The destiny of our country is at stake. It also provided a legal grounding for the Nazis, as the German courts and cabinet quickly swept aside centuries of legal prohibition against extrajudicial killings to demonstrate their loyalty to the regime. [h], The action Hitler took would not only defang Rhm and the SA as a potential threat to Hitler's personal control of the Nazi Party, but would also serve to strengthen his relationship with the Wehrmacht the German armed forces which had long considered the SA to be their primary rival, and which at times outnumbered the military in manpower.[10]. The army almost unanimously applauded the Night of the Long Knives, even though the generals Kurt von Schleicher and Ferdinand von Bredow were among the victims. Many members of the SA, including its leader Ernst Rhm, were demanding that the Nazi party carry out its socialist agenda and that the SA take over the army. [69] The request that Neurath be replaced by Nadolny, the former Ambassador to the USSR, who had resigned earlier that year in protest against Hitler's anti-Soviet foreign policy, indicated that Hammerstein and Mackensen wanted a return to the "distant friendliness" towards the Soviet Union that existed until 1933. Over 150 people were murdered and hundreds more were arrested. In the years preceding the purge, the term "long knives" had become a popular description of treachery in Germany and was used as a criticism of Nazi actions and deceitfulness. Uploaded: 09/18/2002. It was during this speech that Hitler gave the purge its name: Night of the Long Knives (a phrase from a popular Nazi song). Rhm demurred, telling them, "If I am to be killed, let Adolf do it himself. This handbook will help you plan your study time, beat procrastination, memorise the info and get your notes in order. It was the culmination of a chaotic week in Westminster, which saw furious calls for an overhaul . [11] Rhm saw violence as a means to political ends. The Centre Partys vote was crucial. The first concentration camp, Dachau, opened in a broken-down munitions factory on the 20 March 1933, imprisoning primarily political prisoners. com. By 1934 there were more than a million of them. June 30, 1934 - July 12, 1934 News articles about the arrest and murder of leadership within the SA, as well as political opponents of the Nazis ("Night of the Long Knives"). The SA and the SS had also been on a month long campaign of violence to scare or imprison other opponents to the party. Nazis Hermann Gring and Heinrich Himmler wait for the code word from Hitler to begin what will become known as the "Night of the Long Knives". 54 Richard J. Evans At the same time, the apparatus of the police state began to look a good deal less coercive than it had done in the 1950s. 2. Many of those that were harassed by the SA and the SS or imprisoned in camps were terrified to speak out about their ordeal fearing that they would be further abused or re-imprisoned. [82] However, the term was soon adopted by the Nazis themselves to invoke what they saw as justifiable and necessary measures taken by Germanic peoples against an enemy. British cartoon by David Low, 1934 They salute with both hands, now! [21] At the end of May, Brning and Schleicher, two former chancellors, received warnings from friends in the Reichswehr that their lives were in danger and they should leave Germany at once. Censorship was heightened, and any person publishing actively anti-Nazi material was threatened or imprisoned. The Night of the Long Knives. Following the Enabling Law, much of this harassment and imprisonment was legal. What does Long Knives expression mean? On the 28 February 1933, President Hindenburg signed the Emergency Decree for the Protection of the German People. To a lesser extent, the Sturmabteilung (SA), a Nazi paramilitary organization, remained somewhat autonomous within the party. Night of the Long Knives: Directed by Paul Stanley. Under pressure from Hitler, Rhm reluctantly signed a pledge stating that he recognised the supremacy of the Reichswehr over the SA. and The SA traced its dramatic rise in numbers in part to the onset of the Great Depression, when many German citizens lost both their jobs and their faith in traditional institutions. How did the Night of the Long Knives help to create a dictatorship out of a democracy? It was all three of these men that were responsible for this night, because Hitler asked Goering and Goebbels to compile a list of disloyal SA members,; this list formed the basis of those killed on the Night of the Long Knives. [19] The British historian Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, who knew Schleicher and his circle well, wrote that Bredow displayed a "lack of discretion" that was "terrifying" as he went about showing the list of the proposed cabinet to anyone who was interested. [17] While Hitler did not take immediate action against Rhm for his intemperate outburst, it nonetheless deepened the rift between them. Chancellor Adolf Hitler, urged on by Hermann Gring