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For Years, Hitler’s Storm Trooper Brown Shirts Did Not Wear Brown Shirts

By
thehistorianshut
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At the end of WWI, the Treaty of Versailles limited the multi-million-man strong German army to a cap of 100,000 men in 1919. Consequently, a flood of angry, disgruntled and disenchanted German war veterans were left unemployed and disillusioned with Germany’s new Weimar Republic government. These discharged millions became vulnerable to the allure of the Freikorps (Free Corps) movement—a wave of militant paramilitary organizations that was popping up all over Germany. Freikorps militias vowed to defend Germany from foreign threats and, internally, also brawled with Communists. While millions were removed from the army’s payroll, Ernst Röhm and Adolf Hitler were not among the layoffs. Röhm continued to be employed as a military officer involved in overseeing financial and administrative aid to the paramilitaries, for the German military saw the Freikorps militias as a necessity to offset national vulnerabilities caused by the 100,000 man military cap. Meanwhile, Hitler was a military spy sent in 1919 to surveil a radical German Workers’ Party branch in Munich, an organization to which Röhm also belonged. It was the precursor of the Nazi party. Hitler, rather than remaining loyal to the army, was instead won over to the party’s cause and left the military in 1920 to become the party propagandist. That year, the party rebranded to the Nazi name. With Ernst Röhm and Adolf Hitler in place, and the Freikorps movement thriving, the birth of a new paramilitary organization, the Sturm Abteilung, was set in motion (also spelled as Sturmabteilung—the SA, known as Storm Troopers or Storm Division). Curiously, although the group was later nicknamed the Brown Shirts for their khaki uniforms, the earliest iterations of the SA did not usually wear brown or khaki.

Hitler technically founded the SA in 1921, but the renamed and re-uniformed group had its roots in preexisting Freikorps organizations cultivated by Ernst Röhm. Yet, Röhm—unlike Hitler—was still actively serving as an army officer, so he kept his influence with the SA informal and undocumented. Titular command of the SA was given to other Nazis, such as Hermann Göring. Even so, Röhm was involved in organizing, training, and recruiting for the SA, and he used his army role to supply and finance the Storm Troopers. Hitler, the one-time aspiring artist, had less influence over the early SA, but he did have a say in their uniforms. Hitler’s chosen wardrobe for the Nazi Storm Troopers involved a tightly woven cotton windbreaker for the torso, and a soft flat-top ski cap for the head. Tall boots pulled up over pants were also encouraged to complete the ensemble. In the early years, the SA dress code was more like guidelines than a strict uniform, with members wearing different kinds and colors of windbreakers, sporting different configurations of buttons and pockets. Grey, instead of brown or khaki, was known to have been among the most popular colors in the early years of the SA.

Hitler, despite being technically the founder of the Storm Troopers, soon realized that the SA and its leaders could be a threat to himself and the Nazi Party’s political leadership. Therefore, Hitler developed a second paramilitary force, one loyal only to him, by 1933. This Stosstrupp Hitler (Shock Troop Hitler) would later morph into the infamous Shutz Staffel (SS, or Security Staff). In 1923, Hitler surrounded himself with his newly formed personal shock troop force during his failed Beer Hall Putsch against the regional Bavarian government. Röhm, betraying his army employers, was also involved in the rebellion and occupied the War Ministry building with his own paramilitary unit during the short-lived revolt. Röhm aside, the rest of the army sided with the government. Consequently, Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch was crushed, and the Nazi leaders were arrested, albeit briefly. The failed revolt could have been the end of the Nazi Party, but instead Hitler unfortunately learned from the events of the putsch. He realized he needed a legitimate and legal path to the chancellorship and that developing an alliance with the German military would be a key to his authoritarian ambitions.

Hitler, during his imprisonment, would go on to write his Mein Kampf manifesto. Röhm, for his role in the putsch, was kicked out of the army. This cut off the government aid that he had been able to funnel to the Nazis, but being removed from the army also allowed Röhm to more openly involve himself in Nazi paramilitary leadership. In the aftermath of the putsch, the SA had been banned, but Röhm continued to develop the paramilitary group under the cover of a shell organization called the Frontbann. In 1925, the SA was brought back and reorganized, and by that time, Röhm and Hitler had implemented a new standardized khaki shirt uniform that was originally sourced from surplus colonial gear.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Image labeled “Munich, présentation des étendards des gardes de Hitler,” by Agence Rol and dated 27 January 1923, [Public Domain] via BnF and Wikimedia).

