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Big surprise that there is no such thing as loyalty when it comes to fucking Nazis. The SA (Sturmabteilung – Storm Battalion) was a paramilitary force that played an important role in Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in the 1930s, but when the SA’s leader became a rival to Hitler’s autocratic rule, it was time to break out the metaphorical long knives and get metaphorically stabby.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: July 2, 1934--
The Night of the Long Knives was actually three nights, the final one being July 2, 1934. Also, it was more about shooting than stabbing. The knife term references a German song about exacting revenge. Hitler chose it as the name of his operation to wipe out the leadership of the SA and consolidate his grip on power.
Hitler was a hemorrhaging hippo hemorrhoid of a human who would do anything to achieve and retain power. Once he became chancellor, Adolf Fuckapotamus sought to purge any potential threats to his regime. Ernst Röhm had been a staunch ally to Hitler, complicit in his rise. But in so doing, Röhm also became powerful. There were fears in the German military that Röhm was going to consolidate the SA—which was despised as a rival force—into the armed forces and take command. So the army was egging Hitler on, saying you need to deal with these fucks. Happy to oblige, Shitler was all, sorry Röhm, but there can be only one Führer.
There was no evidence of a plot that Röhm was planning to overthrow Hitler in a coup d’état, so Hitler made shit up, saying the SA was guilty of “the worst treachery in world history,” which sounds rather Trumpian. The SS (Schutzstaffel – Protection Squadron) under “Architect of the Holocaust” Heinrich Himmler and the Gestapo (Nazi secret police) were the main operatives used in the purge. Beginning on June 30, these execution squads went a killin'.
Hundreds were executed in the purge, and over a thousand arrested. It wasn’t just SA members that were killed, but any old enemies Hitler saw as a potential threat. This included the previous chancellor of Germany General Kurt von Schleicher. Röhm was arrested and given a pistol with single round to take his own life, but he said fuck you Hitler can kill me himself. And Hitler’s lackeys said nah he’s busy this is lackey work and we’re his lackeys so bang you’re dead.
In the aftermath of the killings, there was a mixture of shock and fuck yeah Hitler’s awesome he restored order we luv him! Röhm and some other leaders in the SA were gay so that was made public to add to the “justification” for wiping them out. Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels got to work on making it seem Hitler was the savior of Germany. The army was totally behind the purge, which would serve to link its fate to the fucking Nazis, to its detriment five years later when much of the world went to war.
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Image Attribution: Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-14886 / CC-BY-SA 3.0