Night of long knives

Within a few months after the "national revolution" (the appointment of Adolf Hitler on January 30, 1933 by the Reich Chancellor ) discontent began to grow in the ranks of the assault troops. The opinion of Hitler’s treachery and the need for a second “truly socialist” revolution under the leadership of Gregor Strasser and Ernst Röhm became increasingly common. It was the attack aircraft that were being prepared for the overthrow of the Weimar Republic by armed means. They were the main force of the Beer Putsch in 1923 . By the beginning of 1933, their number had increased to 600 thousand people, and by the end - to three million. They were armed with rifles and machine guns. Their leader was Ryom, not Hitler. Having come to power by constitutional methods, the NSDAP did not know what to do with the assault detachments ( SA ). Before them was the task of educating young people. It was supposed to merge the Reichswehr with assault troops and the subsequent creation of the National Socialist People's Army.

Kurt Daluege , Heinrich Himmler and Ernst Röhm . August 1933

Ryom assumed that this army would be created on the basis of the SA , and he would head it. However, Reichswehr officers did not recognize Ryom, and between the leadership of the SA and the Reichswehr there was a struggle for power in the future people's army.

The advantage in this struggle was at first on the side of Ryom, since he had at his disposal a group that was many times more numerous than the Reichswehr. The SA consisted of five armies and 18 corps, led by a headquarters of former officers. Statutory discipline was introduced in the SA according to the army model. Therefore, the military saw in the SA a source to replenish their ranks after the removal of the Versailles restrictions and the introduction of universal conscription.

And although the Reichswehr and the SA united on the orders of Hitler, it was still far from complete unity. While von Röhm was going to include the Reichswehr in the assault detachments, General von Reichenau planned, in turn, to replenish the army with attackers suitable for combat service, and Röhm himself was left out of work. He proposed that the SA create border guards on the border with Poland according to militia principles, as well as with the help of the Reichswehr to carry out pre-conscription training.

In May 1933, an agreement was reached between the SA and the Reichswehr on the subordination of the SA, the SS, and the organization of the Steel Helmet to the Ministry of War. Obergruppenfuhrer SA Friedrich Wilhelm Krueger was instructed to annually train 250,000 stormtroopers with the help of the Reichswehr, and Reumu - to involve the right-wing parties, first of all - the “Steel Helmet” into the SA.

Von Reichenau assumed that after the merger with the “Steel Helmet” in SA Rome, his supporters would be in the minority. However, his calculations were not justified: only 314 thousand members of the “Steel Helmet” were taken into the assault detachments, and the detachments were divided into three parts, headed by active members of the SA. After that, Röhm, claiming about 4.5 million supporters, demanded leading posts in the border guard and control over military warehouses in East Germany. In response, the leadership of the Reichswehr announced the refusal of the militia principle of recruiting the army and the transition from December 1933 to universal military service. In turn, Röhm, being a minister without a portfolio and relying on the French position on the need to form an army in Germany on the militia principle, came into contact with the French military attache in Berlin, and in February 1934 sent his demands to the leadership of the Reichswehr. Colonel-General von Blomberg was forced to state at one of the meetings:

Ryom believes that the defense of the country should be the prerogative of the SA, while the Reichswehr should be entrusted with the function of carrying out pre-conscription military training.

Von Blomberg appealed for help to Hitler, who sympathized with the ideas of Röhm, but at the same time he understood that without the military he could not realize his expansionist plans. Not daring to refuse his old comrade, Hitler tried to reconcile the warring parties. February 28, 1934, he invited the leadership of the CA and the Reichswehr in the meeting room of the war ministry, spoke to them about the need to maintain peaceful relations. Then von Blomberg and Röhm signed an agreement, according to which the Reichswehr was declared the protector of the Reich, and the SA pledged to conduct pre-conscription and reserve training. The next day, a reconciliation ceremony was held at Ryome’s headquarters.

But as soon as the ceremony was over, Rom declared publicly:

What this corporal has announced does not concern us. I'm not going to stick to the agreement. Hitler is a treacherous and should go, at least, on vacation. If he is not with us, then we will do our work without Hitler.

The commander of the SA army in Hanover, Viktor Lutz, considered such speeches to be a sign of high treason and reported this to Rudolf Hess , and after he was convinced that he was doing nothing, he was directly to Hitler. Hitler's reaction was lethargic:

We must wait and see how events will develop.

