Rem (Rohm) Ernst (November 28, 1887, Munich - July 2, 1934, Stadelheim Prison), creator and leader of the assault squads of the Nazi Party (SA). The son of a petty official.

Member of the 1st World War, captain. In 1911 he was wounded - part of his nose was torn off by a bullet. For military distinction he was awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class. After the end of the war, he joined the Volunteer Corps. While still in the army, R. became a homosexual, of whom he subsequently selected his inner circle. Participated in a conspiracy organized by Gen. F. von Epp to overthrow the government of Red Bavaria. In 1919 he served at the headquarters of the VII Military District (Munich). In 1919, before A. Hitler, he joined the German Workers' Party (DAN), became a member of its committee (later received ticket No. 623). He was a talented organizer. He believed that only a party based on the support of the lower classes could restore Germany. He created the first shock groups of the PSDAP, which later received the name of the Assault Squads - SA. “Even when I was an immature frail youth, war and anxiety attracted me much more than the glorious bourgeois order,” said R. One of Hitler’s closest friends; the only one with whom Hitler remained on "you" to the end. R. attracted to the party many former military men and members of the Volunteer Corps, who formed the backbone of the party. In addition, R. continuing to be on active service, provided protection to Hitler and the NSDAP. According to a number of sources, it was R. who convinced the gene. Eppa to allocate 60 thousand marks for the purchase central authority party - the newspaper "Völkische Beobachter". Feb. 1923 achieved the accession to the PSDAP 4 of the armed formations of Bavaria and the creation under the leadership of Hitler of the "Workers' Association of Unions of Struggle for the Fatherland." In 1923 he retired from the army with the rank of captain. He participated, being the commander of the attack aircraft unit "Military Banner of the Empire", in the "Beer putsch" (11/9/1923). He occupied with his attack aircraft the headquarters of the command of the ground forces in Bavaria and other objects, incl. telegraph building. He was arrested and brought to trial along with Hitler, released immediately after the trial. He headed the illegal SA (they were officially banned after " beer coup", like the NSDAP) and attracted about 30 thousand war veterans to them. At the end of 1923 he left for Bolivia, where he was invited as a military instructor with the rank of lieutenant colonel. In Sept. 1930, when Hitler had another conflict with the SA, which had become uncontrollable, R. was summoned to Berlin and appointed chief of staff of the SA (Hitler himself became the Supreme Fuhrer of the SA from 1930). Reformed the SA, created a new structure, attracted new members. By the middle of 1931, the SA had been divided into 34 Gausturms and 10 groups. In total, the number of SA, incl. as a result of R.'s activities, reached 400 thousand people. - 4 times more than the Reichswehr. On April 13, 1932, by decree of the government and the president of the SA, they were disbanded as armed formations. R. called for armed resistance, but Hitler rejected the idea. Already 15/6/1932 the ban on the activities of the SA was lifted. By the end of 1933 R. brought the number of SA to 2 million people. The sharp increase in the number and influence of the SA, in which R.'s authority was indisputable, aroused the alertness of the NSDAP leadership. In addition, R. actively advocated the idea of ​​the so-called. "Second Revolution", believing that the seizure of power is only the first stage; and in this he was supported by the majority of the leadership of the SA. At the same time, R. put forward the concept of turning the SA into a people's army, with the subordination of the armed forces to them, and, of course, at the head of himself. These actions have caused concern in high command army, with which Hitler was not going to aggravate relations, as well as in industrial circles, which R.'s calls for social revolution. 12/1/1933 R. was introduced into the government as imperial minister without portfolio, and also became a member state government Bavaria. 21/2/1934 Hitler ordered to reduce the size of the SA. 28/6/1934 R. was expelled from the German Officers' League. Hitler made an attempt to reconcile with the SA, R., going to meet him, gave the order on 1/7/1934 to dissolve the SA for a month on vacation with a ban on wearing uniforms. Before the holidays, on 30/6/1934, it was decided to hold a meeting of senior leadership and old SA fighters at the Hanzlbauer Hotel in Bad Wiessee, on the shore of Lake Tegernsee. 06/30/1934 in the "Night of the Long Knives" R. and his inner circle were arrested. Sent

en to the Stadelheim prison. An attempt was made to force R. to commit suicide, but R. refused to do so. After that, he was shot dead in the cell by the SS soldier T. Eike.

At that time, Röhm, together with Georg Escherich, a member of the Land Hunting Council, created the ainvonerver, a people's militia designed to circumvent population restrictions. armed forces imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. To provide him with weapons and ammunition, Ryom created huge caches, which were later enough to arm a third of the Wehrmacht created in the year. However, in the city of ainvonerver it was banned. After this failure, Röhm came to the conclusion that the support of the general population was necessary to come to power. Hitler turned out to be the most suitable candidate for solving this problem.

To ensure the safety of Hitler, Röhm organized a mobile group from the soldiers of the 19th mortar company. On its basis, the order service of the party was created, later renamed into the physical culture and sports department, and then into the assault detachment (in German. Sturmabteilung abbreviated SA).

Röhm was also looking for officers for command positions. The basis of the leadership of the SA was made up of people from the headquarters of the 2nd marine brigade, disbanded for participating in the Kapp putsch, led by its commander, captain 3rd rank Hermann Erhardt.

Almost immediately, disagreements began to arise between Röhm and Hitler on the issue of the goals and objectives of the SA. Hitler saw groups of youngsters in the assault squads, ready to fulfill any task of the party leadership. Rem, on the other hand, perceived the SA as the core of the future revolutionary army. In this, he was supported by the military authorities of Bavaria, who considered attack aircraft as reserve units. And besides, for the latter, Rem and Erhardt were the only authorities, and they ignored the NSDAP.

In order to strengthen his influence in the SA, Hitler appointed Hermann Goering as commander of the detachments, and then, as a counterbalance, created his personal guard, which later turned into the SS.

Röhm took an active part in the Beer Putsch, commanding a detachment that captured the War Ministry building. Himmler was the standard-bearer for this detachment.

Hitler and Röhm in August 1933

After the failure of the coup, he was arrested and then released on bail. Hitler, who was in Landsberg prison, appointed him the head of the underground assault squads. As a legal cover, Röhm created the Frontbahn (an association of front-line soldiers) under the formal leadership of General Ludendorff. At the head of the Frontbahn, Röhm launched a stormy activity to expand the influence of the National Socialists outside Bavaria and increase their numbers, and he managed to win over the former fighters of the Freikorps and other paramilitary formations of Northern Germany, increasing the size of the SA from 2 thousand on the eve of the Beer putsch to 30 thousand. In some cases, the reason for the rapprochement was non-traditional sexual orientation. In particular, with the future SA Obergruppenführer Edmund Haynes Röhm, as he later wrote in his memoirs, "I decided to get to know each other better."

After the release of Mr. Hitler in December, tensions between him and Röhm intensified, almost degenerating into open conflict and led to the rupture of relations. Ryom considered SA independent organization which categorically did not suit Hitler.

