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The next press statement, which went out on 30 June, was a so-called eye-witness report, in which Hitler’s personal intervention against the ‘conspiracy’ was praised as a truly heroic deed, while the ‘disgusting scenes taking place when Heines and his comrades were arrested’ were left to the readers’ imagination. Edmund Heines, the SA leader in Silesia, was one of the SA leaders whose homosexuality was relatively well known.96
Also on 30 June Hitler issued an ‘order of the day’ to the new SA chief of staff, Lutze, containing a catalogue of twelve demands to the SA. Among other things, Hitler demanded ‘blind obedience and absolute discipline’, exemplary ‘behaviour’ and ‘decorum’. SA leaders should in future set ‘an example in their simplicity and not in their extravagance’; there should be no more ‘banquets’ and ‘gourmandizing’; ‘expensive limousines and cabriolets’ should no longer be used as official cars. The SA must become a ‘clean-living and upright institution’ to which mothers can entrust their sons without any reservations’; the SA must in future deal ruthlessly with ‘offences under §175’.* When it came to promotions the old SA members should be considered before the ‘clever late-comers of 1933’. In addition, he demanded ‘obedience’, ‘loyalty’, and ‘comradeship’.97
These statements referred to treason and mutiny, to a conspiracy by the SA leadership and ‘reactionary forces’. Yet these initial announcements did not state that Germany had been facing the immediate threat of a putsch that had been in preparation for a long time, as Hitler was later to claim. Instead, the main justification for the crackdown was disgust at the alleged moral depravity of the SA leadership.
Around five o’clock in the afternoon, Hitler summoned Sepp Dietrich, the commander of his personal bodyguard, the SS Leibstandarte, ordering him to go to Stadelheim prison with his unit and shoot six SA leaders whose names were marked with a cross on a list. Dietrich carried out the order. The victims were Obergruppenführer August Schneidhuber (Munich) and Edmund Heines (Breslau), the Gruppenführer Wilhelm Schmid (Munich), Hans Hayn (Dresden) and Hans-Peter von Heydebreck (Stettin), and Röhm’s adjutant, Standartenführer Count Hans Erwin Spreti. The shooting of these people was also announced by the NSDAP press office.98
Around eight o’clock in the evening, Hitler flew from Munich to Berlin. Göring was waiting for him at the airport and, according to Goebbels, who was still accompanying him, reported that everything in Berlin had ‘gone according to plan’. Indeed, in the meantime, the Gestapo had carried out a series of murders involving a number of prominent individuals: General von Schleicher, who had been shot at home together with his wife (which Goebbels referred to as a ‘mistake’) and his closest colleague, Major-General Ferdinand von Bredow; in addition, Papen’s colleague, Herbert von Bose, Erich Klausener, who had been dismissed as head of the police department in the Prussian Interior Ministry in February 1933, and was also the head of the Berlin diocesan section of the Catholic lay organization, Catholic Action, and Edgar Jung, who was already under arrest. The following day, Göring reported to Hitler on how the executions were proceeding. Goebbels noted in his diary: ‘Göring reports: executions almost completed. Some still necessary. That’s difficult, but essential. Ernst, Strasser, Sander, Detten †.’ Goebbels was referring to the Berlin SA Gruppenführer, Karl Ernst and his chief of staff, Wilhelm Sander, to Hitler’s long-time colleague and Party opponent, Gregor Strasser, and to the head of the SA’s political office, Georg von Detten, who lived in Berlin. Goebbels, who spent the whole afternoon with Hitler, noted: ‘the death sentences are taken very seriously. All in all about 60.’99 It is clear from Goebbels’s diary that Hitler remained in close contact with Göring from the time of his arrival in Berlin on the evening of 30 June, and determined himself the later murders that took place, just as it was he who had personally ordered the execution of the six SA leaders in Munich.
