The Night of Long Knives - Hitler's Rise to Power | Part 1 | Free Documentary History

foreign the summer of 1934 for a year and a half now Germans have been living under the thumb of Adolf Hitler a few months where all it took for him to obliterate democracy freedom of the press and all civil liberties have been abolished [Music] thrown in jail the Nazi party has become the only party yet despite all the repression and violence Hitler's power is still fragile he's torn between the two forces that brought him to power on the one hand the conservative tendency on the other the revolutionaries of the party he's under pressure and he's going to have to choose a side he will do so in a decisive act of extreme brutality sacrificing the blood of some of his oldest companions among them his longtime friend Aaron Sterling the other great figure of Nazism and the leader of the Revolutionary tendency it's a wave of assassinations that will Mark a turning point for Germany and turn it definitively into a Nazi dictatorship thus in the month of June 1934 an extraordinary criminal operation by the state is underway one that will last for three days and forever be remembered as the night of the Long Knives [Music] [Music] Berlin eight in the morning 28th of June 1934. [Music] at Temple hoof airport they're waiting for Adolf Hitler who's taking a flight to Essen it's here in this Temple of the now decommissioned Nazi power that the story of the night of the Long Knives begins Hitler is chancellor on this Thursday morning he's beginning a trip of several days to Westphalia in the west of the country [Music] as he takes off from Temple hoof Hitler leaves behind him a Berlin plague by infighting between conservatives the main Nazi leaders and the most radical fringes of his own party it's 11 A.M when Hitler's plane lands at Essen in the heart of the ruaire industrial basin from the airport Hitler heads to the wedding of one of his relatives Joseph terbevin governor of the Rhineland and the Region's Nazi leader it's the first step of his journey Hitler wanted to be here to show his loyalty to one of the earliest of his companions who 10 years ago in 1923 took part alongside him in the Munich coup attempt at 3 pm Hitler leaves the wedding and drives to the home of Gustav Krupp the president of Germany's largest military industrial conglomerate [Music] Croup is one of his strongest supporters in the country's traditional conservative Elite it was he who created the Adolf Hitler fund of German trade and Industry after the usual courtesies Hitler is shown around the factories and workshops Hitler has come to secure croup support but also to reassure him and through him all the country's major industrialists for they're all worried about the disorder still being caused by Nazi groups loyal to the Revolutionary anti-capitalist Spirit of the party's beginnings today Hitler's reaching out to the big bosses only a few months ago it was the workers he was appealing to standing amongst them as if he were one of their own in the factories of croup or Daimler Benz or Siemens [Music] so Eden on Thomas [Music] outside to flies because foreign thank you foreign the next morning Friday the 29th of June Hitler began the second part of his journey a major inspection tour of the volunteer camps of the rad the labor department at the olfen camp the young volunteers provide him with one of the demonstrations of physical strength and perfect discipline that he loves so much he is still to visit camps 210 and 211 where they're repairing the nearest canal [Applause] [Music] but suddenly he decides to cancel everything he orders his delegation to change course 10 big mercedes-benzas including the convertible in which Hitler rides head north along the banks of the Rhine on board his head to comb his bodyguard and several of his most trusted leaders [Music] decided they should all get together in a place he knows well the driesen hotel on the banks of the river [Music] Hitler Hitler came here for the first time in 1926. he wrote in the hotel register Hitler Adolf resident of Munich writer stateless nobody here knew him he came on the recommendation of his Entourage of Rudolf Hess actually Hotel was one of Hitler's favorite places to stay a new link with the rhyme the German rhyme was what fascinated him here and that's no doubt why he came so often the reasons why Hitler came to the hotel at that particular time on that day I don't know but it's not so surprising he'd been coming to the hotel for eight years Hitler arrives at the driesen hotel in the early afternoon the owner and staff were only notified a few minutes before the Nazi delegation arrives in large numbers they are shown to the Grand reception rooms the hotel's only telephone booth is made available to Hitler and his bodyguards so they can remain in constant contact with Berlin an improvised crisis committee is being set up for Hitler is about to engage in a decisive battle against his own friend ernstroom ernstroom is himself on holiday about 300 miles away in Bavaria on the shores of Lake tigernsey Aaron's room is the