Not receiving a clear answer from Hitler, Lütz turned to Major General von Reichenau and showed him the draft of his letter addressed to Röhm about the inadmissibility of conducting a campaign against the Reichswehr. Von Reichenau, who was already leading secret negotiations with Heydrich about the physical liquidation of the CA leadership, thanked Lutze, and after he had gone a decent distance and could not hear his words, he told one of the approximate officers:

Lutz is not dangerous, especially since he can become chief of staff .

At the end of April 1934, preparations began for the massacre of the stormtroopers. While Himmler toured the SS units and morally prepared the personnel for the upcoming performance, Heydrich collected information that could prove to Hitler and the German generals the “criminal plans” of Röhm. Obergruppenführer SA Friedrich Wilhelm Kruger, who was also the SS Untersturmführer , the honored führer SA Frederick Graf , Lieutenant-General Wilhelm Adam helped him with this. But the information received testified only to a few warehouses of weapons and dissatisfied statements of some of the Fuhrer's CA. And there was nothing that would indicate the preparation of the speech. Moreover, Röhm reported anti-government statements to law enforcement agencies, including former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher .

The stormtroopers had no intention of making a coup or disobedience. Ryoh's incendiary speeches about the need for a "second revolution of national socialism" were aimed only at putting pressure on Hitler to make him more compliant. However, the surrounding perceived these presentations as a guide to action. Reichswehr officers agreed with the chief of the Abwehr captain 1st rank Konrad Pattsigom , who believed that the purpose of the SA was to oust the Reichswehr. And so General von Reichenau, seeing a like-minded person in Heydrich, provided him with barracks, weapons and vehicles for the operation.

Preparation was in full swing. Already in early June, under the leadership of SS Obodführer Theodor Eike , practical exercises were carried out with the transfer to Munich , Lechfeld and Bad Wiessee . Mobilization was carried out in Bavaria , Berlin , Silesia and Saxony , which Heydrich considered the most likely clashes.

Then the turn came to making lists. Here, Heydrich got the idea that not only the leadership of the assault detachments could be eliminated, but also the opponents of the new regime. When making lists, collisions began to arise: the candidacy included by one compiler was excluded by another. So, Goering achieved exclusion from the firing lists of the former head of the Prussian Gestapo Diels , who himself had compiled his list; Heydrich insisted on the elimination of Obergruppenführer SA Augustus Schneidhuber , against which was Werner Best, Bavarian SD chief.

But suddenly the implementation of the plan was under threat. On 4 June, after many hours of conversation between Hitler and Röhm, it was decided to send all the attack aircraft to the monthly vacation from 1 July , and on 8 June an official message was published in Völkischer Beobachter that, due to health reasons, he would undergo treatment in Bad Wiessee , after which will return to the performance of their duties. The leadership of the Reichswehr took it as a recognition of his defeat by Rom. Heydrich was in a panic, since the stormtroopers on leave could not be accused of organizing a coup d'état. Meanwhile, everything was ready, it remains only to find out the attitude of Hitler.

But Hitler was not against it, taking a dual position: on the one hand, he supported attack aircraft, and on the other, he was happy with the idea of ​​dissolving the CA. But he could not demand self-dissolution , nor even refuse to Ryom in fulfilling his requirements. Usually in such cases, Hitler did so that his problems were solved by someone else: he sent Ryoma to Finance Minister Count Schwerin von Krozig , knowing that he would surely refuse. Therefore, when Goering, Himmler and Heydrich declared that they could solve the problem, Hitler liked this idea. Further events strengthened his confidence in the correctness of the choice.

On June 17, the Vice-Chancellor von Papen, in a speech to the students of the University of Marburg, attacked people who "are self-serving, selfless, insincere and not knightly, brazenly hiding behind the slogans of the German revolution." In his speech, the words “confusion of concepts”, “vital necessity”, “cruelty”, “no people are able to constantly maintain an uprising in the lower classes”, “methods of terror used by the Reich authorities”, “need to decide whether the new the German empire is Christian or will be influenced by sectarianism and semi-religious materialism. ”

This speech demonstrated to Hitler that the conservative bourgeoisie is in opposition to the National Socialists. He even began to fear the union of stormtroopers and the bourgeoisie. And soon these fears were confirmed.

The Gestapo reported that Werner von Alvensleben , manager of the Union for the Protection of Western European Culture , nominated the son of Kaiser Wilhelm II - CA Gruppenführer Prince Augustus Wilhelm of Prussia's successor - as successor to von Hindenburg as Reich President . There was a chance that the generals would support the prince.