and Heinrich Himmler, ordered a series of political extrajudicial executions . [13], If the regular army showed contempt for the masses belonging to the SA, many stormtroopers returned the feeling, seeing the army as insufficiently committed to the National Socialist revolution. [27] While von Papen's resignation as vice-chancellor would not have threatened Hitler's position, it would have nonetheless been an embarrassing display of independence from a leading conservative. Max Heydebreck, an SA leader in Rummelsburg, denounced the army to his fellow brownshirts, telling them, "Some of the officers of the army are swine. Also available as: Gift Options Download Options. Dimensions: 2432 x 2229 px. pardoned The Night of the Long Knives. Centuries of jurisprudence proscribing extrajudicial killings were swept aside. With James Darren, Robert Colbert, Malachi Throne, David Watson. Rhm is pictured here on the left next to Rudolf Hess, who was the deputy Fhrer from 1933-1941. The camps were brutal and had extremely unsanitary conditions. 3. Adolf Hitler needed Ernst Rhm and his storm troops to climb to power in faction-torn Germany. July 1-13, 1934 Editorials, opinion pieces, letters-to-the-editor, and political cartoons regarding the "Night of the Long Knives". Over the next two days, most of the SA leadership were placed under arrest and murdered without trial. BUT Some within the Nazi Party opposed Hitler. Hitler announced that he would occupy this new role. Night of the Long Knives (Classroom Activity) When the Nazi Party was first formed it was an anti-capitalist movement. The SA had given the Nazi's an iron fist . [g] Many stormtroopers believed in the socialist promise of National Socialism and expected the Nazi regime to take more radical economic action, such as breaking up the vast landed estates of the aristocracy. To take control of cultural policy, the Nazis appointed Joseph Goebbels as Minister for Public Engagement and Propaganda on the 13 March 1933. The Night of Long Knives was the purge of the SA leadership and other political opponents from the 30 June 1934 to the 2 July 1934. SA violence in Prussia gravely concerned Gring. The Gestapo arrested and later executed Papen's close associate Edgar Jung, the author of Papen's Marburg speech, and disposed of his body by dumping it in a ditch. , Leading members of the leftist-leaning Strasserist faction of the Nazi Party, including its leader Gregor Strasser, were also killed, as were establishment conservatives and anti-Nazis, such as former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and Bavarian politician Gustav Ritter von Kahr, who had helped suppress Hitler's Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. Scribd is the world's largest social reading and publishing site. The Nazis used the guise of moderationto conceal their rapid consolidation of power. ultimate power over Germany, whilst maintaining an On the 2 May 1933 trade unions were banned. On 13 July 1934 the Reichstag [68] Hammerstein, who was a close friend of Schleicher, had been much offended at Schleicher's funeral when the SS refused to allow him to attend the service and confiscated the wreaths that the mourners had brought. The caption They salute with both hands now is a joke about the Nazi salute. On 17 June 1934, conservative demands for Hitler to act came to a head when Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, confidant of the ailing Hindenburg, gave a speech at Marburg University warning of the threat of a "second revolution. ", followed by 12,263 people on Pinterest. Facebook Twitter Email Copy Link. The Night of the Long Knives not only removed the SA leaders but also got Hitler the army's oath that he so needed. Among the few exceptions were General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord and Field Marshal August von Mackensen, who started a campaign to have Schleicher rehabilitated by Hitler. The Night of the Long Knives commences. 3. In response to conservative pressure to constrain Rhm, Hitler left for Neudeck to meet with Hindenburg. Both Kurt von Schleicher, Hitler's predecessor as Chancellor, and his wife were murdered at their home. Battle to save 'Night of the Long Knives' hotel where Hitler turned on Brownshirts' leader Ernst Rhm - the only man standing in his way to absolute power - in deadly 1934 purge. Give Hitler four years to rebuild it! The Nazi Party used the atmosphere of panic to their advantage, encouraging anti-communism. As such the Nazis justified this measure as implementing necessary security measures, rather than revealing their true motive to remove opposition. Local governments proved more difficult to infiltrate, and even at the end of 1945 only 60% of local mayors were Nazi Party members. On the 4 October 1933, it was declared that all editors must be Aryan. Opposition from outside the Nazi party was being strangled Communists were banned and concentration camps set up. Rhm left the Reichswehr in 1923 and later became commander of the SA. [42] The Gestapo also