In all this Röhm was actuated not just by defiance and the arrogance of knowing that, as he declared, he had the power of thirty divisions behind him. Rather, he understood only too well that Hitler was confronting him with an unacceptable alternative. To tell him that he must either educate the nation or quit was the equivalent to giving him the sack. For no one could seriously imagine that those “bandylegged” SA men were the right people to instruct the Aryan master race.
Convinced of the hopelessness of his situation, Röhm seems to have called on Hitler early in March and proposed a “little solution”: that the army take in several thousand SA leaders. This would at least provide for some of Röhm’s people. But both Hindenburg and the army leadership would not hear of this. Röhm found himself driven by an outraged and increasingly impatient following, and by his own craving for status, to take once more the path of revolt.
From the spring of 1934 on, the slogans of the second revolution were again in currency. But although there was talk of putsch and rebellion, there is no indication of a specific plan of action. In keeping with the rough-and-tough stance of these blusterers, they were satisfied with bloodthirsty phrases. Röhm himself had spells of resignation, occasionally considered returning to Bolivia, and at one point told the French ambassador that he was sick. Nevertheless, he kept trying to break out of the ever more tightly closing ring of isolation and to make contact with Schleicher and probably with other oppositional circles. He organized a new wave of giant parades and, in general, tried by incessant triumphant marches to make a show of the SA’s unbroken vigor. At the same time, he obtained sizable quantities of arms—partly by purchases abroad—and stepped up the militarytraining program of his units. Of course, all this may only have served to keep his disappointed and irritably loafing storm troopers occupied. But such activities were regarded by Hitler and the army leadership as a challenge. Certainly they provided a disquieting background to the rebellious bluster.
It appears that by the spring Hitler stopped trying to settle matters amicably with Röhm and instead steered toward a solution by violence. On April 17, at a spring concert given by the SS in the Berlin Sportpalast, Hitler appeared in public with Röhm for the last time. Extending the assignment given to Diels, he now directed several party bureaus—by his own later testimony—to look into the rumors about a second revolution and to track down their sources. It is tempting to associate the build-up of the Sicherheitsdienst (the security service of the SS, the notorious SD), which began simultaneously with this assignment, and likewise Heinrich Himmler’s take-over of the Prussian Gestapo. Obviously there was a connection with the fact that the judicial authorities at this point began to prosecute SA crimes for the first time. Theodor Eicke, the commandant of Dachau concentration camp, supposedly received instructions to draw up a “Reich list” containing the names of “undesirable persons.”
It was a veritable roundup that Röhm could scarcely misconstrue. Plainly they were out to get him. His principal enemies were the functionaries of the Political Organization (PO), above all Göring, Goebbels, and Hess, who envied the SA chief of staff his enormous power base and the position of second man in the state that went with it. Heinrich Himmler soon joined them; as commander of the SS, then still a subdivision of the SA, he stood to profit by Röhm’s fall. Alongside these party people, cautiously operating in the background but more and more making its presence felt, was the army leadership. By skillfully peddling information about Röhm and by playing up its own docility, it hoped to draw Hitler over to its side. In February, 1934, the corps of army officers voluntarily set aside one of its dearest traditions, the principle of drawing its members from a special stratum of society. Instructions were issued to the effect that henceforth “origin in the old officer caste” was not to be the basic requirement for a military career, but rather “consonance with the new government.” Shortly afterward, the Reichswehr introduced political education for the troops. On Hitler’s birthday, April 20, Minister of Defense Blomberg published an extravagant article in praise of the Führer. Simultaneously, he renamed the Munich barracks that housed the List Regiment, in which Hitler had once served, the Adolf Hitler Barracks. The army’s strategy was to stir up the ill-feeling between Hitler and Röhm until an open quarrel ensued from which the army generals would emerge the victors. They reasoned that Hitler would not realize that by stripping Röhm of power he was disarming himself and placing himself at the mercy of the army.
