History Today: When the 'Night of the Long Knives' made Hitler synonymous with Nazi power

First Post

30-06-2025

On June 30, 1934, Hitler unleashed the Night of the Long Knives, a ruthless purge that eliminated internal threats, silenced rivals and secured the Reichswehr's loyalty — cementing his grip on power and setting the course for the authoritarian Third Reich read more
A picture dated 1939 shows German Nazi Chancellor Adolf Hitler giving the Bazi salute during a rally next to "Deputy Furhrer" Rudolf Hess. File Image/AFP
As part of Firstpost's History Today series we take a look at events that occurred on June 30.
Most grimly remembered is the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, when Adolf Hitler carried out a violent political purge to consolidate his dictatorship in Nazi Germany.
This same date also witnessed the birth of groundbreaking science in 1905, when Albert Einstein published his theory of special relativity.
In 2019, US President Donald Trump made history by stepping into North Korea to greet Kim Jong Un.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
And in 1936, the literary classic Gone with the Wind was released.
The Night of the Long Knives
In the early hours of June 30, 1934, Adolf Hitler unleashed a brutal, premeditated purge known as the Night of the Long Knives (Nacht der langen Messer), eradicating real and perceived threats within his own party and cementing his grip on power in Nazi Germany.
This carefully orchestrated massacre, carried out by Hitler's loyal SS and Gestapo forces, extended through July 2 and resulted in widespread fear, a shift in loyalty and the establishment of unchecked authoritarian rule.
Following Hitler's ascension to chancellorship in January 1933 and the passage of the Enabling Act in March — transferring legislative power to him — Germany was under Nazi dominance.
Yet internal tensions simmered.
The Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazi Party's paramilitary 'Brownshirts' led by Ernst Röhm, had grown to some 3 million loyalists.
Having played a key role in Hitler's rise, Röhm now aspired to integrate the SA with the regular military, demanding a second, social-revolutionary purge that alarmed conservative elites.
This clashed with the priorities of Germany's traditional power holders — the Reichswehr (army), industrial magnates and right-wing officials — who saw the SA's socialist rhetoric and street violence as dangerous.
Hitler faced a perilous contradiction: restrain Röhm and the SA to placate the army, or risk fracturing his regime.
The SA issue threatened Hitler's alliance with military and economic leaders, essential for his Nazi agenda moving forward.
Elements within Hitler's circle, especially Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich and Hermann Göring, fuelled rumors that Röhm was planning a coup with the SA.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
They shared intelligence — likely overstated — claiming Röhm's complacency with betrayal, including involvement with Catholic groups or foreign powers.
Göring tasked Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels to gather compromising material, including allegations of SA corruption, homosexual activity and conspiracies with Kurt von Schleicher.
Hitler privately cautioned Röhm in February 1934: 'Only the Reichswehr is entitled to bear weapons.'
A June 4 meeting reaffirmed the rift. Although Höhrer efforts faltered, Hitler was already leaning toward eliminating Röhm to establish control.
On June 30, Hitler, thoroughly advised by Göring and Himmler, deployed SS and Gestapo teams to arrest Röhm and other SA leaders at Bad Wiessee. They seized men by surprise during a holiday retreat.
Röhm and his colleagues were forced to sign undated statements claiming to revolt imminently. Röhm was imprisoned in Munich's Stadelheim Prison.
Over the next two days, SS units across Germany executed upwards of 85 individuals — potentially more, by some estimates — as loyalist forces swept through SA strongholds and political opponents, even killing Gregor Strasser, Kurt von Schleicher, Franz von Papen's staff, Catholic leaders like Adalbert Probst, and dissident journalists.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Röhm declined to commit suicide. On July 1, he faced execution by SS officers Theodor Eicke and Michael Lippert. The circumstances of his death remained murky — but definitive.
A law passed on July 3 retroactively validated the purge by framing it as emergency self-defence.
Hitler, in a Reichstag speech on July 13, claimed authority as 'the supreme judge of the German people.'
This manoeuver dismantled the rule of law. Courts and legislators acquiesced, establishing a precedent that violence by Hitler's regime was inherently legitimate .
The purge's immediate effects included:
Neutralisation of the SA's threat; the organization was sidelined to minor political policing under new leader Viktor Lutze.
Expansion of SS authority under Himmler and Heydrich; the SS emerged as the regime's chief instrument of terror.
Securing the army's loyalty; the Reichswehr leadership saw Hitler as the protector of traditional order.
It entrenched Hitler's status, and solidified a totalitarian apparatus willing — and legally empowered — to eliminate dissent at will.
The Night of the Long Knives was not mere internal politics — it was the defining moment that eliminated collective power threats within Nazi Germany and formalised Hitler's right to extrajudicial violence.
Invoking legality to justify murder, dismantling institutional opposition and empowering single-man rule, the purge shaped the dictatorship, enabling it to wage war and genocide.
It is a stark example of legal authoritarianism and the fragility of democracy under systemic deception.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Einstein publishes his special Theory of Relativity
On June 30, 1905, Albert Einstein's paper 'Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper' (On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies) was published in Annalen der Physik, introducing Special Relativity — a framework reshaping physics.
Einstein discarded the ether concept and proposed:
The laws of physics are invariant in all inertial frames.
The speed of light in a vacuum is constant.
He derived iconic formulas like E=mc², introduced time dilation and length contraction, and unified space and time into spacetime.
Though initially overlooked, his theory changed physics — leading to GPS, nuclear energy and deeper cosmological insights. This paper is central to what Einstein likened as his annus mirabilis, launching him to lasting fame.
Trump walks into North Korea at the DMZ
On June 30, 2019, United States President Donald Trump became the first sitting US president to step into North Korea, walking across the border at Panmunjom, DMZ.
Trump and Kim Jong Un shook hands before beginning informal talks alongside South Korea's Moon Jae-in.
Trump described it as 'a great day,' though it accomplished little regarding denuclearisation.
The historic moment was widely seen as symbolic diplomacy. Critics argued it granted legitimacy to Kim's authoritarian regime, while supporters highlighted its potential to thaw relations.
Gone with the Wind is released
On June 30, 1936, Margaret Mitchell's epic novel Gone with the Wind was published by Macmillan in Atlanta and nationwide.
Set during the Civil War and Reconstruction, the thousand-page saga quickly became a bestseller. Over 20,000 copies sold in advance; by Christmas, over a million were in circulation.
Mitchell received the 1937 Pulitzer Prize, and David O. Selznick's 1939 film adaptation became a monumental box-office and cultural phenomenon.
While celebrated, the novel has faced criticism over its nostalgic portrayal of the antebellum South and minimised depiction of slavery.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Still, its enduring impact on American literature and cinema is undeniable.
With inputs from agencies