After the death of von Hindenburg, Hitler hoped to unify the posts of president and chancellor and become the Führer and Reich Chancellor, he visited the Reich President in his residence Noydek on June 21 to personally check his health and determine how much time he had left to resolve the issue of power. On the stairs he met von Blomberg, who said to him:

It is urgent to restore inner peace in the Reich. Radicalism has no place in the new Germany .

Thus, he made it clear that the condition for supporting the Reichswehr is the removal of Ryom. And on the way back to Berlin, Hitler made the final decision to hold the "Night of the Long Knives".

June 22

Hitler summoned Viktor Lutze, who later wrote:

The Fuhrer accepted me immediately, took me to his office, shook hands and asked to swear silence until the end of the case. The Fuhrer said that he knew about my innocence to all of this, and ordered not to obey more orders from Munich, but to carry out only his personal orders .

The “case” about which Hitler spoke was the physical elimination of Ryom, since at one of the meetings under his leadership it was decided to arm the attackers and direct them against the Reichswehr in order to eliminate his influence on Hitler.

On the same day, Himmler informed the commander of the SS “Center” territorial district, baron Karl von Eberstein, about the preparation by the attackers of the coup d'état, ordered to contact the commander of the military district and bring all SS units to combat readiness.

June 24th

The commander of the ground forces, General von Fritsch, ordered that precautionary measures be taken in connection with the upcoming rebellion of the storm troopers.

June 25th

Hitler told von Blomberg that he was going to summon the stormtrooper leaders to a meeting with Reum in Bad Wiessee , arrest them and "pay off" with each person personally. Von Reichenau ordered the expulsion of Roehm from the Union of German officers. Rudolf Hess made a speech on the radio:

Woe to those who violate their loyalty, believing that it will be of service to the revolution by raising a rebellion! Adolf Hitler - the great strategist of the revolution. Woe to those who try to intervene in the subtleties of his plans in the hope of speeding things up. Such faces will become enemies of the revolution.

Goering same in his regular speech said:

Those who violate the trust of Hitler will commit a state crime. Whoever tries to destroy him will destroy Germany. Whoever commits a sin will pay with his head.

June 27

Von Blomberg visited Josef Dietrich with a request to allocate weapons "to perform the secret and very important task of the Fuhrer," and Himmler summoned the heads of the territorial districts of the SD and ordered to closely monitor the commanding staff of the SA and report on everything suspicious to the head office of the SD.

Dietrich was tasked with advancing to Bavaria, connecting with Eike, and delivering a sudden blow to the ground attack aircraft. By rail, he had to get to Landsberg am Lech , then by the Reichswehr vehicle — to Bad Wiessee .

In order to dispel the last doubts, Heydrich sent to Hitler and the military ministry a large number of fabricated documents of the SA, which dealt with planning reprisals against the leadership of the Reichswehr. Also provokers, dressed in the form of attack aircraft, were sent to the units of the Reichswehr on the ground.

Nevertheless, Hitler had not yet fully decided on the future fate of Ryom. He then wanted to "pay off" with him, then dismiss him from his post, then just talk like a man and solve all the problems in the relationship. These oscillations unnerved Gering, Himmler and Heydrich. They were looking for a way to deprive Hitler of the ability to influence the course of events.

June 28

In the morning, Hitler, together with Goering, flew to Essen for the wedding of Gauleiter Terboven . Lutze wrote in his diary about this:

I had the impression that certain circles were interested in speeding up the implementation of the “cause” precisely at a time when the Führer could judge what was happening only by telephone.

Hitler was already at the wedding, as Himmler called him and reported suspicious actions of attack aircraft. Hitler immediately returned to his hotel "Kaiserhof" , summoned the closest employees, including Goering and Lütz. Some time later, Paul Kerner , State Secretary of Prussia’s Ministry of the Interior and Goering’s closest assistant, arrived at the hotel from Berlin, with a written report from Himmler, who said that the SA was about to start an uprising all over the country. The report made an indelible impression on Hitler:

Enough for me. It is necessary to give a clear lesson to the instigators.

He immediately ordered Goering and Körner to return to Berlin and continue to act on his orders.