The rising tension was palpably communicated to the public mind. For a year Hitler had continued to keep the population breathless by fireworks, speeches, appeals, coups, and histrionics. Now both the public and the producer seemed equally exhausted. The pause for reflection offered the nation a first opportunity to take account of its real condition. Not yet completely overwhelmed and corrupted by propaganda, it noted coercion, pressure and regimentation, persecution of defenseless minorities, concentration camps, difficulties with the churches, the specter of inflation caused by reckless spending, terrorism and threats from the SA, and growing distrust on the part of the rest of the world. The result was a reversal of sentiment that even a noisy “campaign against gripers and criticasters,” launched by Goebbels, was unable to stem. What emerged in the spring of 1934 was not a massive mood of dissatisfaction that found vent in any broadly based oppositional spirit; but unmistakably a sense of skepticism, of uneasiness, of suspicion, was spreading, and along with it an intimation that something was rotten in the state of Germany.
The spreading disenchantment suggests that we glance once more at the conservative stage managers of the events of January, 1933. And, in fact, although they now had forfeited all power to act, they seemed to feel that something should be done. In June, 1934, when Hindenburg was about to leave for his summer vacation at Neudeck, his parting words to his Vice-Chancellor were: “Things are going badly, Papen. Try to straighten them out.” Since, however, there was no question of the President’s intervening himself—the old man was visibly failing—the conservatives took up the idea of a monarchist restoration. Hitler had rejected this idea in no uncertain terms, the last time in his Reichstag speech of January 30, 1934. But Hindenburg now, on Papen’s urging, promised to add a passage to his testament recommending a return to the monarchy. After all, the monarchist faction reasoned, under pressure of events Hitler would sooner or later have to accept a good many things he did not like.
In view of the reports of Hindenburg’s condition, a rapid decision on Hitler’s part was all the more urgent. His own plans assumed he would take over the office of President. This would assure him supreme command of the army and would thus form the concluding act in the seizure of power. On June 4, therefore, he once more met Röhm in order—as he explained in his later self-justifying speech—“to spare the Movement and my SA the shame of such a disagreement, and… to solve the problem without severe conflicts.” In a discussion lasting for some five hours he pleaded with Röhm “of his own accord to oppose this madness” of a second revolution. But Röhm was far from ready to capitulate and gave him only the customary empty assurances.
The propaganda campaign against the gripers was screwed to a higher pitch of intensity. In addition to the SA, the conservative positions of the old bourgeoisie, of the nobility, of the churches, and above all of the monarchy came under the fire of Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry. But Röhm, evidently unsuspecting, went on vacation. In an order of the day he informed his followers that he was suffering from a rheumatic complaint and had to go to Bad Wiessee for a cure. To ease the tension somewhat, he sent the majority of the SA formations on leave for the month of July. His order warned “the enemies of the SA” against harboring any false hopes that the storm troopers would not return from their leaves, and in grimly ambiguous terms he threatened those enemies with an “appropriate answer.” Interestingly enough, the order of the day did not mention Hitler’s name.
Contrary to all his subsequent asseverations, it appears that Hitler could not have be
lieved that Röhm, however recalcitrant, had plans for occupying the capital, seizing control of the government, and, in the course of a “conflict of the bloodiest kind, lasting several days,” removing him personally.
Nine days later, Hitler went to Venice for his first trip abroad. He looked nervous, distracted and ill-humored as, wearing a light-colored raincoat, he walked forward to meet the Italian dictator. According to a political joke that went the rounds in Germany, Mussolini allegedly murmured, “Ave, Imitator!” Certainly there could not have been a less auspicious beginning for this curious relationship, filled with mutual admiration and no doubt blindness, soon to be dominated by Hitler with his conception of “brutal friendship.”42 At least during this period Hitler’s mind was on other things than the threat of Röhm.