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Andromache and Astyanax, by Pierre Paul Prud’hon (c. 1758–1823)

By
thehistorianshut
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This illustration, by the French artist Pierre Paul Prud’hon (c. 1758–1823), was initially intended for a collection of plays by Jean Racine (c. 1639-1699). The commission, however, fell through and Pierre Paul Prud’hon repurposed the design for an original painting of his own. The illustration (and later painting) features the characters, Andromache and Astyanax, from ancient Greek myth and legend. Andromache was the wife of the Trojan hero, Hector, and Astyanax was their child. Homer described their family in his Iliad, stating, “Andromache came to meet…[Hector], and her waiting-woman carried the little boy in her arms, their baby son and Hector’s darling, lovely as a star, whom Hector called Scamandrius, but everyone else Astyanax, ‘Town-lord’, because his father was the one defence of Ilium” (The Iliad, Book 6, approximately line 400).

Prud’hon’s illustration likely envisions a scene after the death of Hector at the hands of Achilles, and after the successful capture of Troy due to Odysseus’ horse scheme. In the chaos and mayhem of the fall of Troy, Andromache and Astyanax had the misfortune of becoming the prisoners of Achilles’ violent son, Neoptolemus (sometimes called Pyrrhus)—often identified as the killer of King Priam of Troy and one of those responsible for the sacrifice of Priam’s daughter, Polyxena, after the war. Andromache’s son, Astyanax, too, became one of the victims of the Greeks, and his murderer was often identified as either Neoptolemus or Odysseus by the ancients. It is this sad story that inspired Pierre Paul Prud’hon’s illustration and painting.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

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James Fenimore Cooper

By
thehistorianshut
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James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)

“Graves bring solemn feelings over the mind…and they often aid a man in his good intentions.”

  • From James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans (chapter 3), originally published in 1826. The reprinted edition used here is from the De Luxe Editions Club / The Country Life Press (New York, 1950s?).

The Tale of King Lars Porsena And The Runaway Captive, Cloelia

By
thehistorianshut
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King Lars Porsena (also spelled Porsenna) was the Etruscan monarch of Clusium (modern Chusi, Tuscany) during the transitional period in which Rome changed its government from a kingdom to a republic. At that turning point, traditionally dated to 509 BCE by the Romans, Lars Porsena and his army besieged Rome. Ancient Roman tradition held that the city of Rome, itself, withstood Porsena’s siege, but historians are not so sure—it is a popular historical theory that Porsena may have occupied Rome, dethroned the Roman monarchy, and served as the catalyst for the subsequent rise of the Roman Republic. Nevertheless, within or without the city, Lars Porsena occupied the Roman countryside and captured untold numbers of Romans during the opening phases of the invasion. Notably, there was a brave girl named Cloelia who was taken captive by Porsena’s forces. Held in an Etruscan camp near the Tiber, she became the leader of a group of captured women, and they plotted an escape as the war played out beyond the camp walls.

In terms of chronology, Cloelia remained a captive for key periods of Lars Porsena’s campaign. She was in captivity while Rome was besieged, and she remained imprisoned at the time when the Roman, Gaius Mucius Scaevola, attempted unsuccessfully to assassinate Porsena. Cloelia also was unaware that Lars Porsena and the Romans subsequently began negotiating an end to the war. Isolated from these goings-on, Cloelia and her band of captive followers only focused on one thing—freedom. Livy (59 BCE-17 CE), a Roman historian, recorded the tale of her daring escape from the prison. He wrote:

“Cloelia, an unmarried girl, was one of the hostages, held, as it happened, in the Etruscan lines not far from the Tiber; one day, with a number of other girls who had consented to follow her, she eluded the guards, swam across the river under a hail of missiles, and brought her company safe to Rome, where they were all restored to their families. Porsena was furious, and sent to Rome to demand Cloelia’s return—adding that the loss of the other girls did not trouble him…and he made it clear that…he would regard the treaty as broken if she were not returned…” (Livy, History of Rome, 2.13.6-8).