Then Hitler set about implementing a plan to assemble the top leaders of the SA in Bad Wiessee and "pay off each one personally." He called Rehm, said that in the Rhineland the attack aircraft had treated the foreign diplomat rudely, and demanded that everyone should come together to talk honestly. Hitler appointed the meeting on June 30 at 11:00 in the apartment Ryom. На ней должны были присутствовать все обергруппенфюреры, группенфюреры и инспекторы СА.

29 июня

Утром Геринг поднял по тревоге лейбштандарт «Адольф Гитлер» и полицейскую группу «Генерал Геринг». Также он составил и передал Гейдриху в опечатанном виде письмо. Тот передал письмо унтерштурмфюреру СС Эрнсту Мюллеру в главное управление СД и приказал отправить его в адрес командующего округа СС «Юго-восток». В письме было написано:

Рейхсканцлер объявил чрезвычайное положение в стране и передал все властные полномочия в Пруссии премьер-министру Герингу. А он передаёт все исполнительные права в Силезии группенфюреру СС Удо фон Войршу , командующему этим округом.

В частях СС и рейхсвера была объявлена боевая тревога .

Гитлер перебрался в гостиницу «Дрезден» в Бад Годесберге и в 15:00 провёл радиопереговоры с военным министерством.

Обергруппенфюрер СА фон Крауссер , на которого Рём возложил исполнение обязанностей на время своего отпуска, незадолго до казни рассказал сидевшему с ним в одной камере группенфюреру СА Карлу Шрайеру о разговоре в этот день с Гитлером. Шрайер потом записал в своём дневнике:

Гитлер сказал ему, что хотел бы воспользоваться совещанием в Висзе, чтобы основательно поговорить с Рёмом и другими руководителями штурмовиков и устранить все разногласия и недоразумения. При этом он даже высказал сожаление, что мало заботился о старых боевых товарищах, а о Рёме говорил умиротворённо, считая, что тот должен оставаться на своём посту.

В 20:00 к Гитлеру прибыл Йозеф Дитрих, получивший приказание отправиться в Мюнхен. Доложив о своём прибытии, Дитрих получил новое приказание: прибыть в Кауферинг , небольшую железнодорожную станцию вблизи Ландсберга-на-Лехе, встретить там подчинённый личный состав и отправиться в Бад-Висзе .

Hitler also received two reports from Himmler. The first of them said that the attack aircraft in Berlin will be raised on June 30 at 16:00 on alert, and at 17:00 will begin the seizure of government buildings. In the second, handed over personally by the Gauleiter and the Minister of the Interior of Bavaria, Adolf Wagner , they spoke about the atrocities of attack aircraft in Munich. Both the messages were not true. Berlin stormtroopers were in dismissal, and their leader Karl Ernst went to Bremen to sail to Tenerife . As for Munich, the stormtroopers were summoned to the gathering places by anonymous notes: “Reichswehr against us”, and were soon released by the commanders home.

Under the influence of these reports, Hitler decided to immediately go to Bad Wiessee and “settle up” with Ryom.

June 30th

At 2 o'clock in the morning Hitler arrived at the Bonn airfield Hangelar , sat in the U-52 with his escort and departed for Munich.

Immediately after landing at the Munich airport Obervizenfeld, Hitler ran to the two officers of the Reichswehr, called by him on the radio, passing by the leaders of the SA and NSDAP who met him. Then he said:

This is the blackest day of my life. But I will go to Bad Wiessee and do the strictest judgment. Call General Adam .

In Munich, Hitler arrested the head of the local SA, Schneidhuber and the Gruppenführer SA, Wilhelm Schmidt , and then went to Bad Wiessee .

At 6:30, Hitler was already in place. Entering the hotel, Hitler immediately rose to the room Ryom. Here is how Viktor Lutze's arrest describes:

Hitler was standing at the door of Ryome's room. One of the policemen knocked and asked to open an urgent case. After some time, the door opened slightly and was immediately wide open. The Fuhrer walked through the door with a pistol in his hand and called Ryom a traitor. Having ordered that dress, announced the arrest.

Immediately, Hitler ran to the next door and began to knock on it. The door opened, appeared Obergruppenführer SA Edmund Haynes . There was another man in the room, which gave Goebbels a reason to state:

A picture so disgusting presented itself to our eyes that it caused a state of vomiting.

