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The Hidden Hitler
Lothar Machtan
Hitler, Rohm and the Night of the Long Knives.
German historian Lothar Machtan argues that Hitler's active
homosexuality can be seen in his long string of close friendships with
notorious members of the homosexual worlds of Vienna and Munich from
the 1900s, through his years in the trenches in the First World War,
and to the 1920s. As his political career developed, there was a
danger that this aspect of his character would lead to his downfall,
and some of the details of his manoeuvrings with members of his
entourage suggest the ever-present threat of black-mail. In these
extracts from his new book, The Hidden Hitler, Machtan shows that the
rise and fall of Ernst Rohm, and the list of victims of the Night of
the Long Knives in June 1934, reflects not merely rivalry and
differences of political aim but also the need to protect Hitler's own
past from prying eyes.
WHEN ADOLF HITLER joined the Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (DAP, German
Labour Party) in September 1919, he was still, politically speaking,
an unknown quantity. Yet only three years later he was regarded as the
repository of the deutsch-volkisch (German ultra-nationalist)
movement's hopes. By November 1923 in Munich he was able to venture an
out-and-out coup d'etat against the Reich government that was far less
doomed to fail than it may appear in retrospect. The reasons for his
meteoric rise are partly structural; but without the patronage of
certain men, of whom Ernst Rohm was one, it would have been quite
impossible.
Captain Ernst Rohm played an active part in Adolf Hitler's life from
March 1919 onwards. Rohm was present in October of that year, when
Hitler delivered his first public speech as a `politician' at a DAP
rally in Munich's Hofbraukeller. He was so impressed by the young
agitator's performance that he not only encouraged him in his
political ambitions but soon joined the splinter party himself. Rohm
regularly consorted with senior representatives of both the official
military and of the paramilitary Freikorps, and his patronage brought
about a swift and substantial widening of Hitler's horizons. From
Hitler's point of view, therefore, it was a definite stroke of luck
that this particular man should be making such an effort to further
his career. The officers' mess atmosphere prevailing among Rohm's
conspiratorial associates was well suited to Hitler's talent for
self-promotion, and it was not long before he made a very favourable
impression on the men who mattered.
Ernst Rohm, a career staff officer during the First World War, had
become adjutant to Ritter von Epp, the Freikorps commander, when the
German Empire collapsed. In company with Epp's troops he helped to
bring down Munich's revolutionary `Councils Republic' in April-May
1919, and he remained bitterly opposed to the youthful Weimar
democracy. Epp had been entrusted with command of the infantry
stationed in Bavaria, so Rohm himself acquired a key military
position. The two soldiers had resources at their disposal that
greatly augmented the influence of Hitler the politician, whose assets
had hitherto been limited to his charisma as an orator and actor. At
the end of 1920, for instance, Epp, then Reichswehr commander, gave
the party leader contributions from his secret fund -- a `purely
personal matter', as he termed it later. In addition, Rohm helped
Hitler become acquainted with promising party recruits in the
Freikorps battalions. In Hitler's own words, they were `all vigorous
young men, accustomed to discipline and reared during their military
service in the principle that absolutely nothing is impossible'.
Hitler managed to commend himself to this nationalistic military
milieu as a like-minded repository of political hopes. Rohm must have
helped in this respect, so the remark made later by Gerhard Rossbach,
the notorious Freikorps commander, may well have been apt: `Rohm
helped this intelligent and weak but obsessive man into his boots and
got him moving.' But for his ability to adopt a warlike, martial pose
-- perfectly modelled on Rohm's own -- the thirty-four-year-old
ex-lance corporal would never, as he himself wrote later, have managed
to induce `loyal comrades' to join the Party by means of `verbal
persuasion'.
Hitler was profoundly impressed by Rohm's soldierly manner, which was
a habitual blend of the staff officer and the trooper. Here was
someone roughly his own age who staunchly went his own way and later
publicly proclaimed that he saw the world from a `deliberately
one-sided', exclusively `soldierly' standpoint and who
uncompromisingly championed the aim of winning for the German veteran
`his due share in running the country'. Such a credo naturally
entailed ostentatious contempt for everything effeminate and
unsoldierly: `Windbags must shut up and men alone make decisions.
Political deserters and hysterical women of both sexes must be
unloaded.'
Yet the fact was that ideologically charged homosexual eroticism and
sexuality were cornerstones of the fascist male-bonding culture prior
to 1933. In an article `Friendship or Homosexuality', published in
1925, Dr Karl-Gunther Heimsoth, a close friend and Freikorps comrade
of Rohm, betrays how readily the martial stylisation of `male
homosexual eroticism' could be racially charged and employed against
the `inferiority of feminism and Semitism'. This ideologising of
homosexual tendencies into `the German eros' paid tribute to
homoeroticism for political purposes, as a contribution to the
extablishment of a male-structured volkisch state. Such was the world
in which Rohm lived and whose ideals he sought to impose on
post-revolutionary German society, primarily by means of a brutal
assault on the values and representatives of democratic political
culture.
Rohm's militant virility fantasies are in contrast to his aesthetic
side. His memoirs, published in 1928, show him to have been an
excellent wordsmith. He was probably a good public speaker, and he
also loved music, especially Wagner. So uncouth in other respects,
Rohm could also express himself very tenderly in private, for
instance, when writing to his protege and `sweetheart', the art
student Martin Schatzl.
Perhaps the best pointer to the way in which Rohm dealt with his
homosexual proclivities is supplied by an article published in 1932,
`National Socialism and Inversion', which, if not written by him, must
at least have been instigated by him. Its anonymous author went so tar
as to make the -- never disavowed -- assertion that he was expressing
`not just a personal view, but the opinion [that prevails all the way]
up to the Fuhrer'. The gist of the article was that what really
mattered was to do one's duty as a soldier and comrade. Anyone who did
that should be allowed a free hand in private, so long as he concealed
his activities from the public gaze.
If that was the moral aspect of the matter, so to speak, what of the
personal aspect? `I fancy I'm homosexual,' Rohm confided to his friend
Heimsoth in 1929, but I didn't really `discover' it until 1924. I can
recall a series of homosexual feelings and acts extending back into my
childhood, but I've
also had relations with plenty of women. Never with any great
pleasure, though. I also caught three doses of the clap, which I later
saw as nature's punishment for unnatural intercourse. I now detest all
women, especially those who pursue me with their love -- and there are
quite a
number of them, more's the pity.
Rohm is reputed to have had a fiancee before the war, but the liaison
was evidently of brief duration. He then entered the exclusively male
society of the trenches and the Freikorps, in which he had no need to
disguise his homoerotic preferences. We do not know with whom Rohm
`really discovered' his homosexuality in 1924, and the date may also
be wrong. There are indications that he had a longish sexual
relationship, at the beginning of the 1920s, with Edmund Heines,
another of his `sweethearts'. Other sources state that he first became
fully aware of his proclivity while in Stadelheim Prison in 1923-24.
Whatever the truth, Rohm accepted himself as he was, and in 1929 he
confided to those who cared to listen that he was `far from unhappy'
about his homosexuality. Indeed he was `perhaps even inwardly proud'
of it. He seems in general to have been quite unabashed about such
matters, proclaimed that he was not one of the `well-behaved' and
insisted that the `morality' of the `moral' seldom amounted to much.
It later transpired that he had not only patronised male prostitutes
in the mid-1920s but openly advocated the repeal of Paragraph 175, the
German law against homosexuality.
When Rohm and Hitler first met, the thirty-two-year-old captain was a
far from unattractive man. Photographs of the period show him not as
the plump, bull-necked figure familiar later. Moreover his heavily
scarred cheeks would have been perceived by comrades and lovers more
as an honourable badge of courage than a physical blemish. Hans Frank,
a former Freikorps comrade of Rohm, described him thus: `Until then I
had thought of homosexuality merely as a characteristic of unmanly,
soft, self-indulgent, parasitic weaklings. But Rohm was the absolute
prototype of a brave, daredevil soldier.' The reasons for his success
were certainly not confined to his unscrupulous resort to violence.
Many sources suggest that Rohm and Hitler had a sexual relationship.
This is referred to, for example, in the diary of an unnamed
Reichswehr general, extracts from which were published abroad in 1934,
and the possibility of such a liaison cannot be entirely ruled out.
They must have spent some time together in private, for nothing else
could have accounted for their intimate and thoroughly informal
relationship. But were they lovers? I consider that improbable. The
memoirs of Hitler's close friend Ernst Hanfstaengl (published in 1970)
do contain a hint that, around 1923, their friendship developed an
intensity `that transcended the fraternal Du and gave rise to rumours
of a more far-reaching mutual affection'. But Hanfstaengl too
considered such rumours to be `highly exaggerated'.