Literature

• H. Hene. Black Order of the SS. History of the security forces. Moscow: Olma-Press, 2005. ISBN 5-224-04822-2

Links

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

From my book "The Fuhrers of the Third Reich"

Rem was the third child in the family of a high-ranking employee of the Bavarian railway. He was born on November 28, 1887, and from childhood he was distinguished by a rather heavy character. Ernst disliked his father from an early age, and this feeling was further exacerbated by the difficult relationship between his parents. Some researchers believe that the cause of Ernst Röhm's homosexual orientation was the Oedipus complex, which developed from constant family scenes and scandals, which he witnessed throughout his childhood. In addition, his father practically did not take part in his upbringing, and Rem grew up in the arms of his mother.

Hatred of his father ultimately led Ernst Röhm to the army. He wanted nothing to do with the corrupt and hypocritical bourgeois society in which his father was able to make a career. The only public institution with which Rem could maintain contact and of which he felt himself a member was the royal Bavarian army. After graduating from the gymnasium, to the surprise of his parents, Ernst Röhm went to the cadet school. A few years later, in 1908, he received the rank of lieutenant and was enlisted in the 10th Royal Foot Regiment.
When the First World War began, Ernst Röhm was already in command of a company. In battles, he earned the Iron Cross 1st Class, but received three severe wounds, the last - near Verdun, after which he could not continue to serve in combat units. Then he was transferred to the post of officer of the General Staff of the 12th Bavarian Infantry Regiment. Here he distinguished himself as a talented organizer, especially during the withdrawal of German troops from Flanders in the autumn of 1918. But, the war was lost, and a revolution began in Germany.
The defeat in the war and the overthrow of the Hohenzollerns became a personal disaster for Ernst Röhm - the meaning of his life was crushed by columns allied forces Entente and German revolutionary sailors with red bows on their jackets. Having recovered from the first shock, Captain Rehm decided to use his organizational skills and military talent to fight German society: “I declare that I no longer belong to to the German people. I only remember that I was once a member of the German army. Even his memoirs, published in 1928, he called the "History of a traitor."
At the end of November 1918, the regiment in which Ernst Röhm served returned to his homeland and was stationed in Munich. After the establishment of communist power in this city in the spring of 1919, Rehm, dressed in civilian clothes, left Munich and reached Thuringia, where he joined the volunteer corps of Colonel Franz Xaver von Epp. As an experienced general staff officer, he was entrusted with arming and providing for the Freikorps. At the end of April 1919, about two consolidated divisions of the Reichswehr, consisting of Prussian, Wüttemberg and Bavarian units, moved to the “red” Munich. From the south, the Epp Freikorps were advancing on the city, consisting of 380 officers, 221 non-commissioned officers and 451 privates, among whom was Captain Ernst Röhm. After the end of the assault, he was appointed military commander of the Bavarian capital. However, Rem did not stay in this position for long: having deployed troops in the city and established a support system, he returned to von Epp's headquarters.
On June 28, 1919, the German delegation signed a peace treaty in Versailles. Now the German army was to consist of only 7 infantry and 3 cavalry divisions. Ernst Röhm hated the republican system, but together with Epp's freikorps, already a major general, a few weeks after the "shame of Versailles" he became part of the 7th Bavarian Infantry Division. He became a political adviser at the headquarters of the division, which, in fact, consisted of the Munich district, and created under him the Propaganda and Information Department, which was headed by his front-line friend, Captain Karl Mayr. It was these two people who created Adolf Hitler.
Under the Propaganda and Information Department, courses were organized for front-line veterans, where they could be retrained in accordance with their new tasks. Specially invited teachers, among whom there were many renowned professors, read lectures to the audience on the political, military and economic history of Germany and Europe, and also taught the basics of oratory and propaganda. At the end of the course, the military received the qualification of "officer-teacher" (which had nothing to do with officer rank) and began to act as informers for the Reichswehr, attending meetings of various political groups, a huge number of which filled the back rooms of the Munich pubs. One such informant was Corporal Adolf Hitler.
After Hitler "discovered" the German Workers' Party (DAP) locksmith Anton Drexler, the Reichswehr began to quickly take over this political circle. Ernst Röhm was convinced that the military should be in charge of politics. However, he was well aware that under the auspices of the Reichswehr, it was impossible to achieve the unification of the ultra-right reactionary unions. This had to be done not by order, but only on a voluntary basis, by subordinating them to the general political leadership. Rem was well acquainted with the leaders of the right-wing parties and knew that they were not eager to sacrifice their independence in the name of a common cause. Therefore, the most suitable candidate for the role of the "collector of lands" was Hitler, who was completely and completely dependent on the army, diligently carried out all the instructions and instructions of Mayr and did not show any desire for independence. Captains Rem and Mayr treated Hitler well as superiors to a subordinate, and the latter was well aware that he could make a career in the DAP only with the help of his patrons in uniform.

Ernst Röhm himself joined the Nazi Party and received ticket No. 623 and brought in three more informants from the Propaganda and Information Department: Esser, Beggel and Schüssel, who immediately joined the WDA leadership committee. Esser became the second most important orator in the party after Hitler, and Schüssel was appointed manager of the DAP and, due to the future Fuhrer's lack of his own office, kept all party papers in his barracks.
During 1920, the former Drexler circle became the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). The influx of the military provided Hitler with a fairly solid position within the Nazi movement, and in December of the same year, Rehm and Eckart helped the Führer find 60,000 Reichsmarks to buy out the Völkischer Beobachter, the bankrupt weekly leaflet of the Thule Society - they persuaded von Epp to lend the party a loan from the funds of the Reichswehr . However, while on the political scene in Munich, Adolf Hitler was a figure of the second, if not the third plan. He was able to escape from the crowd of extras, but he was still very far from playing the main roles. Along with the NSDAP, Captain Rehm was actively involved in his paramilitary alliance " iron fist and supported strong ties with far-right forces in Berlin.
When in March 1920 a right-wing putsch broke out in Berlin, organized by Captain Cap, Rehm and Epp delegated Eckart and Hitler to the capital as observers. Later, Captain Mayr wrote to Kapu: “The National Workers Party [NSDAP - approx. author] should form the basis for a powerful strike force, in which we rely. Her program is still somewhat helpless, and perhaps there are gaps in it, We will complete it. It is only true that under this banner we have already won quite a few supporters. Since July of last year, I have been striving to strengthen the movement. I attracted young people to the movement. driving force, for example, was Herr Hitler. In the Munich group we have over 2,000 members, while in the summer of 1919 there were not even 100.”
In the middle of 1920, Adolf Hitler instructed his chauffeur, a watchmaker by profession, Emile Maurice, to select people for a paramilitary organization under the NSDAP. Judged for malicious hooliganism, Maurice managed to put together small detachments of "orders" (stewards) who kept order at party rallies. A year later, on August 3, 1921, a gymnastics and sports department was created under the party, renamed on October 5 of the same year into assault squads - SA. The proclamation drawn up on this occasion stated: “The National Socialist Party has created a department of sports and gymnastics within its structure. It must rally the young members of our Party especially closely, solder them into an iron organization that will serve as a battering ram to the entire movement. In this department the idea of ​​defense of a free people should be embodied. He must defend with his strength the ideological and political work of the leaders. But above all, he must educate in the hearts of our youth an indomitable will to action, hammer and inspire them that it is not history that makes people, but people make history, and that a person who wears the chains of his slavery without resistance deserves his yoke. In addition, the department must educate mutual love and cultivate joyful obedience to your Fuehrer."
Front-line soldiers and declassed elements were recruited into assault detachments, which was quite common in all German political parties who had paramilitaries. The student detachment of the SA, created by Rudolf Hess, only confirmed this rule, since it consisted entirely of veterans of the First World War. The first commander of the stormtroopers was Reichswehr officer Klinch, one of the leaders of the far-right terrorist organization Consul (later it joined the SA), whom the command specially seconded from the 2nd brigade marines at the disposal of the NSDAP. The main task The SA was "capture the street", that is, the fight against political opponents by physical means. In Germany in the early 1920s, almost all influential political associations had similar formations, which consisted of a similar social stratum. Party combat units engaged in the protection of rallies and meetings and participated in street fights with representatives of opposing political beliefs.

