One of the most important reasons for the Nazis' great success in the early days of World War II was that its leader, Hitler, with his cunning political acumen and excellent eloquence, fooled the German people into willingly being tied to the wheels of war. However, it has also been proved that the Fuehrer is not a true leader of the people, but merely sees the German people as an instrument for his own political gain. Throughout history, those who deceive the people will eventually be tried justly, and no country is an exception.
In fact, there was another person in the Nazi hierarchy, who was more radical, more ambitious, and more shrewd than Hitler; the Nazi Party forces under his control swelled madly dozens of times, and even wanted to eat the Wehrmacht at one point. This man was the stormtrooper leader Ernst Röhm. To the outside world, Röhm was a much greater threat than Hitler himself before being purged internally.
Ernst Röhm was a talented and ambitious man, always trying to persuade Hitler to carry out a "second revolution" and expand Nazi influence in Germany. In addition, Röhm was also good at business, he was one of the main founders of the SA, returning to China in 1931 as chief of staff of the SA, and in the following few years, the Nazi Party armed forces reached millions, not only much larger than the German regular army, but also more advanced weapons.
It is worth mentioning that Röhm is not the same as the vast majority of Nazis who only speculate and gain power, he and Goebbels are a kind of person, although they are not good things, but when it comes to work, their abilities are still very eye-catching.
Judging from the early development of the Nazi SA, the Nazi Party at that time was not the mainstream in Germany, and it was obviously not possible to blatantly engage in private arming. But Röhm cleverly disguised the SA as a civil society organization similar to a "sports team." Not only that, but even if the SA showed up to do something bad, it was just to run to the side and curse the street when other political organizations were holding a party, or when the leader of the Nazi Party was speaking, he immediately rushed up to fight with people when he saw opponents making trouble. Stormtroopers also often took advantage of the police's lack of attention and ran to the streets to put up propaganda posters.
The goal is clearly achieved, but only the least inferior means are borrowed. The barbarism of these street thugs greatly reduced the vigilance of the STORMC, and the magnates believed that this group of radicals was nothing more than a rabble who could only play rogues. In fact, Rommin repaired the boardwalk and secretly included a large number of German officers and men who were dismissed after World War I, and the stormtroopers soon had a solid and reliable team.
So the question is, if Röhm is a capable and powerful man, why was he purged? The reasons for this seem complex and simple, so let's start at the beginning.
We often see such a situation in the workplace: there is a person who is obviously very capable, but because he has offended the leader or the leader's cronies, he is suppressed or even swept out. First of all, Röhm encountered such a dilemma. Although he joined the German Workers' Party, the predecessor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and also participated in the Munich Beer Hall Rebellion in 1923, he was definitely a Nazi elder in terms of seniority, but after the failed coup, Röhm once left Germany and went to Bolivia in South America to work as a military adviser until 1931, when he returned at the invitation of Hitler.
That is to say, after a failed "entrepreneurship", Röhm temporarily left the team, and in the process of the real success of the Nazi Party, he actually did not contribute much, and was an "outsider". The reason why Hitler invited Röhm to return was that the care of his "old comrades" was on the one hand, and more importantly, he valued Röhm's former abilities. But now that the Nazis are in the ascendant, Hitler's personal prestige is also swelling wildly, whether it is a real fanatical follower or a speculator trying to fish in muddy waters, there are countless "talents" for Hitler to choose, and the significance of Röhm to the Nazi high-level is actually not as important as it was then. If he is smart enough to do things in a low-key manner, hold the leadership everywhere, and re-establish a solid political foundation, there is no room for maneuver. However, although the well-behaved Röhm has a good hand, he personally sent himself to the end of the road.
In the two or three years that followed, the STORMC underwent a terrible expansion. Röhm once claimed to have 3 million stormtroopers, but the total number mentioned in some sources has exceeded 4.5 million, more than 20 times that of the Wehrmacht. Not only that, the level of weapons and equipment of the SA even exceeded that of the Wehrmacht, and for a time, the most powerful armed force in Germany was controlled by Roma alone, and he even asked the Wehrmacht to be merged into the SA and accepted his command.