head of the sa the assault section the Nazi party's paramilitary group that helped seize power above all he was one of Hitler's first brothers in arms and he's one of his few close friends but today he opposes Hitler head-on he's not content just to be in power he wants to continue the great National Socialist Revolution between the hanselbauer boarding house where Rome is staying and the driesen hotel where Hitler is there runs An Invisible Thread that of a common history of more than 15 years that binds the two men a history of friendship and shared struggles and it's about to break [Music] the only one who talks to him on intimate terms there's a relationship of mutual esteem even Mutual Fascination between the two men Rome recognizes Hitler's political genius which he believes will save Germany Hitler recognizes in Rome a military genius who knows how to lead the troops and this fascinates Hitler For Whom the four years he spent fighting in the Great War were the high point of his life an experience of communal courage that gave a meaning to life that he sees incarnated in Rome the great man of war the friendship between room and Hitler first blossoms in Munich in 1920 in the turbulent days of the post-war period room is still in the military a captain in the German Army the reichsphere but he Harbors a deep resentment towards its leaders whom he holds responsible for the defeat room frequents the far right that's where he meets Hitler they both joined the German Workers Party which soon becomes the nsdap the Nazi party together the two men create the sa the assault section the militia of the party Hitler's political activities first begin in the nsdap and he's convinced that victory for the Nazis will come about by winning over public opinion using the method of the time large-scale public meetings so he simply starts out by speaking in front of 100 people then 200 people then 300. except that at the time the country has just come out of a war it's a country where in 1921 there are still two million guns in circulation and when someone as radical as anti-semitic and as fanatical as Adolf Hitler gets up on a platform to talk it's pretty risky he could easily get shot because there are communists breaking into the meetings of the extreme right and the extreme right are responding and kind there's real political violence [Applause] so what exactly is the essay well it's a security service [Music] there are a lot of people joining the Nazi party the essay and the SS who are veterans that never really reintegrated into society after the first world war and to naturally see in nationalist movements with a marshal even a paramilitary component a way to existence what we forget is that an institution like the essay and even later the Nazi regime is a nourishing protective institution almost in a material way it's a pro-life institution doing what we would call good works or public assistance the Nazis call it essay Heim the essay homes these sa homes bring in unemployed young people there's free soup every evening there's a bit of ideological training they talk about how it would be nice to bring some order and fight against the Communists they promise adventure and dignity etc etc obviously it's a very attractive proposition and Rome knows it he plays the card of the charismatic military leader who promises his flock protection action a meaning to life to put it simply the essay is a revolutionary Army Revolution foreign those two words are important they evoke an army with the uniforms that say we are the men From The Trenches and we are revolutionaries in other words they aim to destroy the viimar Republic although Hitler appears to see the essay as a mere tool it seems to be a tool he wants to hold on to and that it actually has very little autonomy from the party it's obvious however that Rome has the figurehead of the essay or at least one of its most important leaders in those years wishes it to enjoy total autonomy [Music] Hitler is not convinced by rooms revolutionary aims but in the fall of 1923 room persuades him to attempt a coup d'etat to overthrow the Republic he assures him he'll have the support of the army on the night of the 8th and 9th of November Hitler harangues the crowd in Munich inciting them to seize power in the regional capital and then march on Berlin got it wrong the Army isn't behind Hitler and the coup is a total failure the protesters are dispersed the essay are arrested and disarmed [Music] Hitler wounded is sentenced to five years at Landsberg prison with only nine months left to serve he writes the first version of Mein Kampf the book in which he lays out the basis of his Doctrine drawing lessons from the failed push he establishes a new strategy for winning power not by force but through elections in this new strategy room no longer has a place in the military he leaves the German political scene and goes into Exile in Bolivia where he becomes an instructor in the National Army [Music] Hitler is in fact the one who learns the lessons of the failed Pooch of 1923 and who says to himself and tells his people