Hitler recognised Rohm's talent for planning and organisation. He also
learned from him how to reconcile a self-assured, masculine manner
with the homosexual tendencies that had been manifest since his teens.
It was not long before he could demonstrate `manliness' so
convincingly that even hard-boiled soldiers were taken in.
Conversely, Rohm recognised Hitler's talent for politics. He saw him
as the charismatic prophet who could beguile the masses with rousing
speeches and imbue them with rapturous enthusiasm. Thus the two men
complemented each other. They got on well as comrades and brothers in
arms, each in his own sphere. They were also united by their love of
music. Finally, the fact that they were both homosexual, which can
hardly have escaped them, would have been conducive to a great sense
of attachment.
`Hitler and I,' Rohm wrote in his memoirs, `were linked by ties of
sincere friendship.' He had felt obliged `to speak candidly to my
friend, like a loyal comrade' even when they fell out in 1925. The two
men had drawn different conclusions from the failed putsch of November
1923. When Rohm was released from detention in April 1924, Hitler had
appointed him commander of the Sturmabteilung (SA). In that capacity
Rohm founded the Frontbann, a new edition of the pre-putsch Combat
League. Now that the Weimar Republic was becoming consolidated,
however, Hitler soon realised that an updated version of the Freikorps
strategy would be a political blind alley. In December 1924,
therefore, he removed the SA from the Frontbann -- and Rohm, who
categorically demanded that the National Socialist movement recognise
`the primacy of soldiers over politicians', felt that he had been
overridden. Hence their ways parted in the spring of 1925. But it was
a parting devoid of intrigues and public recriminations. Rohm remained
loyal, his personal relationship with Hitler intact.
Rohm's Return
At first Rohm was compelled to subsist by means of odd jobs. He also
wrote his memoirs. For a soldier as keen as Rohm, however, these were
only occupational stopgaps. Consequently, when offered the post of
military adviser to the Bolivian army in December 1928, he promptly
accepted. It was in South America in the autumn of 1930 that he
received a letter from Hitler inviting him to become chief of staff of
the SA.
Accepting with alacrity, he took up his new post on January 5th, 1931.
He soon acquired political power, and late in 1933 Hitler made him a
government minister. Yet within a few months, on June 30th, 1934, he
had fallen victim to an unparalleled bloodbath, the `Night of the Long
Knives', a crime committed at the Fuhrer's behest. What lay behind
this remarkable development? Part of the answer, as we shall see, lies
in Hitler's homosexuality.
Why Hitler should have recalled Rohm at all and offered him command of
the SA, despite their earlier differences, is a question that cannot
be answered without an eye to the political situation prevailing in
1930-31. After Rohm's withdrawal from the NSDAP (Nazi Party)
leadership in 1925, Hitler had initially succeeded in getting the
Party to endorse his new conception of the SA as an electoral
strong-arm force specialising in public intimidation and propaganda.
It made a substantial contribution to the electoral victories gained
in the years that followed, including some spectacular gains in the
Reichstag elections on September 14th, 1930.
From then, Hitler had to think and act on a `macropolitical' scale.
This meant, first and foremost, harnessing the traditional elites as a
route to further support. Hitler tackled this problem with instinctive
flair and considerable success, realising that, to gain power, he
would have to go some way toward accommodating the old elites'
conception of political morality. The SA clearly failed to see the
need for this, continually overdoing things in its clamorous way. In
the middle of the election campaign in August 1930, the commander of
the Berlin SA, Walter Stennes, disliking the strategy of seeking power
by legitimate means, had openly rebelled against the Party's Munich
leadership. This led to a grotesque incident in which rampaging SA
stormtroopers occupied Party headquarters in Berlin. Hitler, who had
hurried to Berlin and assumed supreme command of the SA, did succeed
in getting the situation under control. But the political damage was
considerable. The `Stennes crisis' became so acute that Hitler
eventually called on Rohm for help.
He could not have made a shrewder decision, for Rohm hailed from the
male-bonded milieu from which SA men were largely recruited, spoke
their language and shared their outlook. As one of the early activists
of the National Socialist movement, he naturally carried considerable
weight within the Party. These twin anchorage points afforded the best
guarantee that the SA and the Party would not disintegrate further,
and that the `brown battalions' would be politically disciplined. In
short, Rohm was the man who could render the SA `presentable' without
alienating the simpler souls in its ranks.
Yet Hitler knew he was running a political risk by reinstating Rohm,
who had, by contemporary standards, been remarkably frank about his
homosexuality and was thus vulnerable to attacks by opponents inside
and outside the Party. Hitler was expressly warned of this danger and
was requested at least to make a public statement on the subject of
homosexuality -- without success, needless to say. Instead, he tried
to protect himself and the SA commander in a more non-committal way.
As early as February 3rd, 1931, he issued a remarkable decree
concerning `attacks on the private lives' of `very senior and senior
SA officers'. Here he stated that the SA was `not a moral institution
for the education of refined young ladies, but a formation of tough
fighting men ... Their private life cannot be an object of scrutiny
unless it runs counter to vital principles of National Socialist
ideology.' Hitler wanted to show that he was above the matter and, at
the same time, to offer Ernst Rohm the protection he needed. This did
not at all suit the homophobic Joseph Goebbels, who wrote in his diary
on 27th February, 1931, that he would `oppose with all my might' the
Nazi Party becoming an `El Dorado' for homosexuals.
Politically, Rohm soon fulfilled all of Hitler's expectations. He
managed to put a stop to excesses like those of recent months and
reduced the tension existing between the SA and the Party
organisation. The SA recruited members in increasing numbers, not only
from its traditional Freikorps base but from elsewhere as well. Even
Goebbels unreservedly conceded this: `Chief of Staff Rohm has
accomplished the miracle of moulding loose, scattered groups into a
tight-knit, tear-proof organisation'. Outwardly, the SA had now joined
Hitler on his `legality course' and renounced any idea of a putsch.
But Rohm owed his successes not only to his efficiency but to his
personnel policy. He assigned key SA positions to men of homosexual
bent, and they, in turn, installed friends in certain posts. One
example was Edmund Heines, Rohm's lover of the 1920s, with whom Hitler
is also reputed to have been on close terms. He was appointed Rohm's
deputy in Silesia with the rank of SAObergruppenfuhrer (roughly,
general). Another man who enjoyed a sensational career in the SA was
Karl Ernst, who had got to know Captain Paul Rohrbein, the SA's first
Berlin commander, at the `El Dorado', a favourite haunt of the German
capital's homosexual community. In 1931 Rohrbein introduced Ernst
(`Frau Rohrbein') to his old friend Rohm. By April of that year Ernst
was commanding SA Subgroup East, and a year later he was in the
Reichstag. The result of such wire-pulling was that the SA gradually
acquired the reputation of a fraternity devoted to homosexual
excesses. As the homosexual art historian Christian Isermayer recalled
in an interview not many years ago: `I also got to know some people in
the SA. They used to throw riotous parties even in 1933 ... I once
attended one ... It was quite well-behaved but thoroughly gay, men
only ... But then, in those days the SA was ultra-gay.' Homosexuals
acquired political influence even in the Braunes Haus, headquarters of
the SA's supreme command.
For Hitler, the SA's homoerotic orientation became an unprotected
flank exposed to attack by political opponents, internal Party rivals
and Nazi moralists. Not even Rohm's successes could alter that.
Rohm in Trouble
Gauleiter Joseph Goebbels openly attacked Rohm. According to a report
in the Communist <ITL>Rote Fahne,</ITL> the Berlin gauleiter's offices
were `a hotbed of corruption and intrigue' dedicated to bringing Rohm
down by every available means. Compromising information about the SA
boss was not only being disseminated but sold to the highest bidder.
At an editorial meeting of <ITL>Der Angriff,</ITL> attended by
Hitler's faithful henchman Max Amann, Goebbels demanded that the
latter `request Hitler, on behalf of the Party members of North
Germany, to dismiss the chief of staff'.
Goebbels was not alone in this opinion. Captain Paul Schulz, the
successor to Stennes as boss of the Berlin SA, sought to make common
cause with him. At the end of May 1931 they called on Hitler at the
Hotel Kaiserhof in the hope of gaining his support. After Hitler
refused to take the bull by the horns, Schulz wrote him a stinging
letter on June 2nd. Schulz sought to draw Hitler's attention to `the
dangers ... necessarily entailed, in my opinion, by the employment of
morally objectionable persons in positions of authority'. In addition
to Rohm, he named Karl Ernst; Paul Rohrbein; Rohm's aides Reiner and
Count Du MoulinEckart; and the `V-Mann' (confidential agent) Dr Meyer.
