The Night of Long Knives - Hitler's Rise to Power | Part 2 | Free Documentary History

summer 1934 for a year and a half now the Germans have been living under the heel of Adolf Hitler all it took was a few months for him to destroy democracy freedom of the press and all civil liberties have been abolished opponents have been thrown in jail the Nazi party has become the only party but despite all the repression and violence Hitler's power remains fragile he's torn between the two forces that brought him to power on the one hand the conservatives on the other the party revolutionaries among them the members of the sa the assault section the paramilitary group of the Nazi party who now number four million at their head the other great figure of Nazism and strohm their charismatic leader who was one of Hitler's first brothers in arms and one of his very few friends under rooms leadership the sa contributed to the seizure of power and now they intend to continue the great National Socialist Revolution faithful to the anti-capitalist spirit of its Beginnings the conservatives the major industrialists the traditional Army like some leaders of the party now in power can no longer tolerate this essay that room is keeping in a mindset of revolutionary violence but Hitler's still not ready to sacrifice his old friend room on the evening of Friday the 29th of June 1934 given the urgency of the situation Hitler interrupts His official trip to the west of the country with his entire delegation he moves into the driesen hotel near Bonn it is Goring the regime's number two Himmler the leader of the SS and heydrich his Deputy all members of the Nazi Inner Circle who will deliver the coupe DeGrasse against one of their own by cooking up an alleged attempt by room to overthrow Hitler [Music] he's the most formidable of the Nazi units the SS and its intelligence service the SD Hitler can tread water no longer he decides to take action he leaves the driesen hotel to confront room personally and so Begins the extraordinary criminal operation by the state itself that has gone down in history under the name of the night of the Long Knives [Music] [Music] at two in the morning a plane takes off from Bonn with Hitler on board the fuhrer is surrounded by his close guard the Bruckner Shrek shalp all those who have been following him for more than 10 years and would be willing to die for him some have accompanied him since he left Berlin others joined him at the driesen hotel they won't leave him again until the end of the operation for Hitler the time for questions and reflection is over he's now all action and all focused on his goal the arrest of room and his companions and gaining control of the SA after more than two hours of flight the plane lands in Munich the capital of Bavaria local party leaders and others who've been summoned in the night are there to welcome him there's no time to waste and their cars all speed towards Munich in the wake of an increasingly nervous Hitler on the road to Munich Hitler rages against the sa whom they now call pigs as the SS have been doing for several months then he falls silent he has to act quickly now and take Everyone by surprise Hitler heads directly to the Bavarian Ministry of the interior in the offices of the ministry some people have been notified from the driesen hotel of the fuhrer's arrival and sworn to secrecy about the coming operation others still have no idea [Music] Hitler immediately summons Munich's two most senior sa officers General schneidhuber who is also the chief of police and general Wilhelm Schmidt a member of the reichstag a party member since the very beginning and who participated in the 1923 push alongside Hitler that doesn't matter now though as soon as Hitler sees them he rushes at them rips off their military insignia and decorations and shouts at them traitors you're under arrest you will be shot they're both taken to stottleheim prison where they will be executed in English thank you in his rage Hitler can't remain in one place he leaves the ministry too impatient to wait for the SS companies to arrive from Berlin with no more than 15 of the faithful he leaves Munich and heads South to bhavisi on the shores of lake tigernsey and Rome his modest Convoy three or four cars at most speeds through the dark forests of the Bavarian Alps in Gloomy silence foreign ER has decided to go to the hanselbauer hotel to confront room in person one of his plans was probably that he had to go there himself because if there were any problems he'd be able to resolve them with his authority as chancellors [Music] Hitler can't anticipate exactly how events will unfold he's targeting people of significant stature who have considerable political weight within his own movement things could go wrong they might refuse to carry out his orders [Music] are the best way to avoid that danger is to go there personally and take care of things himself because he wants to beat Rome on his own turf what is a fewer a fewer is a military leader the word itself means the man who drives Fury who leads man into battle um Rome is the archetype of the fuhrer a dog of war a trench Pig a man who lived to lead his man to battle to death to Victory that's what Hitler wants to do by showing himself at the head of his men in the early morning in bad wisie he wants to show his antagonists that on his own turf he's the strongest and that Hitler does not back down he leads his men into battle just like Rome as he approaches the hanselbauer hotel Hitler knows full well that he'll find a lot of essay staff there he wants to be there to surprise everyone when they wake up and to net them all in one swoop Hitler and his men burst into the hotel they break down the doors of the first rooms and brutally sees all the stunned dazed and sleepy essay they find there among them is essay number two Edmund Hines A