How significant was The Night of the Long Knives in the

establishment of the Nazi dictatorship?

The Night of the Long Knives was extremely significant in the

establishment because for the past year and a half, the Sturm Abteilung
(SA) had been causing huge problems for Hitler and the removal of the SA
also gave Hitler the backing of the army which he need for both the
creation of a totalitarian state and his future foreign policy and big
businesses. However, The Night of the Long Knives was also proceeded by
many other events which could be described as equally as important,
such as the Enabling Act and the Reichstag Fire.

The SS (body guard) were formed as a small and elite bodyguard for
Hitler. They were commanded by Heinrich Himmler who was supposed to
be supervised by Rohm. In 1933 the SS numbered 52,000 men compared
to nearly 3,000,000 SA commanded by Rohm. The SA was more than ten
times the size of the regular army.

On 30th June 1934, the Schutzstaffel or bodyguard (SS) shot around 400
enemies of the Nazi party including leaders of the SA claiming they were
preventing civil war. On that one night, Hitler effectively destroyed an
organisation of around 4,000,000 members, which was ten times the size
of the regular army with an army of 100,000 and an SS of 50,000. The SS
were formed as a small and elite bodyguard for Hitler, commanded by
Heinrich Himmler who was supposed to be supervised by Rohm. Hitler did
this by giving the SA a months paid leave meaning that the leaders were
left vulnerable and on their own because there was no SA to help them.
Rohm and the other leaders were then invited to a meeting with Hitler to
discuss the SAs behaviour and future gathering them all in one place. The
army provided the transport and the SS committed the murders. Not only
were the leaders of the SA killed, but also various other opponents such as
one the Stasser brothers who was the head of the socialist wing of the
party, Schleicher, who was the Chancellor before Hitler and Kahr who had
put down Hitlers Munich Putsch in 1923 despite now being a frail old man.

In the aftermath of the purge the SA were effectively eliminated as an

effective force and became basically a propaganda showpiece. Roehm

was replaced by Victor Lutze as head of the SA. Lutze was a weak man
and the SA gradually lost its power in Hitler's Germany. The SS under the
leadership of Heinrich Himmler grew rapidly during the next few years,
replacing the SA as the dominant force in Germany. The SS were a much
more organised and effective group than the SA and during the Third
Reich they established a very strong control on the country especially the
Gestapo (secret police) that eliminated any possible opponents at all
levels of German society. Such control of the German population made the
Nazi dictatorship even stronger because it was nearly impossible to
oppose the Nazis thanks to the SS.

The Night of the Long Knives was a success for the NSDAP party. It
eliminated the SAs violence and terror which had been threatening the
parties ties with the established German hierarchy and the coalition
parties, it strengthened Hitlers position as dictator of the party as a
possible rival to him had been eliminated and most importantly it gained
Hitler the support of the army which would be vital for the future of the
Third Reich. Hitler would not be threatened again as the leader of the Nazi
party until the bomb plot of 1944, because as Hitler announced he who
lifts his hand against the state now knows that certain death is his fate.

Roehm regularly talked of his desire to amalgamate to SA into the army

and for him to become the leader of the new army. Such talk threatened
the army generals which led to an increased dislike of the SA with the
army already seeing the SA as nothing more than street thugs. It was also
a threat to Hitler whose power could have threatened by Roehm if the
second revolution from below had taken place. This meant a dilemma for
Hitler because he would have to support one of the two sides and with
Hindenburgs death imminent, the decision would have to be made soon.
On the one side he had the SA who were ten times the size of the army
and were led by Hitlers oldest political friend. However, the SA was
despised by much of the established German society and was in danger of
losing Hitler his support. In comparison the army were well disciplined and
highly trained. The Night of the Long Knives removed this problem for
Hitler and strengthened his position as the SA were eliminated which
meant the established German society backed Hitler and upon
Hindenburgs death on August 2nd 1945, the army swore a loath of loyalty
to Hitler.

However, in recent times, this new theory over The Night of the Long
Knives has been put forward, notably by the historian Ian Kershaw. Hitlers
tactic of divide and rule encouraged NSDAP leaders such as Hermann

Goering, Joeseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler and Ernst Roehm to

compete for power within the party. This led to an intense dislike for one
another, Rohm especially as he had the potential with the SA to remove
any of his rivals. Himmler and Goering assembled a file on Roehm and
invented a story that Roehm had been paid by the French to overthrow
Hitler, and they gave this to Hitler. Himmler especially had a lot to gain, as
at the time his power within the party was limited with the SS being a
small faction of the SA. Hitler was also aware that Roehm and the SA had
the power to remove him. Goering and Himmler played on this fear by
constantly feeding him with new information on Roehm's proposed coup.
Their masterstroke was to claim that Gregor Strasser, whom Hitler hated,
was part of the planned conspiracy against him. This theory fits the
structuralist theory that many of the actions such as The Night of the Long
Knives were not accountable to Hitler and the major decisions were took
by leading Nazi officials due to Hitlers lazy attitude towards his work.

The contradictory socialist element of the NSDAP still existed within the
party stemming from the 1920 manifesto. The four million SA included
many members who actually believed in the 'socialism' of National
Socialism and also wanted a true revolutionary army in place of the
regular German Army. These anti-capitalist views expressed by the
masses caused great concern to big businesses that helped put Hitler in
power with their investments of money. Hitler had removed trade unions
and the communists but now with talk of a second revolution the NSDAP
were sounding communist themselves and businessmen were becoming
worried and were threatening to remove their funding to the party which
they desperately needed to build the economy on which was still suffering
from the Great Depression.

Although the Night of the Long Knives can be seen as a crucial event in
the creation of the Nazi dictatorship, in my opinion it was not the single
most important incident. I believe the Enabling Act was the most
important factor in the establishment of the dictatorship because it
essentially gave Hitler the power to pass whichever laws he desired. The
Law passed on March 23rd 1933, basically allowed Hitler to do away with
the Reichstag and decisions were passed by the nine-man government
which the Nazis had a control of. Upon passing the bill the NSDAP could
ban opposition parties and remove other possible future enemies such as
the trade unions, one by one with the policy of Gleichshaltung or
Nazification. In my opinion the Act was more important than the Night of
the Long Knives because it gave the Hitler near dictatorial powers and

removed many organised oppositions whereas the Night of the Long

Knives only removed one possible opposition and gained the support of
the army.

Another vital event in the establishment of the dictatorship was the

Reichstag Fire on 27th February 1933 which paved the way for the Enabling
Act. The fire was blamed on a communist plot and the following day the
Decree for the Protection of People and State was drawn up and signed
by Hindenburg. This suspended most civil and political liberties allowing
Hitler to ban the Communists from the Reichstag and intimidate other
political opponents with the SA in the upcoming March elections.

The Night of the Long Knives was a turning point in the history of Hitler's
Germany. It was the first organised purge of the party, years before the
start of the final solution. Hitler had made it clear that he was the
supreme ruler of Germany who had the right to be judge and jury, and
had the power to decide whether people lived or died.