These now formed a `homosexual chain' that extended from Munich to
Berlin. What aggravated the situation, wrote Schulz, was that `Captain
Rohm makes absolutely no secret of his disposition; on the contrary,
he prides himself on his aversion to the female sex and proclaims it
in public'. He concluded: `Things have now reached the stage where
rumours are being spread in Marxist quarters that you yourself, my
most esteemed Fuhrer, are also homosexual'.
Schulz may well have sent a copy to Gregor Strasser, his friend and
superior, because late in June Strasser's brother Otto leaked the
letter to the editor of the Munchener Post with the avowed intention
of `dealing a blow at Hitler and the Movement'. When it was actually
published, Goebbels described the mood at the Party's Munich
headquarters as one of `utter confusion'.
The publication of the letter was a minor disaster for the Nazi party.
Hitler thought it preferable to keep quiet about the matter, even
though the newspaper, citing, inter alia, Dr Meyer, one of Rohm's
companions from the early 1920s, featured further articles on Rohm's
homosexual disposition. Meyer was subsequently, on December 15th,
1931, found hanged in his cell while remanded on a charge of fraud.
Official cause of death: suicide.
But Rohm was not yet out of the woods. He directed all his odium at
Paul Schulz and made strenuous efforts to eliminate him, but without
any immediate success. The SA commander's position within the Party
remained precarious until early 1932, because Hitler made no move to
quell these intrigues by exerting his authority. No reaction from him
was forthcoming throughout 1931. The political imponderables were too
great for Hitler to adopt a public position on the matter. He may even
have regarded `the Rohm case' as a kind of trial balloon that would
enable him to gauge public reactions to a charge of homosexuality. Was
he, perhaps, exposing his personal `problem' to public debate without
endangering himself?
In order to understand the following events, we must view them against
the power-political situation prevailing toward the end of 1931.
Hindenburg was standing for re-election as president and there were
also five Landtag (provincial parliamentary) elections, including one
in Prussia where the Social Democrats would be defending their most
important power base.
Hitler's position was difficult. To stand for election against
Hindenburg would carry a great personal risk. A would-be head of state
had to fulfil criteria quite different from those of a party leader.
His life would be closely scrutinised. Many people refused to buy the
curriculum vitae Hitler had set forth in Mein Kampf, so he would have
to supplement it in some way. Torn between his supporters'
expectations and an awareness of his own vulnerability, Hitler
agonised for weeks before making a decision -- one that his ongoing
dispute with the Munchener Post could not have made any easier.
It was not until February 22nd, 1932, that propaganda director
Goebbels could announce Hitler's candidacy and finally launch the
campaign. Its essential purpose was to extol the Nazi leader not only
as a brilliant politician but as a man of integrity. This it did on
two quite different levels, of which one has often been described,
`The Fuhrer over Germany'. Goebbels wrote a series of scenarios for
public appearances by the Fuhrer as Germany's last hope winging his
way to mass meetings. To Hitler's growing band of supporters it seemed
as if the Holy Ghost was descending on them.
The other method by which Hitler achieved a semi-mythical aura is less
well known but no less important: he underwrote his chances of gaining
power at the expense of a close friend. On March 7th, 1932, the
leftwing Welt am Montag printed three letters written by Ernst Rohm.
Two days later they appeared in the Munchener Post. Soon they were
reprinted as a pamphlet, two of them even in facsimile form. Their
authenticity was beyond doubt.
The letters in question, which dated from 1928-29, were extremely
intimate in tone. They were addressed to Rohm's friend and personal
physician Karl-Gunther Heimsoth, who was also in contact with other
homosexual Nazi leaders. In the first letter Rohm had railed against
that `blockhead' Alfred Rosenberg, whose homophobic writings were
`directed primarily at me because I make no secret of my disposition'.
The second, written in La Paz, the Bolivian capital, on February 25th,
1929, included references to his `homosexual feelings and acts' and
his abhorrence of `unnatural' intercourse with women. In his third
letter, dated August 11th, 1929, and sent from Uyuni, Bolivia, he
dilated on the pleasures of Berlin:
The steam bath there is, in my opinion, the acme of all human
happiness. At all events, I particularly enjoyed the way things are
done there ... And now, give our mutual friend Fritz Schirmer my warm
regards and, on my behalf -- worse luck -- a kiss ... Incidentally, I
take definite exception to the fact that your husband (or wife?)
omitted to enclose a picture of himself. People here are extremely
susceptible to such things.
The man who obtained the letters and published the pamphlet was a
certain Helmuth Klotz. A naval officer during the First World War, he
joined the Freikorps thereafter and had been one of the joint founders
of the SA. In the ensuing years, however, he became a staunch champion
of Weimar democracy. How had Klotz got hold of these explosive
documents? And what did it all have to do with Hitler?
Hitler's assumption of power in 1933 drove Klotz into exile. But when
France was occupied in 1940 he was tortured into giving an account of
what had happened in 1932. His statements are credible, since their
veracity could be checked at any time. Klotz confessed that
publication of the Rohm letters was instigated by the Prussian
ministry of the interior, in particular by Regierungsrat (senior
executive officer) Rudolf Diels.
Apparently an ardent republican, Diels had in fact been a `subscribing
member' of the SA since 1932 and maintained remarkably close personal
contacts with the Fuhrer. (In 1933 as supreme commander of the SA,
Adolf Hitler appointed him an honorary officer of that organisation.)
According to his heavily embroidered autobiography, Lucifer ante
portas, which appeared in 1949, he had collected evidence against Rohm
on Hitler's direct orders. It is indeed almost impossible that he
would have dared grasp such a hot potato in the absence of an express
order from Hitler.
To understand how Diels obtained the documents, we must first go back
to 1931, when the public prosecutor's office in Berlin was
investigating Rohm for `unnatural sexual offences'. On July 13th,
1931, acting on a tip from Otto Strasser, the authorities searched the
home of Rohm's correspondent, Dr Heimsoth, and confiscated the three
outspoken letters that would later appear in the pamphlet. These were
handed over to the Munich public prosecutor's office. Soon it became
apparent that though Rohm admitted being `bisexually inclined' and
having `often had to do with young boys in that direction', he refused
to admit engaging in criminal intercourse `as defined by Paragraph
175' -- the standard argument advanced by all accused men, and one
that was hard to refute. The case was therefore dropped. But in
February 1932, just prior to the announcement that Hitler would stand
for the presidency, the Rohm affair came alive again. The Munich
papers were obtained by the Prussian ministry of the interior, and
Diels was able to conduct his interview with Helmuth Klotz only a few
days later.
It was in February 1932, when the presidential election was impending,
that Hitler must have made common cause with those who were denouncing
Rohm. He did so -- I contend -- for two reasons. The first was to gain
a hold over the SA commander. A few contemporary observers already
guessed what was going on, among them the former head of the SA, Franz
Pfeffer von Salomon. `Hitler,' he said after the war, `did not appoint
Rohm in spite of his proclivity, but probably because of it.' The
`Rohm case' perfectly exemplifies the behavioural strategy Hitler
adopted toward his closest associates: he entrusted them with `great'
assignments and influential positions, guaranteed them wide discretion
in the running of their departments, sought out their `flaws or weak
points' and, finally, threatened them with the `emergency brake'. The
effect on his henchmen was total dependence, indeed subjection. If one
examined each member of the Nazi leadership in turn, exactly the same
pattern would emerge in almost every case: fascination, flattery,
corruption, coercion. In 1932, in a mood of profound resignation, Rohm
frankly admitted that his `vulnerability' had `delivered me into his
[Hitler's] hands ... I stick to my job, following him blindly, loyal
to the utmost'.
The second, and more important reason, for Hitler's action was to
insure himself against similar attacks. For rumours were circulating
that Hitler himself had homosexual proclivities, and some, including
Albert Grzesinski, the Berlin police chief, were convinced of their
authenticity. Yet Hitler refused to dismiss Rohm. Instead he preferred
to pose as a comrade and man of honour who profoundly abhorred such
scabrous attacks, as a man to whom `loyalty' was no empty word, and
thus as a man with absolutely nothing to hide.
On the emotional level, those on the left of the political spectrum
fought the election exclusively by campaigning against `Rohm and
associates'. They avidly fell on the documents that were fed them,
hoping that evidence of the SA chief's homosexuality would destroy
their hated opponent, and failed to see that Hitler was throwing them
this bait as a means of self-promotion. While his opponents were
concentrating exclusively on Rohm, the Fuhrer could pose as a national
Messiah far removed from such inter-party squabbles. Moral strictures
on the SA leadership simply bounced off Hitler's statesmanlike facade.
As a result his popularity increased during the scandal.