Lutze popped into the room to check for weapons. On Haines' plea: “Lutze, I have not done anything. Help me! ” - he confusedly answered: “ I can’t say anything, much less do something. ”

All the attackers in the hotel were arrested, who were soon sent to the Stadelheim prison in Munich. Shortly before the departure of Hitler there was an overlay: a truck arrived from Munich with Ryom’s armed guard at headquarters. It was one of the most tense moments of the operation - the fighters from the headquarters made up the personal guard of Ryom, and were ready to defend their leader at any cost. The attackers got out of the truck and stood in bewilderment in front of the boarding house. Hitler stepped forward and ordered: "I am your Führer, you obey me, go back to Munich, and wait for further instructions." The attackers drove off, but stopped near the lake, since it seemed strange to the appearance of the Führer himself surrounded by SS soldiers, and even at such an early hour. Therefore, Hitler had to get to Munich by a circuit through Rottach-Egern and Tegernsee .

At 9:00 am, Hitler returned to Munich. At his signal, Goebbels telephoned Göring’s telephone code word “Hummingbird”. The SS units were immediately alarmed, the envelopes with firing lists were printed out, and a wave of terror swept across Germany.

Hitler was infuriated. He demanded von Epp to bring Ryom to court a military tribunal. He was shocked by the behavior of Hitler, and after he left, he could only say to his adjutant : "Madman."

At 11:30 am, Hitler spoke to the non-arrested attack aircraft leaders. This is how Gruppenführer Schreyer described this speech:

He did not have time to open his mouth, as foam appeared on his lips, which I have never watched. A voice repeatedly interrupted by excitement, the Fuhrer began to talk about what had happened. Ryom and his entourage committed the greatest treachery in world history ... Ryom, whom he supported in various situations and was always faithful to him, turned out to be a traitor to him, having committed treason, intending to arrest and kill him. He would give Germany to be torn apart by her enemies ... Francois Ponce (French ambassador), one of the main actors, gave Reum, who always needed money, 12 million marks as a bribe ... Ryom and his conspirators would be punished in an indicative manner: he ordered them all shot. The first group - Ryom, Schneidhuber, Schmidt, Haynes, Heidebrek and Count Spreti will be shot tonight.

At 12:30 Dietrich arrived. He explained his delay by a wet road, a bursting wheel and ending in gasoline. Two companies of Leibstandard who arrived with him were stationed in the barracks of sappers . Dietrich himself had to wait three hours in the room for adjutants until the meeting ended, at which the further fate of the CA leadership was considered.

At 5:00 pm Borman came out and called Dietrich into the meeting room. There he received an order from Hitler to shoot the persons, the list of which was given to Dietrich Bormann.

Taking with him the team, which included an officer and "six good shooters in order to avoid possible complications," Dietrich arrived at 18:00 in the prison where the attack aircraft were kept. There Dietrich demanded to give him prisoners from the list. But the prison governor Koch first called the Minister of Justice Frank , and after he was not there, he got into an argument with Dietrich, since there was no signature under the list. Dietrich returned to the Brown House , where he found Adolf Wagner, who imposed the resolution “Issue, by order of the Führer, to the SS gruppenführer Dietrich, whom he will call you. Adolf Wagner , Minister. "

Returning to prison, Dietrich found the Minister of Justice Frank there, who wanted to enforce the rule of law, but after calling Hess he refused this undertaking. Soon, six people from the list were shot in the prison yard.

At 10:00 pm Hitler, who returned from Munich, told Goering and Himmler that Rem would survive, which greatly upset them. All night from June 30 to July 1, they persuaded Hitler to agree to the execution of Ryom.

July 1

Closer to noon, Hitler, yielding to persuasion, nevertheless decided to shoot Ryome, but ordered Eike to take a pistol with one cartridge and to offer Ryome to commit suicide. Eike, together with SS Sturmbahnführer Lippert and SS Gruppenführer Schmauser , arrived at Stadelheim at 15:00. Koch again did not take the word and called Frank. Eike snatched the phone and snarled Frank, that it was not his business. Then they went to the chamber where Ryom sat.

Entering the cell, Eike said: “Your life is over. The Fuhrer gives you a chance to sum it up. ” Then he put a pistol on the table, the last issue of Völkischer Beobachter, gave him 10 minutes to think it over and left. After 15 minutes they entered the chamber. There was a shot. Ryom fell to the floor and groaned: “My Führer, my Führer”, to which Eike answered with a mockery: “You should have thought about this earlier, now it’s too late.” Then another shot rang out, and Ryom died.

