ADDRESS TO THE REICHSTAG REGARDING THE PURGES OF THE NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES July 13th, 1934

ADDRESS TO THE REICHSTAG REGARDING THE PURGES OF THE NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES July 13th, 1934 

The Background

Much has been made of the supposed ideological differences that led to the purges of the Night of the Long Knives, but the reality is that they were motivated much more by the contingencies of Realpolitik and personal grievances. This mistaken view is based on a kernel of truth, but more so on politically-motivated reasoning, misunderstanding, overemphasis on the importance of ideology, and a corresponding under-emphasis on considerations of Realpolitik. 

Even after being appointed Chancellor, Hitler’s power was by no means absolute. It depended rather on a reluctant and mistrustful alliance with establishment conservatives in his early cabinet, in the Reichstag, in the aristocracy, and in the military. In 1933 and 1934, the NSDAP was still in the process of consolidating its power. By this time, the SA membership had ballooned massively to over two million men, far eclipsing the military, which was only just beginning to rearm. Tensions began to mount between the military and the NSDAP regarding the role of the SA. The military aristocracy, bearers of a Prussian tradition dating back hundreds of years, felt that their position and prestige was threatened by what they largely viewed as little better than a semi-organized street gang, an oversized mob of thugs with no ties to the proud military tradition of Germany, and none of its military discipline. 

Their fears were proven well-founded when SA leader Ernst Röhm began to publicly toy with the idea of abolishing the military entirely and replacing it with his SA, with himself as chief of staff. 

Röhm was instrumental in setting up, supplying, arming, training, and recruiting for the SA, and his high-ranking connections in the military and on the nationalist scene were instrumental in getting Hitler taken seriously by powerful people, to the extent that without him, the early movement probably would not have survived. 

Much more important than the sexual deviancy were the many well-documented instances of SA thugs abusing their newfound privilege and authority to harass and bully civilians, settle personal vendettas, extortion, drunken public rowdiness, and a contemptuous attitude toward police attempting to discipline them—after all, now that their man was in charge, who were the police to tell them what to do? Many of them behaved as though they were untouchable. Thugs, gangsters, barroom brawlers, rowdies, and roughnecks who wouldn’t hesitate to mix it up with the enemy in a good scrap had been useful, even indispensable, during the Party’s early days and rise to power. The problem arose when the time came to transition from an upstart revolutionary movement to a mature government. The internal culture of the SA under the war-obsessed Röhm was not able to adapt to being in power and acting responsibly with that power. 

As Hitler notes in the following speech, there are certain personality types who are simply agents of chaos, who instinctively oppose all order, who could be useful as pure muscle during the Kampfzeit, but once the Party was in power represented a destructive element that proved difficult to reign in and threatened to strain the Party’s relationship with traditional authorities like the police, and to make the public resent its apparently frivolous and petty abuse of power, making Hitler’s new regime look bad by association. 

Thus, to use the parlance of our times, in many ways the SA under Röhm was “bad optics” for Hitler. Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg even threatened to declare martial law and put the Army in charge of enforcing it if the rowdiness of the SA were not curtailed.

The Speech

Adolf Hitler-Speech to the Reichstag Berlin, July 13, 1934

https://der-fuehrer.org/reden/english/34-07-13.htm

Source