Admittedly Hindenburg was reelected, but Hitler managed to garner many
more votes than ever before. In April he succeeded in eroding the last
major bastion remaining to the defenders of the Weimar Republic, the
Prussian Land-tag; and in the Reichstag elections of July 31st, 1932,
the NSDAP gained a brilliant victory. It was now by far the strongest
political force in Germany.
Rohm Retaliates
Rohm's career might now have ended. Hindenburg is said to have
remarked in private that, in the Kaiser's day, an officer like Rohm
would have had a pistol left on his desk; and if the scoundrel had
refused to take the hint, he would have been hounded out of public
life in disgrace. But nothing of the kind happened to Rohm. Indeed he
was firmly back in the political saddle by the end of the year. The
next year, 1933, he was once more numbered among the most powerful
figures in the Nazi hierarchy. Official propaganda explained that he
had previously been the victim of the most disgusting kind of
character assassination from `Marxist circles' and `the entire Jewish
press'. In December 1934, Hitler even persuaded Hindenburg to appoint
Rohm a minister. To confirm the SA boss in office must have come hard
to the elderly Reich president, who had declared, only a year before,
that he had found it `positively nauseating' to shake hands with `that
breechloader'.
Nor did Hitler have any qualms about promoting Rohm's (former)
intimates. One such was Karl Ernst, whom he appointed to command the
SA's Berlin-Brandenburg detachment, thereby investing an erstwhile
`waiter' from the homosexual scene with a rank roughly equivalent to
that of general. Hitler is reported to have told Hermann Rauschning at
lunch in the Reich Chancellery in the early summer of 1933: `I won't
spoil any of my men's fun. If I demand the utmost of them, I must also
leave them free to let off steam as they want, not as churchy old
women think fit ... I take no interest in their private lives, just as
I won't stand for people prying into my own.' Rohm, who had been in
the depths of despondency in the summer of 1932, now had every reason
to exult that the `Damocles sword' of his homosexuality was no longer
hanging over him.
This surprising development requires explanation -- the more so since
it was followed, only a few months later, by the abrupt overthrow of
Rohm and his associates. The answer lies with Hitler. He rehabilitated
Rohm partly because he needed the SA for purposes of general political
intimidation, but also for far more personal reasons.
There is evidence to suggest that, after the campaign against him,
Rohm abandoned his hitherto steadfast loyalty to Hitler and decided to
pursue a policy of his own. For this he needed allies, spies and
informants. As early as April 1931 he had instructed the agent Georg
Bell to build up an SA intelligence service. All this entailed at
first was the intimidation of `politicians inside the NSDAP who wanted
to exploit Rohm's predicament'. But after the publication of the `Rohm
letters', he came to terms with opposition forces. Bell arranged a
meeting with a former Reichswehr comrade of Rohm, the one-time
intelligence officer Karl Mayr, who had since joined the SPD. With his
help, the SA commander tried to track down the real authors of the
campaign against him. He began to conspire with anti-Nazis like Kurt
von Schliecher and refused to be intimidated by Hitler. `If Hitler
shouted,' recalled his attorney, `Rohm shouted louder still.' Fritz
Gunther von Tschirschky, an associate of Vice Chancellor Franz von
Papen, unexpectedly overheard such an altercation from Hitler's outer
office at the Reich Chancellery early in 1934.
It was clear that a very heated argument was in progress in Hitler's
room. After a short while I said to Bruckner [Hitler's aide-de-camp]:
`Who's in there, for God's sake? Are they killing each other?' To
which Bruckner replied: `Rohm's in there. He's trying hard to talk the
Old Man (he always called Hitler that) into going to the Reich
President and forcing him to grant his requests.' So I waited. The
door was relatively thin, and one could catch isolated, particularly
loud, scraps of conversation -- indeed, whole sentences ... Again and
again I heard: `I can't do that, you're asking the impossible of me!'
But: I learned from the Reich President's palace a few days later than
Hitler had, in fact, submitted Rohm's requests to Hindenburg.
This highlights the way in which Hitler's spectacular `revaluation' of
Rohm should be assessed: as the result of enforced concessions. That
Rohm compelled Hitler to discuss the so-called second revolution and
the future of the Reichswehr, which was associated therewith, even
though Hitler's own position on the subject differed from his
entirely, points in the same direction. The SA chief had had to pay a
high price for his political naivety in the past; he now wanted
compensation. Rohm was not only acquainted with the shady beginnings
of Hitler's political career: he was also one of the very few people
who knew about his homosexuality. It must have been Hitler's nightmare
that he would one day launch a smear campaign.
The Night of the Long Knives
Hitler was in a quandary. Had he himself not been so vulnerable
because of his homosexual tendencies, he could have countered Rohm's
attacks by admonishing or dismissing him. Although his standing within
the Party would readily have enabled him to do so, this route was now
closed.
Hitler's political instinct for self-preservation, if nothing else,
compelled him to escalate matters. At the same time, he was urged on
by the prospect of concealing his own homosexuality forever by the
elimination of dangerous witnesses, and right at the top of the list
of potential blackmailers was Ernst Rohm. If Gestapo chief Rudolf
Diels is to be believed, he was engaged in spying on Rohm from January
1934 on. The Reichswehr is documented as having done so from February
of that year, and in April, if not before, Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich
Himmler -- freshly invested with new and wide-ranging powers -- and
his sidekick Reinhard Heydrich also took a hand. Finally, in mid-May,
largely with an eye to forthcoming events, a new `decree on the
imposition of terms of imprisonment' was issued. By abolishing the
judicial review of appeals against detention and placing other severe
constraints on the ability of defence counsel to intervene on their
clients' behalf, this opened the door to Gestapo tyranny.
Rohm and his senior SA officers posted their own sentries and armed
their men as best they could. According to his Berlin deputy, Karl
Ernst, Rohm began at this time to deposit `important evidence' in `a
safe place' because `we must be ready for anything'. So Rohm knew what
was brewing.
Nevertheless the SA's chief of staff had overreached himself, in
particular by planning to build up an army of his own. This conflicted
with the interests of the Reichswehr, which now became Hitler's
principal ally in his contest with Rohm. Moreover, Hitler got the
other Nazi big shots on his side. He had something for everyone: for
Himmler, who did not want his SS to be overshadowed by the SA any
longer; for Heydrich, who was banking on a meteoric career; for
Goebbels, who had had a score to settle with Rohm since the days of
Stennes; for Goring, who was intent on becoming the regime's number
two. In the early summer of 1934, having largely isolated his former
friend and patron from the rest of the Party, he was in a position to
lure him into a lethal trap.
Early in June 1934, Hitler extracted a promise from Rohm that he would
send the SA on four weeks' furlough. The relevant order clearly
betrays how uneasy the chief of staff felt about this step: `If the
SA's enemies delude themselves that it will not return from furlough,
or not at full strength, let us indulge them in that short-lived hope.
They will receive the appropriate answer at such a time and in such a
manner as seems necessary.' Hanfstaengl noted that an equally
belligerent basic mood prevailed when he encountered Rohm, `clearly
already drunk', at a soiree at SA headquarters on June 6th, 1934: `He
lapsed into the wildest bout of swearing I'd ever heard; he cursed,
shouted, threatened ... I wondered what sinister game was afoot behind
the scenes.'
By getting the SA sent on furlough Hitler had managed to deprive his
adversary of his principal means of protection. He also talked Rohm
into taking several weeks' vacation at Bad Wiessee on the Tegernsee.
Then he went over to the offensive. Only a few days after Hitler's
conversation with Rohm, Rudolf Hess ordered the SA intelligence
service to be disbanded. At Hindenburg's Neudeck estate on June 21st,
Hitler personally obtained the President's approval of his plan to
proceed against the SA leadership by force. Next, the SS under Himmler
evaluated its `incriminating evidence' and compiled death lists in
which other Party bigwigs like Goring and Chief Justice Buch also had
a say. On June 25th Goebbels delivered a long and menacing speech,
broadcast by every German radio station, in which he referred to a
virulent power struggle. But: `One person remains exempt from all
criticism, and that is the Fuhrer!' This completed the requisite
preparations. Within four days everything had been agreed, and without
involving the army in this civil war-like scheme. `The army has
nothing to do with the whole affair,' Hitler is said to have informed
a Reichswehr officer in Munich on June 30th, 1934. `We'll wash our
dirty linen by ourselves.'
Recent estimates indicate that Hitler had a total of some 150
`opponents of the regime' murdered between June 30th and July 3rd,
1934. Even while the operation was in progress, Hermann Goring decreed
the destruction or confiscation of all the relevant documents, and
immediately thereafter the Reich government enacted the `Law Relating
to National Emergency Defence Measures', which simply declared the
murderous operation to have been `lawful'. This deprived the legal
authorities of any grounds for investigations after the event.