murdered Erich Klausener, the leader of Catholic Action, and a close Papen associate. Mr Maracin has filtered out much of the historical minutia belabored by other historians of Nazi Germany during this period and given us a quick 209 page read for those with a mild passing interest on how this to barbarism came to be. This hysteria helped to turn the public against the communists, one of the Nazis main opponents, and 4000 people were imprisoned. [21] By the beginning of June everything was set and all that was needed was permission from Hitler. On 22 March 1933, the first Nazi concentration camp was established in the town of Dachau. When the Nazi regime did not take such steps, those who had expected an economic as well as a political revolution were disillusioned. And let it be known for all time to come that if anyone raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his lot. However, soon after the purge Hitler himself would name the events the "Night of the long knives" in a public speech on 13 July 1934 defending the actions (despite the violence taking place over several days). . They understood the need to appear moderate and take over slowly by democratic means where possible, maintaining the stability and illusion of a democracy. Have a Free Meeting with one of our hand picked tutors from the UK's top universities. Goebbels engineered the media coverage following the attack to present it as a preventative measure, in response to the SAs plan to overthrow the government. The SA used to be fiercely loyal to Hitler, and so would salute him with the Nazi salute (with one hand). The Night of the Long Knives was a major purge of the SA and Nazi Party. Shortly after Hindenburgs death, Hitler announced that offices of the chancellor and the president were to be combined to create one position, the Fhrer and chancellor. [69] Finally, Hammerstein and Mackensen asked that Hindenburg reorganize the government by firing Baron Konstantin von Neurath, Robert Ley, Hermann Gring, Werner von Blomberg, Joseph Goebbels and Richard Walther Darr from the Cabinet. [6], Hitler's appointment as chancellor, followed by the suppression of all political parties except the Nazis, did not end the violence of the stormtroopers. The primary instruments of Hitler's action, which carried out most of the killings, were the Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary force under Himmler and its Security Service (SD), and Gestapo (secret police) under Reinhard Heydrich. Having earlier imprisoned or exiled prominent Social Democrats and Communists, Hitler used the occasion to move against conservatives he considered unreliable. The SS was moving into position for the first of its many deadly tasks. [4] The violent confrontations between the two contributed to the destabilization of the Weimar Republic. Hitler was shrewd enough to understand that he could never fully consolidate his grip on the country without the support of the army. [28] Hitler had hesitated for months in moving against Rhm, in part due to Rhm's visibility as the leader of a national militia with millions of members. An atmosphere of panic and terror followed the event. intensified The Nazis started with the [45][41] As Himmler's adjutant Karl Wolff later explained, friendship and personal loyalty were not allowed to stand in the way: Among others, a charming fellow [named] Karl von Spreti, Rhm's personal adjutant. From the airport they drove to the Bavarian Interior Ministry, where they assembled the leaders of an SA rampage that had taken place in city streets the night before. Hitler did not exercise absolute power, however, despite his swift consolidation of political authority. Blomberg and many of his fellow officers were recruited from the Prussian nobility and regarded the SA as a plebeian rabble that threatened the army's traditional high status in German society. 1. Background Hitler was Chancellor (Prime Minister), but not yet completely in control. The Night of the Long Knives, which was originally published in Amazing Science Fiction Stories in 1960, feels surprisingly current the character names are the most dated-feeling aspect of the story. 1. The Night of the Long Knives - Free download as Word Doc (.doc / .docx), PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free. Whilst the purge focused on the SA, the Nazis also used the event to eliminate other political opponents, such as the former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher. "[14], Despite such hostility between the brownshirts and the regular army, Blomberg and others in the military saw the SA as a source of raw recruits for an enlarged and revitalized army. Prisons soon became stretched for space. With Germany now under his control the expansion of Germany could begin. British cartoon by David Low, 1934 H I UN TL PR KE ER OM PT 'S IS ES They salute with both hands, now! For AC/DC that's a pretty wierd thing to reference in a song. [64] One retired captain, Erwin Planck, seemed to realize this: "If you look on without