In 1922, the economic situation of Weimar Germany deteriorated significantly, which had a beneficial effect on the growing popularity of the Nazi Party. Not the last role in this was played by the vigorous activity of the attack aircraft. The ranks of the SA significantly increased and strengthened after the government, at the request of the victorious powers, disbanded the freikorps, and their personnel, having moved to Bavaria, joined the assault detachments. Rem, already in the rank of colonel, took over the material support and armament of the SA. However, very soon he was faced with a dilemma: Hitler became more and more persistent in seeking independence from the army, and Ernst Röhm had to increasingly think about which side he would remain on - the Reichswehr or the Nazi Party. By that time, General von Lossow had taken von Epp's place. At first, Lossow treated Ernst Röhm with distrust. It even went so far that the general inflicted a rather heavy insult on Remus, and he demanded a disciplinary trial of himself. But over time, they were able to find a common language.
The first serious differences between Röhm and Hitler arose after the Fuhrer refused to participate in passive resistance to the French troops that occupied the Ruhr in mid-January 1923. Joachim Fest described the events that took place in the west of Germany as follows: “Entering the Ruhr region French troops met in the streets huge crowds of people, with hostility and bitterness singing "Watch on the Rhine". The French responded to this challenge with a whole range of sophisticated humiliations, the draconian occupational justice imposed arbitrarily heavy punishments, numerous skirmishes multiplied the indignation of both sides. At the end of March, French troops machine-gunned a demonstration of workers on the territory of the Krupp factory in Essen - there were thirteen killed and over thirty wounded. More than half a million people took part in the funeral, and the French military court sentenced the owner of the company and eight of his employees who held leadership positions to fifteen years in prison. Hitler received money from the intelligence of the French General Staff, therefore, naturally, he tried to refrain from direct action against the invaders. However, Rem nevertheless forced him to agree to the entry of the SA into an alliance with the extreme right-wing paramilitary unions. In February 1923, the attack aircraft entered the block with the Oberland, the Imperial Flag, the Patriotic Union of Munich and the Fighting League of Lower Bavaria. This association was called the "Working Commonwealth of Fighting patriotic unions”, headed by Lieutenant Colonel Herman Kriebel. Hitler could not impose on the "Commonwealth" his political program and practically lost control of the assault squads. Kriebel and Rehm began to withdraw from under his subordination the stormtroopers created by the Fuhrer as a party army, turning it into an illegal part of the Reichswehr. And then Adolf Hitler made a "knight's move" - ​​he appointed the commander of the SA personally devoted to him, the hero of the First World War, famous throughout Germany, Hermann Goering, against whose candidacy Rem would not have dared to object, as well as to challenge his actions. Goering was declared a war criminal by the Allies, he wore the highest german order"blue cross", came from quite famous family and was personally acquainted with members of the House of Hohenzollern; against his background, Ernst Röhm, with his rather modest military merits and one Iron Cross, looked rather faded and inconspicuous. In addition, wanting to play it safe in case of further "surprises" on the part of comrades-in-arms and associates, the Fuhrer created a personal detachment of bodyguards - the future SS.
At the end of April 1923, Hitler personally, despite the Reichswehr ban, decided to disperse the May Day demonstration of Munich workers by force. Stormtroopers, on their own initiative, literally plundered army warehouses and, armed to the teeth, were preparing to arrange a massacre on the streets of Munich. Upon learning of this, von Lossow immediately called Rem with him and ordered him to return all weapons to the army arsenals. Colonel Ernst Röhm, accompanied by the officers of the headquarters of the 7th division, went to the SA camp and took the rifles and machine guns back to the warehouses by trucks. For Rem, this story almost ended with his dismissal from the army. However, after lengthy negotiations, an amicable agreement was reached between the authorities and the Nazis. The stormtrooper command signed an obligation not to take hostile action against the Reichswehr and the Bavarian police, and for this the army undertook to give the SA a course of lectures on street fighting tactics.

Meanwhile another political figure, Field Marshal Ludendorff, famous for having single-handedly captured a French fort on the border in 1914, tried to establish his authority over far-right paramilitaries. On his initiative, on September 2, 1923, a rally of nationalist forces, “German Day”, was held in Nuremberg, which gathered more than 100 thousand militants. At this gathering, the "Commonwealth" and a number of other formations united in " German Confederation struggle" ("Kampfbund"), headed by Ludendorff himself. Thus Hitler lost his leading position for the second time in eight months. And then Rem came to the rescue. After the Stresermann government officially announced the end of passive resistance in the Ruhr region on September 24, 1923, Ernst Röhm convened a meeting of the Kampfbund leadership, at which Hitler was unanimously elected leader of this association. After that, Remus retired and entirely devoted himself to preparing the coming coup d'état.
On September 27, 1923, the Völkischer Beobachter launched a propaganda campaign against the "Jewish dictatorship of Sträsermann-Sekt". In a published article, the Nazis openly stated that the wife of the Commander-in-Chief of the Reichswehr, Dorothea von Seeckt, was a Jewess who had the most detrimental effect on her husband. In response, von Seeckt ordered the commander of the 7th Bavarian division, General von Lossow, to close down the NSDAP newspaper. But Ernst Röhm persuaded Lossov to meet with Hitler, after which the general decided to ignore the order of the commander in chief. However, then the Reichswehr and the Bavarian government, represented by its chancellor von Kahr, at the last moment refused to participate in the coup. On the morning of the second day of the Munich putsch, posters appeared on the streets of the city with the following content:
“Ambitious crooks, through deceit and betrayal of their word, turned the manifestation of national revival into a scene of disgusting violence. The declarations forced from me, General von Lossow and Colonel Seiser at gunpoint are invalid and have no effect. The German National Socialist Workers' Party, as well as the fighting alliances "Oberland" and "Imperial Flag" are dissolved.
Von Kar"
The "beer coup" ended in complete failure. Of all its participants, only Rem acted as a military man, that is, in accordance with the task. While the rest of the coup members were preparing for a futile march to the Velrherrnhalle, he, along with detachments of stormtroopers, blockaded the headquarters of the Reichswehr and waited for further orders, but they did not follow. The police who arrived at the scene opened fire on the attack aircraft, and, having lost two people killed, Ernst Colonel Rem surrendered. The members of the Kampfbund, among whom was the young Heinrich Himmler, laid down their arms and went home, and Rem was arrested. But, despite the fact that the Munich people's court passed a guilty verdict on him, on April 1, 1924, Ernst Röhm was released.

