WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
The Night of the Long Knives
Between 30 June and 2 July 1934, on Hitler's orders, the SS arrested and murdered much of the leadership of the SA - including its chief, Ernst Röhm, one of Hitler's oldest political allies. Around 100 people were killed. The victims included conservative opponents who had nothing to do with the SA. The German public was told that Hitler had acted to prevent an SA coup. Nazi propaganda also used Röhm's homosexuality to portray the SA leadership as corrupt and dangerous. Many Germans accepted this explanation. The Night of the Long Knives showed that there were no legal limits on Hitler's power. It also secured the support of the German army. When President Hindenburg died just over a month later, Germany's soldiers swore an oath of loyalty to Hitler personally.
Quick glossary
SA - Sturmabteilung ("Storm Detachment")
The Nazi Party's huge street-fighting organisation, nicknamed the Brownshirts. Its members protected Nazi meetings, intimidated voters and violently attacked Hitler's opponents. It was not Germany's official army. By 1934, it had millions of members and its leader, Ernst Röhm, wanted it to take control of the army. (Source: USHMM, "The SA")
SS - Schutzstaffel ("Protection Squadron")
Originally Hitler's small personal bodyguard. Under Heinrich Himmler, it became an elite Nazi organisation whose members were expected to obey Hitler without question. The SS carried out most of the killings during the purge. It later controlled the police, concentration camps and much of the machinery used to carry out the Holocaust. (Source: USHMM, "The SS")
The easiest way to remember the difference: the SA helped Hitler fight his way into power. The SS helped him control Germany once he had power.
Ernst Röhm
Leader of the SA and an old ally of Hitler. He wanted the SA to become Germany's new army. Hitler had him arrested and murdered.
Heinrich Himmler
Leader of the SS. He helped organise the purge and later became one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany.
Paramilitary organisation
A political group organised and trained like an army, but not officially part of the country's armed forces.
Purge
The forceful removal of people considered rivals or enemies. A purge can involve arrests, imprisonment or murder.
Coup
An attempt to seize control of a government, usually suddenly and by force. Röhm was not actually preparing one; the Nazis manufactured and spread the allegation.
Reichswehr
Germany's professional armed forces at the time. Its leaders feared that Röhm wanted the much larger SA to take them over.
Conservatives
Traditional right-wing politicians, army officers and establishment figures. Some had helped Hitler become chancellor but did not necessarily support complete Nazi control.
Führer
The German word for "leader." Hitler used it as his official title after combining the powers of president and chancellor in August 1934.
Gestapo
The Nazi secret state police. It investigated, arrested and tortured people considered enemies of the regime.
The SA problem
By 1934, the SA had become a liability. It had been essential in the Kampfzeit - the "period of struggle" before 1933, when SA Brownshirts had intimidated opponents and projected Nazi strength. But with Hitler in power, the SA's continued street violence was an embarrassment rather than an asset.
More seriously, the SA was enormous - by 1934 it had around 3 million members - and its leader, Ernst Röhm, had ambitions that alarmed both Hitler and the army.
Röhm wanted to absorb the traditional German army into a "people's army" led by the SA. This would have made him one of the most powerful men in Germany - and would have fundamentally threatened the army's privileged institutional position.
Key individual
Ernst Röhm (1887–1934)
Röhm was one of Hitler's oldest political associates, a veteran of the First World War and a founding figure of the Nazi movement. As leader of the SA, he commanded the largest paramilitary force in Germany. He was openly gay - which the Nazis exploited after his death to justify his murder, calling the purge the suppression of a "homosexual clique." His sexuality was known to Hitler, who had previously defended him against attacks. Röhm was arrested on 30 June 1934 and given the option of shooting himself; when he refused, he was shot by SS men in his cell.
The decision to act
Hitler's decision to purge the SA was driven by three pressures:
The army: Germany's professional military hated and feared Röhm's plans to absorb it. The army was essential for Hitler's rearmament programme and for keeping order. Without its support, he could not govern. The army had made clear that it would not swear loyalty to Hitler as Hindenburg's successor unless the SA was dealt with.
