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Ernst Röhm
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Ernst Julius Röhm, (Munich November 28, 1887 – July 2, 1934) was a German army officer and Nazi leader. He was a co-founder of the Sturmabteilung ("assault battalion"; SA), the Nazi Party militia, and later was SA commander. In 1934, he was executed on Hitler's orders as a potential rival.
's parents, Julius and Emilie (née Baltheiser) Röhm, had three children.
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Ernst Julius Röhm, (Munich November 28, 1887 – July 2, 1934) was a German army officer and Nazi leader. He was a co-founder of the Sturmabteilung ("assault battalion"; SA), the Nazi Party militia, and later was SA commander. In 1934, he was executed on Hitler's orders as a potential rival.
Early career
Röhm's parents, Julius and Emilie (née Baltheiser) Röhm, had three children. Ernst Röhm was a native of Munich and was serving as an Oberleutnant (1st lieutenant) with the 13th Infantry Regiment of the Bavarian Army at the start of World War I. In September, 1914 in Lorraine, France he was severely wounded in the face and carried the scars for the rest of his life. He was later promoted to Hauptmann (captain).
When the war ended in 1918 Röhm joined the Freikorps, one of many private militias formed in Munich, to combat Communist insurrection. In 1920 he joined the National Socialist German Workers Party (the "Nazi" party) and helped organise the Sturmabteilung. The SA was a political army, protecting the party leadership, battling opponents such as the Communist Red Front, and terrorising Jews.
After the failed Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 Röhm was dishonourably discharged from the Reichswehr and spent fifteen months in prison, where he strengthened his friendship with Hitler.
After Röhm was released in 1924, he worked with Hitler to rebuild the National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (Nazi party). In April, 1924 Röhm helped to create the Frontbann as a legal alternative to the then-outlawed SA. He then served in the Reichstag as a member of the renamed National Socialist Freedom Party. But then differences arose between them. Röhm resigned from the Reichstag in 1925, and emigrated to Bolivia. There he served as a military advisor to the army.
SA leader
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 that he return to serve as the SA's chief of staff. Röhm accepted this offer and commenced his new assignment in early January of 1931. Röhm brought radical new ideas to the SA and appointed several of his close friends to its senior leadership.
The SA now numbered over a million. Its traditional function of party leader escort had been given to the SS, but it continued its street battles with "Reds" and attacks on Jews. The SA also attacked or intimidated anyone deemed hostile to the Nazi programme: editors, professors, politicians, uncooperative local officials or businessmen.
Under Röhm, the SA also often took the side of workers in strikes and other labour disputes, attacking strikebreakers and supporting picket lines.
SA intimidation contributed to the rise of the Nazis, breaking down the electoral activity of the left-wing parties. But the SA's reputation for street violence, heavy drinking, and quasi-socialist radicalism was a hindrance.
Another hindrance was the more or less open homosexuality of Röhm and other SA leaders such as his deputy Edmund Heines. In 1931, the Munich Post, a Socialist newspaper, obtained and published Röhm's letters to a friend in which Röhm discussed his sexual affairs with men. This resulted in a national scandal. The Nazis claimed that the letters were forged. Many writers have suggested Röhm and Heines allowed or encouraged SA promotions on the basis of sexual liaisons with themselves and other SA leaders. For example, SA Gruppenführer Karl Ernst had been a bouncer at a homosexual nightclub. This was in spite of the official Nazi policy which condemned homosexuality.
By this time, Röhm and Hitler were so close that they addressed each other as du (the German familiar form of "you"). Besides Röhm, Göring and Goebbels were the only Nazis who used du with Hitler, and only Röhm addressed Hitler as "Adolf," rather than "mein Führer."
As Hitler secured national power in 1933, SA men became auxiliary police, and it was the SA that marched into local government offices to force officials to hand over authority to Nazis.
Second revolution
Röhm and the SA reguarded themselves as the vanguard of the "Nazi revolution". After Hitler's takeover, they expected radical changes in Germany, with power and rewards for them.
But Hitler's use of the SA as storm troopers was a political weapon he no longer needed.
Röhm had been one of the most prominent members of the Party's "socialist" faction. This group took the words "Sozialistische" and "Arbeiter" ("worker") in the Party's name literally. They largely rejected capitalism (which they associated with Jews), and pushed for nationalisation of major industrial firms, expanded worker control, confiscation and redistribution of the estates of the old aristocracy, and social equality. Röhm spoke of a "second revolution" against "reactionaries" (the Nazi label for conservatives), as the Nazis had previously dealt with the Communists and Socialists.
All this was threatening to the business community, which had supported Hitler's rise to power. So Hitler swiftly reassured businessmen that there would be no "second revolution". Many "storm troopers" were of working-class origins and had expected a socialist programme. They were now disappointed in this, and also by the new regime's failure to provide the lavish patronage expected. Röhm even publicly criticized Hitler for his failure to carry through the Nazi revolution.