Immediately after the liberation, Rem tried to save what was left of the assault squads after the defeat of the coup. He established contacts with Goering, who was in Austria, got him to appoint him as his deputy for the SA, and got down to business. The retired colonel then quickly formed new organization- "Frontbahn", in the charter of which it was written that the members of the union must take an oath of allegiance to Ludendorff and the chief appointed by him. The Munich prosecutor's office used this as a lead to cancel the release of Hitler and his accomplices from the fortress, as planned on October 1, 1924.
The time spent within the walls of the Landsberg fortress, as well as the defeat on the streets of Munich in November 1923, made Hitler seriously think about the future fate of the Nazi movement. Sitting in the cell, he partly recalled the words of his dead friend Scheubner-Richter, who literally covered him with his body from the bullets of the police: “The national revolution should not precede the seizure of power; mastery of the police apparatus of the state is a prerequisite national revolution. In other words, it is necessary at least to make an attempt to master this apparatus, at least in an outwardly legal way; At the same time, we certainly agree that this legal path will have to be taken under more or less strong illegal pressure. The risk will be the less, the more the speech will be based on the sympathy of the people and the more it will give the impression of legality. Hitler came out of prison in the firm belief that the Nazi movement has a chance to come to power only when it acts legally, that is, participate in elections in order to achieve a parliamentary majority and form a government.
Unlike the Fuhrer, Ernst Röhm did not learn any lessons from the defeat in November 1923. He still remained a supporter of the violent overthrow of the existing system and believed that the stormtroopers should be auxiliary units of the Reichswehr, completely independent of the party. He demanded from Hitler a strict demarcation between the SA and the NSDAP and insisted on the right to command his units as a private army. The complexity of Hitler's position was that Rem relied on the support of Field Marshal Ludendorff. However, this did not become too serious a problem for the Fuhrer. First, he traveled half of Germany, meeting with the local leaders of the Frontbahn and urging them to abandon Ludendorff's patronage. He was able to largely restore his influence on the assault squads, but at the general meeting of the Fuhrers of the Frontbahn came to the following decision: "Adolf Hitler remains the Fuhrer of the National Socialist movement, while Ludendorff is the patron of the assault squads." This compromise could not satisfy Hitler, and he continued to attack his political rival. A suitable occasion for this was the election of the Reich President after the death of Ebert at the beginning of 1925. Ludendorff put forward his candidacy, which was officially supported by the NSDAP along with other nationalist forces. But in fact, Hitler did nothing to win the field marshal. In the first round, Ludendorff won less than 1 percent of the vote in the elections, after which this political career was over. And Hitler, with a clear conscience, ordered the members of his party to vote for Hindenburg in the second round.

Now it was the turn of the recalcitrant Ernst Röhm. According to the German researcher Fest, “Rem was a passionate follower of Hitler, he was generally a sincere, unobtrusive person who was as unshakably loyal to his friends as to his views. It must be assumed that Hitler did not forget what he owed to Remus from the very beginning of his political career, but at the same time he saw that times had changed and a man who once had considerable influence had become a wayward, burdensome friend who hardly fit into the changed conditions. . True, for some time he still hesitated and left Rem’s persistent harassment, but then, without any remorse, he decided to break up. On April 8, 1925, Ernst Röhm resigned. He soon left as a military adviser to Bolivia.
After mixing Rem "Frontbahn" is quite for a long time remained without central leadership. The local groups of attack aircraft were reassigned to the Gauleiters, who received orders regarding the SA directly from the Fuhrer. During 1925-26, the strongest stormtrooper formations were created in Berlin (Sportverband-Groß Berlin) and the Ruhr area (Gausturm Ruhr). The latter, thanks to the vigorous activity of the Ruhr Gauleiter, retired Captain Franz Felix Pfeffer von Salomon, achieved significant success. This played a decisive role in the appointment of von Pfeffer as commander of the stormtroopers. On November 1, 1926, Hitler appointed Salomon von Pfeffer Chief of Staff of the SA (Obersten SA-Führer - OSAF), uniting under his command the stormtroopers, the SS, the Hitler Youth and the National Socialist Union of Students. To help Pfeffer, the Fuhrer issued a series of orders for the SA (SA-Behfele - SABE), in which he determined the structure, tasks and functions of the assault squads. Thus, "SABE-2" of November 2, 1926 stated that "SA is a means to an end. Our goal is the victory of the worldview, the bearer of which is the NSDAP. The political leadership of the NSDAP determines the tasks of the SA, which should lead us to the speedy victory of our party. "SABE-4" gave a more detailed understanding of these tasks, separating the functions of the SS and attack aircraft. The SS was instructed to carry out those tasks "for which the SS is not adequately suited or not suited to their purposes. Many tasks for which the political leadership must ensure the necessary level of discipline require energetic and courageous fighters. This includes all those tasks that involve acting alone, as well as tasks related to open contact with the enemy. Also, maintaining order in the assembly halls and at rallies, controlling the entrance, distributing leaflets and propaganda materials, selling newspapers, posting posters and announcements, monitoring and other more challenging tasks. Since the requirements for individual SS men are higher than for stormtroopers acting as part of detachments, SS members must be carefully selected from better human material. Thus, Hitler initially planted a time bomb under the SA: recruited according to the residual principle, parts of the stormtroopers had to play their role in the struggle for power and leave the political stage - a lumpen is needed only in order to carry out a coup, he is not capable of governing the state due to the lack of inclination to any organized creative work. Robbery and work are completely opposite things, requiring different abilities.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the most famous homosexual of the Third Reich was Ernst Röhm, head of the assault squads. Like his countrymen Goering and Himmler, Röhm came from a Bavarian bourgeois family. He was a rather stout, massive man of sanguine temperament. But under a layer of fat, he had a strong muscular base. Ryom was not distinguished by obesity, like Goering, but endless banquets, where they drank and ate for hours, did their job, and it was not possible to compensate for them with horse riding, which he diligently practiced. On this powerful body flaunted the magnificent head of the beast. He had an almost round, bloodshot face with a double chin and blue-veined flabby cheeks. Under a low but broad forehead, small, very lively eyes gleamed, set deep in their sockets and half-hidden by fat cheeks. A deep scar crossed his face, further emphasizing his bestiality. It ran in a wide groove across the left cheekbone and ended at the nose, almost cutting it in two. The bridge of the nose was crushed, flattened, and the end of the nose, rounded and red, stuck out as if separately and would have had a comical appearance, if not for the ominous expression of the whole face. A short, firm triangle of mustache hid a long upper lip, revealing a wide, thin-lipped mouth. Contrary to Prussian military tradition, Röhm did not shave his head. His short hair was always slicked back. Large ears, pointed top part which arched sharply outward, gave his face something of a faun.
For the sake of some impudent bravado, Ryom selected youngsters of rare physical beauty into his retinue. He carefully corrupted them if they were not already corrupted. His entourage, not excluding the driver and orderly, were homosexuals. The paradox was that the programmatic declaration of the Nazis during the 1928 election campaign said: "Those who allow love between men or between women are our enemies, because such behavior weakens the nation and robs it of courage." Hitler, of course, knew about the homosexuality of the leader of the stormtroopers, but while he was needed, Hitler defended him from the attacks of the anti-fascist press, saying: "His private life does not interest me."