This move alone is enough to see Röhm's political immaturity. His greed and frivolity made the German military very dissatisfied with the Nazi Party, and in order to prevent the situation from deteriorating further, Hitler wasted a lot of effort to calm the situation. Having a leader wipe the ass of his subordinates was an extremely embarrassing thing in itself, but what happened afterwards not only made Hitler begin to resent Röhm, but even quickly moved to kill.
As we all know, the Nazis (Nationalsozialismus) is called "National Socialism", which is a very extreme form of political power, essentially a dictatorship, and is not at all the same thing as the "socialism" we are familiar with. Hitler's cunning lies in the fact that he knows how to use the people's demands to incite the people's emotions.
You know, when the Great Depression swept through the Western world in 1929, the Weimar Republic also entered the darkest period in German history. The terrible inflation rate overwhelmed almost every ordinary German household, the currency was devalued to a less valuable price than white paper, a loaf of bread sold for 100 billion Deutsche Marks, and a liter of milk sold for as much as 300 billion. Adults would rather take bundles of money and use them as building blocks for their children than spend money on toys. The Nazi Party exchanged its promises of "bread," "work," and "the rise of the nation" for the trust of the German people.
Hitler tasted the sweetness, so for the so-called "national socialism", he was more inclined to package nationalism as "patriotism" to incite the german people's emotions, and to use the German people as cannon fodder for his political interests. Röhm is different, his quest for power is obviously more thorough, and he wants to carry out a larger and more thorough revolution in Germany, to establish absolutely solid rule among all classes in Germany, so as to fundamentally firmly control the country, which is the "second revolution" we have just mentioned. It is clear that if Röhm's claims become a reality, the interests of the upper classes will be seriously damaged. You know, it was through the deals with the powerful that Hitler won a prominent seat. Therefore, he will definitely not allow Roma to engage in a "second revolution".
In order to prevent his "gold lords" from changing their minds, Hitler could only constantly promise that nothing would happen to the detriment of the interests of the magnates. But the point is that the current situation is in great danger of spiralling out of control, and Röhm not only does not abandon his political ideas, but also constantly emphasizes his influence on the situation in the country. He once boasted that his cronies were all over Germany, that the government, the army, and functional institutions at all levels were full of his men and horses, and that if anyone dared to tear his face off, the results could be imagined.
Imagine that a "former colleague" who has hardly suffered together, who has just returned, wants to reap the fruits of victory, and even the big leader does not pay attention to such a existence. Finally, Hitler took the initiative to eliminate Röhm.
At this point, Hitler was still relatively intelligent. He did not choose to confront Röhm, but allowed the other side to support himself, and he chose to be equally vicious, but loyal to himself, he secretly formed a new private armed Nazi SS. In the years that followed, although the SS grew well and formed a certain size, Hitler waited for the opportunity without hesitation. In 1934, due to differences in political opinions, the gap between Roma and Hitler grew, and the former repeatedly scolded each other. Finally, at the end of June of that year, Hitler instructed the SS to take advantage of the collective vacation of the SA top brass to carry out a purging, and Röhm and more than 600 of his cronies were netted, known as the "Night of the Long Knife".
Interestingly, Röhm was a villain himself, but he became the last valve to suppress Hitler's demonic nature.
In the presence of Röhm, both himself and Hitler exercised restraint in their behavior; after Röhm's downfall, Hitler lost his restraint and, while frantically liquidating the SA, he also inflicted a hard hand on other opposition forces. A large number of government officials and army generals opposed to the Nazi Party were arrested or assassinated, countless people were imprisoned and tortured, and even Franz von Papen, then Deputy Chancellor of Germany, was imprisoned for several days. Later, Papen, who had picked up a life, never dared to say a bad word about Hitler and the Nazis.