The startled public naturally stood in need of explanation and
justification, however, so the National Socialists' most unscrupulous
demagogue after Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, was obliged to `enlighten'
them on the background to the massacre. On July 1st, while the murders
were still going on, he broadcast a speech whose length suggests that
most of it had been drafted before June 30th. Goebbels portrayed the
speed of the whole operation as a skilful tactic. What had been at
issue was the suppression of `traitors', but far from disclosing any
conspiratorial plans to overthrow the government, Goebbels strayed off
into stereotyped attacks on a `small clique of professional saboteurs'
which had refused to `appreciate our indulgence'. The Fuhrer had now
`called them to order' with due severity. `A clean sweep is being made
.... Plague boils, hotbeds of corruption, and symptoms of moral
degeneration that manifest themselves in public life are being
cauterised -- drastically'.
What had mainly prompted this deliberate escalation was, of course,
something else, something to which Goebbels alluded rather casually
but with remarkable directness when he claimed that the SA leaders
`were on the point of exposing the entire leadership of the Party to
suspicions of shameful and loathsome sexual abnormality'. We should
not be too quick to pass that sentence by. In the first place, no one
in the Third Reich had ever heard of any `suspicion' that the `entire'
leadership of the NSDAP might be homosexual. Second, who was supposed
to have spread such a rumour, if even the Social Democrats had failed
to do so while freedom of speech still prevailed? And what did `were
on the point of' mean? No, that sentence was no piece of sophistry, no
demagogue's punchline: it was a reflex reaction to a very real threat
-- one to which, in the summer of 1934, Hitler's only possible
response was lynch law.
The report that Hitler submitted to his cabinet on July 3rd, 1934,
conveyed his true motives for the murderous operation of recent days.
The `clique headed by Rohm', which had been `held together by a
particular disposition', had `slanderously attacked' him, and he
charged the former chief of staff with `insincerity and disloyalty'.
Rohm had threatened him and that threat had been `nothing more nor
less than barefaced blackmail'. The `object lesson' he had now
administered would serve to make it clear to each of his men `that he
risks his neck if he conspires against the existing regime in any
way'.
The Victims
Hitler defended himself by going to extremes, so the few people who
knew that he, too, was homosexual had to be murdered or thoroughly
intimidated. This is revealed by a closer look at the individual
victims. Those who were murdered or locked up included the homosexual
SA commanders Rohm, Ernst and Heines, all of whom were on personal
terms with Hitler; Gregor Strasser, who had hitherto been `an intimate
friend' of Hitler and had even chosen him to be `the godfather of his
sons'; Karl-Gunther Heimsoth and Paul Rohrbein, who had been close
friends of Hitler's former intimates, even though they had long ago
distanced themselves from `Rohm and associates'; senior civil servants
privy to potentially explosive documentary evidence about Hitler, for
instance Erich Klausener, head of the police department at the
Prussian ministry of the interior, and his head of section, Eugen von
Kessel; Reichswehr Minister and ex-Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and
his right-hand man, Ferdinand von Bredow; the Munich police chief
August Schneidhuber; the attorneys of Rohm, Strasser, Karl Ludecke (an
associate of Hitler's during his early years in Munich) and of other
senior Nazis, who had learned dangerous things from their clients and
from trial documents; and, finally, the Munich journalist Fritz
Gerlich, who probably knew more about Hitler and his inner circle than
any other newspaperman of this period.
Anxious to prevent being compromised, Hitler took his revenge in a
positively fanatical manner, thereby endeavouring to cut the ground
from under any future conspiracy.
Potentially incriminating witnesses were also ruthlessly dispatched,
as a few examples will demonstrate. Karl Zehnter, thirty-four years
old, was the landlord of the Nurnberger Bratwurstglockl, a hostelry
situated a stone's throw from Munich Cathedral. Politically naive,
Zehnter belonged to Rohm's homosexual set and was also a close and
long-time friend of Edmund Heines. Both SA leaders were regular
patrons of his establishment, which Hitler, too, frequented on
occasion. An upstairs room in the Bratwurstglockl was permanently
reserved for private meetings between these Nazi dignitaries, and
Zehnter made a habit of serving them himself, so he inevitably
overheard things -- not least about Hitler. That, and that alone, was
why he had to die.
Also murdered was Martin Schatzl, a twenty-five-year-old Munich
painter who had accompanied Ernst Rohm to Bolivia. Although their
relationship did not blossom into a love affair, Schatzl had for two
years been Rohm's closest companion in a foreign land. Schatzl joined
the SA when Rohm assumed command and was appointed to his staff on
February 1st, 1934. The two men must have talked a great deal
together, not least about Rohm's friendship with Hitler. That was why
the young man could not, under any circumstances, be permitted to
survive.
General Ferdinand von Bredow, who had been living in retirement at his
Berlin home since Hitler formed a government, was bludgeoned to death
in a police van and his body thrown into a ditch. What proved his
undoing were his activities as head of military intelligence during
Heinrich Bruning's chancellorship. He had also been Schleicher's
right-hand man in the six months prior to Hitler's assumption of
power. As such he got to read some spicy documents, for instance the
report of a meeting of the Jungdeutscher Orden 169 on July 3rd-4th,
1932. This stated that the main subject under discussion had been as
follows:
Reichswehr Minister Schleicher supports the NSDAP because that
movement is
headed mainly and exclusively by homosexuals, and, according to
evidence
submitted by Otto Strasser, the Reichswehr minister is also
abnormally
inclined ... Furthermore, while Herr Hitler was spending a longish
sojourn
at his home, Otto Strasser observed things that lead one to infer
an
abnormal disposition in that gentleman too.
Hence this essentially irreproachable Reichswehr general had to die
like his boss, who was known to have taken a `precious possession'
into retirement with him, namely, copies of confidential files.
One last feature of the June 30th scenario was the cynical way in
which many survivors were informed that they, too, had been on a death
list and could count themselves lucky to have survived. Not even
Hitler's associate Rudolf Diels was spared this threat. Heydrich is
said to have told him to his face that Goring had unfortunately
crossed his name off.
It may readily be inferred from these few examples that the operation
carried out on and around June 30th was considerably more than a
pre-emptive strike against the SA leaders and a few of their
reactionary accomplices. It was a carefully planned campaign against
people who knew, or were suspected of knowing, too much about Hitler.
The violent imposition of a state of emergency was intended to enable
the authorities to gain possession, at a stroke, of documents
considered dangerous by Hitler and his regime. Of the more than 1,100
persons detained in the course of the purge, thirty-four were still
behind bars in the autumn of 1934. Their arrest made it possible to
seize private papers and sift them with the utmost care. Hitler's
speech to the Reichstag on July 13th, 1934, revealingly disclosed that
most of his time since the `Rohm putsch' had been spent looking
through countless files, diaries and other `shocking documents' -- in
other words, confiscated material.
Hitler's principal motive for taking action against `Rohm and
associates' was fear of exposure and blackmail. What additionally
confirms this is that the mountains of confiscated documents were not
to be used in trials of any kind but handed over to Himmler's Gestapo
and, thus, to Hitler himself. The elimination of witnesses and
evidence -- that was the real purpose of this act of terrorism.
The Aftermath
The press in exile was hard to control. On July 5th, 1934, for
example, the Paris-based Communist Deutsche Volks-Zeitung announced
that Hitler had eliminated `initiates who had become dangerous' -- men
privy `not least to the private life of the Fuhrer, who is himself
homosexual'. Nor, despite the passage six months after the Rohm
murders of the Malicious Practices Act, which penalised remarks about
NSDAP leaders which were `openly malicious, inflammatory, or
indicative of base sentiments', did all such statements stop. In the
summer of 1935 a homosexual engineer who had worked for the Nazi party
for ten years received the maximum two years' sentence for allegedly
importuning a young man with the words `Look at our Fuhrer -- he also
pleasures himself with gentlemen'. In 1937 an SA trooper who let slip
a remark to the effect that Hitler was `a 175er', like Rohm, spent the
next two years behind bars. A similar fate awaited the editor Hans
Walter Aust in 1942, when he claimed -- correctly -- that Hitler kept
a young girl (Eva Braun) `soley for the purpose of concealing his
homosexuality from those around him'. The following year, such
statements would carry a death sentence.
Clearly Hitler was mortally afraid that the homosexual milieu, which
he himself had experienced firsthand in Vienna and Munich, could at
any time yield up disreputable secrets -- even some, perhaps, that
might affect him personally. Hence he took further preventative
measures.