After the initial executions in Stadelheim, the murders continued in Munich. They involved, in the first place, Röhm’s entourage: the chief of his staff guard, two adjutants, two chauffeurs, the manager of his favourite pub, and his old friend, Martin Schätzel.100 Secondly, Hitler focused on getting rid of a number of people who had crossed his path in earlier times and antagonized him. We can be certain that they were among the ‘death sentences’ Goebbels definitely attributed to Hitler. Among them were Otto Ballerstedt, the former chairman of the long-forgotten Peasant League. In September 1921 (!) Hitler had used violence to break up one of his meetings and been sent to prison for three months. He had had to spend four weeks inside, a humiliation which he hated mentioning. Hitler naturally blamed Ballerstedt for his punishment and from then onwards kept claiming that this marginal figure was a very dangerous opponent.101 Gustav von Kahr was murdered. He was the man whom Hitler had wanted to force to join his putsch on 8 November 1923, but who after a few hours had managed to escape and then played a significant role in the collapse of the whole enterprise. For Hitler, Kahr, who had long since withdrawn from politics, was, more than ten years later, still the ‘traitor’ he blamed for his greatest humiliation.102 Fritz Gerlich, a politically engaged Catholic, was also murdered. In his journal, Der Gerade Weg, he had mounted a campaign against Nazism, including bitter personal attacks on Hitler. In June 1932, for example, he had subjected Hitler to an ‘examination’ on the basis of the various racial criteria put forward by the Nazis, and reached the conclusion that, on the basis of his appearance and attitudes, Hitler should be classified as an ‘inferior’, ‘eastern-Mongolian’ type. Gerlich had already been placed in ‘protective custody’ in March 1933.103 Another case worth mentioning in this context is that of Bernhard Stempfle, a völkisch writer who, despite his ideological affinity to Nazism, during the 1920s developed a strong personal animosity towards Hitler. Shortly after its publication, he wrote a devastating review of Mein Kampf that appeared in the völkisch newspaper, the Miesbacher Anzeiger.104
The murders of Ballerstedt, Kahr, Gerlich, and Stempfle all followed the same pattern. To begin with, the victims were taken to Dachau concentration camp and then either killed there or nearby. The head of the Munich Student Welfare Service, Fritz Beck, was also murdered, possibly because he was assumed to have a close relationship with Röhm (in 1933 he had made the SA chief of staff honorary chairman of the organization).105 The music critic, Wilhelm Schmid, was the victim of mistaken identity. In addition, there were at least five more victims: a communist, a Social Democrat, two Jews, and the private secretary and girlfriend of the former editor of the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten, who had had a row with the Party.106 In Berlin the murder campaign involved not only those people already mentioned, but half a dozen colleagues of the local SA leader and Röhm’s press chief, Veit-Ulrich von Beulwitz, as well as three other people who were eliminated for various reasons that did not necessarily have anything to do with the ‘Röhm putsch’.107
Apart from Munich and Berlin, Silesia was a third centre where similar measures were taken on 30 June. A dozen SA leaders who were linked to the SA chief, Heines, were murdered on the orders of the responsible SS Oberabschnittsführer, Udo von Woyrsch. There were others who for some reason were targeted by the SS, including four Jewish citizens of Hirschberg.108 A fourth focus for the murder campaign was Dresden, where three SA members were killed.109
Elsewhere, other people fell victim to the purge for various reasons. In some cases, it appears that ‘old scores were being settled’ by individuals acting on their own initiative. Among these were, for example, Freiherr Anton von Hohberg und Buchwald, who had been dismissed from the SS as a result of a row with the East Prussian SS leader, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, who had him murdered, and Hermann Mattheiss, who had been dismissed as head of the Württemberg political police in May 1934 because he refused to submit to the new head of the political police in Württemberg, Heinrich Himmler; instead, he wanted to continue to rely on SA support for the police. Mattheiss was shot in the SS barracks in Ellwangen.110
Adalbert Probst, Reich leader of t
he Deutsche Jugendkraft, the umbrella organization of the Catholic gymnastic and sports associations and one of the most prominent representatives of those Catholic associations that were in conflict with the state, was arrested in Braunlage in the Harz and murdered at an unknown location. Probst had made a name for himself as an advocate and organizer of paramilitary sport within the Catholic associations, and so was considered a representative of a truly ‘militant’ Catholicism. At the end of June, he had taken part in the Concordat negotiations in Berlin, which were dealing, among other things, with the future of the Catholic associations.111 Kurt Mosert, the leader of SA Standarte Torgau, was taken to Lichtenberg concentration camp and murdered because of personal quarrels with SS guards in the camp,112 as were three members of the SS who had been imprisoned for ill-treating prisoners.113