Despite Porsena’s initial rage, his subsequent assessment of the escape and its mastermind lessened his anger. According to ancient Roman tradition, Lars Porsena actually came to be quite impressed with Cloelia’s leadership and bravery. Seeing her in a new light, Porsena decided to amend his earlier demands to the Romans. As told by the aforementioned historian, Livy:

“[S]oon, however, his anger gave way to admiration of her more than masculine courage…he would…if the Romans surrendered her, himself restore her safe and sound to her family. Both sides acted honourably: the Romans, as the terms of the treaty required, sent the hostage back, and Porsena not only protected the brave girl but praised her publicly, and marked his appreciation of her exploit by handing over to her discretion a certain number of other hostages, to be chosen by herself” (Livy, History of Rome, 2.13.8-9).

By Livy’s lifetime (c. 59 BCE-17 CE), the Romans had long identified a statue on the via Sacra (Sacred Way) as a memorial to Cloelia. The art piece, depicting a woman riding a horse, was said to have been commissioned and installed by grateful citizens of the early Republic. On this, Livy wrote, “the Romans paid tribute to Cloelia’s courage, unprecedented in a woman, by an equally unprecedented honour: a statue representing her on horseback was set up at the top of the Sacred Way” (Livy, History of Rome, 2.13.11). There were, of course, disagreements about when the ancient statue was created and who it depicted (names of goddesses and other historical women were also proposed), but the tale of Cloelia was the best-known and most popular explanation for the statue.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Cloelia escapes from the Etruscan camp, Bartolomeo Pinelli (19th century), [Public Domain] via the Rijksmuseum).

Sources:

Hercules Steals the Oxen of Geryon, by Joos de Momper II (c. 1564-1635)

By
thehistorianshut
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This painting, by the Flemish artist Joos de Momper II (c. 1564-1635), was inspired by tales of the Greek legendary figure, Heracles (or Hercules), and his lengthy adventure to seize a specific herd of cattle that was located around the region of Cadiz, Spain. Scholars Pseudo-Apollodorus (c. 1st-2nd century) and Diodorus Siculus (c. 1st century BCE) both labeled the cattle as Heracles’ Tenth Labour for King Eurystheus of Mycenaean Tiryns, but their accounts differed greatly. Pseudo-Apollodorus presented the more fantastical rendition; the cattle were owned by a monstrous figure named Geryon (or Geryones)—an individual with three torsos and three pairs of legs fused to a single waist. Fittingly, Geryon also had a two-headed dog named Orthos. In that version of the myth, Heracles sailed in a great golden cup provided to him by the sun god, Helios, and trekked along the coast of North Africa and past the Strait of Gibraltar to reach Cadiz. After the locals were alerted, Heracles struck the guard-dog Orthos with a club, killed a giant herdsman named Eurytion, and slew Geryon with a well-placed arrow. Following the massacre, Heracles herded Geryon’s cattle onto Helios’ golden cup and began his journey back to King Eurystheus of Tiryns, this time setting course along the coast of Spain, France and Italy to reach Greece.

Diodorus Siculus, contrastingly, described Heracles’ mission as more of a military expedition against an Iberian civilization than as a solo heist targeting a monster’s livestock. In Diodorus’ account, the true obstacle to the success of the mission was Geryon’s father, Chrysaor, who was presented as a hegemon ruler of Spain. Diodorus Siculus wrote:

“Eurystheus then enjoined upon him as a tenth Labour the bringing back of the cattle of Geryones, which pastured in the parts of Iberia which slope towards the ocean. Heracles, realizing that this task called for preparation on a large scale and involved great hardships, gathered a notable armament and a multitude of solders such as would be adequate for this expedition, for it had been noised abroad throughout all the inhabited world that Chrysaor [he of the golden sword], who received this appellation because of his wealth, was king over the whole of Iberia…” (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 4.17).

In this iteration of the tale, Heracles gathered his expeditionary force at Crete and then charted a course along the North African coast, through the strait of Gibraltar, and then up the Spanish coast to reach the Cadiz region. As Diodorus’ story goes, Heracles’ expedition soon became boxed in by armies led against them by Chrysaor’s clan. Rather than engage in a battle between armies, Heracles instead challenged Chrysaor’s sons (including Geryon) to duels in single combat. On the success of this move, Diodorus wrote, “he challenged each of the leaders to single combat and slew them all, and then after subduing Iberia he drove off the celebrated herds of cattle” (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 4.18). After the duels, the locals dared not challenge Heracles. Instead, they gave him safe passage through Spain, letting him drive the cattle through the Iberian Peninsula to Gallic France. From there, as in the Pseudo-Apollodorus account, Heracles took a detour in Italy and then continued on to deliver the animals to King Eurystheus in Tiryns, Greece.