There were other threats, however. Concerned that the obviously impending death of Hindenburg would destroy the last chance to steer the regime onto a more moderate course, conservative backers of Franz von Papen urged him to take some sort of stand. On Sunday, June 17, while Hitler was meeting with his assembled party leaders in Gera, the Vice-Chancellor delivered a speech at Marburg University. It had been ghosted for him by the conservative writer Edgar Jung and had far more bite than anything Papen himself might have produced. In a sensational fashion he came out strongly against the National Socialist revolution for its violence and unbridled radicalism. He condemned the roughshod methods of Gleichschaltung. He protested against the “unnatural claim to totality” and against the plebeian contempt for intellectual work. Then he continued:
No nation can afford an eternal revolt from below if that nation wishes to continue to exist as a historical entity. At some time the movement must come to an end; at some time a firm social structure must arise, and must be maintained by an incorruptible judiciary and an uncontested State authority. Permanent dynamism cannot shape anything lasting. We must not let Germany become a train tearing along to nowhere in particular….
The government is well informed concerning the elements of selfishness, lack of character, mendacity, beastliness and arrogance that are spreading under the guise of the German Revolution. Nor is the government unaware that the treasure of confidence that the German people bestowed upon it is in jeopardy. Those who want closeness and intimate contact with the people must not underestimate the people’s intelligence, must have confidence in them in return, not forever try to keep them in leading strings…. Not by whipping people up, especially whipping up the youth, and not by threats against helpless parts of the nation, but only by an honest dialogue with the people, can confidence and eager commitment be intensified…. Every word of criticism must not instantly be dubbed ill will, and despairing patriots must not be labeled enemies of the State.
The speech created a tremendous stir, even though it was heard by very few. Goebbels abruptly canceled the projected evening radio broadcast and kept the speech from appearing in the press. Hitler himself evidently took Papen’s re-emergence as a personal challenge and went into a rage before his party leaders. He furiously denounced “all the little pygmies” and threatened that they would be “swept away by the force of our common ideal…. A while ago they had the power to prevent the rising of National Socialism; but never again will they be able to put the awakened people to sleep…. So long as they do nothing but gripe, we do not have to be concerned about them. But if they should ever try to move even in the slightest degree from criticism to a new act of treachery, they had better realize that what faces them today is not the cowardly and corrupt bourgeoisie of 1918, but the fist of the entire people.” When Papen thereupon said that he would resign, Hitler backed off by proposing that they go together to call on Hindenburg in Neudeck.
It seems in fact that for a moment Hitler lost his grasp of the entire situation and misread the signs. He had no doubt been told occasionally that the President was not pleased by this or that. He was also aware of the worries of the army leadership. With his knowledge of Herr von Papen, he assumed that the man would not have spoken as he had in Marburg if he had not had a whole coalition behind him: the entire power of the army leadership, the President, and the still influential conservative circles.
On June 21 Hitler went to Neudeck and once more slighted Papen by not asking him to come along—contrary to the agreement he had made only two days before. But the purpose of his visit was precisely to undermine the alliance between Hindenburg and Papen. He also wanted to ascertain the President’s mood and capacity for making decisions. On such a mission, the Vice-Chancellor would only be a burden. Even before he called on the President, Hitler heard from Walther Funk, his Reich press chief, who was staying in Neudeck, about the old field marshal’s typical military response: “If Papen cannot keep discipline, he has to take the consequences.”
The talk with Hindenburg seems to have reassured Hitler. Nevertheless, the incident had taught him that he had no time to waste. Immediately after his return he withdrew to Obersalzberg for three days, in order to think the situation through. Everything points to the probability that the final decision to strike was taken then, and the date for action also determined. On June 26, back in Berlin, Hitler at once ordered the arrest of Edgar Jung. When Papen tried to remonstrate, Hitler refused to see him. To Alfred Rosenberg, who happened to be with him in the chancellery garden, Hitler said with a threatening gesture in the direction of the neighboring vice-chancellory. “Yes, it all comes from there. One of these days I’ll have that whole office cleaned out.”
