Essay Database

Night of the Long Knives The greatest challenge to Hitler's survival during the early years of the Third Reich came from his own brown-shirted storm troopers, the SA (Sturmabteilung) led by Chief of Staff, Ernst Röhm. The battle-scarred Röhm was a decorated World War I combat officer and a post-war street-brawler who had been with Hitler from the start. Röhm's jack-booted storm troopers were largely responsible for putting Hitler in power. On …

…a continental scale as well as a gigantic military force. Now, in the summer of 1934, there was only one man who stood between Adolf Hitler and absolute power in Germany. And that man, 87-year-old President Paul von Hindenburg, lay dying at his country estate. For several weeks, everyone awaited the Old Gentleman's demise with a nagging sense of uncertainty over what it might mean for Germany's future. Hitler, however, knew exactly what it would mean.