lifting a finger", he said to his friend, General Werner von Fritsch, "you will meet the same fate sooner or later. SS men stormed the hotel, and Hitler personally placed Rhm and other high-ranking SA leaders under arrest. The Censorship is really evident when . In addition to this, there was a mutual dislike between the traditional conservative elite who maintained many key positions in the government and the army during the first years of the Third Reich and the SA. The SS also murders several conservative critics of the Nazi regime including . Through these aspects the Nazis suppressed any opposition to their power, and were able to start the road from democracy to a dictatorship. "[63] The statements that Schleicher had been killed because he wanted to partition Poland with the Soviet Union were later published in the Polish White Book of 1939, which was a collection of diplomatic documents detailing GermanPolish relations up to the outbreak of the war. At least 85 people died during the purge, although the final death toll may have been in the hundreds,[b][c][d] with high estimates running from 700 to 1,000. 1922 1923 1925 1943 1944 Albert Speer Art Auschwitz autobahn British Pathe Cartoon cartoons Catholic Church Chancellor Dada Denmark Disney Document Documentary Film Final Solution Four Year Plan Goebbels Hindenburg Hitler Holocaust Hyperinflation Jews July Bomb Plot . [44] The murdered included at least one accidental victim: Willi Schmid, the music critic of the Mnchner Neuste Nachrichten newspaper, whose name was confused with one of the Gestapo's intended targets. This represents how Hitler betrayed the SA, as they had been led to believe that they would gain power alongside Hitler. This event reputedly occurred during the fifth century Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, when Vortigern and the British leaders were invited to discuss peace and the Saxon leader Hengist commanded his men to draw their Seax (the infamous long knives) and massacre the unarmed Britons. Definitions by the largest Idiom Dictionary. His perceived enemies were executed on the night of June 30, 1934. The message of the cartoon "They Salute with Both Hands Now" is that in the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler turned on his previously loyal supporters, the SA, in order to consolidate his position by eliminating the threat of Ernst Rohm and the SA and winning over the Army. British cartoon by David Low, 1934. Used for Educational purposes only. Hess, present among the assembled, even volunteered to shoot the "traitors". The Night of the Long Knives (in addition to Hindenburgs deatha few months later) helped Hitler and the Nazi Party to consolidate absolute power in Germany by removing their political opposition. Hitler formally adopted this title in April 1942, thus placing himself above the reach of the law de jure and de facto. On 25 June, General Werner von Fritsch placed the Reichswehr on the highest level of alert. We want to wait till Papa Hindenburg is dead, and then the SA will march against the army. Hitler and the rest of the Nazi leadership disagreed with their approach. The decree also removed basic personal freedoms, such as the freedom of speech, the right to own property, and the right to trial before imprisonment. night of the long knives phrase. Definitions by the largest Idiom Dictionary. The tension between the SA and the Nazi leadership grew. In August 1932 there were approximately 445,000 members of the SA. Despite some initial efforts by local prosecutors to take legal action against those who carried out the murders, which the regime rapidly quashed, it appeared that no law would constrain Hitler in his use of power. Night of the Long Knives, in German history, purge of Nazi leaders by Adolf Hitler on June 30, 1934. "[74] Hearing of the murder of former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and his wife, he also commented, "We have ceased to live under the rule of law and everyone must be prepared for the possibility that the Nazis will push their way in and put them up against the wall! Originally designed and developed by the London Jewish Cultural Centre. Hitler feared that the SA and Ernst Rhm, their leader, were a potential threat to his leadership. Hitler then ordered Himmler and Goering to eliminate the threat posed by the leaders of the SA. [19] Schleicher criticized the current Hitler cabinet, while some of Schleicher's followers such as General Ferdinand von Bredow and Werner von Alvensleben started passing along lists of a new Hitler cabinet in which Schleicher would become vice-chancellor, Rhm minister of defence, Heinrich Brning foreign minister and Gregor Strasser minister of national economy. By the end of 1934, the Nazis had managed to infiltrate and take control of every major aspect of German government. 