Furthermore, Röhm and his SA colleagues thought of their force (now over three million strong) as the future army of Germany, replacing the Reichswehr and its professional officers, whom they viewed as "old fogies" who lacked "revolutionary spirit". Röhm wanted to be made Minister of Defense. In February, 1934 he demanded that the Reichswehr (which under the Treaty of Versailles was limited to 100,000 men) be merged into the SA to form a true "people's army".
This was horrifying to the army, with its traditions going back to Frederick the Great. The army viewed the SA as a brawling mob of undisciplined street fighters, and had heard all the rumours of homosexuality and "corrupt morals" in the SA. The entire officer corps opposed Röhm's proposal, insisting honour and discipline would vanish if the SA gained control. And it appeared that the SA would settle for nothing less.
Hitler privately shared much of Röhm's animus toward the traditionalists in the army. But he had gained power with the army's support, and he wanted the army's support to succeed the ailing 86-year-old Hindenburg as President.
On April 11, Hitler met with German military leaders. Hitler informed them of Hindenburg's declining health and proposed that the Reichswehr support him as the next president. In exchange Hitler offered to reduce the SA, suppress Röhm's ambitions, and guarantee the Reichswehr would be Germany's only military force. Shirer asserts Hitler also promised to expand both the army and navy.
However, both the Reichswehr and business conservatives continued their anti-SA complaints to President von Hindenburg. In early June 1934, Blomberg, on Hindenburg's behalf, issued an ultimatum to Hitler: unless political tension in Germany ended, Hindenburg would likely declare martial law. Hitler was shocked to hear this from Blomberg, who up to that point had displayed a near lackey-like attitude toward him. However, when Hitler went to see the President himself, Hindenburg confirmed the ultimatum and, knowing such a step could forever deprive him of power, Hitler decided to carry out his pact with the Reichswehr to suppress the SA. This meant a showdown with Röhm. In Hitler's view, the army and the SA constituted the only remaining power centres in Germany that were independent - not reduced to submission to the Nazi state.
The army was willing, even eager to submit. Blomberg had the swastika added to the army's insignia in February, and ended the army's practice of preference for "old army" descent in new officers, replacing it with a requirement of "consonance with the new government."
Meanwhile, Hitler had already begun preparing for the struggle. In January 1934, he ordered the secret police to gather incriminating evidence on Röhm, and in February he told British diplomat Anthony Eden that he planned to reduce the SA by two thirds. Also in February, he announced that the SA would be left only a few minor military functions.
Röhm responded with further complaints about Hitler, and began expanding the armed elements of the SA. To many it appeared as though the SA was planning or threatening a rebellion. In March, Röhm offered a compromise whereby a few thousand SA leaders would be taken into the army, but the army rejected it.
Death
Although determined to curb the power of the SA, Hitler put off doing away with his long-time comrade to the very end. Himmler, Heydrich, and Göring used Röhm's published anti-Hitler rhetoric to support a claim that the SA was plotting to overthrow Hitler. By late June, this story had been officially recognised and Himmler was giving protective orders to the SS, while Sepp Dietrich went around showing army officers a purported SA execution list. Reports of the SA threat were passed to Hitler; it is possible that Himmler and his colleagues actually deceived Hitler into thinking the plot was real.
Meanwhile, Röhm and several of his cronies went away on holiday at a resort in Bad Wiessee. On June 28, Hitler phoned Röhm and asked him to gather all the SA leaders at Bad Wiessee on June 30 for a conference. Röhm agreed, apparently unsuspicious.
The day and night of June 30 marked the Night of the Long Knives, when the entire leadership of the SA was purged, along with many other political adversaries of the Nazis. At dawn that morning, Hitler flew to Munich and then drove to Bad Wiessee, where he personally arrested Röhm and the other SA leaders. All were imprisoned at Stadelheim Prison in Munich.
Hitler was uneasy authorising Röhm's execution and gave Röhm an opportunity to commit suicide. On July 2, he was visited by SS-Brigadeführer Theodor Eicke (then Kommandant of Dachau) and SS-Hauptsturmführer Michael Lippert, who lay a pistol on the table, told Röhm he had ten minutes to use it, and left. Röhm refused, saying "If Adolf wants to shoot me, he can do it himself". When Eicke and Lippert returned, he stood in the middle of the cell with his shirt opened, theatrically baring his chest as they shot him. Röhm was buried in the Westfriedhof (Western Cemetery) in Munich.
The purge of the SA was legalised the next day with a one-paragraph decree: the Law Regarding Measures of State Self-Defence. At this time no public reference was made to the alleged SA rebellion; instead there were generalised references to misconduct, perversion, and some sort of plot. John Toland noted that Hitler had long been privately aware that Röhm and his SA associates were homosexuals, but said nothing, though he of course disapproved. Nazi propaganda now made use of their sexual orientation as justification of the executions.
A few days later, the claim of an incipient SA rebellion was publicised and became the official reason for the entire wave of arrests and executions. Indeed the affair was labeled the "Röhm-putsch" by German historians, though after World War II it has usually been modified as the "alleged Röhm-putsch". In a speech on July 13, Hitler alluded to Röhm's homosexuality and explained the purge as chiefly defence against treason.
See also
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