that they'll never be able to take power by Force of Arms you have to use tactics because their means are subversive and their final end is to achieve legal elections the idea that one can turn the weapons of democracy against it and kill the viimar regime with what is its very essence that is free and Democratic elections not only am I going to win the elections but I'm going to win them by looking you straight in the eye and saying that I'm going to kill you foreign [Music] the Nazi party would have had a much harder time entering the public scene as a political group presenting itself as a radical alternative to the systems [Music] in Germany it's not only the Communists and social Democrats and of course the Nazis who organized parades with uniforms throughout Europe there are radical movements of both the right and the left like the supporters of Mussolini of course who already set aside democracy in proclaiming violence as a legitimate tool of political confrontations from the start violence is an important way of creating a community within the SA foreign together and if you overcome this danger together you feel more closely connected it's a very important mechanism biggest instrument [Music] Hitler is playing it both ways on the one hand formal respect for democracy on the other violence on the street this makes the essay a very important part of his game foreign 1928 the Nazis have hardly any political weight 2.6 of the vote and only 12 deputies no one imagines that this small far-right party could occupy anything other than a marginal place but one major event is about to shake up political life the 1929 crisis sweeps through Germany the country only just recovering from the first world war is hard hit there's a sharp fall in production factories close unemployment explodes and in some areas famine takes hold in such a setting the extremists make their voices heard more easily on the left the Communist party but above all at the other end of the political Spectrum the Nazis Hitler's personality plays a crucial role through his oratorical skills as well as his total lack of Scruples when it comes to making his most demagogical speeches foreign 1930 general elections the Nazi party surprises everyone with a spectacular 18 breakthrough making it Germany's second largest political force for Hitler it's the first meaningful result and it validates his electoral strategy this first victory has sharpened appetites within the party and the sa is shaken by a serious internal crisis a radical faction is trying to impose its views and grab Power by force Otto Wagner the head of the sa can't control the situation Hitler has to put the organization back on track especially since it includes the SS its Elite Card recognizable by the black uniforms that distinguish them from the rest of the sa in their brown shirts he needs a strong and loyal man at the head of the sa so he brings back his old companion Aaron's room from his Exile in Bolivia [Music] one wonders of course why Hitler appointed room head of the sa again when he should have known that the old conflict between the two of them would start up again the old military versus politics conflict but Hitler probably believed that he had already with the Nazi party's great success in the elections overtaken room and that the latter could no longer be a serious competitor with the early balance of power between them had swung in his favor and that it was now he who held the Reigns [Music] at the same time it's obvious that room not least because of the injury to his face would never be the great orator he will never be the face of national socialism he is well aware of that is therefore a tactical Alliance in which room's limited capabilities in those particular areas give prominence to Hitler [Music] Rome rapidly regains control of the sa and throughout 1931 and 1932 the team of Hitler in room remains a force to reckon with each of them has his place and each his role one rules the streets through violence and Terror while the other keeps campaigning and appealing to the voters 1932 is the year in which it all really begins there are two general elections because of a dissolution of the rashtag and there's a presidential election the Nazis give it all they've got with massive and extremely modern electoral propaganda for the first time Hitler's flying around in Planes sometimes making speeches at two or even three different places on the same day thank you thank you hour-long speeches in front of 20 or even 30 000 people he's a good speaker sometimes the numbers are staggering as many as 200 000 people and it's all made possible by an invention of the time the sound systems that allow one person to be heard by so many they may be the most reactionary speeches but technically they represent the very Apex of modernity [Music] foreign foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] Freedom means that Germany is going to be a great power again and bread means a return to economic Prosperity the theme of bread is very important because it's so Concrete in Germany you could starve to