Member of Parliament he is arrested in the bed he's sharing with two other men count hence Irwin Von spriti weilbach room's lover and Ed de comb and Julius Ewell the chief of staff with a reputation as a killer are both arrested along with about 15 other essay officers then Hitler heads for room's room he knocks on the door and keeps frantically knocking until finally a half-naked half asleep room opens it the fewer stocks into the room pistol in hand and proceeds to a restroom himself it's 6 15 am when Hitler leaves bad Vici with his Prisoners the operation has lasted no more than 10 minutes Hitler the gangster the Nazi Mafia the very elect Chicago for that operation the idea of a Hitler in a raincoat in Trilby revolver in hand leading his men himself to go and kill these guys not Rome but a lot of his companions it's an absolutely astounding image it's the heart of the 20th century in the heart of Europe and there's this head of government running an assassination operation a mafia gangster operations it's surprising Hitler as this pack leader for any other head of government at the time it'd be surprising for Hitler given the nature of his power and what he's always done it's a direct continuation of his own practices these men only go on the attack for two reasons first because the colonel himself is prepared to put himself on the line and secondly because they already have the experience that this Colonel will bring them home alive and that's the reason and the metaphor attack and war that work for me they explain how Hitler sees himself at those times that he actually sees himself as the fuhrer and the man of the moment Etc but he also sees himself as a warlord so that internal war with Nazi militancy that assault was something he had to lead it himself no sooner has he returned to Munich then Hitler hands room over to the SS at stoddleheim prison the SS unceremoniously dragged him through the corridors past the cells where his companions are locked up the corner cell is reserved for him thank you once room is in jail nothing can stop the Relentless machine of repression [Music] it's nine o'clock in the morning Hitler's back at the Bavarian police Ministry [Music] at that moment there are thousands of sa arriving from all over Germany for the great convention that Hitler and room had decided to hold they're all going to be there in town and no one can predict how they'll react when they hear of the arrest of their leader [Music] to avoid any trouble with the sa Hitler orders the SS to two strategic sites the railway station where some of the sa are arrested on their arrival and the brown house the headquarters of the Nazi party wear any essay who had begun to gather found themselves trapped [Music] on the night of the Long Knives Hitler will tell 500 000 or more people to just shut up the essay that is the body of the essay the essay before the seizure of power that's really something they could have taken up arms that could have taken control the center's power Etc but the SS will disarm that the SS take possession of the telegram Bureau the post offices all the Strategic places of power to prevent a possible Revolt by the SA in Munich the situations under control at 10 A.M Hitler sends Goring and Himmler the code word Colibri it's the signal to launch operations in the rest of the country SS killer squadrons receive their mission dispatches all sealed with a swastika they contain the names of the people to be arrested and executed by order of the fuhrer [Music] they also ordered that the reichsphere and the Gestapo intervene only as support and limit themselves to security the reichsphere and the Gestapo are both state institutions while the yesd SS and the lifestan daughter belong to the party and the heads of the SD's Executive offices then send lists to Berlin where heydrich Himmler and also Mueller are stationed all three are notified via Telex how to proceed across by a name means either that person is to be executed or imprisoned or is to be left alone he let go the horses he let go of the horses in a very controlled way on a number of people for example he says Devon watch help yourself and so the SS massacres several dozen essay activists and it's an Information Society so everything that happens in Silesia is going to happen elsewhere he organizes a Crackdown that is quite indiscriminate and that will cost the life of at least 70 or 80 essay dignitaries they will be replaced in a total change of structure and purpose for the essay from a revolutionary militia it will become a kind of framework and accompaniment structure of society at the same time by targeted but very significant assassinations it makes it clear to other forces that if they try anything at all this may happen to them it was probably Goring and of course Hitler who decided Hitler certainly didn't let him learn heydrich decide on their own who was to be murdered he wanted to be the one to choose in Munich he had already ordered the assassination of several senior sa leaders and the next day in Berlin he tacked on a list of 60 other names of people to be executed room was not on either list Hitler obviously still had some Scruples about killing one of his oldest companions not for sentimental reasons but simply because he was worried about the impact on public opinion of the head of the German government having his own Minister assassinated foreign it is doubtful that alone in his cell room ever accepts the idea that Hitler has betrayed him hardly six months ago Hitler wrote to him in a letter he released to the Press I must thank you aaronstrom for the inesteemable services you have rendered to nationalism and the German people know that I am grateful to Destiny which has allowed me to call such a man as you my friend and brother in arms with all my friendship all my gratitude and all my respect your Adolf Hitler 31st