Himmler and the SS: The SS, which was formally subordinate to the SA, wanted independence and power of its own. Himmler and his deputy Reinhard Heydrich fed Hitler forged intelligence suggesting Röhm was planning a coup.
Hindenburg's failing health: The President was dying. Hitler needed to secure the army's loyalty before Hindenburg died, so that the army would accept him as successor.
30 June – 1 July 1934: the killings
On the night of 30 June, SS and Gestapo units arrested the SA leadership across Germany. Röhm was arrested in Bavaria. Other SA leaders were shot immediately. By the time the killings ended on 2 July, at least 85 people had been officially acknowledged as dead (the real figure was probably 150–200 or higher).
The killings went well beyond the SA. Conservative politicians who had criticised the Nazis were also murdered:
- General Kurt von Schleicher, the former Chancellor, was shot dead at his home along with his wife
- Gregor Strasser, a former senior Nazi who had broken with Hitler, was killed
- Edgar Jung, a conservative writer who had helped draft a speech critical of the Nazis, was shot
Hitler later explained the killings to the Reichstag as the necessary suppression of a treasonous plot. The Reichstag gave him a standing ovation.
Significance
What the Night of the Long Knives revealed
The Night of the Long Knives demonstrated several things simultaneously: that Hitler would destroy even his oldest allies if they became inconvenient; that the SS had replaced the SA as the regime's primary instrument of internal terror; that legal protections had ceased to exist in Germany (murder of political opponents was not only unpunished but retrospectively legalised); and that conservative elites who thought they could use or control Hitler had badly miscalculated. The inclusion of Schleicher - a former Chancellor - in the killing made this last point unmistakeable.
The army oath, August 1934
President Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934. Hitler had prepared carefully: he merged the offices of President and Chancellor, becoming Führer und Reichskanzler - Supreme Leader and Reich Chancellor.
Crucially, within hours of Hindenburg's death, every soldier in the German army swore a personal oath - not to Germany, but to Adolf Hitler specifically:
"I swear by God this sacred oath that to the Leader of the German empire and people, Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces, I shall render unconditional obedience and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared to give my life for this oath."
This oath would have enormous consequences. Throughout the Second World War, German officers who considered resisting Hitler's orders were paralysed by the knowledge that doing so meant breaking a personal oath sworn before God. The army's complicity in the Night of the Long Knives had cost it, and Germany, enormously.
Why this matters for the exam
The Night of the Long Knives as consolidation of power
AQA questions on Hitler's consolidation of power often ask you to assess the significance of the Night of the Long Knives. It matters because: it destroyed the SA as an independent force (removing the threat from Röhm); it won the loyalty of the army (by removing their enemy); it showed no one was safe (not even old comrades); it was retrospectively legalised (law passed on 3 July 1934 declaring the killings legal - revealing the complete subordination of law to Hitler's will). Together with the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act, it completed the destruction of any institutional check on Hitler's power.
Revision checklist
Before moving on, make sure you can answer:
- Why had the SA become a problem for Hitler by 1934?
- Who was Ernst Röhm? What did he want for the SA?
- Why did the German army want Hitler to deal with the SA?
- What happened on the night of 30 June–1 July 1934?
- Who else was killed besides SA leaders? Why is this significant?
- What oath did the German army swear in August 1934? Why was it significant?
- What happened when Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934?
- How did the Night of the Long Knives consolidate Hitler's power?
What's New snippet
Article slug: gcse-history-germany-night-of-long-knives
Title: The night Hitler murdered his own movement - and what it tells us about Nazi power
On the night of 30 June 1934, Hitler ordered the murder of the SA leadership - including his old ally Ernst Röhm - along with political opponents and people who simply knew too much. The army rewarded his loyalty with an oath of personal allegiance. The Night of the Long Knives shows how Hitler consolidated absolute power not just over his enemies, but over his own movement.