Night of the Long Knives

The Night of the Long Knives was a purge carried out by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime from June 30 to July 2, 1934, killing SA leaders and other perceived opponents.

Sturmabteilung: The Nazi Party’s paramilitary organization, known as the SA or Brownshirts. Its leaders and members were the purge’s primary targets.
Schutzstaffel: The Nazi organization known as the SS, which grew from Hitler’s personal guard into a major security force. SS units carried out arrests and killings during the purge.
SS: The Nazi organization that became a central instrument of repression and genocide under Heinrich Himmler. The purge strengthened the SS at the expense of the SA.
Edmund Heines: A Nazi official and SA leader who was killed during the Night of the Long Knives. His murder at the purge’s outset exemplified the targeting of senior SA figures.
Ernst Röhm: A Nazi leader who headed the SA and was killed during the 1934 purge. His demands for a larger political role for the SA sharpened Hitler’s conflict with him.
Gestapo: Nazi Germany’s secret state police, established in 1933. The Gestapo helped identify and arrest people marked for persecution.
Enabling Act of 1933: A law that allowed Hitler’s government to enact legislation without the Reichstag’s consent. It had already dismantled constitutional checks that might have constrained the purge.
Gustav Ritter von Kahr: A Bavarian politician who opposed Hitler’s 1923 putsch and was killed in 1934. His killing showed that the purge also settled old political scores.
Reichswehr: Germany’s armed forces during the Weimar Republic and the early Nazi period. Hitler sought army leaders’ support amid fears that the SA might challenge their position.
The Röhm Putsch: The alleged SA coup plot invoked by the Nazi regime to justify its 1934 purge. The regime presented a supposed imminent uprising as justification, though the claim was a pretext.

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