In 1937 drastic steps were taken to strengthen Paragraph 175. From now
on, mere suspicion of `indecent acts' was sufficient to justify an
arrest. This opened the door to arbitrary police procedures. Hitherto
still partly intact, the homosexual subculture of Germany's cities was
destroyed. A campaign of systematic persecution was launched. Around
30,000 persons were under surveillance by 1939. Many men were
imprisoned, and between 5,000 and 15,000 were permanently consigned to
concentration camps, where the death rate among inmates wearing the
`pink chevron' was exceptionally high.
The end result was that the dictator made homosexuality a privilege
reserved for certain chosen associates, and he was the only one
against whom legislation could never be used. Germany's `Fuhrer' had
become a `saviour' on his own behalf.
But Hitler was also pursuing a political policy. He had realised in
1934 that homosexual advances within his movement could no longer be
tolerated. The public mudslinging campaign against Rohm had shown him
that nothing could prevail over the stigmatisation of homosexuality.
He could see no alternative but to yield, more and more, to conformist
pressure; and once he had taken action against Rohm, his courage and
initiative were extolled. The fact that he had ostensibly crushed a
`putsch' enhanced his power-political standing, enabling him to polish
his image as `the saviour of the nation'. To this extent, the Rohm
affair not only consolidated Hitler's dictatorship but generated a
renewed surge of admiration that rapidly drowned the harsh criticism
levelled at his course of action by foreign observers.
Lothar Machtan is Associate Professor of Modern and Cultural History
at Bremen University. In 1988 he published the acclaimed book
Bismarck's Death and Germany's Tears.
Lothar Machtan
Hitler, Rohm and the Night of the Long Knives.
German historian Lothar Machtan argues that Hitler's active
homosexuality can be seen in his long string of close friendships with
notorious members of the homosexual worlds of Vienna and Munich from
the 1900s, through his years in the trenches in the First World War,
and to the 1920s. As his political career developed, there was a
danger that this aspect of his character would lead to his downfall,
and some of the details of his manoeuvrings with members of his
entourage suggest the ever-present threat of black-mail. In these
extracts from his new book, The Hidden Hitler, Machtan shows that the
rise and fall of Ernst Rohm, and the list of victims of the Night of
the Long Knives in June 1934, reflects not merely rivalry and
differences of political aim but also the need to protect Hitler's own
past from prying eyes.
WHEN ADOLF HITLER joined the Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (DAP, German
Labour Party) in September 1919, he was still, politically speaking,
an unknown quantity. Yet only three years later he was regarded as the
repository of the deutsch-volkisch (German ultra-nationalist)
movement's hopes. By November 1923 in Munich he was able to venture an
out-and-out coup d'etat against the Reich government that was far less
doomed to fail than it may appear in retrospect. The reasons for his
meteoric rise are partly structural; but without the patronage of
certain men, of whom Ernst Rohm was one, it would have been quite
impossible.
Captain Ernst Rohm played an active part in Adolf Hitler's life from
March 1919 onwards. Rohm was present in October of that year, when
Hitler delivered his first public speech as a `politician' at a DAP
rally in Munich's Hofbraukeller. He was so impressed by the young
agitator's performance that he not only encouraged him in his
political ambitions but soon joined the splinter party himself. Rohm
regularly consorted with senior representatives of both the official
military and of the paramilitary Freikorps, and his patronage brought
about a swift and substantial widening of Hitler's horizons. From
Hitler's point of view, therefore, it was a definite stroke of luck
that this particular man should be making such an effort to further
his career. The officers' mess atmosphere prevailing among Rohm's
conspiratorial associates was well suited to Hitler's talent for
self-promotion, and it was not long before he made a very favourable
impression on the men who mattered.
Ernst Rohm, a career staff officer during the First World War, had
become adjutant to Ritter von Epp, the Freikorps commander, when the
German Empire collapsed. In company with Epp's troops he helped to
bring down Munich's revolutionary `Councils Republic' in April-May
1919, and he remained bitterly opposed to the youthful Weimar
democracy. Epp had been entrusted with command of the infantry
stationed in Bavaria, so Rohm himself acquired a key military
position. The two soldiers had resources at their disposal that
greatly augmented the influence of Hitler the politician, whose assets
had hitherto been limited to his charisma as an orator and actor. At
the end of 1920, for instance, Epp, then Reichswehr commander, gave
the party leader contributions from his secret fund -- a `purely
personal matter', as he termed it later. In addition, Rohm helped
Hitler become acquainted with promising party recruits in the
Freikorps battalions. In Hitler's own words, they were `all vigorous
young men, accustomed to discipline and reared during their military
service in the principle that absolutely nothing is impossible'.
Hitler managed to commend himself to this nationalistic military
milieu as a like-minded repository of political hopes. Rohm must have
helped in this respect, so the remark made later by Gerhard Rossbach,
the notorious Freikorps commander, may well have been apt: `Rohm
helped this intelligent and weak but obsessive man into his boots and
got him moving.' But for his ability to adopt a warlike, martial pose
-- perfectly modelled on Rohm's own -- the thirty-four-year-old
ex-lance corporal would never, as he himself wrote later, have managed
to induce `loyal comrades' to join the Party by means of `verbal
persuasion'.
Hitler was profoundly impressed by Rohm's soldierly manner, which was
a habitual blend of the staff officer and the trooper. Here was
someone roughly his own age who staunchly went his own way and later
publicly proclaimed that he saw the world from a `deliberately
one-sided', exclusively `soldierly' standpoint and who
uncompromisingly championed the aim of winning for the German veteran
`his due share in running the country'. Such a credo naturally
entailed ostentatious contempt for everything effeminate and
unsoldierly: `Windbags must shut up and men alone make decisions.
Political deserters and hysterical women of both sexes must be
unloaded.'
Yet the fact was that ideologically charged homosexual eroticism and
sexuality were cornerstones of the fascist male-bonding culture prior
to 1933. In an article `Friendship or Homosexuality', published in
1925, Dr Karl-Gunther Heimsoth, a close friend and Freikorps comrade
of Rohm, betrays how readily the martial stylisation of `male
homosexual eroticism' could be racially charged and employed against
the `inferiority of feminism and Semitism'. This ideologising of
homosexual tendencies into `the German eros' paid tribute to
homoeroticism for political purposes, as a contribution to the
extablishment of a male-structured volkisch state. Such was the world
in which Rohm lived and whose ideals he sought to impose on
post-revolutionary German society, primarily by means of a brutal
assault on the values and representatives of democratic political
culture.
Rohm's militant virility fantasies are in contrast to his aesthetic
side. His memoirs, published in 1928, show him to have been an
excellent wordsmith. He was probably a good public speaker, and he
also loved music, especially Wagner. So uncouth in other respects,
Rohm could also express himself very tenderly in private, for
instance, when writing to his protege and `sweetheart', the art
student Martin Schatzl.
Perhaps the best pointer to the way in which Rohm dealt with his
homosexual proclivities is supplied by an article published in 1932,
`National Socialism and Inversion', which, if not written by him, must
at least have been instigated by him. Its anonymous author went so tar
as to make the -- never disavowed -- assertion that he was expressing
`not just a personal view, but the opinion [that prevails all the way]
up to the Fuhrer'. The gist of the article was that what really
mattered was to do one's duty as a soldier and comrade. Anyone who did
that should be allowed a free hand in private, so long as he concealed
his activities from the public gaze.
If that was the moral aspect of the matter, so to speak, what of the
personal aspect? `I fancy I'm homosexual,' Rohm confided to his friend
Heimsoth in 1929, but I didn't really `discover' it until 1924. I can
recall a series of homosexual feelings and acts extending back into my
childhood, but I've
also had relations with plenty of women. Never with any great
pleasure, though. I also caught three doses of the clap, which I later
saw as nature's punishment for unnatural intercourse. I now detest all
women, especially those who pursue me with their love -- and there are
quite a
number of them, more's the pity.
Rohm is reputed to have had a fiancee before the war, but the liaison
was evidently of brief duration. He then entered the exclusively male
society of the trenches and the Freikorps, in which he had no need to
disguise his homoerotic preferences. We do not know with whom Rohm
`really discovered' his homosexuality in 1924, and the date may also
be wrong. There are indications that he had a longish sexual
relationship, at the beginning of the 1920s, with Edmund Heines,
another of his `sweethearts'. Other sources state that he first became
fully aware of his proclivity while in Stadelheim Prison in 1923-24.
Whatever the truth, Rohm accepted himself as he was, and in 1929 he
confided to those who cared to listen that he was `far from unhappy'
about his homosexuality. Indeed he was `perhaps even inwardly proud'
of it. He seems in general to have been quite unabashed about such
matters, proclaimed that he was not one of the `well-behaved' and
insisted that the `morality' of the `moral' seldom amounted to much.