7 Night of the Long Knives - 30 June 1934 . However, there were also other events which helped Hitler in achieving the position of a dictator. No one in the SA spoke more loudly for "a continuation of the German revolution" (as one prominent stormtrooper, Edmund Heines, put it) than Rhm himself. "[46], Some SA members died saying "Heil Hitler" because they believed that an anti-Hitler SS plot had led to their execution. [37] Meanwhile, the SS arrested the other SA leaders as they left their train for the planned meeting with Rhm and Hitler. Reichswehr . This is a crucial part of Hitler's consolidation of power. During the years of the rise of the Nazi Party, the SA had been instrumental in helping the party to gain support. Definition of night of the long knives in the Idioms Dictionary. As a result, a political struggle within the party grew, with those closest to Hitler, including Prussian premier Hermann Gring, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, Reichsfhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler, and Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess, positioning themselves against Rhm. This meant, as well as removing other personal freedoms, that the Nazis could now imprison their political opposition for an indefinite period for any, or no, reason. In the judicial system specifically, this act removed any judges that were deemed non-compliant with Nazi laws or principles. Mussolini used the affair occasioned by the murder of Giacomo Matteotti as an example of the kind of trouble unruly followers could cause a dictator. This photograph shows the SA as they marched victoriously through the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin the same day. ", Coincidentally, Hitler had been incarcerated at. "It was plain that there was wide acceptance of the deliberately misleading propaganda put out by the regime. In his speech to the Reichstag on 13 July justifying his actions, Hitler denounced Schleicher for conspiring with Rhm to overthrow the government; Hitler alleged both were traitors working in the pay of France. [30] At Hitler's direction, Gring, Himmler, Heydrich and Victor Lutze drew up lists of people in and outside the SA to be killed. [29], In preparation for the purge, both Himmler and Heydrich assembled a dossier of manufactured evidence to suggest that Rhm had been paid 12 million (EUR 29.1million in 2023) by France to overthrow Hitler. While Nazism was not exclusively or even primarily a working-class phenomenon, the SA fulfilled the yearning of many unemployed workers for class solidarity and nationalist fervour. Some estimates, however, put the total number killed at between 150 and 200. In two brutal days in 1934 Adolf Hitler and his senior staff would capture and execute Ernst Roehm, the rest of the senior leaders of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and perhaps 1000 other enemies and threats to his control of Germany. Hitler orders a violent purge of the top leadership of the Nazi Party paramilitary formation, the SA (Sturmabteilungen; Assault Detachments). The Nazis also took steps to ensure they couldnt be openly opposed in the press. This decree suspended the democratic aspects of the Weimar Republic and declared a state of emergency. [37] Arriving back at party headquarters in Munich, Hitler addressed the assembled crowd. Whilst Gleichschaltung aimed to reach every aspect of rule in Germany, this was not always possible. Paul von Hindenburg was the president of the Weimar Republic from the 12 May 1925 until his death on the 2 August 1934. "[74], Hitler named Viktor Lutze to replace Rhm as head of the SA. It's helped us to become more accustomed to acts of grim self-interested political butchery; but for those witnessing these events as they happened, they were simply unprecedented. "[77], Rhm was purged from all Nazi propaganda, such as The Victory of Faith, the Leni Riefenstahl film about the 1933 Nuremberg rally, which showed Rhm frequently alongside Hitler. The trial of Van der Lubbe following the Reichstag fire. Also in 1932, the Nazi critic Carl von Ossietzky would use the term to describe the then unrealised plans for a violent uprising: At the beginning of 1932 the Nazis seemed on the verge of a dictatorship, and the air was full of the stretch of blood. However, to gain power Adolf Hitler built up a close and friendly relationship with Germany's industrialists. retrospectively He asked, "What would people have said if I had done such a thing? Once inside Rhm's cell, they handed him a Browning pistol loaded with a single cartridge and told him he had ten minutes to kill himself or they would do it for him. The SS found Breslau SA leader Edmund Heines in bed with an unidentified eighteen-year-old male SA senior troop leader. [41], The regime did not limit itself to a purge of the SA. Selected Clips from the movie Bent that depict the Night of the Long Knives. 