SS men stormed the hotel and Hitler personally placed Röhm and other high-ranking SA leaders under arrest. According to Erich Kempka, Hitler turned Röhm over to 'two detectives holding pistols with the safety catch removed'. The SS found Breslau SA leader Edmund Heines in bed with an unidentified eighteen-year-old male SA senior troop leader.[57] Goebbels emphasised this aspect in subsequent propaganda, justifying the purge as a crackdown on moral turpitude.[58] Hitler ordered both Heines and his partner taken outside of the hotel and shot.[59] Meanwhile, the SS arrested the other SA leaders as they left their train for the planned meeting with Röhm and Hitler.[60]
Although Hitler presented no evidence of a plot by Röhm to overthrow the regime, he nevertheless denounced the leadership of the SA.[58] Arriving back at party headquarters in Munich, Hitler addressed the assembled crowd. Consumed with rage, Hitler denounced 'the worst treachery in world history'. Hitler told the crowd that 'undisciplined and disobedient characters and asocial or diseased elements' would be annihilated. The crowd, which included party members and many SA members fortunate enough to escape arrest, shouted its approval.[60] Joseph Goebbels, who had been with Hitler at Bad Wiessee, set the final phase of the plan in motion. Upon returning to Berlin, Goebbels telephoned Göring at 10:00 with the codeword kolibri ('hummingbird') to let loose the execution squads on the rest of their unsuspecting victims.[58]Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler commander Sepp Dietrich received orders from Hitler to form an 'execution squad' and go to Stadelheim prison in Munich where Röhm and other SA leaders were being held under arrest.[61] There in the prison courtyard, the Leibstandarte firing squad shot five SA generals and an SA colonel.[62] Several of those not immediately executed were taken back to the Leibstandarte barracks at Lichterfelde, given one-minute 'trials', and shot by a firing squad. Röhm himself, however, was kept prisoner.[63]
Hitler was hesitant in authorising Röhm's execution, perhaps because of loyalty or embarrassment about the execution of an important lieutenant; he eventually did so, and agreed that Röhm should have the option of suicide.[59] On 1 July, SS-BrigadeführerTheodor Eicke (later Kommandant of the Dachau concentration camp) and SS-ObersturmbannführerMichael Lippert visited Röhm. Once inside Röhm's cell, they handed him a Browning pistol loaded with a single bullet and told him he had ten minutes to kill himself or they would do it for him. Röhm demurred, telling them, 'If I am to be killed, let Adolf do it himself.'[59] Having heard nothing in the allotted time, Eicke and Lippert returned to Röhm's cell at 14:50 to find him standing, with his bare chest puffed out in a gesture of defiance.[64] Eicke and Lippert then shot Röhm, killing him.[65][c] SA-ObergruppenführerViktor Lutze, who had been spying on Röhm, was named as the new Stabschef SA.[67]
While some Germans were shocked by the killings of 30 June to 2 July 1934, many others saw Hitler as the one who restored 'order' to the country. Goebbels's propaganda highlighted the 'Röhm-Putsch' in the days that followed. The homosexuality of Röhm and other SA leaders was made public to add 'shock value', even though the sexuality of Röhm and other named SA leaders had been known by Hitler and other Nazi leaders for years.[68]
The purge of the SA was legalised on 3 July with a one-paragraph decree: the Law Regarding Measures of State Self-Defence, a step that historian Robin Cross contends was done by Hitler to cover his own tracks.[69] The Law declared, 'The measures taken on 30 June, 1 and 2 July to suppress treasonous assaults are legal as acts of self-defence by the State.' At the time no public reference was made to the alleged SA rebellion, but only generalised references to misconduct, perversion and some sort of plot.[70] In a nationally broadcast speech to the Reichstag on 13 July, Hitler justified the purge as a defence against treason.[71][72] Before the events of the Night of the Long Knives concluded, not only was Röhm dead, but more than 200 additional people had been killed,[d] including Nazi official Gregor Strasser, former chancellor General Kurt von Schleicher, and Franz von Papen's secretary, Edgar Jung.[73] Most of those murdered had little to no affiliation with Röhm but were killed for political reasons.[74]
In an attempt to erase Röhm from German history, all known copies of the 1933 propaganda film The Victory of Faith (Der Sieg des Glaubens)—in which Röhm appeared—were destroyed in 1934, probably on Hitler's order.[75][e]
Decorations and awards[edit]
- Military Merit Cross (Bavaria) 4th Class with swords, 1914[76]
- 1914 Iron Cross 2nd Class[76]
- 1914 Iron Cross 1st Class, 1916[76]
- 1914 Wound Badge in Silver, 1918[76]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
Informational notes
- ^His involvement in such activities was very much in keeping with his persona, as Röhm claimed in his memoir—originally published in 1928—that 'War and unrest appeal to me more than the orderly life of your respectable burgher.'[16]
- ^Röhm was not involved with the Sturmabteiling until after he returned from a trip to Bolivia, but he did work to create armed militia units. He was deeply involved in hoarding arms and shipping weapons into Austria in defiance of the terms of the Versailles Treaty, but was never caught. See Röhm, Ernst (1928) Die Geschichte eines Hochverräters Munich: Franz Eher Verlag; and 'Homosexuals and the Third Reich', Jewish Virtual Library
- ^Röhm was buried in the Westfriedhof ('Western Cemetery') in Munich. In 1957, the German authorities tried Lippert in Munich for Röhm's murder. Until then, Lippert had been one of the few executioners of the purge to evade trial. Lippert was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison.[66]
- ^Rudolf Pechel—considered a reliable source—claims the number was much higher, placing the death toll at 922.