Bourgeois and philistine, words that had become swearwords in Nazi jargon, were attached to Ernst Röhm, the man least suited to these definitions. In his autobiography of 1928, loudly titled "The Story of a Traitor", he attacked the bourgeois foundations of Germany. In his criticism, he went so far as to say that "he would rather find agreement with an enemy soldier than with a German civilian, since the latter is a pig," and Ryom was not going to speak his pig language. Not surprisingly, the leadership of the NSDAP immediately banned these memoirs.
For Captain Ernst Röhm, compromise was a dirty word, and the war never ended. This was one of the reasons why the Führer threw him overboard when he needed unlimited power. But before that, he made the most of Ryoma's abilities.
Ernst Röhm began his fight against the Weimar Republic in 1919 when he moved from volunteer corps to the staff of the Reichswehr. It was he who sent a petty agent who worked in the political bureau of the Reichswehr to a meeting of a petty political group called the German Workers' Party. The agent who moonlighted as an agitator was called Adolf Hitler. It was Röhm, at first as Hitler's boss, who helped the future Fuhrer get acquainted with Bavarian figures who believed that Peace of Versailles and the Weimar Republic is the national shame of Germany. It was Röhm who helped Hitler organize the “beer putsch” in 1923, creating secret ammunition depots, selecting the necessary personnel and coordinating the actions of right-wing revolutionaries. It was Ernst Röhm who transformed the assault troops into Hitler's private army, which eventually turned into a tool for intimidating political opponents.

The first conflict between Hitler and Röhm occurred during the Fuhrer's stay in the Landsberg prison. Ryom was not capable of any political activity- he was used to resorting only to force, and he considered armed conflict the only means of struggle. Hitler, shocked by the failed coup, decided that a legal way was needed to penetrate the democratic system and destroy it from within. Under the new conditions, there was no place for Ryoma as an uncompromising and ruthless fighter.
Already in 1924, Hitler received numerous complaints about the stormtroopers, who staged wild orgies, drinking parties, behaved defiantly and unworthily. Numerous dubious rumors hovered around the chief of the assault squads. But one should not be surprised at the behavior of the stormtroopers. The "brown militia" consisted mainly of former soldiers, undisciplined inhabitants of urban slums. Such behavior for them was more natural than reprehensible. The armament of the SA was more like an arsenal of criminals - knives, brass knuckles, rubber clubs, revolvers, iron chains. Ryoma's assault detachments proved their effectiveness in street skirmishes, which often developed into uniform battles. In those days, for the leaders of the party, this was a very weighty argument.
Ernst Röhm never cared about his reputation. His homosexual tendencies were well known. Ryom "mastered" this vice in the army, where homosexuality was in great fashion. He even served as a pretext for a trial in the Central District Court of Berlin - case 197 D 18/25. In it, the chief of the SA was involved in the case of a theft committed by 17-year-old Herman Sigismund. According to the testimony of the latter, in January 1925, Ryom invited him to a pub, and then to a hotel room, where he offered to participate in a disgusting scene, ”which the young man refused. Allegedly by chance, the young man took with him a number from the left-luggage office, in which Ernst Röhm's suitcases were located. The case was hushed up with difficulty.

In May 1932, General Ludendorff, a former political ally of Hitler, wrote: “I have evidence at my disposal that Herr Hitler already in 1927 was familiar with the outrages that were happening in the organization. Basically, it was about the homosexuality of Rem and Haynes and the pederasty that flourished in the Hitler Youth. But at that time Hitler refused to get rid of these people.” But, apparently, the dissolute life of the leaders of the stormtroopers and the Nazi youth organization so discredited the NSDAP that Hitler eventually suspended the powers of Ryom and Haynes. This situation did not last long. Four years later, in 1931, when the Berlin stormtroopers rebelled against Hitler, the Führer badly needed an energetic figure to replace the leader of the rebel stormtroopers, Walter Stennes. Röhm's successor, Franz Pfeffer von Salomon, could not cope with this task.

But at that critical moment, Ryom himself ended up in Bolivia. The former captain of the Reichswehr ended up at the headquarters of the Bolivian army, where he received the rank of lieutenant-colonel. After Ludendorff's accusations, he willingly left for South America, where an experienced military adviser was needed. Rem was very pleased with the work of the military adviser, but in Bolivia he suffered greatly due to the virtual absence of homosexuals in this country. He described similar experiences in his letters to another homosexual, Dr. Heimzot: “I am a poor fool who does not know what to do. I dream of returning back to the sadly beautiful Berlin, where a man can be happy.” He asked Haimzot to find male pornography and send him some photographs to Bolivia.
But Ryom did not have to go through his "sexual decline" for a long time. In the autumn of 1930, Hitler dismissed Pfeffer von Salomon and himself took over as the head of the assault squads. The situation in the SA began to heat up. A rebellion broke out in Berlin. Now the “homosexual from La Paz”, as Ryoma was called behind the back at that time, became simply necessary to calm down and reorganize the 100,000-strong brown army. In January 1931, Hitler wrote to "dear Ernst" that he could again take over as head of the SA headquarters. But now the hitch was that the Fuhrer appointed Ryoma precisely as the chief of staff, and not as the commander-in-chief of the assault detachments, who would have full power.
On February 3, 1931, Hitler made several statements, the tone of which left no doubt - he was preparing the return of Röhm. "The SA High Command has considered a lot of reports and accusations against stormtroopers and various SA officials, which basically come down to ascertaining their indecent behavior." And then came the startling statement that such slanders are committed for political reasons or by personal enemies of the stormtroopers. Or other statements by Hitler on this subject: “Some stormtroopers expect the SA command to make decisions on their personal and privacy. I categorically reject such intentions”; “A lot of the time that could be devoted to the fight for freedom, I spend on proving that the assault troops are a formation created with a certain political goal. This is not an institution for noble maidens, where certain moral guidelines are followed. These are detachments of hardened fighters. You can stick your nose into their lives for only one purpose - to establish whether this or that attack aircraft is really fulfilling its official duties in the SA. His personal life cannot be an object of observation if the stormtrooper does not contradict the basic principles of the National Socialist ideology in his activities.