Such is the tale that inspired the painting by Joos de Momper II. His artwork seems to pull from both accounts. Harkening to the Pseudo-Apollodorus variant of the tale, the painting depicts Heracles alone; no armies, no companions, it is just Heracles and the cattle. Yet, the artwork also draws elements from Diodorus Siculus’ more mundane and less fantastical account of the story. Namely, no three-bodied monstrosities, two-headed dogs, or giant golden cups were painted in the scene by Joos de Momper. Instead, evoking Diodorus’ account of the hero’s peaceful exit of Spain after his duels with Chrysaor’s scions, Heracles can be seen driving the cattle through a picturesque countryside.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Sources:

Winston Churchill

By
thehistorianshut
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Winston Churchill (c. 1874-1965)

“Between dwelling in a Fool’s Paradise or in a Fool’s Inferno there ought to be some middle space, be it only a Purgatory for Fools.”

  • From Sir Winston Churchill’s “War is not Imminent” (October 15, 1937), included in Winston S. Churchill Step By Step: Political Writings 1936-1939 (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015).

Tacitus’ Horse Race Encounter With An Oblivious Fan

By
thehistorianshut
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Tacitus (c. 56/57-117+), considered the greatest historian of Rome, decided one day to attend a horse race for a bit of ancient Roman entertainment. An exact date for the historian’s outing to the race track is not known, but it likely fell during the years 108 or 109. Tacitus was by that time already an important, well-known man. He had been a consul of Rome in the year 97, during the reign of Emperor Nerva (r. 96-98 CE). Subsequently, during the reign of Emperor Trajan (r. 98-117), he was part of the prosecution team that found Marius Priscus (former proconsul/governor of Africa) guilty of extortion in the year 100. Tacitus’ famed literary career had also begun—his Agricola and Germania texts were published around the year 98; his Dialogues on Orators released circa 102, and he completed his acclaimed historical text, The Histories, by around the year 109. He was also known, by that time, to be one of the greatest orators of his day. Fame and prominence aside, Tacitus managed to slip into the racetrack incognito that day—without fanfare or entourage—and took a seat beside some strangers who did not seem to know his identity. Yet, to the historian’s amusement, one of the neighboring racegoers turned out to be a chatty, well-read Roman eques (knight) who had ample scholarly interests and a desire to talk about them, even before Tacitus could introduce himself.

Not waiting to exchange names, the talkative knight began chatting away about all sorts of academic subjects. Tacitus humored the friendly fellow and engaged in the scholarly race-side conversation. Unsurprisingly, Tacitus soon impressed the knight with his depth of knowledge on the various subjects discussed, as well as the eloquent presentation of information. Awe on the part of the knight soon gave way to curiosity, and he began asking questions about Tacitus’ background. One particular question—inquiring if the historian was from Italy or the provinces—may have irked Tacitus, as his family hailed from either southern or cisalpine Gaul and was not solely of Italian ancestry. Instead of answering the question, the master orator evaded the remark by hinting that he was one of the writers whose works the knight had read and referenced. This intriguing statement caused the knight to drop the provincial question as he pondered the mystery man’s identity. After thinking it over, the knight declared he must be either Tacitus or Pliny the Younger. Tacitus’ response to the declaration, unfortunately, was not recorded, but the incident definitely left an impression on the historian.

Tacitus shared the story with his friend, the aforementioned Pliny the Younger (c. 61/62-113), who gleefully passed along the tale to his own pen pals. In one preserved letter, Pliny wrote, “[N]ever have I felt such pleasure as I did recently at something Tacitus said. He was describing how at the last Races he had sat next to a Roman knight who engaged him in conversation on several learned subjects and then asked if he came from Italy or the provinces. ‘You know me,’ said Tacitus, ‘from your reading.’ At which the man said, ‘Then are you Tacitus or Pliny?’” (Pliny the Younger, Letters, 9.23). Pliny, a patron of literary figures, and a writer of poems, speeches, and artful letters, was giddy with joy that his name was mentioned in the same sentence as Tacitus. In his letter, Pliny further beamed, “I can’t tell you how delighted I am to have our names assigned to literature as if they belonged there and not to individuals, and to learn that we are both known by our writing to people who would otherwise not have heard of us…I confess I feel well rewarded by my labours…In fact I am glad and admit it” (Letters, 9.23). Indeed, Pliny the Younger’s acclaimed collection of letters has survived the erosion of time and remains in printed circulation to this day. As for Tacitus, he went on to write his next great historical masterpiece, The Annals, at the end of the reign of Emperor Trajan (r. 98-117) and the beginning of the rule of Hadrian (r. 117-138), which further solidified Tacitus’ place as Rome’s greatest historian.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Photograph of ancient Roman art titled “Relief. the Chariot,” image dated between 1839 and 1939, [Public Domain] via Europeana and the Catholic University of Leuven).

