Was the Night of the Long Knives principally a means to obtain loyalty of the German military leadership?

Question

Two History professors in my school say that Hitler had to execute the leaders of the SA principally because the generals of the German army asked him to do it: The generals were Teutonic nobility; the leaders of the SA who were pedophiles, homosexuals, criminals... in one word, scum. So the generals explicitly stated that otherwise they would not have accepted Hitler as their Führer. In other words, according to the professors, getting rid of Hitler's opposition was not the first purpose of the NLK.

However, I couldn't find sources backing up those claims, and furthermore, my professor himself disagrees. Are they correct?

Answer 1

The Night of the Long Knives was undertaken to pacify the GENERALS and officers of the German Army, not the soldiers.

The problem arose because Hitler's private "army," the S.A., was actually larger than the official army of 100,000 men permitted by the Versailles Treaty. So the leaders of the S.A. demanded that the less-numerous army be placed under them.

But the leaders of the regular army were all professionals. And Hitler envisioned having a much larger, multi-million man army that could be officered only by the professional army, not the "amateurs" of the S.A. Forced to choose between one and the other, Hitler supported the regular army at the expense of the leaders of his own "army."

The issues about sexual orientation, while real, took a back seat to those of "professionalism" and class.

Answer 2

You (or your history professors) are overly concerned with the sexual orientation and/or criminal tendencies of the SA leadership. And you make the curious assumption (or seem to) that homosexuals and paedophiles aren't to be found in the aristocracy.

Yes, the German Army, with its aristocratic leadership, wanted the SA neutered. But only because it was perceived as dangerous, anarchic and representative of the socialist wing of National Socialism. It had millions of members and was a dangerous rival to the army. The rest of the German establishment (banks, big business) felt the same way.

Once rid of the SA, Hitler and National Socialism became much more acceptable to the Army and Big Business. Which is what Hitler intended.

Anything to do with sexual orientation was window dressing.

Answer 3

Great question!

In this case "Tea Drinker" is more precise. According to Hans Rothfels and Theordor Eschenburg in "Dokumentation: Zur Ermordung des Generals Schleicher, 'Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte,' Ernst Roehm, chief of the SA, wanted to continue the Nazi Revolution. This of course was problematic to Hitler who absolutely despised "Bolshevism." Therefore, Hitler, who needed support from conservatives--or reactionaries, the opposite of revolutionaries--and industrialist, took action to eliminate the Socialists. Also, Roehm was insistent that the SA and the Reichswehr be turned into a 'people's army.' Therefore, with the potential threat of losing both the army and industrialists, Hitler acted (Sax and Kuntz, 154).

According to Dr. Grutzner, the junior barrister in the distric attorney's office who functioned as the official in charge of the judicial inquiry into deaths in 1934, stated: "...at Hitler's orders, Roehm had been arrested because of his treasonous connections to representatives of foreign power. Furthermore, it was suspected that General von Schleicher had been working with Roehm..." (Sax and Kuntz, 156). This we know today is a fabrication, and Hitler needed to eliminate any potential threat to his ascendency to Ruler of Germany.

As for those killed being accused of homosexuality and pedophila, how many people in Germany, in these tightly knit conservative circles and who are arguably religiously devout Lutherans, would have been appalled at such activity And who might condone killing these "disgusting" sexual deviants? With that, I do not find it in excess that fabricated stories of sexual deviation would be surprising at this time.

Benjamin Sax & Dieter Kuntz, "Inside Hitler's Germany: A Documentary History of Life in the Third Reich," 154-156, from Hans Rothfels and Theodor Eschenburg, eds., 'Dokumentation: Zur Ermordung des Generals Schleicher,' Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte, 1 (January 1953), p 85-86, 92-95. Translated by Dieter Kuntz. Repreinted by permission of R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich.