The Night of Long Knives: June 29-30, 1934 [Paperback]

Shortly after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, he found that the Sturmabteilung (SA) which had helped bring him to power was becoming a catastrophic liability for him. It had failed to maintain internal discipline against corrupt practices, and many of its leaders were openly homosexual. Further, the SA wanted to merge with the army, and have its members granted equivalent ranks in the army (for which many were unqualified). The SS had its own axe to grind. Gallo's "The Night of Long Knives" explains how these problems all came together and culminated in the eradication of the hierarchy of the SA, and left Hitler as the uncontested Fuhrer.

Gallo gives a good discussion of the substantial, but often overlooked, socialist element within the early National Socialist movement, and its conflicts with the bourgeous forces Hitler ultimately allied himself with. Hitler's stance on economic policies is presented as being essentially one of political expediency, which is hard to reconcile with Hitler's extensive philosophical discussions in "Mein Kampf" about socialist economic experiments.

There is also a moderate amount of discussion of the early predecessors of the concentration camps, which were primarily small facilities housed in vacant basements and the like. (Read carefully, and notice that one of the camps has the same name as a well known record company.)

The book is of intermediate length, and has pictures of Roehm and his entourage (but nothing explicit). Its literary format is based on each chapter starting off with the events of a few hours of the several days of the "Night of Long Knives", and then spending the rest of the chapter discussing events leading up to the event over the previous year. This jumping back and forth is quite gimmicky, and detracts from the book.

By 1934, the new German President and Fuhrer of the Nazi party faced competition for power and control from a source that he had once relied upon to grease his way to control over the German state. This now unreliable source was the rowdy Sturmabteilung, the SA, the brown-shirted bully boys who had bashed in the heads of many an anti-Hitler opponent since the inception of the Nazi party in the early 1920s. They numbered in the millions, but from Hitler's point of view they were fast becoming a nuisance. They were wild, unpredictable, hooliganistic, and rumored to be rife with homosexual leaders. Somehow they had to go, and go they did. Max Gallo, in his NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES, details a sequence of events that had been building up for years since the 1920s, finally culminating in an orgy of the slaughter of the top leaders of the SA during the weekend of Saturday, June 30, 1934 to Monday, July 2.
Gallo begins 'in medias res' with the incarceration and execution of targeted SA officers:
Edmund Schmidt, Gruppenfuhrer, SA shot
Hans Joachim von Spreti-Weilbach, Standartenfuhrer, SA shot
Hans Peter von Hydebreck, Gruppenfuhrer, SA shot
Hans Heyn, Gruppenfuhrer, SA shot
August Schneidhuber, Obergruppenfuhrer, SA shot
The ranks listed above were all of high rank, mostly brigadier general or higher. The same day, the leader of the SA, Ernst Roehm, the most powerful man in Germany after Hitler, the commanding officer of a body of armed men many times larger than any other uniformed corps in Germany, was then begging for his life in a filthy jail cell. He was offered a pistol to kill himself. When he declined, one of the most vicious of sadists in the Schutzstaffel, the black-garbed SS, Theodore Eicke, blew a hole in Roehm's head with that same pistol.
Gallo describes the events of that weekend on a daily and near hourly basis. Each of his many chapters is a blueprint for the killing of those who should have kept their eyes and ears open to the clear signals that Hitler had been sending out. Adolf Hitler felt threatened by the demands of the masses of the SA who were complaining that now was the time for massive social upheavel in Germany. They shouted for jobs in the civilian sector, for posts of high rank in the regular army, and for a broom to sweep out from power those whom they deemed unreliable.
Gallo notes Hitler's inability to eliminate the SA until he had the backing of the Wehrmacht, which would act in concert with the one force upon which he could rely absolutely, the SS,under Heinrich Himmler. Hitler had to mollify Ernst Roehm until he was ready to use his long knives. Gallo documents a letter from Hitler to Roehm dated December 31, 1933, which concludes with, 'I must thank you, Ernst Roehm, for the inestimable services you have rendered to nationalism and the German people.' While writing this letter, Hitler was getting ready for the events of the June 30 weekend. Within the space of that time, hundreds of SA were rounded up and summarily shot. The newspaper headlines following that weekend blared out in huge headlines: TRAITORS OF SA SHOT! Hitler's grip on power was now secure.
THE NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES details what had been only before sketchily known, the day by day elimination of those who truly thought themselves to be in the front line of Hitler's best defense against Jews and godless communists. Almost to a last man, they thought that the order to kill had originated with someone other than Hitler. Most died shouting 'Heil Hitler' even as the bullet crashed through their thick skulls. Max Gallo's book serves as a minor seer for the next decade. If the Fuhrer could so easily eliminate those closest to him, then what about those in the SS who survived the purge? Their survival, as it turned out, was only temporary as they learned that a long sharp blade often cuts in both directions.