of December 1933. foreign [Music] at 5 PM room can hear the first executions taking place under his window in the prison yard one by one they are shooting his companions each execution is preceded by the sentence the fuhrer commands it Aim Fire pronounced by Zep Dietrich himself the commander of the most prestigious SS unit the liebenstandard the embryo of the future vaffin SS foreign ERS are executed by firing squad and secondly it is a military Affair between soldiers within a military framework and the mode of execution in military law and in the code of procedure of the German Army is by firing squad and so the way they're killed here is also a message to the people in the know this is between people who know each other well people who share the same ethos so it's a firing squad other people are just killed without Ceremony this is political assassination and in this particular case they don't bother to take them to prison they just put a bullet in their head like they would with any old communist foreign [Music] Germany in Prussia Bavaria Silesia Pomerania there are arrests and executions in Berlin the capital fuselades of shots ring out all through Saturday and Sunday from the lichterfelda barracks foreign diplomatic delegations housed nearby hear them and make requests to the chancellery for information they go unanswered Nobody Knows the number of victims especially since on Monday the 2nd of July the day after the operation all the files related to this Outburst of political assassinations are destroyed Purge is not confined to the sa Hitler Goring and Himmler use it as an opportunity to assassinate others they consider a threat to their power in their orders the SS execute in his office the vice Chancellor Herbert vonboza who wrote Von poppin's famous Marburg speech several others close to Von Poppin are also shot dead soldiers such as Brigadier General Ferdinand Von bradau and conservatives like former Chancellor Kurt Von Schleicher and the leader of Catholic action Eric klausner the figurehead of opposition to Nazism just five days ago he gathered together sixty thousand people in Berlin to demonstrate against Hitler today he lies there in a pool of blood shot in the back an assassination that will be disguised as a suicide is in a way the lifeblood of national socialism everything that can't be solved in a simple way ends in violence this is in fact the basic principle of all totalitarian regimes but especially of national socialism the Dachau Camp a few kilometers from Munich is the first Nazi concentration camp it is created by Himmler in March 1933 and placed under the direct control of the SS many sa members are brought there to be executed before the eyes of the political prisoners who were already there and who quickly understand that scores are really being settled between Nazis SS against SA Joseph Eckstein imprisoned in dhakau in May 1933 has seen it all from there in his barracks he left a written testimony kept in the camp archives [Music] from the lower and the middle bunks you could clearly see what was going on on Saturday around 5 PM the first two victims arrived at the camp kinds of objects suddenly shots rang out and the two men collapsed the SS were in a bloodthirsty rage they were screaming applauding they had gone crazy they went to get ropes to tie around the feet of the victims and drag them behind them for a quarter of an hour spitting on their inert bodies all night long the shootings continued every time a man fell the SS screamed with joy on Monday 33 bodies were put in a mass grave all entirely naked then they were covered with quick lime then Earth but the people who go into the concentration camps after June 30th 1934 and to go to Dhaka are destined to come out people are intentionally taken to Dhaka and beaten up then they're let out and told not to speak a word of it because they know very well that they will tell all about it and that's how you spread the terror you see by doing this the Third Reich shows it's capable of enforcing order by resuming the violence and confining it to the concentration camps while at the same time reasserting it by letting it out of those places and into the social networks so that it can penetrate every level of German Society [Music] foreign Sunday morning first of July Hitler has flown back from Munich the previous evening Goring and Himmler join him at the chancellery and urge him to sign room's execution order for more than 24 hours now the SS has been imprisoning or murdering everybody on their lists there is only one case left to settle that of room the first to be arrested the previous morning Hitler hesitates to have him killed but Goring and Himmler want his head and they'll get what they want at 1 pm Hitler gives in but on one condition that room be given the choice of suicide to save his honor as a soldier Himmler phones theodorica a Nazi Soldier he has appointed as director of doggau it is to this close Confidant that he gives the mission to execute room [Music] in cell 474 room sits shirtless on an iron bed I got handsome a gun and gives him 10 minutes to commit suicide room refuses so Aika orders the two SS there with him to shoot him then finishes him himself with a shot to the chest [Music] is I don't think room with his moral values and his belief in his relationship with Hitler expected something like that he probably died thinking that other elements were behind his assassination not Hitler himself um there is something original and Primal in the night of the Long Knives it represents an Abrupt transition both in the exercise of power and the Dynamics of the rise to power of national socialism and also in Hitler's Behavior a few hours after room's assassination on the Sunday evening Hitler orders an end to the massacres the death of his old companion marks the end of the night of the Long Knives as well