July 2

The entire evening of July 1 and all night in Munich and Berlin continued executions of the remaining stormtroopers. And at 4:00 the turn reached Schreier. He was taken out of the cell, but then returned back, since the car had not yet arrived. Here is how Schreier talked about what happened later:

I was led up the stairs to the gate, near which there was a small sports car. When two armed SS men got into it, they were going to put me in prison. But at that moment a huge Mercedes appeared, from which an unknown SS standard Standartführer jumped out, waved his arms and shouted: “Wait, wait! This is all over. The Fuhrer gave the floor to Hindenburg that the executions would be stopped. ”

Euphoria reigned among the military. They celebrated the victory over Rome in a big way. But here were skeptics who considered it Pyrrhic .

Retired Captain Erwin Planck , former Secretary of State of the Imperial Chancellery, told von Fritsch:

If you calmly and inertly look at this, then you will sooner or later suffer the same fate.

Von Blomberg partially supported him:

The troops showed no excerpts that should be expected from them. It’s indecent to express joy when people died.

Speaking on July 13 in the Reichstag, Hitler cited the following figures: 61 insurgents were shot dead, among them 19 ringleaders of storm troopers, 13 more people died “while resisting arrest”, and three “committed suicide” - only 77 high-ranking Nazis. The documents of the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1946 indicated that in fact during the “Night of the Long Knives” 1076 people were killed by the Nazis, and the majority were members of the NSDAP.

The following CA leaders were killed:

• Ernst Röhm ;
• Obergruppenführer SA August Schneidhuber, Police Officer of Munich ;
• Standarfenführer SA Julius Uhl;
• Member of the Reichstag Gruppführer SA Hans Hein;
• Fuhrer SA for special assignments Count Joachim von Spreti-Weilbach.

A lot of people were killed who had nothing to do with SA, in particular:

• Gregor Strasser , Hitler's main opponent in the Nazi Party;
• Hitler's predecessor in the post of Reich Chancellor Kurt Schleicher , who did not hide his personal dislike of Ryom, later Goering claimed that he wanted only to arrest him, but the Gestapo did it his way;
• the police officer of Bavaria, Gustav von Kar , who led the suppression of the Beer Putsch ;
• Bernhard Stampfle , who knew many of Hitler's personal secrets;
• Erich Clausener , Minister of Communications Ministry, Minister of Transport, Catholic Action Chairman and former head of the Prussian Police Department of the Ministry of the Interior;
• Major General Ferdinand von Bredow , whom the Nazis suspected of publishing the Diary of a Reichswehr General in Paris , who refused to hide in a foreign embassy;
• Baron Anton von Hoberg , rival Erich von Bach-Zelevsky ;
• Deputy Police Officer Breslau , SS Sturmbannführer Engels;
• former chief of staff of the Silesian District of SS Zembach and his murderer;
• Reichstag member Peter von der Heidebreck;
• the lawyer Dr. Förster, who participated in the process against the National Socialist in Hirschberg ;
• instead of the former associate of Otto Strasser, the physician Ludwig Schmidt , music critic Wilhelm Edward Schmid , who lived on another street, was captured; his family later received a coffin from Dachau, which was forbidden to open;
• Herbert von Bose , an official from the office of Franz von Papen;
• Edgar Julius Jung, German lawyer, politician and journalist.

But some managed to escape. The above-mentioned Ludwig Schmidt hid with the help of the prison sergeant in a cache in the prison building. Gruppenführer SA Siegfried Kasha was able to convince Goring of his innocence. Gottfried Treviranus , the retired minister, seeing that they had come for him, jumped over the fence right in a tracksuit and fled abroad. Hermann Ehrhardt , a member of the Kapp and Beer putsches, hid in the forest with a gun, and then was transported by friends to Austria. Paul Schulz , one of the CA reorganizers after the revolt of attack aircraft under the leadership of Stennes, despite the severe wound received “while trying to escape”, managed to escape from persecution and hide from a friend - Lutbert, the retired Admiral. Later, Hitler sent him from Germany.

Hitler took advantage of these events to deal with some politicians of the Weimar Republic , who were long-time opponents of the Nazis. In hindsight, these killings and arrests were legalized by a special law adopted by the Reichstag , which said that all actions taken “to suppress an attempt of high treason” on June 30, July 1 and 2, 1934, were legitimate as “caused by state necessity”. According to the official version, the Führer “defended the Reich” from the imminent danger of the putsch and acted personally as the “supreme judge” of Germany.