Max Gallo is a French journalist who wrote this historical narrative to recreate the events of June 29 to July 2, 1934. He used public documents, newspapers, memoirs, historical studies, and some of the participants (`Foreword'). Hitler ordered the murders of those who were once his friends and closest allies. This was done over a weekend when government offices and businesses were dormant (`Prologue'). People were murdered all over Germany without an explanation (p.4). Foreign observers were perplexed at this sudden purge. Hitler explained the murders as needed to save the German people (p.10). Gallo reports the events as a historical record, as if `you are there'. The description of those four days brings in historical facts as the background.

After revolutions broke out across 1918 Germany the Armistice allowed the Army to suppress them. The Freikorps continued to oppress Revolutionaries and was joined by the Storm Troopers (SA), which became a very large organization that attacked any enemy of the Nazis (p.23). The SA was recruited from the unemployed (p.24). They used torture in their prison camps (p.25) and operated beyond the law (p.26). Many had police records (p.34). Was Roehm plotting a putsch (p.35)? Or Karl Ernst (p.39)? Goering created the Gestapo to counter the SA (p.45). The SA wanted to take over the Army even if unqualified (p.76). Conservatives and the business world hated the SA and so did the Army (p.94). But could Hitler survive without the SA (p.95)? Rumors of an SA putsch caused Hitler to eliminate the leaders of the SA (p.107). The Night of Long Knives became operational (p.110).

Part Two is about the events of June 30, 1934. A Bishop warned against the "atheists who fight against the Christian faith" (p.116) or "violence and excess" (p.115). There were brawls between Army officers and SA men (p.122). The SA attacked the Minister of Labor (p.127). Would Germany pursue rearmament or a domestic consumer's market (p.158)? Were groups drawing away from the regime (p.162)? Part Three tells of the elimination of the SA leaders. The landowners, corporations, and the Army feared the social policies of the SA. Many others were killed "resisting arrest" (p.230). So too General Schleicher and his wife (p.237). Old enemies and friends as well (pp.238-239). Even wrong with the wrong name (p.240)! Rivals were killed (p.251). These events were broadcast on Sunday morning (p.264). That afternoon Roehm was shot (p.270). The SA was no longer an autonomous force (p.271), the killings stopped (p.272).

The `Epilogue' says the newspapers carried the official bulletins. Records were destroyed (p.275). Life went on without the disappeared (p.277). The SS was victorious (p.279). The generals and aristocrats approved (p.282). Hitler boasted that he eliminated former allies and enemies (p.284). The Army was now in charge of the SA (p.289). Hitler became the new Chief of State (p.291). The Army swore a personal oath to obey Hitler. What will happen next? But on July 20, 1944 a group of Army officers tried to assassinate Hitler but failed. [What if it succeeded?] Appendix I and II have speeches by Roehm and Hitler. This book has no index or a historical background of the 1920s. The author intermixes the events of that day with earlier events, they are not in chronological order.