as Hitler's total victory yeah there was no longer any real public opinion in Germany the newspapers in the media were in the hands of the regime um that one gets the impression that June the 30th was welcomed by the public it is very difficult to determine in hindsight whether this is true it is certainly true that reactions swung between relief that the scourge called the sa was eliminated but also a certain fear when people heard about all the victims of June the 30th according to what the regime tells us enthusiasm and joy prevailed over dread disillusionment and sadness to cut short any rumors that might be circulating in public Rudolf Hess Hitler's private secretary and number three in the regime intervenes in person the day after the massacres in a speech e is foreign funds are for health needs to Sr is damaged without the fighter [Music] the assassination of Rome is a physical illumination but it is also his reputation and his memory that are assassinated in the days following his death he is slurred and insulted slandered and denounced not only in Hitler's private Circle but also in the Press not only about the fact that he was guilty of high treason but especially about his homosexuality look he says she has a question of destroying his memory his identity his honor and of turning the page on the essay Menace and the most violent and definitive way possible the annihilation of room must be total after his execution his body is carried away in the night and no one will ever know what happened to it [Music] [Applause] [Music] Tuesday the 3rd of July 10 in the morning hardly two days after room's death from the chancellor in Berlin a triumphant Hitler has his government vote on measures of self-defense of the state in so doing he legalizes after the fact the massacres of the night of the Long Knives and legitimizes all the crimes that will follow there has to be a legal sanction for these acts that is the meaning of the decrees that are passed on July 3 1934. poor to legalize the acts of violence acts of murder even committed as part of the operation called night of the Long Knives it says no we are not just simple Hitman we are the force of the state acting in legitimate self-defense with this law Hitler was trying to cover these terrorist murders by the concept of the rule of law this is absurd because men have been executed without trial and the law is now applied retroactively the conservative Justice Minister did not resign though he supported the legislation which is certainly one of the reasons it was passed the wish to legalize does not necessarily mean that every dictator needs to be lawful and legal it simply shows that every dictatorship needs consent and that consent is not necessarily based on laws but is based on the semblance of laws or on the likelihood of laws Friday the 13th of July 3 pm 10 days after the night of the Long Knives Hitler in a speech to Parliament delivers his version of events history Rewritten by the Nazis the next day the party's official newspaper the vukisher baobacter in its front page headline says everyone must know that the fate of he who raises his hand to attack the state will be deaf Nazi propaganda was orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels and the fabricated story of room and his Pooch that would have threatened the German state was soon accepted by all in his speech Hitler also openly lashes out at room's homosexuality it has long been known to him but now he uses it in hindsight as an opportunistic argument as if he were crushing a hotbed of subversion of German purity obviously the idea is to ignore the few deaths that are perhaps the most important the former chancellors the representatives of the conservative Wing Etc and to reduce the night of the Long Knives to a pure internal Purge of the party which ultimately gives a much more neutral signal I cleaned up my house that's what's being said and we can see how dependent we are even today in the general public or in some books on these propaganda arguments the night of the Long Knives is systematically reduced to what the Nazis wanted it to stand for the Nazi propaganda claims that it was a purge to eliminate certain elements of the Nazi movement and thus save the state in fact it actually destroyed the last foundations of the rule of law which had not really existed since 1933. but of course nobody mentioned that is it had a damage as far as Hitler building his power base was concerned there was no need to strike at the sa because the essay represented no danger the sa would not have moved and Rome would have done nothing against Hitler the danger came from elsewhere the Jimmy contentment it came from the discontent of the Army and the discontent of hindenburg's Entourage with the alleged plans of Ernst Rome the dance time Thursday the 2nd of August nine in the morning Marshall Hindenburg 87 years old and president of the Reich dies at his home in noidak with him disappears The Old World of the German aristocracy and the Weimar Republic Hindenburg was the last obstacle that stood between Hitler and the road to absolute power [Music] the death of Hindenburg removed from the German political landscape a figure who by his Aura remained a protective figure that kept Hitler somewhat in its Shadows the young soldier in the trenches of the 1418 who became the great Marshal and figurehead of the German Army had established himself as president in the second half of the 1920s as the final tributes are paid to the late president the government issues a statutory order merging the two posts of President and Chancellor in the person of Adolf Hitler from now on Hitler converges all the powers the Constitutional changes that took place a few weeks later and Hitler's entry into office as president of the Reich these two events the crime and the Amendment of the Constitution represent