On 1 July, Hitler arranged for Röhm to be given a pistol in his cell in Munich-Stadelheim. When he failed to use it, Hitler sent the commander of Dachau concentration camp, Theodor Eicke, and the commander of the Dachau guards, Michael Lippert, to Stadelheim to shoot him in his cell.114 The regime then put out a laconic press release: ‘The former chief of staff of the SA, Röhm, was given the opportunity of facing up to his treason. He failed to do so and consequently has been shot.’115
On the evening of 1 July, Goebbels described the recent events in a broadcast, adopting the tone of moral indignation that had been prominent in the official statements of the previous day. He accused those who had been murdered and their associates of ‘leading a dissolute life’, of ‘ostentation’ and ‘gourmandizing’; they had been liable to place the whole of the Nazi leadership under suspicion of being associated with ‘disgraceful and disgusting sexual abnormality’. All their doings and actions had been dictated purely by ‘personal lust for power’.116
On 2 July, Hindenburg sent telegrams to Hitler and Göring expressing his ‘warm appreciation’ that ‘through your resolute intervention and courageous personal engagement you have managed to nip these treasonous machinations in the bud’. On the same day, Hitler issued a press statement announcing the conclusion of the ‘purge’.117
When considering the events of 30 June, it is often overlooked that the murderous campaign was not only directed against the SA leadership and the conservatives (as well as a number of ‘old’ enemies), it was also intended as a warning to ‘political Catholicism’. Moreover, this was at a time when a political compromise between the Nazi system and the Catholic Church was actually emerging. This aspect throws further important light on Hitler’s decision to neutralize various opposition forces through a brutal and sweeping blow.
In October 1933, negotiations had already begun between the Reich and the Vatican concerning the implementation of various points in the Concordat of July 1933. They concerned, in particular, the future of those Catholic associations whose activities were not purely religious in nature; the issue was basically whether the Catholic youth organizations should retain a degree of autonomy, for example through being integrated into a state youth organization, or whether, as the Party wished, they should be absorbed into the Hitler Youth.
The final round of these negotiations was scheduled for the end of June in Berlin after the Vatican had instructed the German episcopacy to engage in direct talks with the regime.118 On 27 June, Hitler, accompanied by Frick and Buttmann, received the delegation of the German bishops and he appears to have impressed his visitors with his sympathetic and responsible manner and his rejection of another ‘cultural struggle’.† Indeed, he even stated that he was prepared to ban the advocacy of a ‘Germanic religion’ and ‘neo-heathen propaganda’119 (a promise, which, significantly, he immediately withdrew when he met Rosenberg, the main exponent of this doctrine).120 Evidently, Hitler felt the general political situation obliged him to go to some lengths to conciliate the Catholic Church.
Two days later, they made an agreement, determining that the associations that served purely religious, cultural, or charitable purposes should be subordinated to the Catholic lay organization, Catholic Action, and so be integrated into the Catholic Church’s hierarchy.121 On 24 June, when the Berlin diocese celebrated Catholic Day, Erich Klausener, the head of Catholic Action in Berlin, urged his enthusiastic audience of 60,000 Catholics proudly to stand up for their Catholic faith in their daily lives. This rally must have been viewed by the regime as a demonstration of Catholic opposition; it looked as though, in addition to the SA and the conservative opposition, another domestic threat was now emerging on the horizon.122 As a result of the impending implementation of the Concordat, Klausener’s organization was now going to be strengthened and receive state recognition. Six days later, Klausener was murdered, as was the well-known Catholic journalist, Fritz Gerlich, and the head of the Deutsche Jugendkraft, Adalbert Probst, like Klausener both representatives of a self-confident and militant Catholicism; Probst had also taken part in the Concordat negotiations at the end of June.
Seen in context, these three murders were a targeted blow against the emergence of a political opposition movement. There is a suspicion – it cannot be proved because of a lack of documentation – that these murders were intended at the last minute to block the compromise on the implementation of the Concordat worked out by the Interior Ministry because the Party disapproved of it. This was facilitated by the fall from power of Vice-Chancellor, Papen, the government minister who was most supportive of a modus vivendi between Catholicism and the regime. The compromise solution, which had appeared to the regime unavoidable on 29 June, could be revised on 30 June because of a completely changed political situation.
Bearing in mind how directly involved Hitler was in the issuing of the ‘death sentences’ on 30 June and 1 July, it appears improbable that the arrest and murder of these three prominent Catholics in different locations was the result of unauthorized actions by subordinate agencies. It is much more likely that they too were victims of Hitler’s ‘death sentences’.
The Catholic Church was horrified by the murder of the three Catholics, but it did not use the murders as an excuse for breaking off negotiations with the Reich government. This is probably one reason why the link between the Concordat negotiations and the murder of prominent Catholics has hitherto been neglected in historical accounts of the events of 30 June. In a letter to Cardinal Bertram, Eugenio Pacelli described the agreement reached on 29 June as unacceptable and referred, in an oblique way typical of representatives of the Vatican, to the events of 30 June. This ‘writing on the wall’ would hopefully ‘convince the holders of ultimate power in Germany . . . that external force without the corrective and the blessing of a God-directed conscience will not prosper but bring disaster to the state and the people’.123
It was only several days after 30 June 1934, and then remarkably hesitantly, that Hitler’s regime went beyond the confused statements that had been made in the immediate aftermath of the events and provided a properly thought-through justification for the murders.
To begin with, on 3 July, Hitler gave a detailed explanation of the action against Röhm at a cabinet meeting, taking ‘full responsibility for the shooting of 43 traitors’ (even if ‘not every on-the-spot execution had been ordered by him personally’).124 The Reich cabinet then approved a Law concerning Emergency Measures, whose single clause read: ‘The measures taken on 30 June and 1 July 1934 to suppress high treason and treasonable actions are, as emergency measures to defend the state, legal.’125 According to Goebbels, Papen suddenly appeared at the meeting, looking ‘quite broken’.126 Although his colleagues, Edgar Julius Jung, who had written the Marburg speech, and Herbert von Bose had been among the victims, by appearing at the meeting Papen was indicating that he intended to continue with his official duties. The cabinet was particularly busy that day, issuing a total of thirty-two laws.127
On 3 July, Hitler visited Hindenburg at his Neudeck estate. On the following day, he returned to Berlin, but then did not appear in public for over a week.128 He also did not take part in the me
eting of Gauleiters on 4 and 5 July 1934 in Flensburg, where, according to the Völkischer Beobachter, Hess only briefly referred to recent events; apart from that, the Gauleiters discussed organizational and economic issues.129 On 11 July, the Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro, the official German news agency, issued the text of an interview Hitler had given to Professor Pearson, a former US diplomat, which had appeared in the New York Times. Here, he had defended his measures on the grounds that he had acted to prevent a civil war.130
Hitler did not appear in public again until 13 July. In the meantime, he had decided to justify his actions on 30 June as emergency measures, required to counter an elaborate conspiracy, and now appeared before the Reichstag with this imaginatively concocted story. He began his speech by listing the opposition groups in the Reich: first, the communists; secondly, political leaders who could not come to terms with their defeat on 30 January 1933; thirdly, he dealt with those ‘revolutionary types, whose earlier relationship to the state had become disrupted in 1918, who had become rootless and, as a result, had lost any connection with a regulated social order’; the fourth group he described as ‘those people, who belong to a relatively small social group who, without anything else to do, while away their time in chatting about anything liable to bring variety into their otherwise completely trivial lives’.
Hitler then outlined a scenario in which a conspiracy was thwarted at the very last minute. He did this by ingeniously combining a number of issues that had been causing controversy during recent months and assigning key roles in them to particular individuals who had been murdered. The rumour of an impending dissolution of the SA had been used, he claimed, as an excuse for a ‘second revolution’, during which, among other things, Papen was to be killed; Röhm was planning to subordinate the Wehrmacht to the SA and to make Schleicher Vice-Chancellor; von Bredow had established contacts with foreign countries and Gregor Strasser had been ‘brought into’ the conspiracy. If anyone ‘reproached him for not using the law courts to try’ the conspirators, his answer was: ‘In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German nation and so I was the German people’s supreme judge!’ He gave the number of people who had been executed as seventy-seven.131 The actual number of those murdered was higher. Up to the present, a total of ninety-one people have been proved to have died; it is possible that there were further victims.132