Although much of the Long Knives killing took place in Bad Wiessee and Munich, Berlin was also an important stage for this grisly spectacle. Here the targets included leaders of the local SA as well as prominent conservatives. SA Obergrup-penflihrer Karl Ernst, who liked to brag that he “owned Berlin,” was about to embark on a honeymoon cruise when he was arrested by the Gestapo in Bremer-haven and flown back to Berlin. Upon arrival at Tempelhof he demanded to be taken to his “good friend,” Göring. Instead he was driven to the Lichterfelde Cadet School and promptly shot. His execution was followed in quick succession by that of many other Berlin SA figures, none of whom seemed to understand what they had done to deserve such a fate.
Meanwhile, at the vice-chancellery building, SS killers shot Papen’s young assistant, Herbert von Bose, who had allegedly resisted arrest. Also killed was Edgar Jung, a conservative intellectual who had ghostwritten Papen’s Marburg speech. Another associate of Papen’s who died that day was Erich Klausener, who headed the conservative religious group, Catholic Action. Papen himself was spared, for he had many friends in the foreign diplomatic corps, but he was placed under house arrest while his assistants were being murdered. The experience was sufficiently chastening that he went on to serve the Third Reich as ambassador in Vienna and Ankara.
Gregor Strasser, the Nazi “old-fighter” who had given Hitler trouble on the eve of his seizure of power, was picked up by the Gestapo at his apartment and bundled into a police sedan. He thought he was being taken to Hitler for a reconciliation. His actual destination was Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8, where he was shot through a hole in his cell door. The official explanation for his death was suicide.
General Kurt von Schleicher, the former chancellor who had tried to keep Hitler out of power, was spending the morning of June 30 at home in the company of his young wife. At eleven-thirty, five men dressed in long black raincoats walked into his study and shot him to death. When his wife ran into the room, they shot her too. General Kurt von Bredow, a former aide to Schleicher, heard rumors later that day about what had happened to his boss, and he must have guessed that the Nazis were planning something similar for him. Yet instead of fleeing Berlin he showed himself at the Hotel Adlon, a favorite Nazi haunt, and refused a foreign diplomat’s offer of sanctuary. The Gestapo arrived at his home that evening and killed him when he answered their knock.
The wave of brazen murders during the Night of the Long Knives inspired a few gasps of outrage from the foreign press and the diplomatic community. American ambassador William Dodd wrote in his diary on July 4: “Our people [in America] cannot imagine such things happening in their country as have happened here.” Dodd’s French counterpart, Andre Francois-Poncet, who was accused in some German newspapers of having engaged in traitorous dealings with Schleicher and Rohm, confided to Dodd that he would “not be surprised to be shot on the streets of Berlin.” The new British ambassador, Sir Eric Phipps, had a dinner date with Göring shortly after the killings, and when the Nazi showed up late, explaining that he had just gotten back from shooting, Phipps grunted, “Animals, I hope.” None of the ambassadors, however, made any official complaint to the German government regarding the murders.
The vast majority of Germans, meanwhile, accepted Hitler’s claim, made in a radio address on July 13, that the government had put down a wide-ranging “mutiny” staged by “enemies of the state.” Ordinary citizens had become tired of the rabble-rousing antics of the SA and were pleased to see them “disciplined.” The Reichs-wehr command, overjoyed that the SA had been cut down to size, made no protest over the fact that the regime had also used this occasion to kill two generals. The army leaders might not have been so sanguine, however, had they understood that the SA’s diminishment entailed the rise of an even more potent rival: the SS.
In the wake of the killings Hitler worried that President Hindenburg might raise some objections to the bloodletting, but he need not have been concerned—the old man was too senile to appreciate the significance of what had happened. He responded to the news by remarking: “He who wants to make history like Hitler must be prepared to let guilty blood flow and not be soft.” About a month later, as Hin-denburg lay on his deathbed, Hitler went to see him and was addressed by the president as “His Majesty.” This form of address was not entirely inappropriate, because after Hindenburg’s death on August 2 Hitler combined the offices of president and chancellor in his own person. Commenting on the old president’s passing, the Nazi government acknowledged his “almost incalculable services” to Germany, which included “opening the gates of the Reich to the young National Socialist movement.”