a turning point in the history of the third Reichert so the crime is part of the foundations of the dictatorship that will prevail in years to come [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign foreign [Applause] foreign [Music] he obtains the consent of the ministry bureaucrats representatives of the business community and particularly important from lawyers the most well-regarded and well-known jurist in Germany at the time Carl Schmidt writes an article the fuhrer protects the law describing in great detail why Hitler acted legitimately in a state of emergency it receives support and consent from all sides and judging by the reports of the band SPD there was also some approval among the population is [Music] one factor that must be kept in mind that political violence and the liquidation of a few hundred people whether in Germany or abroad was not such an unusual event in Europe as it may appear to us today at the time Hitler is certainly a brutal leader but no one knows that there will later be extermination camps he is indeed heavy-handed and his political opponents are in prison but these are still Sovereign countries and then there's the general context of Mussolini in Italy so the more we read about that time the more we realize that when we expect to see International indignation we are imposing values that were not commonplace at the time Hitler finally had no trouble getting people to accept that he'd killed his best friend and fellow traveler from the very beginning foreign it was the price to pay for the allegiance of the entire State apparatus the conservative politicians and more importantly the army did not directly participate in these assassinations but it contributed to them by securing protecting and helping thus becoming in a way co-murderer alongside Hitler and as a result it is at his Mercy that is perhaps the most important aspect for me for the reich's fair is no longer an independent entity in Germany which it was until then [Music] [Applause] on Monday the 6th of August a final step was taken one with serious consequences from that day on until the end of the Reich in 1945 soldiers will take an oath to Hitler himself all will repeat these ritual words I swear by God the sacred oath that I will render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler the fuhrer of the German Rife and people supreme commander of the Armed Forces foreign [Music] the troops are no longer required to take an oath to the Constitution to the state they swear an oath to a person like the militias of the party like the essay like the SS who swear an oath to the person of the fuhrer this is a really grave consequence because they feel connected in a personal way in a sacred way by the oath to the person that is to Hitler's ideas and his orders this will make any Rebellion within the German Army very difficult if not impossible that means that even from the moment the military situation is critical or hopeless countless soldiers will be unable to free themselves from Hitler's influence because they have sworn personal loyalty so one of the most tragic results of the night of the Long Knives is this oath of personal fidelity [Music] [Applause] thank you foreign by deploying its troops in front of the leader of the rife the Army celebrates his victory an image of Newfound power all is now ready for what's to come rearmament preparations for war and dreams of Revenge the first victories though will soon give way to the bitter taste of defeat compromise and guilt four contrary to what the military believes they are not the big winners of the night of the Long Knives they have just made a deal with the devil and his henchmen and they're about to commit the worst of crimes there are two big winners of the night of the Long Knives the first is Hitler he was in a genuinely difficult position with all the various factions that were starting to unite in their criticism the second big winner is of course the SS and in particular even more than them Heinrich Himmler for Himmler now gets his hands on all the repressive Machinery of the Third Reich BSS previously an internal organization of the sa becomes autonomous Himmler takes charge of all political police this is how this Association was born between the SD the Gestapo the political police and the concentration camps under Himmler and the SS thus the night of the Long Knives will have been the true baptism of blood that foreshadows all the atrocities to come it was after these three bloody days that mass concentration camps were set up designed on the model of Dachau and all created and managed by himmler's SS some of them will become Holocaust extermination camps in Germany state barbarism has now definitively been imposed not by the will of the people but by Terror by Insidious machination compromises and power games at the highest level in our day and age when the word populism is on everyone's lips a lesson to be remembered is that no dictatorship has ever been established without the support of the state apparatus and its various bodies and that therefore the Advent of Nazism was not a populist eruption independent of the establishment in which the masses would sweep away democracy in all its institutions but rather the introduction of a regime enabled by the state apparatus enabled by conservative Elites there is one lesson to be learned it's that the night of the Long Knives was a step in the shift towards dictatorship and towards the state of barbarism of lawlessness in a progressive Insidious process that is not necessarily noticed by people at the time [Music] in language [Music] foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: Free Documentary - History

Views: 234,528

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: y1ZiwthXJk0

Length: 46min 14sec (2774 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 16 2022