For a time, Hitler agreed with such attitudes. The "homosexual old guard" of the SA met again in the Bratwurstlgock in Munich. Hitler could hardly contain the indignation of the stormtroopers. After the rebellion of Walter Shtennes, the Berlin SA almost revolted again when Karl Ernst, a homosexual from Rem's entourage, was appointed one of their commanders. Once again, Hitler's personal intervention was required.
But in March 1932, a new scandal erupted. "Compassionate" letters written by Ryom in Bolivia were leaked to the press. It was at that moment that the party “judge” Walter Buch complained to his old friend, the veteran stormtrooper, cutthroat Emil Danzeisen, that the stormtroopers were turning into a haunt of homosexuals who only dishonored the party and discredited the ideas of National Socialism. Danzeisen decided to rectify the situation. He immediately formed a "death squadron", which was headed by the unemployed architect Karl Horn. The conspirators intended to crack down on the most prominent homosexuals who ended up in the SA. At first, it was planned to kill a certain Georg Bell, then an employee of the headquarters of the assault squads Ula, and then the fate of Ernst Röhm was to come. But the plot failed. An internal investigation was carried out. The involvement in the planned assassination of Walter Buch was revealed, who withstood an impartial conversation with Heinrich Himmler, who had already become the Reichsfuehrer SS.

But it was not possible to keep the veil of secrecy over this case. Members of the "death squadron", bypassing the party tribunal, fell under the usual state court. In that situation, Emil Danzeisen took full responsibility for the incitement to murder, for which he received six months in prison. Ernst Röhm and Georg Bell, seriously fearing for their lives, preferred to hide for a while.
At the same time, Röhm sent his informant to a former colleague, Karl Mayer, in order to extract letters incriminating him with homosexual confessions. The problem was
the fact that Mayer was a member of the republican "Imperial banner", and therefore, was a political opponent of Ryoma. At the same time, Ryom began to conduct his own investigation, intending to crack down on those who wanted to kill him. Rem's informant feared for his life. Indeed, he was dangerous witness. That is why he did not give the letters received from Mayer to Ryom, but to the Social Democratic newspaper Forwarts! After publishing them, he provided the material with a small commentary that denounced the top of the assault squads. The purpose of such a publication was banal - in this way the informant tried to ensure his own safety. If something happened to him, it would become clear to everyone that the SA leadership dealt with him.
The matter went so far that the son-in-law of Walter Buch, Martin Bormann, sent a letter to Rudolf Hess, his immediate boss, in which he asked to influence the Fuhrer. But the Fuhrer dealt with Rem and the stormtroopers only two years later. At that moment, Hitler issued a leaflet in which he resolutely stated that Röhm remained and would remain the head of the SA headquarters, and called the letters published by the Social Democrats a fake. But Hitler made a mistake - he demanded an investigation into the discrediting of his party. And during the trial, Ryom swore under oath that all the published letters belonged to him. Hitler found himself in an extremely stupid situation. The fact of Ryoma's homosexuality was announced almost throughout the country. At that moment, the ultra-reactionary publisher Leman, who had long supported the NSDAP, sent an ultimatum letter to the Fuhrer demanding to get rid of Ryom and his entourage. The letter ended with the phrase: "The fish rots from the head."

But rotting at that moment did not interest Hitler. He badly needed a capable commander and could not jeopardize his political success because of the moralizing of individual subjects. To come to power, he needed a weighty argument like a brown private army. But, even after becoming Chancellor, Hitler was not immediately able to get rid of Ryoma. He would hardly have been able to hold off half a million stormtroopers, who were a threatening force not only for political opponents, but even for the armed forces. Ryom, reveling in his power, wanted to show the "civil pigs" that "the revolution will be won not by the townsfolk, not by fanatics, but by revolutionary fighters." He could not allow "stormtroopers to become puppets of morally perverted aesthetes (!)".

Ernst Röhm spent all of 1933 and early 1934 in his beloved Berlin, holding daily orgies at the Kleist, Silhouette, or Turkish Baths casinos. The headquarters of the SA ceased to be the command post of the brown army. There you could often see half-drunk handsome youths. But this seemed to him not enough, and he begins preparations for the "second revolution." Hitler decided it was time to get rid of the top SA.
Throughout the second half of June 1934, Germany was suffocatingly hot. On June 29, the sky was suddenly covered with clouds, a thunderstorm was approaching. By evening it broke out, a downpour fell on the ground, and it freshened up a little. It is said that it was then that Hitler made a decision from which he had evaded for more than a month.
At night, on a three-engine plane, he, along with Goebbels and four others loyal people took off from Hangeler airport. On June 30, at four o'clock in the morning, the plane landed at Oberwiesenfeld, near Munich. As soon as the Fuhrer stepped down the ladder, he declared to the Reichswehr officers present: “This is the hardest day of my life. But I will go to Bad Wiessee and hold a strict court there.” Even in flight, the Reichswehr was ordered to occupy the Nazi party residence, the "Brown House". Around five o'clock in the morning, Hitler and his retinue, accompanied by SS men, Gestapo agents and military men, set off in cars for Bad Wiessee. A Reichswehr armored car covered a long column of vehicles - a precaution clearly unnecessary, since they did not meet a single, even insignificant, armed group along the entire sixty-kilometer journey. When the caravan arrived in Bad Wiessee at about seven o'clock in the morning, the small town on the lake was sleeping peacefully.

The column headed for the Kurheims Hansbauer Hotel, where Rem and his comrades were staying. The SA guard, who guarded the entrance to the hotel, was arrested without resistance. No one has risen in the hotel yet. In a state of great excitement, Hitler entered the building at the head of his troops. He was also joined by several of his old associates from the time of the Bavarian putsch. The first person Hitler met at the hotel was the young Count von Spreti, Rem's adjutant, known for his good looks. Awakened by the noise, he rushed out to find out what was going on. Hitler rushed to him and with his hippo-skin dog whip, given to him once by his admirers, hit the count in the face with such force that he actually cut him in two. Blood gushed out. Handing it over to the SS, Hitler rushed to the seventh room to Ryom, who was sleeping peacefully and was arrested to the accompaniment of the Fuhrer's curses, without even lifting a finger. According to Goebbels, who also took part in the operation, but kept in the background, Ryom's old friend, Obergruppenführer Heines, was found in the next room also sleeping, but in the company of his driver, whom Goebbels called "a boy for joy." Hynes tried to resist, and both lovers were shot dead on the spot.
In the meantime, the SS and policemen accompanying Hitler broke into other rooms of the hotel, where they arrested the leaders of the "assault squads". The arrested were herded into the basement of the hotel. Later they were transferred to the Stadelheim prison near Munich. By noon, about two hundred high-ranking stormtroopers were in German prisons. In the evening of the same day, six of them were shot in Stadelheim.
On the execution list on June 30, 1934, the name of Ernst Röhm did not appear. When Hitler returned to Berlin late in the evening, he explained to his entourage that he had decided to pardon the chief of staff of the "assault detachments". But on the morning of the next day, Ryom was executed. The fact is that at night Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels and Reinhard Heydrich persuaded Hitler to get rid of this man. He was accused of depraved behavior and homosexuality. In fact, his sexual addictions were just an excuse. They were skillfully used to get rid of an objectionable political rival.

