The squads in brown uniforms were the first armed groups in Germany to take over the police force and attempt to replace the army. These units were commanded by Ernst Röhm, their absolute leader. He was a professional military man who fought in World War I and ended it with the rank of captain. Röhm was wounded three times and awarded two Iron Crosses. He enjoyed great prestige among those who returned from the war to a devastated homeland. With these front-line soldiers, Röhm created not only a military organization but also a political party, the NSDAP – National Socialist Party, or Nazi for short. An impulsive orator, Hitler attracted attention with his public speeches, and Röhm took him into the party. But as it turned out, Röhm made a fatal mistake.
In the political chaos created by the Marxists, Röhm used his troops to plan an armed takeover. He recruited stormtroopers from the thousands of soldiers who had returned home. Society no longer needed war professionals. At first, the stormtroopers’ duties included street battles with political opponents and guarding rallies and party meetings.
Gradually the Stormtroopers became an influential force in Germany. By the early 1930s, the organization had grown to 3 million men, far outnumbering the regular army of the Reichswehr. Stormtroopers marched through the streets of cities, organized torchlight processions, and took on policing duties.
Hitler had a security guard of stormtroopers and one day he had a conflict with the commander of the guard. Hitler decided to create a structure that would be completely loyal to him. In the beginning, there was a detachment of his guards, independent of Röhm’s stormtroopers. The most trusted and closest people to Hitler, who were responsible for his security, created an elite organization called the SS. Hermann Göring was appointed its head.
In the camp of marxists or socialists in any country in the world, all the members are spiders, they are crammed into one jar. In their environment, conspiracies and murders of competitors are typical. A clear example is the spiders of Soviet Russia – Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, mensheviks, bolsheviks, and other gangs of conspirators and political scoundrels. There was all this jockeying for power in Germany too.
When Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he immediately felt the danger from those who had helped him to power. The stormtroopers who had brought him to the top now demanded that this power be shared. But Hitler was a dictator and would not share power with anyone. He told Röhm that the stormtroopers, created to seize power by force, were no longer needed and should be disbanded. Ernst Röhm himself and other SA leaders wanted to make their stormtroopers the core of the future new German army, organized as militia units. The army generals did not accept these units as military units at all, considering the stormtroopers to be a gang of hooligans and anarchists. The conflict grew and finally, Röhm, tired of the debates, left for Bolivia, where he was invited as a military advisor.
On the eve of the Reichstag elections, the leaders of the stormtroopers accused Hitler of betraying his ideals. They demanded that Hitler put their candidates on the party lists and asked for additional funding for their units. Was it any different for Lenin and Trotsky in Russia? Conspiracies and assassinations of rivals are typical of the Marxist camp around the world. They are all eating each other.
Realizing that a conflict with his former comrades-in-arms could have fatal consequences for himself, Hitler decided to put an end to them. He summoned Röhm from Bolivia and appointed him Chief of Staff, publicly giving him the post of SA Chief of Detachment. This reassured the stormtroopers, but not for long. Returned Röhm insisted on reforming the German army. He wanted to break up all the large military formations and turn them into mobile assault units. This nonsense frankly disturbed the highest officers of the Reichswehr. The stormtroopers soon made enemies everywhere, including the top brass, with whom they constantly bickered and argued. To win over the entire army command, Hitler decided to exploit this conflict. Calculating the game several moves ahead, Hitler decided to make military commanders his allies and offered them to be in charge of the entire army he planned to use the military to destroy all his rivals.
In the spring of 1934, his SS men prepared a secret operation. Lists were drawn up of the most senior members of the SA to be killed without trial. When everything was ready, Hitler suggested that the entire leadership of the SA go on holiday. He ordered each of their chiefs to come to Bad Wissensee on 30 June, where he promised to clear up any misunderstandings.
On the morning of 30 June, Hitler arrived at Bad Wissensee and arrested Röhm in his hotel room. The SS man handed Röhm a pistol with one bullet and ordered him to shoot himself. Röhm did not dare, and the SS man shot him dead. After that, SS units began to arrest and shoot all the stormtroopers according to the lists they had. That day, Hitler addressed the mid-level leaders who had not been arrested. He claimed that Röhm and his top lieutenants were planning a coup and had even received a bribe from the French ambassador. It was never proven, but Hitler’s plan worked. It was backed by the Reichswehr General Staff, Prussian officers with whom the Führer had had strained relations. They were now his allies. The shooting of the stormtroopers continued until the morning of 2 July, when President Hindenburg demanded that Hitler stop the slaughter. About a thousand people were shot in two days, during which time Hitler eliminated his main political opponents who had nothing to do with the stormtroopers.
Those killed were: Gregor Strasser, Hitler’s main opponent in the NSDAP; Kurt von Schleicher, the last chancellor of the Weimar Republic; Gustav von Kar, the Bavarian police chief who led the suppression of the beer coup; Bernhard Stampfle, who knew many of Hitler’s secrets; Erich Clausener, a high-ranking official in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, an implacable critic of the NSDAP, and others.
After this massacre, the stormtroopers lost all authority and were driven out of the country’s political life. Germany had never seen such bloody executions without investigation and trial. But Hitler’s massacre of his fellow travelers provoked no protest in the country.
He was supported by the generals of the Reichswehr, the Prussian officers with whom Hitler had had strained relations until that day. Now they became his allies. The shooting of the stormtroopers continued until the morning of 2 July, reaching such proportions that President Hindenburg demanded that Hitler stop the slaughter. In two days about a thousand people were shot, Hitler’s main political opponents who had nothing to do with the stormtroopers.
And the Gestapo sent something to the Kremlin that kept Stalin awake at night. The suspicious and paranoid Stalin briefly doubted the facts of the treachery of his top military leadership and took this information as a signal to mop up his army and navy.
© Copyright: Walter Maria, 2015 Certificate of Publication No.215042401830
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