The consequence of the "Night of the Long Knives" was a sharp increase in the political role of the SS, SD and the Gestapo. On July 9, the BD was declared the only intelligence and information organization of the Nazi Party. July 20, Hitler said:

Given the great merits of the SS, especially in connection with the events of June 30, 1934, I proclaim it an independent organization within the NSDAP.

CC was allowed to have his troops.

By order of Hitler, Lutze appointed Daluga responsible for the reorganization of the SA:

I entrust the Gruppenführer SS Dalyug with the obligation to dissolve the supreme organs of the management of the SA and receive their property (furniture): furniture, stationery, cars, and the like.

Only in August did the new leadership of the SA gain its independence. Commissions were created to clean the rows, which soon began to collect information about the actions of the SS in the "Night of long knives." And the SS and SA, as Himmler assumed, became irreconcilable enemies.

The nationalist side in the Nazi ideology became decisively prevail over the socialist one. The detachments of the SA were not completely eliminated; Viktor Lutze, who took an active part in the events of Noc, became the new chief of staff after Ryom, and the organization lasted until the death of the Third Reich in 1945 . However, the number of SA sharply reduced, and its political role was reduced to almost zero: its tasks were the daily propaganda routine, work with young people (the head of the Hitler Youth Baldur von Schirach had the title of Obergruppenführer SA), auxiliary activities in the protection of camps and so on. They did not have SA and their troops, unlike the SS.

• Yukio Mishima wrote a drama in three acts “ My Friend Hitler ” (1968) about the events of June 1934.
• Mentioned in the Strugatsky brothers novel " It 's hard to be a god ."
• His version of events outlined Ben Elton in the novel "Two Brothers".
• Described in the last chapters of Richard Hughes’s novel The Wooden Shepherd, 1973 (the background is in his novel Fox in the Attic, 1961, where the action begins in 1918).
• In the film The Twilight of the Gods , the scenes of the beginning of the Night of the Long Knives in Bad Wiessee are shown.
• In the second series (“Death in the Villa”) of the film “ Front Without Mercy ” (production of the GDR, 1984), the SS massacre of SA attack aircraft was shown.
• In Yuri Mamin's film “ Sideburns ” (1990), an action called by his instigators (“Pushkinists”) “At Night of Long Reeds” takes place.
• The title “Night of Long Knives” is carried by the film (crime drama) of Olga Zhukova of 1990.
• "The Night of the Long Knives" is the final scene of the television movie " Hitler: The Devil's Rise ".
• In the album of the AC / DC Anglo-Australian band “ For Those About Us to Rock (We Salute You) ” (1981) there is a track called “Night of the Long Knives” (translated as “The Night of the Long Knives”). The tracks with the same name are also present in the World Funeral album (2003) of the Swedish black metallers Marduk and in the album Еvenomed (2000) of American death metallers Malevolent Creation .
• The repertoire of D.I.V. There is a song "Night of long knives".
• In the repertoire of the group P. V. V. P. there is the song “Night of the Long Knives”.
• The song of the Swedish band Marduk from the album World of Funeral entitled Night of the Long Knives.
• In 2012, Thule-Orden and Vril-Orden released a split called Night of the Long Knives.
• In 1999, the group Death in June released the album Operation Hummingbird (translated as “Operation Hummingbird”). In addition, the very name of the band Death in June (“Death in June”) comes from the events of June 30th.
• The event is metaphorically mentioned in the song “Night of the Long Knives” by the British art-rock band Everything, which was released in 2017.
• In 2009, the album “Von Rov Shelter” by the Norwegian black metal band Slagmaur has the song “Lange knivers natt” (translated from Norwegian - “The Night of Long Knives”).
• Mentioned in the song "Heil Führer", performed by the group Corrosion metal .
• The Night of the Long Knives is also mentioned in Klaus Mann’s novel Mephistopheles: A Story of a Career (1936).
• « Ночи длинных ковшей » — народные названия массовых акций по сносу якобы «самостроя» в Москве. ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]}

• Yevgeny Kiselyov. Night of long knives //Independent military review. - June 18, 2004. - No. 22 (382) .
• Röhm-putsch (German). Deutsches Historisches Museum (DHM), German Historical Museum. The appeal date is May 15, 2012.
• The German Churches and the Nazi State . United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The appeal date is June 6, 2015.(неопр.)