Ironically, Hitler first became informed about the party because he was directed to spy on it. He soon found himself in agreement with party and joined it.
When Hitler met Ernst Röhm (also written ‘Roehm’), it proved to be a pivotal moment. Hitler would rise within the party to be its foremost orator and to cast its policy direction. Röhm would be the key administrator, organizer, and ‘enforcer’ when physical violence was needed.
Originally named the German Workers’ Party, it would merge with another small group and rename itself the National Socialist German Workers’ Party: die National-Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei, abbreviated as NSDAP. Because all of this took a while to say, the shorter nickname Nazi soon caught on. Historian Marshall Dill writes:
In mid-1919 Hitler got a job with the army as a sort of political training official to keep the men away from left-wing infection and to investigate new political groups that were spawning. Here he came in contact with the general in command in Bavaria, Major General Ritter von Epp, later to became Hitler’s agent (Statthalter) in Bavaria; and with Captain Ernst Röhm, one of the most important figures in the early days of the Nazis. Röhm was a swashbuckling freebooter, happy only when fighting or in the company of fighting men, but nevertheless a person of real administrative and organizational ability. As one of his routine duties, Hitler was told in September 1919 to attend and report on a meeting of a new, small party called the German Workers’ party.
In October 1921, Röhm formalized his band of thugs into the party’s “Storm Troopers” or “Assault Division” - the Sturmabteilung or Sturmtruppen, abbreviated SA. This group used physical violence to intimidate competing political parties, and to intimidate rivals for power inside the party.
Known also as the “Brown Shirts” (Braunhemden), Röhm dedicated the group to Hitler, who soon came to control the party. For four years, Hitler and Röhm led the party.
By 1925, however, frictions had developed between the two. Hitler wanted to use the electoral process in addition to physical intimidation, while Röhm focused almost exclusively on violence. Hitler was not willing to form coalitions with other, similar, parties; Röhm was.
Eventually Röhm resigned from his job as leader of the SA. He left the country for several years.
By January 1931, Hitler wanted Röhm back in command of the SA. Röhm was key to the final push which enabled the Nazis to seize power in early 1933.
Within a year after grabbing power, however, frictions between Hitler and Röhm emerged again. Hitler came to see Röhm as causing several problems: Röhm’s passion for things military clouded his vision to Hitler’s notion of the proper relation between the army and the political power structure; Röhm lacked the nuances required to manage the internal tensions surrounding economic socialism within the party; and Röhm’s hotheadedness and unpredictability would get in the way of Hitler’s careful management of the events which would be triggered by the immanent death of Hindenburg.
This time, Hitler acted more decisively. Röhm, and other leaders of the SA, would be murdered. Their thoughts of subjugating the regular army to the SA would ended, and their erratic behavior would not get in the way of Hitler’s fine-tuning of political events. Marshall Dill explains:
June 30, 1934, was the blood-soaked day. The events of the blood purge, as the night of the long knives as it is sometimes called, are familiar. On June 29 Hitler and Goebbels flew from the Rhineland to Munich. During the night they arrested a number of S.A. leaders. In the early morning they drove to Roehm’s hotel, where they found him still in bed. Some of his companions were shot on the spot. Roehm and others were returned to Munich, where they were shot as the day went on.
Ever the master manipulator, Hitler kept the true nature of the internal frictions, and the internal purge, hidden, and presented a different narrative to the public. He claimed that Röhm had planned to overthrow him.
Two weeks later on July 13, 1934, Hitler called together the Reichstag to hear his version of the purge. He gave a long speech in which he alleged that Roehm had been planning a coup to depose him and thus had forced him into violence. He attacked the behavior of the S.A. leaders, stressing Roehm’s homosexuality, of which he must have known for years. Hitler promised that the revolution was over.
Thus Hitler was willing to murder one of his long-term associates and friends. Röhm had worked closely with him since the earliest days of the party.
It became clear that nobody within the Nazi power structure was ever truly safe. Hitler had fraternized with Röhm in a friendly way, and then had him executed.