It later transpired that he had not only patronised male prostitutes
in the mid-1920s but openly advocated the repeal of Paragraph 175, the
German law against homosexuality.
When Rohm and Hitler first met, the thirty-two-year-old captain was a
far from unattractive man. Photographs of the period show him not as
the plump, bull-necked figure familiar later. Moreover his heavily
scarred cheeks would have been perceived by comrades and lovers more
as an honourable badge of courage than a physical blemish. Hans Frank,
a former Freikorps comrade of Rohm, described him thus: `Until then I
had thought of homosexuality merely as a characteristic of unmanly,
soft, self-indulgent, parasitic weaklings. But Rohm was the absolute
prototype of a brave, daredevil soldier.' The reasons for his success
were certainly not confined to his unscrupulous resort to violence.
Many sources suggest that Rohm and Hitler had a sexual relationship.
This is referred to, for example, in the diary of an unnamed
Reichswehr general, extracts from which were published abroad in 1934,
and the possibility of such a liaison cannot be entirely ruled out.
They must have spent some time together in private, for nothing else
could have accounted for their intimate and thoroughly informal
relationship. But were they lovers? I consider that improbable. The
memoirs of Hitler's close friend Ernst Hanfstaengl (published in 1970)
do contain a hint that, around 1923, their friendship developed an
intensity `that transcended the fraternal Du and gave rise to rumours
of a more far-reaching mutual affection'. But Hanfstaengl too
considered such rumours to be `highly exaggerated'.
Hitler recognised Rohm's talent for planning and organisation. He also
learned from him how to reconcile a self-assured, masculine manner
with the homosexual tendencies that had been manifest since his teens.
It was not long before he could demonstrate `manliness' so
convincingly that even hard-boiled soldiers were taken in.
Conversely, Rohm recognised Hitler's talent for politics. He saw him
as the charismatic prophet who could beguile the masses with rousing
speeches and imbue them with rapturous enthusiasm. Thus the two men
complemented each other. They got on well as comrades and brothers in
arms, each in his own sphere. They were also united by their love of
music. Finally, the fact that they were both homosexual, which can
hardly have escaped them, would have been conducive to a great sense
of attachment.
`Hitler and I,' Rohm wrote in his memoirs, `were linked by ties of
sincere friendship.' He had felt obliged `to speak candidly to my
friend, like a loyal comrade' even when they fell out in 1925. The two
men had drawn different conclusions from the failed putsch of November
1923. When Rohm was released from detention in April 1924, Hitler had
appointed him commander of the Sturmabteilung (SA). In that capacity
Rohm founded the Frontbann, a new edition of the pre-putsch Combat
League. Now that the Weimar Republic was becoming consolidated,
however, Hitler soon realised that an updated version of the Freikorps
strategy would be a political blind alley. In December 1924,
therefore, he removed the SA from the Frontbann -- and Rohm, who
categorically demanded that the National Socialist movement recognise
`the primacy of soldiers over politicians', felt that he had been
overridden. Hence their ways parted in the spring of 1925. But it was
a parting devoid of intrigues and public recriminations. Rohm remained
loyal, his personal relationship with Hitler intact.
Rohm's Return
At first Rohm was compelled to subsist by means of odd jobs. He also
wrote his memoirs. For a soldier as keen as Rohm, however, these were
only occupational stopgaps. Consequently, when offered the post of
military adviser to the Bolivian army in December 1928, he promptly
accepted. It was in South America in the autumn of 1930 that he
received a letter from Hitler inviting him to become chief of staff of
the SA.
Accepting with alacrity, he took up his new post on January 5th, 1931.
He soon acquired political power, and late in 1933 Hitler made him a
government minister. Yet within a few months, on June 30th, 1934, he
had fallen victim to an unparalleled bloodbath, the `Night of the Long
Knives', a crime committed at the Fuhrer's behest. What lay behind
this remarkable development? Part of the answer, as we shall see, lies
in Hitler's homosexuality.
Why Hitler should have recalled Rohm at all and offered him command of
the SA, despite their earlier differences, is a question that cannot
be answered without an eye to the political situation prevailing in
1930-31. After Rohm's withdrawal from the NSDAP (Nazi Party)
leadership in 1925, Hitler had initially succeeded in getting the
Party to endorse his new conception of the SA as an electoral
strong-arm force specialising in public intimidation and propaganda.
It made a substantial contribution to the electoral victories gained
in the years that followed, including some spectacular gains in the
Reichstag elections on September 14th, 1930.
From then, Hitler had to think and act on a `macropolitical' scale.
This meant, first and foremost, harnessing the traditional elites as a
route to further support. Hitler tackled this problem with instinctive
flair and considerable success, realising that, to gain power, he
would have to go some way toward accommodating the old elites'
conception of political morality. The SA clearly failed to see the
need for this, continually overdoing things in its clamorous way. In
the middle of the election campaign in August 1930, the commander of
the Berlin SA, Walter Stennes, disliking the strategy of seeking power
by legitimate means, had openly rebelled against the Party's Munich
leadership. This led to a grotesque incident in which rampaging SA
stormtroopers occupied Party headquarters in Berlin. Hitler, who had
hurried to Berlin and assumed supreme command of the SA, did succeed
in getting the situation under control. But the political damage was
considerable. The `Stennes crisis' became so acute that Hitler
eventually called on Rohm for help.
He could not have made a shrewder decision, for Rohm hailed from the
male-bonded milieu from which SA men were largely recruited, spoke
their language and shared their outlook. As one of the early activists
of the National Socialist movement, he naturally carried considerable
weight within the Party. These twin anchorage points afforded the best
guarantee that the SA and the Party would not disintegrate further,
and that the `brown battalions' would be politically disciplined. In
short, Rohm was the man who could render the SA `presentable' without
alienating the simpler souls in its ranks.
Yet Hitler knew he was running a political risk by reinstating Rohm,
who had, by contemporary standards, been remarkably frank about his
homosexuality and was thus vulnerable to attacks by opponents inside
and outside the Party. Hitler was expressly warned of this danger and
was requested at least to make a public statement on the subject of
homosexuality -- without success, needless to say. Instead, he tried
to protect himself and the SA commander in a more non-committal way.
As early as February 3rd, 1931, he issued a remarkable decree
concerning `attacks on the private lives' of `very senior and senior
SA officers'. Here he stated that the SA was `not a moral institution
for the education of refined young ladies, but a formation of tough
fighting men ... Their private life cannot be an object of scrutiny
unless it runs counter to vital principles of National Socialist
ideology.' Hitler wanted to show that he was above the matter and, at
the same time, to offer Ernst Rohm the protection he needed. This did
not at all suit the homophobic Joseph Goebbels, who wrote in his diary
on 27th February, 1931, that he would `oppose with all my might' the
Nazi Party becoming an `El Dorado' for homosexuals.
Politically, Rohm soon fulfilled all of Hitler's expectations. He
managed to put a stop to excesses like those of recent months and
reduced the tension existing between the SA and the Party
organisation. The SA recruited members in increasing numbers, not only
from its traditional Freikorps base but from elsewhere as well. Even
Goebbels unreservedly conceded this: `Chief of Staff Rohm has
accomplished the miracle of moulding loose, scattered groups into a
tight-knit, tear-proof organisation'. Outwardly, the SA had now joined
Hitler on his `legality course' and renounced any idea of a putsch.
But Rohm owed his successes not only to his efficiency but to his
personnel policy. He assigned key SA positions to men of homosexual
bent, and they, in turn, installed friends in certain posts. One
example was Edmund Heines, Rohm's lover of the 1920s, with whom Hitler
is also reputed to have been on close terms. He was appointed Rohm's
deputy in Silesia with the rank of SAObergruppenfuhrer (roughly,
general). Another man who enjoyed a sensational career in the SA was
Karl Ernst, who had got to know Captain Paul Rohrbein, the SA's first
Berlin commander, at the `El Dorado', a favourite haunt of the German
capital's homosexual community. In 1931 Rohrbein introduced Ernst
(`Frau Rohrbein') to his old friend Rohm. By April of that year Ernst
was commanding SA Subgroup East, and a year later he was in the
Reichstag. The result of such wire-pulling was that the SA gradually
acquired the reputation of a fraternity devoted to homosexual
excesses. As the homosexual art historian Christian Isermayer recalled
in an interview not many years ago: `I also got to know some people in
the SA. They used to throw riotous parties even in 1933 ... I once
attended one ... It was quite well-behaved but thoroughly gay, men
only ... But then, in those days the SA was ultra-gay.' Homosexuals
acquired political influence even in the Braunes Haus, headquarters of
the SA's supreme command.