death in those days so the Nazis are saying things that Germans want to hear and that they believe which explains in large part their meteoric progress and elections of two and a half percent in 1928 to almost 40 in the summer of 1932. [Music] in 1932 the elderly Marshall Hindenburg is president of the Republic he's been firmly installed in his post for seven years and embodies the values of the conservative right and as head of state he represents the entire institution of the military in April 1932 Hindenburg is up against Hitler in the presidential elections Hindenburg wins but Hitler's score is a highly significant one then two general elections follow in close order in July the Nazi party come out on top with almost 40 percent of the vote president Hindenburg however refuses to appoint Hitler as head of government so a new general election is called in November and once more the Nazis win and again Hindenburg refuses Hindenburg says no he says I don't talk to a Corporal just imagine Hindenburg Paul Von Hindenburg the greatest general of the German Army of the first world war the victor of tannenberg the man who saved Germany in August 1914 when it was invaded by the Russians stooping to talk to a Corporal when he's 84 years old and Hitler's only 44. hierarchy simply forbids it except that little by little and this is another key to understanding the Nazi Victory Hindenburg is unfortunately going to be the victim of a conspiracy by a powerful Clique of various chancellors Von papen Bruning Schleicher who will demand that he put Hitler in power and that's what he does on January the 30th 1933 hindenburg's appointment of Hitler in January 1933 was in a way a temporary solution it consisted of using Hitler as just a figurehead of the government while placing around him so many forces of conservatism that this mass movement which Hindenburg could neither understand nor accept could not do any damage [Music] so on January the 30th 1933 Hitler officially presents his government he's only able to appoint two Nazi ministers and president Hindenburg imposes as Vice Chancellor Von Poppin a former prime minister and representative of the conservative right his mission is to keep Hitler under control [Music] that very night tens of thousands of sa members hold Torchlight processions as if their Victory were total each standing at his window Hindenburg and Hitler watched them pass by their different reactions are striking while Hindenburg immobile just endures the spectacle Hitler gives a joyful salute he knows how much he owes to the SA [Music] [Applause] during the first half of 1933 the government was rapidly reorganized and the essay again played a very important role simply because it fought the opposition with such violence that by the summer of 1933 it had virtually eliminated it when the Nazis come to power at the end of January 1933 it only takes a few months for them to destroy democracy the Communists are the first to go indeed less than a month after the Nazis form a government the burning of the reichstalk on the night of the 27th to the 28th of February 1933 is all the excuse they need to decapitate the Communist Party more than four thousand of its leaders and activists are arrested and in turn most of them in Dachau the first concentration camp set up by the SS led by Heinrich Himmler on the 29th of February a presidential decree for the protection of the people and the State signed by Hindenburg suspends freedom of expression the right to Association in public meetings and freedom of the press no more civil liberties in Germany on the 5th of March the Nazi party wins 40 percent of the vote in the Parliamentary elections despite all the violence and intimidation by the sa despite the ban on opposition meetings in the repression of the Communists Hitler still fails to gain an absolute majority so on the 23rd of March he passes the enabling act that allows him to legislate without consulting Parliament and on the 14th of July the Nazi party is officially declared the only political party within six months all political opposition has been wiped out [Music] [Music] now there is only one institution left to stand up to Hitler the Army and its representative at The Head of the State president Hindenburg but this Army that now marches past the entire government is still limited by the Treaty of Versailles signed at the end of the first world war it cannot in theory exceed 100 000 men the sa though will soon be Millions strong and room has only one ambition to see his Nazi army absorb the old German Army when it's the turn of the sa to March past Hitler clearly flips them the Nazi salute the other members of the government including Vice Chancellor Von Poppin remain stoney-faced foreign notification is not limited to the political sphere it spreads through the whole of society at lightning speed the people both old and young have soon taken on all the ceremonials of the Nazis [Music] the raised arm salute the parades and the cult of Hitler [Applause] in Bavaria the land of her birth where she lives to this day Anna Heist remembers I was 