On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. During his rise to power, the Nazi Party SA played a very important role. But a year later, in 1934, Hitler used force to wash the SA in blood, and put his former comrade-in-arms Roma to death.
The story begins at the beginning, when Hitler formed the Nazi Party, he often clashed with other parties. In order to maintain order, Hitler commissioned Röhm to form the Nazi Party StormTroopers. Ernst Röhm fought in World War I, earning the rank of captain, joining the Nazi Party as one of its backbones, and participating in the Beer Hall Riots.
In 1924, after Hitler's release from prison, Röhm was ordered to reorganize the SA. Because of Röhm's tenure in the military, the wide range of social relations, and the social unrest in Germany at the time, the SA grew rapidly, and its membership soon grew to hundreds of thousands, and even the SS was subordinate to the SA at that time.
Originally an armed organization of the Nazi Party, the SA changed its identity as an auxiliary police officer as Hitler came to power. By 1934, the number of STORM Troopers had grown to 3.4 million. As his strength grew, Röhm's ambitions began to swell, and he actually wanted the SA to merge with the Wehrmacht to improve his status.
However, the F-FDTL looked down on the SA, believing that they were just a ragtag bunch, and merging with them would cause the F-FDTL to lose its honor and discipline, so the F-FDTL did not look up to the SA at all. To this end, the Wehrmacht put strong pressure on Hitler, and Defense Minister Blomberg even asked President Hindenburg to issue martial law.
Once martial law was promulgated, Hitler would lose the power of chancellor. In order to gain the support of the Wehrmacht, Hitler had to take action against the SA. At the same time, Röhm was suspicious, believing that he had the SA in his hands and deserved a higher status, and he was constantly critical of Hitler's policies.
In Hitler's view, Röhm had threatened his position. Röhm once said to Ludek: "Adolf can no longer trample on my claims as arbitrarily as he did before, and I am no longer what I used to be." Don't forget that I have three million SA, all the key positions are occupied by my men, and Adolf knows that I have many friends in the F-FDTL. ”
At the same time, Goering and Himmler collected a lot of Röhm's "black materials" and gave them to Hitler. At this point, Hitler had to attack Röhm, either out of the need to win over the Wehrmacht or to consolidate his position in the party. After some intensive planning, the purge of the STORMC began.
On the night of June 30, 1934, at Hitler's behest, Goering's special police, Himmler's SS, quickly launched an operation, bloodied the SA, and executed more than 400 SA leaders, known in history as the "Night of the Long Knife". Roma was also arrested, and the next day, he was also sentenced to death.
Before he was killed, Röhm continued to clamor, "I want Hitler to shoot me personally." After the end of World War II, at the Nuremberg court, the relevant parties confessed that the number of victims of the "Night of the Long Knife" was 1,076. After Hitler's bloodbath of the SA, the Ministry of Defense and the Presidential Office sent "congratulatory messages", and the Wehrmacht supported Hitler even more.
References: 1. "History of World War II"; 2. "Hitler Biography"; 3. "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"