The bloody massacre of people objectionable to Hitler, which swept across Germany, was called the "Night of the Long Knives". Under the presidency of Hermann Göring, the Berlin court issued death sentence after death sentence. Those arrested were immediately shot. More than a hundred people will become victims of the killings, which lasted for three days. With this decisive "purge" Hitler managed to get rid of unwanted rivals and old political opponents.
In the meantime, Hitler had arrived at the Brown House and, after a short speech to the hastily assembled party bosses, immediately began propaganda management of the process. For several hours in a row, he dictated orders, orders, as well as official statements in the building protected by strong detachments, in which he himself appeared in the third person as the "Fuhrer". But in his haste of camouflage and fraud, he made a remarkable blunder: contrary to the later, official version of events, which is widely preserved in modern word usage, none of the numerous statements on June 30 referred to the putsch or Ryoma’s attempted putsch - instead, “the gravest missteps” are mentioned ”, “Contradictions”, “painful predispositions”, and although the phrase “conspiracy” sometimes appears, the impression still prevails that the action was based on moral motives: “The Fuhrer gave the order to mercilessly remove this plague ulcer,” Hitler described his actions with the help of an unfortunate image - he will no longer tolerate in the future the reputation of millions of decent people to suffer and be compromised by individuals with morbid inclinations.

It is clear that, first of all, many leaders of the SA before last moment could not comprehend what was happening; they did not plan a putsch or a conspiracy, and their morality was never a subject of discussion, let alone criticism from Hitler. For example, the Berlin SA Gruppenfuehrer Ernst, who, according to Himmler's reports, was planning an attack on the government quarter for the afternoon, was actually in Bremen and was going on a honeymoon trip. Shortly before the ship sailed, he was arrested, and he, believing that this was a rude joke of his comrades, laughed at her with all his heart. He was taken by plane to Berlin, after landing, laughing, showing handcuffs and exchanging jokes with a team of SS men, he got into a police car that rolled up. The special editions of newspapers that were sold in front of the airport building had already announced his death, but Ernst still did not suspect anything. Half an hour later, he fell dead against the wall in Lichterfeld, not believing until the last moment in what had happened, with a bewildered "Heil Hitler!" on the lips.

In the evening Hitler flew back to Berlin. There he was met by a large delegation. One of the participants in the event wrote down his impressions of the arrival following the latest traces: “Commands are sounding. The company of the guard of honor takes rifles "on guard". Goering, Himmler, Kerner, Frick, Dalyuge and about twenty police officers go to the plane. And then the door opens and Adolf Hitler comes out first. It is a "unique" spectacle. Brown shirt, black tie, dark brown leather coat, high black combat boots, all in dark colors. An uncovered head, a face as pale as chalk, which shows that he has not slept these nights, unshaven, his face seems both haggard and swollen ... Hitler silently shakes hands with everyone standing nearby. In complete silence - it seems that everyone held their breath - only the clicking of heels is heard.
Full of impatience and indignation, Hitler demanded a list of the liquidated right at the airport. “Since such a thing has turned up” unique opportunity”, as one of the participants in the events later showed, Goering and Himmler expanded the circle of murders far beyond the limits of the “Ryomov putschists”. Papin escaped death only because of his personal connections with Hindenburg, yet he was placed under house arrest, despite his post of Vice-Chancellor and all the protests. Two of his closest collaborators, personal secretary von Bose and Edgar Jung were shot dead. At his desk in the Ministry of Transport, Ministerial Director Erich Klausener, head of the Catholic Action, was killed, another group found Gregor Strasser in a pharmaceutical factory, escorted him to the Gestapo headquarters on Prinz Albrecht Strasse and killed him in the basement of the house. At lunchtime, a group of assassins entered Schleicher's villa in Neu-Babelsberg, asked the person sitting at the desk if he was General von Schleicher, and immediately, without waiting for an answer, opened fire, Frau von Schleicher was also shot dead. The list of those killed was further an employee of the ex-Chancellor, General von Bredow, the former General State Commissioner von Kahr, whose "betrayal" on November 9, 1923, Hitler never forgot, and Father Stampfle, who was one of the editors " mein kampf", but then moved away from the party; then the engineer Otto Ballerstedt, who crossed the path of Hitler's party during his ascension, and finally the music critic Dr. Willy Schmid, who had absolutely nothing to do with these matters, who was confused with the SA Gruppenfuehrer Wilhelm Schmidt. The wave of murders was most ferocious, it seems, in Silesia, where the head of the SS, Udo von Woyrsch, lost control of his units. It is noteworthy that people were often killed right on the spot, in offices, private apartments, on the street, with bestial negligence, many corpses were found only a few weeks later in forests or reservoirs.

The brutality with which the massacre took place on June 30, 1934, was justified by the National Socialist press as the need for a harsh suppression of homosexuality. In the editorial of the Völkische Beobachter, which came out the day after the murders, one could read: “During the arrests, such disgusting pictures came to light that any trace of sympathy disappeared by itself. Some of the leaders of the SA satisfied their lust with two youths at once. Even in Bad Wiessee, Hitler gave the order to ruthlessly eradicate this "contagious tumor."

Events in Germany developed far from being as unambiguous as they often try to present in historical literature about the Third Reich. Most Western historians and researchers of the period of the 20-40s of the XX century are of the opinion that the National Socialist movement in Germany was revolutionary in its own way in those difficult conditions. It set itself the goals and objectives of a new social revolution, which it intended to carry out only in the interests of German nation.

From the earliest days of the "movement," as the Nazis called their party, the development of the nationalist revolution in Germany proceeded along two paths, often antagonistic, like the various political currents in other parties.

Even the very name of the party - the National Socialist Workers' Party of Germany - caused serious friction between supporters of nationalism and more moderate, ready to compromise and avoid extremism, supporters of the socialist path of development of the "movement".

It is quite natural that each direction put forward its own leaders, and soon Adolf Hitler, who aspired to become the only recognized leader - the Fuhrer - of the "movement", faced the problem of choice: on which platform in politics to do further career? It turned out to be difficult to choose. None of the other Nazi leaders wanted to give Hitler the won positions without a fight: everyone wanted to be at the very top by all means and, in addition to the political choice, sooner or later Hitler had to decide to sacrifice someone purely physically. And the fate of the leaders was inevitably shared by their adherents.

Ernest Rehm

From the early years of the Nazi movement, one of the most prominent roles was played by Ernest Rohm.

I am a bad person, - Rem liked to repeat, - war always attracts me much more than peace.

Strongly built, with a broken nose and a scar on his face, Ernest Röhm rose to the rank of captain in the First World War, was wounded three times and became interested in homosexuality: all of his inner circle were people of non-traditional sexual orientation. After the end of hostilities, Ernest Röhm, who turned out to be no lot, quickly found himself in professional street extremism - in August 1921 he announced the creation of " people's army", SA assault squads.