3. The SA were dramatically reduced in size, dropping by 40% to 1.8 million by 1935. The Night of Long Knives, also known as the Rhm Putsch, was the purge of the SA leadership and other political opponents from 30 June 1934 to 2 July 1934. Low's cartoons have always appealed to me because of his ability to depict characters like Hitler and Mussolini in a recognisable but often funny way. kato-eng. During a trip to Warsaw in January 1935, Gring told Jan Szembek that Schleicher had urged Hitler in January 1933 to reach an understanding with France and the Soviet Union, and partition Poland with the latter, and Hitler had Schleicher killed out of disgust with the alleged advice. While Rhm's homosexuality did not endear him to conservatives, they were more concerned about his political ambitions. Political instability in the Weimar Republic, Hyperinflation and the invasion of the Ruhr, Strength and weaknesses of the Weimar Republic. 2. She even compared him to Frederick the Great, the 18th-century king of Prussia.[2]. [49] In 1957, the German authorities tried Lippert in Munich for Rhm's murder. This act legalised removing anyone of non-Ayran descent from the civil service. Long Knives phrase. The speed and scale of the reshuffle caused it to be associated by its critics with the 1934 Night of the Long Knives in Nazi Germany.. This continued when a young Dutchcommunist, Van der Lubbe was arrested for the crime. Browse 1,447 happy its friday cartoon stock photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more stock photos and images. The humbling of the SA ended the threat it had posed to the army but, by standing by Hitler during the purge, the army bound itself more tightly to the Nazi regime. But Hitler was in power in 1934, and there was no opposition left . A firefighter in the burnt out ruins of the Reichstag building. It was a purge of the head of the Nazi paramilitary organization, the SA, by Hitler and a certain faction within the Nazi party. The day after the Reichstag fire, the 28 February 1933, Hindenburg signed a decree giving Hitler emergency powers. , issuing the Act for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service on the 7 April 1933. Most officers are too old and have to be replaced by young ones. The Night of the Long Knives: the bloody purge that secured Hitler's power. "[67] The extent of the massacre and the relative ubiquity of the Gestapo, however, meant that those who disapproved of the purge generally kept quiet about it. Hence, the Freikorps were in opposition to the new Weimar Republic, which was born as a result of the November Revolution, and whose founders were contemptuously called "November criminals". The night was 29th June 1934, the Night of the Long Knives. This betrayal is seen by the image of SA members looking fearful in . I have the earlier 2005 History Channel video of Night of the Long Knives - before it was Heavily Censored to remove all references to the fact that the Nazis were founded and led by Boy Raping Diseased Homo-Anal Coprophile Ephebophiles, including Founder Ernst Rohm and his male prostitute protege Hitler. Terror and intimidation became one of the main ways that the Nazis sought to control or suppress their opposition, and Germans in general. Although President Hindenburg and the Reichstag continued to exist, Hitler could now govern by decree. However, it did so under the guise of legality, and protecting the German people and their democracy. Given that the purge claimed the lives of so many prominent Germans, it could hardly be kept secret. . Hitler announced to those present that the SA would act as an auxiliary to the Reichswehr, not the other way around. The Nazi adoption of the phrase for an upcoming violent event was well known even to the foreign press, with the 2 August 1932 issue of The Times reporting that: Prominent Nazi leaders have played upon the imaginations of their followers..with such phrases as the night of the long knives and a vengeance for every Nazi killed.[79]. The SA were the thugs who Hitler had used to help him come to power. wikipedia notes: The Night of the Long Knives (German: Nacht der langen Messer) or "Operation Hummingbird," was a purge of Adolf Hitler's potential political rivals in the Sturmabteilung (SA). Night Of The Long Knives Cartoon 3 of 3. He had banned opposition parties, taken control of the press, outlawed troublesome unions and thrown communists and other political dissidents into concentration camps. The Night of the Long Knives was a turning point for the German government. [25] Neurath's manoeuvre to put pressure on Hitler paid off, with Mussolini agreeing to the request (Neurath was a former ambassador to Italy, and knew Mussolini well). Whilst the pseudo-legal measures were one factor that helped the Nazis to consolidate power, another was terror and intimidation. Grtner also declared in cabinet that the measure did not in fact create any new law, but simply confirmed the existing law. He stated that 61 people had been executed and 13 had committed suicide. Night of the Long Knives: Directed by Lance Miccio, Grant Slawson. Hitler ordered the murders of conspicuous Conservative anti-Nazis such as Kurt Von Schleicher and Gustav Ritter von Kahr, Left wing Nazis such as Gregor Strasser and many members of the SA including its leader Ernst Rohm.