Sources:

Polyhymnia, Muse of Eloquence, by Charles Meynier (1768-1832)

By
thehistorianshut
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This painting, by the French artist Charles Meynier (1768-1832), depicts Polyhymnia (also known as Polymnia), a Muse from ancient Greek mythology. Although the title of the artwork presents her as the Muse of Eloquence, her ancient sphere of artistic influence was more accurately focused on hymns, works of praise, and pantomime. Her name, as well as the names of her sisters, Clio, Euterpe, Thalia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Urania, and Calliope were first thought to have been written down by the ancient poet, Hesiod (c. 8th century BCE). According to ancient scholars, the wordplay and allusions involved in their names shaped each goddess’ sphere of artistic influence. On this, the scholar Diodorus Siculus (c. 1st century BCE) wrote:

“To each of the Muses men assign her special aptitude for one of the branches of the liberal arts, such as poetry, song, pantomimic dancing, the round dance with music, the study of the stars, and the other liberal arts… For the name of each Muse, they say, men have found a reason appropriate to her:…Polymnia, because by her great (polle) praise (humnesis) she brings distinction to writers whose works have won for them immortal fame” (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 4.7).

Polyhymnia, in that sense, could certainly be considered a Muse of Eloquence, for eloquent speech was required for the recipients of her patronage to win an immortal name through praiseful oratory and song. Yet, in terms of a Muse’s personal eloquence, Polyhymnia had a rival in Calliope, of whom the aforementioned Diodorus Siculus stated, “Calliope, because of her beautiful (kale) voice (ops) that is, by reason of the exceeding beauty of her language she wins the approbation of her auditors” (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 4.7). Calliope, the Muse of Epic Poetry, therefore, had a much stronger claim to the title of the Muse of Eloquence. Nevertheless, the title of the artwork clearly illustrates that Charles Meynier wanted to depict Polyhymnia in the painting.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Sources:

The Book of Psalms

By
thehistorianshut
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The Book of Psalms
(a multi-generational work composed largely in the first half of the 1st millennium BC and likely finalized between the 6th and 3rd centuries BC)

“Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
Those who have clean hands and pure hearts,
who do not lift up their souls to what is false
and do not swear deceitfully.
They will receive blessings from the LORD
and vindication from the God of their salvation.”

-Psalm 24.3-5 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition translation, 2021)

The Rise, Exile, Return And Murder of Ernst Röhm

By
thehistorianshut
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Adolf Hitler and Ernst Röhm served in the German military during WWI (1914-1918). They both survived the mass layoffs of war veterans caused by the Treaty of Versailles, which limited the multi-million-man-strong German army to a cap of 100,000 men in 1919. In the post-war environment, Hitler and Röhm were both employed by the military to interact with political parties and paramilitary organizations. Specifically, in 1919, Hitler worked as an army spy and infiltrated the German Workers’ Party, of which Röhm was already a member. Hitler left the army in 1920 to devote himself to the party, which was rebranded to the Nazi Party that year. Röhm, meanwhile, remained as an officer in the army, and had a role in overseeing financial and administrative aid to a patchwork of independent paramilitary groups known as the Freikorps (Free Corps), which had swelled in numbers due to the mass layoff of military veterans.