Militant units

He declared the involvement of patriots of the German nation in the militant units, but completed the "assaults" from declassed elements, outright criminals, inveterate bandits and hooligans. It was they who ensured the Nazis a decisive victory in street battles with the fighting detachments of the German communists and helped to significantly strengthen Hitler's political influence among the poor.

Adolf Hitler said that he would never forget the services of Ernest Röhm and publicly called him "comrade in arms".

In fact, Hitler had long been seriously concerned about the problems associated with unbridled political ambitions and the growing influence of some leaders from among the old Nazis, who formed the left wing of the party and openly called for the construction of socialism in Germany. Their leaders were Gregor Strasser and Ernest Röhm, who threw out the slogan of a second revolution, which he considered the revolution of the labor movement led by the National Socialists. In this, the SA attack aircraft, led by Rem, claimed the leading role, and Strasser slept and saw how to snatch his piece of power, pushing both Rem and Hitler aside.

The struggle continued when Adolf Hitler was proclaimed Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. The growing pressure of the left wing of the Nazis every day put the newly minted chancellor in a difficult position. He could not win a decisive victory now and therefore did not yet want an open clash with Rem and his SA detachments, which had a colossal number: if in 1921 Rem created detachments that united up to 400 thousand people, then in 1933 the number of detachments had already exceeded two million human!

Ernest Röhm passionately wanted his Gausturms to join the regular german army. This drove the General Staff and the senior officers of the Reichswehr into a state of quiet fury and did not suit Hitler, who was counting on the support of the generals. The Führer was in dire need of the financial help of big industrialists, and the statements of Rehm and Strasser intimidated financiers and industrialists with the specter of socialism, as in Russia - many believed that the left deviation of National Socialism was a socialist movement, akin to the communists.

Trying to rectify the situation, on June 4, 1934, Hitler invited Ernest Röhm to a meeting that lasted more than five hours - the Fuhrer tried to persuade the leader of the stormtroopers to abandon the idea of ​​\u200b\u200ba "second revolution" and vowed not to disband the SA units. It is not known whether Rem believed it - this remained a secret of the Third Reich.

special services

At the same time, the secret services of the National Socialists, which were headed by the Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Goering, who was at that time the Minister of the Interior of Prussia, began hastily collecting incriminating materials on the leaders of the SA detachments and personally Ernest Röhm - “faithful Heinrich”, decided to irrefutably prove the existence in bowels of the SA conspiracy to seize power.

Goering actively helped Himmler - the people of "fat Herman" bugged telephone conversations Rem and his entourage, letters were clarified, well-trained agents of the RSHA were brought to the SA functionaries, reporting on every statement of the “wards”. The Germans had serious experience in the field of political and criminal investigation, and representatives of the police of many European countries. Now this experience was useful to the Nazis in their uncompromising internecine struggle.

With animal instincts, Rem felt the danger looming over him and did not find anything better than to demonstrate his complete loyalty to Adolf Hitler: he ordered all SA personnel from July 1, 1934 to go on vacation for a period of one month and without wearing a uniform. Was Rem really planning a coup, during which he would hardly have spared his “friend” Hitler and his entourage: Himmler, Goering, Goebbels and others? This, too, remained a mystery.

In an effort to divert any suspicions from himself, Ernest Röhm himself went on vacation to the resort town of Bad Wiessee in Bavaria: there he intended to arrange a meeting of the leaders of the SA groups and a big banquet. Himmler and Goering reported to Hitler that these events were one of the links in the conspiracy and that active actions should begin after the banquet, which would be nothing more than a disguised meeting of the conspirators.

Hitler at that time was in Essen, at the celebrations for the marriage of Gauleiter Terboven, and then moved to Bad Godesberg, where he stayed for the weekend at the Dresden Hotel. Himmler flew there on the morning of June 29 from Berlin with the latest intelligence reports: informants reported that Rem had managed to conclude an agreement with the commander of the Munich military district, General von Leeb - the army would give the attack aircraft weapons and they would seize government buildings. special group received the task of destroying Hitler and the speech must be expected from one hour to the next!

How much this information corresponded to reality remained a secret of the Third Reich.

At the same time, there is no doubt that a man like Ernest Röhm, who had at his disposal two million armed bandits subordinate to him, by all the logic of things and by virtue of the ideology of the Nazi “movement”, could not help but try to turn the tide in his favor. He certainly had to try to take power.

Hitler decided to take drastic measures. It is quite possible that he prepared for them in advance and pretended to believe Rem's statements. SS-Obergruppenführer Viktor Lutze was summoned from Hannover - the Fuhrer appointed Rem as his successor as Chief of Staff of the SA. From Berlin to Munich, two companies of the Life Standard of the SS "Adolf Hitler", commanded by Joseph Dietrich, were hastily transferred: the SS men were placed at the disposal of the Gauleiter of Bavaria Wagner. The Fuhrer flew to Munich with Lutze and Goebbels.

As soon as the plane landed, Hitler went to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Bavaria, where his bodyguard Emil Maurice shot the leaders of the Bavarian SA Schmidt and Scheinguber. After the Fuhrer, accompanied by a guard consisting of members of the SS, went to the resort town of Bad Wiessee, where Rehm and several of his entourage stayed in a private boarding house.

Rem was arrested

Rem was taken in his room and announced that he was under arrest, and Hitler himself was present. Ernest Röhm's assistant in SA Edmund Hayness, along with his lover, was shot right in bed by the same Emil Maurice. The corpses were put in a car, Rem was put into it and taken to Berlin.

Rudolf Hess set a trap in the Munich “brown house”, which served as a favorite meeting place for stormtroopers - they were detained and disarmed by SS guards there and sent to Stadelheim prison. In Berlin, at the same time, one hundred and fifty leaders of the SA were arrested and put in the coal cellar of the barracks of the cadet school in Lichterfeld. Hitler demanded the execution of traitors, and all SA officers were shot.

Remus was offered a loaded revolver and left alone in his cell, but he refused to commit suicide and demanded to see Hitler. Then two guards, on the orders of Dietrich, killed the head of the SA.

Hitler

Hitler decided to put an end at once not only to the "Left Socialist Opposition" within the National Socialist Party, but also to other long-standing opponents. Gregor Strasser was shot dead in a prison cell, Röhm's deputy, Karl Ernest, was executed, and 75-year-old Gustav von Kahr, who suppressed the notorious Munich Beer putsch in 1923, was brutally murdered. According to various estimates, up to a thousand people died per day, but the Nazi press on the morning of July 1, 1934 reported only the execution of eight SA leaders and several "accidents" that occurred as a result of "justified popular anger." On July 2, the newspapers reported the execution of the "traitor Rem."

On the same day, all units of the security police, the SS and the Gestapo received a radiogram signed by Goering and Himmler, which ordered to urgently burn any documents related to the operations carried out in the last two days and report immediately on execution. The secret of the massacre was observed.

Adolf Hitler stated that he had long known about the criminal conspiracy that existed in the bowels of the SA, and said that, having prepared the "second revolution", the stormtroopers gave it the code name "Night of the Long Knives". He, along with his faithful comrades-in-arms from the SS, acted in the name of preserving the new order and "higher justice." Parliament unanimously approved his actions.