11 years old it was the Autumn of 1933. and there was a huge parade for the teganzee Lake Valley it was a big event for everyone there I was on the Terrace of a hotel and I watched the parade go by [Music] e there were hundreds of essay everyone thought that room was a personal friend of Hitler's theology many everyone thought he'd helped Hitler come to power on we heard talk about how room had become far too dangerous [Music] DSR in 1933 after its so-called seizing of power the essay numbered about 500 000 members and in 1934 room expanded the organization to more than 4 million members he developed something like a state within the state thus an independent power [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and he wanted to arm the essay but he also wanted to house them offer them positions help them recover economically and reintegrate them into the Working World foreign who wanted to push further the process of taking power the so-called Second Revolution whereas Hitler had interrupted it in July 1933 by declaring the National Socialist Revolution completed [Music] [Applause] Hitler says to himself the revolution is over at any rate the conquest of power is complete there's no longer a structured opposition Nazism has very quickly and with unprecedented violence Swept Away the forces of the left the trade Union forces the workers movement there is no longer any political opposition at all so by the second half of 1933 the sa in Hitler's view is no longer useful of course the essay only becomes important when it has adversaries now since it has eliminated them the question arises why do we still need the essay and whether they know it or not the essay fears this loss of relevance Hitler and zein furyshaft significantly it's not lost on Hitler and his Circle that the assay are trying to expand their powers in different areas in the military in the police as a social revolutionary group against the bourgeoisie against traditional forces in the administration and against the party foreign back once more at the driesen hotel on Friday the 29th of June 1934 Hitler knows he must solve the problem of an essay that's becoming ever more demanding essay members helped him to power and after the election helped him to impose all his emergency laws now Aaron's room and his men are claiming they're due their reward for services rendered inside what settles the matter is Rome's demands for compensation for his men and for his movement demands which Hitler can only partially meet so within the sa things begin to deteriorate and now Von Poppin is trying to take advantage of the situation between Hitler and rooms to strengthen the position of the conservatives once again Vice Chancellor Von Poppin and his conservative friends are also putting pressure on Hitler they can no longer tolerate that room with all his schemes of revolutionary violence is still clinging onto the sa Hitler is trying to buy time but by the 17th of June Von Poppin the same man who had him appointed Chancellor 18 months earlier has had enough incited by President Hindenburg he launches a blistering attack on Hitler in a speech at the University of Marburg he openly denounces all the excesses of the Nazis foreign it's a signal that you can't keep on plotting and delaying things any longer the conservative reactionaries are challenging Hitler and saying it's time for a decision is Will Hitler reassure the conservatives and the Reich and especially in the Verma or will he choose to take his political activism even further and support the essay there Still Remains the simple question of what to do with the essay should it become a regular army a military force of the Nazi regime the answer to is a simple one no [Music] Hitler is caught between the two forces that brought him to power on the one hand there's the demands of the sa on the other the public criticism from the conservatives both are a danger to him three days after Von poppin's speech he visits president Hindenburg to try and reassure him but he finds an inflexible Hindenburg who declares that if the problem of the essay is not solved once and for all he's ready to decree martial law and hand the government over to the Army Hitler would be out Hindenburg is threatening him with a military coup d'etat [Music] is um so the fear of the rice fear and other institutions of power grabbed by the essay or even just an increase in its power was quite real it was not a fantasy in June 1934 room is quietly enjoying his holiday at Lake tigernity south of Munich in the Bavarian Alps taking walks and canoeing despite all the tensions and threats he can feel mounting about the sa he's convinced he can trust Hitler and count on his friendship that unwavering loyalty between Brothers in Arms think can call into question the last time they met on the 4th of June they agreed to calm the situation by putting the essay on leave and waiting until the start of the new year to decide its future and room obtained permission from the fuhrer to hold before that one last major meeting in Munich it's due to take place in just a few days and