At the time, the military saw the Freikorps militias as a necessity to offset national vulnerabilities caused by the Treaty of Versailles’ military cap. The German military of the time—the Reichswehr—supported the idea of having paramilitary militias patrolling border regions and acting as an informal military reserve. Some of the militias were directly controlled by the military—this was the so-called Black Reichswehr, a shadow branch of the military—but many other paramilitaries received aid from the government that had fewer strings attached. In that capacity, Ernst Röhm used all of the power of his military post to help Hitler recruit, develop, equip, and train the Sturm Abteilung (the SA, or Storm Troopers), which was founded in 1921. Like the other Freikorps organizations, the SA was a paramilitary unit, but this one was attached to a political party—the Nazi Party. The Storm Troopers were the Nazi Party’s early security force, deployed to guard party functions and to intimidate (or brawl with) party foes in the streets. Ernst Röhm, from the beginning, was an influential leader of the SA, but he kept his ties informal, due to his role as an active military officer. That changed in 1923, however, when Röhm joined Hitler’s failed Beer Hall Putsch insurrection. Hitler, Röhm, and other leaders of the revolt were arrested, albeit for a short period of time. Consequently, Röhm was kicked out of the military, at which point he no longer worried about openly associating with the SA.

Hitler, from early on in his Nazi career, had worries and reservations about the SA—namely about the organization’s loyalty and discipline (or lack thereof on both matters). By the time of the Beer Hall Putsch, he founded a second paramilitary force, one loyal only to him. This Stosstrupp Hitler (Shock Troop Hitler) later morphed into the infamous Shutz Staffel (SS, or Security Staff). Even so, the SS was also technically a subsection of the SA, which eventually caused tension between the two groups and their leadership.

Hitler, after being briefly imprisoned for the failed Beer Hall Putsch, believed that a façade of legitimacy was key to his authoritarian ambitions, so he strove to gain high office democratically through the parliamentary process of the Weimar Republic. To shape up his rebellious and lawless image, Hitler realized he needed to rein in the violent, brutish SA horde that was tarnishing the fledgling Nazi Party’s public image. In 1925, Hitler placed the SA paramilitary under the control of the Nazi Party Political Organization, and he also disarmed the SA of its firearms. Ernst Röhm was strongly against this, as he wanted the SA to be a paramilitary strong enough to rival (and absorb) the Reichswehr. Röhm, in protest of Hitler’s restrictions on the SA, chose to distance himself from the Nazi Party and the SA after the 1925 reform. He eventually left Germany and became a military advisor in Bolivia.

During Röhm’s absence, Hitler continued his efforts to consolidate power over the SA and also began building up the SS. Hitler, despite resistance from regional SA leaders, declared he was the supreme leader of the Storm Troopers in 1930, but he still delegated SA management to lieutenants. Around that time, Hitler invited Ernst Röhm back from Bolivia and he placed Röhm in charge of the SA in 1931. Röhm, meanwhile, still dreamed of turning the SA into a militant force that could overtake the German military, but he played along with the party leader as Hitler schemed to gain power through the parliamentary process.

In 1932, Hitler ran for president. He did not win, but he used the election as leverage to negotiate for a government position. After obtaining the support of the former chancellor, Franz von Papen (r. 1932)—a fellow advocate of authoritarianism—Hitler was appointed as chancellor under President Paul von Hindenburg in 1933. Franz von Papen (then Hitler’s vice-chancellor) came to regret his role in facilitating Hitler’s rise to power, for the Nazis began quickly gathering totalitarian control at a rate that alarmed even the pro-authoritarian Papen. In a speech at Dresden in July of 1933, von Papen ironically lamented, “Who among us would have imagined it possible that within four months the National Socialists [Nazis] would have taken over the entire German Reich, that all the middle-class political parties would have disappeared, that our democratic institutions would have been eliminated as with one stroke of the pen, that the new chancellor would have assumed a degree of power that no German emperor ever possessed” (Franz von Papen, Der Wahrheit eine Gasse, 1952, trans. in David Clay Large’s Between Two Fires, 1990). Of course, Papen’s speeches would later be censored by Hitler’s chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels. At that point, Ernst Röhm was eager for Hitler to launch a final coup to seize the last vestiges of power from President von Hindenburg and the Reichswehr military leadership. Hitler, however, was still playing the long game, reining in the Nazis’ worst behavior while also cultivating a relationship with Hindenburg and the Reichswehr generals. Hitler had his eye on the presidential powers of elderly Paul von Hindenburg, and he wanted an orderly and passably legitimate transfer of power, just as he had obtained with the chancellorship. An SA coup d’état against the president and military did not align with that vision. Hitler wanted power to be handed to him freely, and with an air of legitimacy.