- ^The Victory of Faith was long thought to have been lost until a single copy was found in storage in Britain in the 1990s. See: The Victory of Faith, Internet Archive The 1935 film Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens), produced in 1934, showed the new Nazi hierarchy, with the SS as the Nazis' premier uniformed paramilitary group and Röhm replaced by Viktor Lutze. but by then, the role of the SA was much less prominent than in the early years.See: Charles Hamilton (1984), Leaders & Personalities of the Third Reich, Vol. 1, p. 312
Citations
- ^Hancock 2008, p. 8.
- ^Hockerts 2003, p. 714.
- ^Hancock 2008, p. 11.
- ^Hancock 2008, pp. 18–19.
- ^Hancock 2008, p. 19.
- ^Hancock 2008, pp. 19–21.
- ^Hancock 2008, p. 23.
- ^Röhm 1934, pp. 50–51.
- ^ abSnyder 1989, p. 65.
- ^Röhm 1934, pp. 56–57.
- ^ abcdeZentner & Bedürftig 1991, p. 807.
- ^ abManvell & Fraenkel 2010, p. 135.
- ^Siemens 2017, p. 16.
- ^Snyder 1989, p. 66.
- ^Childers 2017, p. 52.
- ^Childers 2017, p. 43.
- ^Childers 2017, p. 57.
- ^Dornberg 1982, p. 20.
- ^Dornberg 1982, pp. 84, 118.
- ^Childers 2017, pp. 58–59.
- ^Childers 2017, p. 59.
- ^Childers 2017, pp. 60–61.
- ^Childers 2017, pp. 61–62.
- ^Kershaw 2008, pp. 147, 239.
- ^Bullock 1962, p. 121.
- ^ abSiemens 2017, p. 29.
- ^McNab 2013, p. 14.
- ^ abMcNab 2013, p. 16.
- ^Cook & Bender 1994, pp. 17, 19.
- ^Weale 2012, pp. 15–16.
- ^Weale 2012, pp. 70, 166.
- ^Machtan 2002, p. 107.
- ^Siemens 2017, p. 173.
- ^Gunther 1940, p. 6.
- ^Knickerbocker 1941, p. 34.
- ^Moulton 1999, p. 469.
- ^McNab 2013, p. 17.
- ^Snyder 1994, p. 298.
- ^ abMcDonough 1999, p. 26.
- ^Bendersky 2007, pp. 96–98.
- ^Frei 1993, pp. 10–11.
- ^Siemens 2017, pp. 122–123, 187–188.
- ^ abMcNab 2013, pp. 16, 17.
- ^Evans 2005, pp. 24–25.
- ^ abKershaw 2008, p. 306.
- ^Fest 1974, p. 467.
- ^Shirer 1990, p. 207.
- ^Evans 2005, p. 54.
- ^Wheeler-Bennett 2005, pp. 319–320.
- ^ abEvans 2005, p. 31.
- ^Evans 2005, p. 30.
- ^Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 321.
- ^O'Neill 1967, pp. 72–80.
- ^Bullock 1958, p. 165.
- ^Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 322.
- ^Bullock 1958, p. 166.
