Hitler (89 page)

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.”
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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 “great 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.”

Meanwhile, the upper stratum of the Reichswehr leadership had been alerted to the SA putsch and had been told that the SS was on the side of the army and therefore should receive arms from it if necessary. An order issued by Lieutenant General Beck on June 29 warned all officers at army headquarters on Bendlerstrasse in Berlin to have their pistols at hand. That same day the
Völkische Beobachter
published an article by Defense Minister Blomberg that took the form of a declaration of total loyalty. It was also a request to Hitler, in the name of the army, to take measures to curb the SA.

Everything was now prepared. The SA had been kept in ignorance. The SS and SD, backed by the army, were ready to strike. The conservatives were intimidated, and the President, ill and relapsing into the vagueness of senility, was in distant Neudeck. One last attempt by several of Papen's associates to get to Hindenburg and have him impose a state of emergency was frustrated by Oskar von Hindenburg's fear and stupidity.

Hitler himself had left Berlin early in the morning on June 28 in order to, as he himself later explained, “present an outward impression of absolute calm and to give no warning to the traitors.” A few hours later he was in Essen to attend the wedding of Gauleiter Terboven. But all around him frenzied activity was already developing, while he himself repeatedly dropped into sulky, absent-minded brooding. That evening he telephoned Röhm and ordered him to summon all the higher SA leaders to Bad Wiessee for a frank discussion on Saturday, June 30. Evidently the telephone conversation went amicably, if only because Hitler wished to lull any suspicions his chief of staff might have. At any rate, when Röhm rejoined his fellows at table in Bad Wiessee, he looked “very contented.”

All that was needed now was the uprising. In fact, the SA had remained calm, and a good many of its members had dispersed. The weeks of investigation by the Sicherheitsdienst had produced no results that would have justified bloody proceedings. While Hitler went to Bad Godesberg on June 29 and Göring ordered his Berlin units on full alert, Himmler set about producing the SA “mutiny” provided for in the plans, which so far had failed to take place.
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Summoned by handwritten, anonymous notes, units of the Munich SA suddenly appeared on the streets and marched about aimlessly. Their surprised leaders were called and promptly ordered their men to go home; but Gauleiter Wagner of Munich could now report to Bad Godesberg the appearance of allegedly rebellious SA formations. Hitler had just attended a Labor Service ceremony in front of the Hotel Dresden, overlooking the Rhine, an affair that culminated in 600 Labor Service workers bearing torches forming a glowing swastika on the slope of the hill across the river. The message from Gauleiter Wagner reached Hitler shortly after midnight. Simultaneously, word arrived from Himmler that the Berlin SA was planning a sudden occupation of the government district next day. “In these circumstances I could make but one decision,” Hitler later declared.... “Only a ruthless and bloody intervention might still perhaps halt the spread of the revolt.”

It may be that Hitler was genuinely alarmed by the two messages; possibly he imagined that Röhm had seen what was up and was preparing a counterstroke. To this day no one has been able to establish to what extent Hitler himself was among the deceived, whether and how much he was misled by Himmler in particular. For, by eliminating the leadership of the SA, Himmler was indubitably furthering his own rise.

In any case, Hitler discarded his original plan of flying to Munich next morning and decided to leave at once. At dawn, which came around four o'clock, he arrived in Munich accompanied by Goebbels, Otto Dietrich, and Viktor Lutze. The action began. At the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior Hitler settled accounts with the “mutineers” of the previous day, Obergruppenführer Schneidhuber and Gruppenführer Schmidt. In a fit of fury he ripped the epaulets from their shoulders and ordered them taken to Stadelheim Prison.

Immediately afterward, he set out for Bad Wiessee in a long column of cars. “Whip in hand,” as his chauffeur, Erich Kempka, described the events, Hitler entered “Röhm's bedroom, two police detectives with cocked pistols behind him. He blurted out: ‘Röhm, you're under arrest!' Sleepily, Röhm raised his head from the pillows and stammered:
‘Heil, mein Führer!'
‘You're under arrest!' Hitler bellowed for the second time, turned on his heel and left the room.” The procedure was the same for the other SA leaders who had already arrived. Only a single one of them, Edmund Heines of Silesia, who was surprised in bed with a homosexual, put up any resistance. Those who were still on their way to Bad Wiessee were intercepted by Hitler on his way back to Munich. Like their comrades they were taken to Stadelheim—making a total of some 200 of the higher SA leaders from all parts of the country. Toward ten o'clock in the morning Goebbels telephoned Berlin and gave the agreed code word: “Hummingbird.” Thereupon Göring, Himmler, and Heydrich also dispatched their squads. The SA leaders on the Reich list were picked up, taken to the Lichterfelde Cadet Academy, and in contrast to their fellows in Munich were lined up against a wall and shot without more ado.