Ernst Röhm never directly refuted Hitler publicly or to his face, but he did continue to recruit and train the SA as a militant paramilitary force, whereas Hitler wished to transition the group into more of a cultural movement. By 1934, the organization roughly numbered between 3 and 5 million men, and Röhm began to rearm the organization with guns. SA members disrupted and terrorized society, with armed Storm Troopers threatening civilians, businesses, banks, law officials and judges, often without the permission or order from Hitler. They also, of course, committed acts of prejudice-based violence and looting, based on politics, race, class, religion, and sexuality—the last point of which is ironic, as Ernst Röhm and some other prominent SA leaders were openly homosexual. Röhm did not intervene, and the multitudinous and diffuse nature of the SA organization, with its many regional units, would have made it difficult for Röhm to curtail the violence even if he wanted to (but there is no sign that he did). To make matters worse, Röhm also declared the SA exempt from police jurisdiction, which, anyway, had been placed by Hitler under the command of Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, an organization that was still a branch of the SA at that time.

Suffice it to say, Röhm and his rowdy regional SA leaders had made enemies of many powerful figures by 1934, such as Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Reinhard Heydrich and Joseph Goebbels, as well as the German military leadership (as they knew Röhm aspired to absorb the Reichswehr into the SA). Röhm’s foes used his homosexuality as a wedge to dislodge the SA leader from Adolf Hitler, as Hitler had always been uncomfortable and frustrated by Röhm’s personal life, especially when accounts of it ended up published in the tabloids. It also did not help that SA militants were known to harass and brawl against members of the military. With the tensions spiraling out of control, Hitler summoned Röhm in early June, 1934, and demanded that he suspend SA activities. Ernst Röhm dared not refuse the direct order, so he acquiesced and then retired to a spa at Bad Wiessee, Bavaria. Regional SA leaders, however, continued to hold marches and rallies. Röhm’s enemies were not placated, and they did not relent in clamoring for the SA to be dealt with. Instead, Hitler was fed an endless stream of information by the SS and Gestapo about the misdeeds of the Storm Troopers and the danger of an SA conspiracy, as well as salacious accounts of the SA leader’s hedonism. Encouraged by Röhm’s rivals and enemies, and with the approval of the increasingly ill Paul von Hindenburg and key military leaders, Hitler decided to launch a blood purge, the Night of the Long Knives. Kill lists were prepared, and the movements of SA leaders were tracked by the Gestapo and SS.

In a tragic and ironic twist of fate, anti-Hitler opposition leaders were at that very time planning to make a last-ditch effort to convince Paul von Hindenburg to eject Hitler from power. Yet, the Nazis learned of the plan and launched the Night of the Long Knives quicker than scheduled on June 30, 1934, to thwart a planned meeting between Hindenburg and Franz von Papen that was meant to occur that same day. Hitler contacted Röhm and had him gather together all of his top lieutenants in the SA at the Bad Wiessee spa facility by June 30—Röhm complied, not knowing the summit would be a trap. Hitler then raided the Bad Wiessee venue and arrested the SA leaders. It was the opening salvo of a mass-murder spree that ensued, targeting SA leadership, as well as dissidents in government and political rivals of Hitler. Rõhm was arrested at the beginning of the purge, and was held captive while his comrades were murdered.

Targets of Hitler’s kill lists were dragged off to prisons, stations and forests, and (unlike Röhm) faced prompt execution. Other targets were shot right where they were confronted, with the fabricated excuse being that they resisted arrest. This was the fate of several dissidents, including former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher (r. 1932-1933), as well as Franz von Papen’s press secretary, Herbert von Bose. Papen’s speechwriter, Edgar Jung, was also arrested by the Gestapo and executed. Papen, himself (still the vice-chancellor at that time), was placed under house arrest during the massacre and spared. Ernst Röhm, imprisoned for the multiple days of murder, was finally executed on July 1, 1934, one of around 85 people who were killed as a result of the Night of the Long Knives. With the destruction of the SA, the even worse SS gained freedom to flourish. Even worse, the public, press, parliament, and military in Germany did not condemn the executions, but instead accepted Hitler’s dangerous declaration (made on July 3rd) that such extrajudicial killings were within the legal purview of his authority.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Adolf Hitler followed by Ernst Rohm at Brunswick, c. 17-18 October 1931, [Public Domain] via Wikimedia Commons).

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