- ^Kempka 1971.
- ^ abcKershaw 1999, p. 514.
- ^ abcShirer 1960, p. 221.
- ^ abEvans 2005, p. 32.
- ^Cook & Bender 1994, pp. 22–23.
- ^Cook & Bender 1994, p. 23.
- ^Gunther 1940, pp. 51–57.
- ^Evans 2005, p. 33.
- ^Kershaw 2008, p. 312.
- ^Messenger 2005, pp. 204–205.
- ^Evans 2005, pp. 32–33.
- ^Kershaw 2008, p. 315.
- ^Cross 2009, p. 94.
- ^Fest 1974, p. 468.
- ^Fest 1974, pp. 473–487.
- ^Shirer 1960, p. 226.
- ^Moulton 1999, p. 470.
- ^Klee 2016, p. 503.
- ^Ullrich 2016, p. 532.
- ^ abcdMiller 2015, p. 186.
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- Cross, Robin (2009). Hitler: An Illustrated Life. London: Quercus. ISBN978-1847249999.
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- Fischer, Conan (1999). 'Ernst Julius Röhm – Stabschef der SA und unentbehrlicher Außenseiter'. In Smelser, Ronald; Zitelmann, Rainer (eds.). Die braune Elite 1, 22 biografische Skizzen (in German). Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. pp. 212–222. ISBN978-3534800360.
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- Hancock, Eleanor (2008). Ernst Röhm: Hitler's SA Chief of Staff. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN0-230-60402-1.
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- Kempka, Erich (15 October 1971). 'Erich Kempka interview'. Library of Congress: Adolf Hitler Collection, C-89, 9376-88A-B.
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- Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN978-0-393-06757-6.
- Klee, Ernst (2016). Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich: Wer war was vor und nach 1945 (in German). Hamburg: Nikol Verlag. ISBN978-3-86820-311-0.
- Knickerbocker, H. R. (1941). Is Tomorrow Hitler's? 200 Questions On the Battle of Mankind. Reynal & Hitchcock. ISBN978-1-417-99277-5.
- Machtan, Lothar (2002). The Hidden Hitler. Basic Books. ISBN0-465-04309-7.
- Manvell, Roger; Fraenkel, Heinrich (2010). Goebbels: His Life and Death. New York: Skyhorse Publishing. ISBN978-1-61608-029-7.
- McDonough, Frank (1999). Hitler and Nazi Germany. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-52100-358-2.
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- Moulton, Jon (1999). 'Röhm, Ernst (1887–1934)'. In David T. Zabecki (ed.). World War II in Europe: An Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. London and New York: Garland Publishing Inc. ISBN0-8240-7029-1.
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- Röhm, Ernst (1934). Die Memoiren des Stabschef Röhm (in German). Saarbrücken: Uranus Verlag. OCLC17775461.
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- Siemens, Daniel (2017). Stormtroopers: A New History of Hitler's Brownshirts. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN978-0-30019-681-8.
- Snyder, Louis (1994) [1976]. Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. Da Capo Press. ISBN978-1-56924-917-8.
- Snyder, Louis (1989). Hitler’s Elite: Biographical Sketches of Nazis Who Shaped the Third Reich. New York: Hippocrene Books. ISBN978-0-87052-738-8.
- Ullrich, Volker (2016). Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939. New York: Knopf. ISBN978-0-38535-438-7.
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- Wheeler-Bennett, John (2005). The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918–1945 (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN978-1-4039-1812-3.
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Further reading
- Jablonsky, David (July 1988). 'Rohm and Hitler: The Continuity of Political-Military Discord'. Journal of Contemporary History. 23 (3): 367–386. doi:10.1177/002200948802300303. JSTOR260688.
- Mahron, Norbert (2011). Röhm. Ein deutsches Leben (in German). Leipzig: Lychatz-Verlag. ISBN978-3-942929-00-4.
- Mühle, Marcus (2016). Ernst Röhm. Eine biografische Skizze (in German). Berlin: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Berlin. ISBN978-3-86573-912-4.
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ernst Röhm. |
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Ernst Röhm |
- Ernst Röhm at Find a Grave
- Newspaper clippings about Ernst Röhm in the 20th Century Press Archives of the German National Library of Economics (ZBW)
Military offices | ||
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Preceded by Otto Wagener | Stabschef-SA 1931–34 | Succeeded by Viktor Lutze |
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