Meanwhile, Hitler had gone to the Brown House, now heavily guarded by army troops. After a brief address to the party paladins who had been hastily convoked, he at once began drawing up the guidelines for the forthcoming propaganda on the purge. For several hours he dictated instructions, orders, and official explanations, in which he himself figured in the third person, as
“der Führer.”
But in his haste to cover up and color the events he made a strange oversight. Contrary to the later official version, none of the many announcements made on June 30 mentioned a putsch or attempted putsch by Röhm. Instead there was talk of “gravest misconduct,” “opposition,” “pervert dispositions,” and although occasionally something about a “plot” was thrown in, the overwhelming impression was that Hitler had acted as a guardian of morality. As Hitler put it in one of his less happy metaphors: “The Führer gave the order for the ruthless cleaning out of this pestilential sore.” Now, however, the public was safe. “In the future he will no longer stand for millions of decent people being incriminated and compromised by a few persons with perverted dispositions.”

Quite understandably, to the very end many SA leaders could not grasp what was going on. They had planned neither a putsch nor a plot, and Hitler had never before looked into their morality. Berlin SA Gruppenführer Ernst, for example, who, according to the messages from Himmler, had planned an attack on the government quarter for the afternoon of June 30, was actually in Bremen about to set out on his honeymoon. Shortly before he was to board the ship, he was arrested. Thinking this was a coarse wedding joke on the part of some of his fellows, he enjoyed the whole thing immensely. He was taken by plane to Berlin, where he was still laughing as he showed his handcuffs and joked with the SS squad that conducted him from the plane to the waiting police car. The extras that were being sold outside the airport building were already reporting his death, but Ernst still suspected nothing. Half an hour later he died at the wall in Lichterfelde, incredulous to the last, a perplexed
“Heil Hitler!”
on his lips.

Hitler flew back to Berlin that evening. Before leaving, he had ordered Sepp Dietrich to go to Stadelheim Prison, ask for the surrender of certain persons, and execute these persons at once. Hans Frank, the Bavarian Minister of Justice, intervened and succeeded—if we are to believe him—in reducing the number of victims. Reich Commissioner von Epp, on whose staff Röhm had long ago served as the friend and promoter of the rising demagogue, vainly tried to dissuade Hitler from his bloody course. It may be, however, that his intercession had some effect and induced Hitler to postpone the decision on Röhm.

In Berlin Hitler was received by a large delegation at cordoned-off Tempelhof airfield. One of those present set down his impression of the arrival shortly after the event:

 

The plane from Munich was announced. In a moment we saw it looming swiftly larger against the background of a blood-red sky, a piece of theatricality that no one had staged. The plane roared down to a landing and rolled toward us. Commands rang out. An honor guard presented arms. Göring, Himmler, Körner, Frick, Daluege and some twenty police officers went up to the plane. Then the door opened and Adolf Hitler was the first to step out.

His appearance was ‘unique,' to use a favorite word of Nazi commentators. A brown shirt, black bow tie, dark-brown leather jacket, high black army boots—all dark tones. He wore no hat; his face was pale, unshaven, sleepless, at once gaunt and puffed.... Hitler silently shook hands with everyone within reach.... I... heard amid the silence the repeated monotonous sound of clicking heels.
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Impatient and nervous, Hitler asked to see the list of those liquidated even before he left the airfield. Because of the “unique opportunity,” as one of the participants later stated, Göring and Himmler had extended the killings far beyond the group of “Röhm putschists.” Papen escaped death solely because of his personal relationship with Hindenburg. Nevertheless, his position as Vice-Chancellor was ignored, his protests disregarded, and he was placed under house arrest. Two of his closest associates, his private secretary, von Bose, and his ghost writer, Edgar Jung, were shot, and two others arrested. A squad had killed Under-secretary Erich Klausener, the head of Catholic Action, at his desk in the Ministry of Transportation. Another squad had tracked down Gregor Strasser in a pharmaceutical plant, brought him to Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, and shot him in the cellar of the building. Around noon a troop of killers had broken into Schleicher's home in Neu-Babelsberg, asked the man sitting at his desk whether he was General von Schleicher, and without waiting for a reply fired. Frau von Schleicher was likewise killed.