Hitler has promised to be there how is room to know that behind his back the inner circle of Nazis who have Hitler's ear are plotting against him to get the fuhrer to eliminate him at the driesen hotel Hitler dines alone but he is constantly besieged by dozens of messages calls and dispatches from Berlin sent by Goring Himmler and heydrich the ever more powerful number two of the regime Goring the head of the SS Himmler and his Deputy heydrich are the highest Place conspirators in Nazi dignitaries all ready to deliver the coup de grass against one of their own by entirely inventing an imminent coup by room to overthrow Hitler to fabricate the evidence for it Himmler and heydrich have a particularly effective tool the SS and its intelligence service the SD yes the SS considered itself a totally disciplined organization absolutely loyal to the party leader while the sa only thought of itself and went its own way so conflicts had often Arisen in which the SS was used as a kind of internal party police against the essay foreign [Music] ER knows full well that for the past two months Himmler and heydrich have been mobilizing all the SS services to prepare in the shadows a major operation against the SA heydrich has the upper hand over the SD the intelligence service that has files on all the dignitaries of the sa as well as on a large part of the German population he has all he needs to draw up lists of people to be eliminated as a priority lists that he will submit to Himmler and then deguring [Music] Goring Himmler and heydrich all use the growing conflict between Hitler in room they prepare and provide all necessary evidence to Hitler with his encouragement thus grows a wave of radicalization in which room will be increasingly isolated and radicalizations the Nazi way of government is feudal there's an Overlord called Hitler who ultimately rules on both the disputes between Clans and the struggles of the lower echelons he decides according to what best suits him or those solutions that seem to him the most radical the commanders and rank just below the overlord The himlers gorings Gerbils ribbon troughs and ROMs Etc all absolutely hate each other and Rome is no exception he hates the others as they hate him moreover with all his activism and all his plans he worries the other Sidekicks of the fuhrer and they're intelligent enough to sit on all their own constant quarreling for a while in order to unite against him Goring for example as head of the Prussian Administration finds himself up against Rome who's trying to extend his own influence Himmler as a head of the political police is absolutely loyal to Hitler so he too is up against rooms finally there's the rights there which believes itself in danger because of Rome's political and Military Ambitions there are thus forms between these various factions LED of course by Hitler a constellation that shares a common interest in the elimination of the leaders of the essay foreign ER heidrich and Goring can count on another of ernstroom's adversaries the army it offers to provide the necessary arms for the operations as well as its support out in the field everything's organized everyone's in place but it's all put on hold on Hitler's decision alone Himmler heidrich and Goring urge him to act speedily and to turn on his old friend Aaron's room [Music] at 11 A.M Goring sends Hitler a final report detailing the alleged push that room is preparing it plunges Hitler into a state of exhilaration and frenzied rage at one o'clock in the morning it's himmler's turn to call Hitler from Berlin he tells him that the sa has mobilized for today Saturday Hitler starts screaming and cursing and hurriedly leaves the hotel for the Airfield at Bonn once Hitler walks through that door the criminal Relentless Knight of the Long Knives has begun for he had other plans the fight against the Jews and the war were Hitler's most important goals to achieve his goals Hitler will go to Munich to confront Rome and the leaders of the essay in person he will eliminate them by the Dozen in an unprecedented wave of political assassinations his old friend ernstroom will be one of the first to be thrown in prison in the last to be executed then Hitler will be truly triumphant [Applause] Zeke heil now he will be the sole true master of Germany the Knights of the Long Knives will be the opening act to all the horrors of Nazism [Music] thank you [Music] [Music]

Channel: Free Documentary - History

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Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full Documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), History, History Documentaries, Free Documentary History, History Documentary, Night of Long Knives, Night of Long Knives Documentary, Ernst Röhm, Röhm Putsch, SA Documentary, Sturmabteilung, Third Reich Documentary, Nazi Germany Documentary, Hitlers Rise to Power, Adolf Hitler Documentary, History of Germany, History of the Third Reich, Gregor Strasser, SA Purge

Id: 7CeX6jBau08

Length: 47min 7sec (2827 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 16 2022