As far back as the beginning of June the SS and SD had received orders for an intensified watch on the SA and been put on an active footing. SS Commandant Eicke, of Dachau, conducted “war games” with his staff in preparation for some strike in the region around Munich, Lechfeld, and Bad Wiessee. Rumors circulated about contacts Röhm was supposedly having with Schleicher and Gregor Strasser. Someone warned former Chancellor Brüning that his life was in danger; he secretly left Germany. Schleicher, who received many similar warnings, left Berlin for a while, but soon returned. Colonel Ott, a friend, proposed that they visit Japan together. Schleicher refused; he was not going to run out on the country, he said.
A so-called “Reich list” had been drawn up; it held the names of persons who at the proper moment were to be arrested or shot. This list circulated among Göring, Blomberg, Himmler, and Himmler’s deputy Reinhard Heydrich, who was now beginning to emerge into prominence. Heydrich and SD Chief Werner Best could not agree about Obergruppenführer Schneidhuber of the Munich SA; the one man thought him “decent and loyal,” the other regarded him as “just as dangerous” as the rest. Viktor Lutze discussed with Hitler whether only the very top leadership or a larger group of “chief culprits” should be liquidated. Lutze was later to bewail the wickedness of the SS, which to settle its own scores enlarged the original group of seven victims first to seventeen and finally to more than eighty persons.
On June 25 an alleged secret order from Röhm calling the storm troops to arms, came into the possession of the Abwehr (Conterintelligence) Department in the Defense Ministry. It should have been evident that the document was a forgery, if only because it included in its list of recipients Himmler and Heydrich, Röhm’s worst enemies. Probably that same day Edmund Heines, SA Gruppenführer in Silesia, received word that the army was making preparations for some kind of action against the SA. Simultaneously, General von Kleist, the district commander of Breslau, received information that presented a “picture of feverish preparations on the part of the SA.”43 Day after day warnings were issued in radio speeches or at public demonstrations to the spokesmen of the second revolution, and other warnings to the conservative opposition.
On June 21 Goebbels, at a summer solstice festival in Berlin Stadium, declared: “Only force impresses this type, pride and strength. They’re going to feel it…. They will not hold back the forward march of the century. We will pass over them.” Four days later Hess, in a radio address, inveighed against the “players at revolution” who distrusted the “g
reat strategist of the revolution,” Adolf Hitler. “Woe to him who breaks faith!” On June 26 Göring, at a meeting in Hamburg, gave a firm no to all monarchist plans: “We the living have Adolf Hitler!” He uttered threats against the “reactionary clique with their selfish interests.” As he put it: “If one of these days the cup should run over, then I’ll strike! We have worked as no one ever worked before, because behind us stands a nation that trusts us…. Anyone who sins against this trust has forfeited his head.” Hess made it clear that National Socialism was there to stay: “Any withdrawal of National Socialism from the political stage of the German people would… bring on chaos throughout Europe.”
While the bluff storm troopers prepared for their leaves, Röhm and his closest associates had settled into the Hotel Hanslbauer in Wiessee. On June 25 the League of German Officers expelled Röhm.
In so doing, they were withdrawing their protection from him and consigning him to his fate. A day later Himmler informed all SS and SD top leaders of the “impending revolt of the SA under Röhm.” Additional opposition groups would take part in it, Himmler said. Next day SS Gruppenführer Sepp Dietrich, commander of the SS Guard Battalion Berlin, asked the chief of the organization section of the army for additional weapons to carry out a secret assignment from the Führer. To help matters, Dietrich showed the men a “firing squad list,” purportedly prepared by the SA, on which the name of the officer he was speaking to figured. To soothe any doubts that might arise, Colonel von Reichenau employed, as did Himmler, deception, lies, and frightening fictions. Soon the rumor was going around that the SA had threatened to kill “all older army officers.”
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