For Hitler, the SA's homoerotic orientation became an unprotected
flank exposed to attack by political opponents, internal Party rivals
and Nazi moralists. Not even Rohm's successes could alter that.
Rohm in Trouble
Gauleiter Joseph Goebbels openly attacked Rohm. According to a report
in the Communist <ITL>Rote Fahne,</ITL> the Berlin gauleiter's offices
were `a hotbed of corruption and intrigue' dedicated to bringing Rohm
down by every available means. Compromising information about the SA
boss was not only being disseminated but sold to the highest bidder.
At an editorial meeting of <ITL>Der Angriff,</ITL> attended by
Hitler's faithful henchman Max Amann, Goebbels demanded that the
latter `request Hitler, on behalf of the Party members of North
Germany, to dismiss the chief of staff'.
Goebbels was not alone in this opinion. Captain Paul Schulz, the
successor to Stennes as boss of the Berlin SA, sought to make common
cause with him. At the end of May 1931 they called on Hitler at the
Hotel Kaiserhof in the hope of gaining his support. After Hitler
refused to take the bull by the horns, Schulz wrote him a stinging
letter on June 2nd. Schulz sought to draw Hitler's attention to `the
dangers ... necessarily entailed, in my opinion, by the employment of
morally objectionable persons in positions of authority'. In addition
to Rohm, he named Karl Ernst; Paul Rohrbein; Rohm's aides Reiner and
Count Du MoulinEckart; and the `V-Mann' (confidential agent) Dr Meyer.
These now formed a `homosexual chain' that extended from Munich to
Berlin. What aggravated the situation, wrote Schulz, was that `Captain
Rohm makes absolutely no secret of his disposition; on the contrary,
he prides himself on his aversion to the female sex and proclaims it
in public'. He concluded: `Things have now reached the stage where
rumours are being spread in Marxist quarters that you yourself, my
most esteemed Fuhrer, are also homosexual'.
Schulz may well have sent a copy to Gregor Strasser, his friend and
superior, because late in June Strasser's brother Otto leaked the
letter to the editor of the Munchener Post with the avowed intention
of `dealing a blow at Hitler and the Movement'. When it was actually
published, Goebbels described the mood at the Party's Munich
headquarters as one of `utter confusion'.
The publication of the letter was a minor disaster for the Nazi party.
Hitler thought it preferable to keep quiet about the matter, even
though the newspaper, citing, inter alia, Dr Meyer, one of Rohm's
companions from the early 1920s, featured further articles on Rohm's
homosexual disposition. Meyer was subsequently, on December 15th,
1931, found hanged in his cell while remanded on a charge of fraud.
Official cause of death: suicide.
But Rohm was not yet out of the woods. He directed all his odium at
Paul Schulz and made strenuous efforts to eliminate him, but without
any immediate success. The SA commander's position within the Party
remained precarious until early 1932, because Hitler made no move to
quell these intrigues by exerting his authority. No reaction from him
was forthcoming throughout 1931. The political imponderables were too
great for Hitler to adopt a public position on the matter. He may even
have regarded `the Rohm case' as a kind of trial balloon that would
enable him to gauge public reactions to a charge of homosexuality. Was
he, perhaps, exposing his personal `problem' to public debate without
endangering himself?
In order to understand the following events, we must view them against
the power-political situation prevailing toward the end of 1931.
Hindenburg was standing for re-election as president and there were
also five Landtag (provincial parliamentary) elections, including one
in Prussia where the Social Democrats would be defending their most
important power base.
Hitler's position was difficult. To stand for election against
Hindenburg would carry a great personal risk. A would-be head of state
had to fulfil criteria quite different from those of a party leader.
His life would be closely scrutinised. Many people refused to buy the
curriculum vitae Hitler had set forth in Mein Kampf, so he would have
to supplement it in some way. Torn between his supporters'
expectations and an awareness of his own vulnerability, Hitler
agonised for weeks before making a decision -- one that his ongoing
dispute with the Munchener Post could not have made any easier.
It was not until February 22nd, 1932, that propaganda director
Goebbels could announce Hitler's candidacy and finally launch the
campaign. Its essential purpose was to extol the Nazi leader not only
as a brilliant politician but as a man of integrity. This it did on
two quite different levels, of which one has often been described,
`The Fuhrer over Germany'. Goebbels wrote a series of scenarios for
public appearances by the Fuhrer as Germany's last hope winging his
way to mass meetings. To Hitler's growing band of supporters it seemed
as if the Holy Ghost was descending on them.
The other method by which Hitler achieved a semi-mythical aura is less
well known but no less important: he underwrote his chances of gaining
power at the expense of a close friend. On March 7th, 1932, the
leftwing Welt am Montag printed three letters written by Ernst Rohm.
Two days later they appeared in the Munchener Post. Soon they were
reprinted as a pamphlet, two of them even in facsimile form. Their
authenticity was beyond doubt.
The letters in question, which dated from 1928-29, were extremely
intimate in tone. They were addressed to Rohm's friend and personal
physician Karl-Gunther Heimsoth, who was also in contact with other
homosexual Nazi leaders. In the first letter Rohm had railed against
that `blockhead' Alfred Rosenberg, whose homophobic writings were
`directed primarily at me because I make no secret of my disposition'.
The second, written in La Paz, the Bolivian capital, on February 25th,
1929, included references to his `homosexual feelings and acts' and
his abhorrence of `unnatural' intercourse with women. In his third
letter, dated August 11th, 1929, and sent from Uyuni, Bolivia, he
dilated on the pleasures of Berlin:
The steam bath there is, in my opinion, the acme of all human
happiness. At all events, I particularly enjoyed the way things are
done there ... And now, give our mutual friend Fritz Schirmer my warm
regards and, on my behalf -- worse luck -- a kiss ... Incidentally, I
take definite exception to the fact that your husband (or wife?)
omitted to enclose a picture of himself. People here are extremely
susceptible to such things.
The man who obtained the letters and published the pamphlet was a
certain Helmuth Klotz. A naval officer during the First World War, he
joined the Freikorps thereafter and had been one of the joint founders
of the SA. In the ensuing years, however, he became a staunch champion
of Weimar democracy. How had Klotz got hold of these explosive
documents? And what did it all have to do with Hitler?
Hitler's assumption of power in 1933 drove Klotz into exile. But when
France was occupied in 1940 he was tortured into giving an account of
what had happened in 1932. His statements are credible, since their
veracity could be checked at any time. Klotz confessed that
publication of the Rohm letters was instigated by the Prussian
ministry of the interior, in particular by Regierungsrat (senior
executive officer) Rudolf Diels.
Apparently an ardent republican, Diels had in fact been a `subscribing
member' of the SA since 1932 and maintained remarkably close personal
contacts with the Fuhrer. (In 1933 as supreme commander of the SA,
Adolf Hitler appointed him an honorary officer of that organisation.)
According to his heavily embroidered autobiography, Lucifer ante
portas, which appeared in 1949, he had collected evidence against Rohm
on Hitler's direct orders. It is indeed almost impossible that he
would have dared grasp such a hot potato in the absence of an express
order from Hitler.
To understand how Diels obtained the documents, we must first go back
to 1931, when the public prosecutor's office in Berlin was
investigating Rohm for `unnatural sexual offences'. On July 13th,
1931, acting on a tip from Otto Strasser, the authorities searched the
home of Rohm's correspondent, Dr Heimsoth, and confiscated the three
outspoken letters that would later appear in the pamphlet. These were
handed over to the Munich public prosecutor's office. Soon it became
apparent that though Rohm admitted being `bisexually inclined' and
having `often had to do with young boys in that direction', he refused
to admit engaging in criminal intercourse `as defined by Paragraph
175' -- the standard argument advanced by all accused men, and one
that was hard to refute. The case was therefore dropped. But in
February 1932, just prior to the announcement that Hitler would stand
for the presidency, the Rohm affair came alive again. The Munich
papers were obtained by the Prussian ministry of the interior, and
Diels was able to conduct his interview with Helmuth Klotz only a few
days later.
It was in February 1932, when the presidential election was impending,
that Hitler must have made common cause with those who were denouncing
Rohm. He did so -- I contend -- for two reasons. The first was to gain
a hold over the SA commander. A few contemporary observers already
guessed what was going on, among them the former head of the SA, Franz
Pfeffer von Salomon. `Hitler,' he said after the war, `did not appoint
Rohm in spite of his proclivity, but probably because of it.' The
`Rohm case' perfectly exemplifies the behavioural strategy Hitler
adopted toward his closest associates: he entrusted them with `great'
assignments and influential positions, guaranteed them wide discretion
in the running of their departments, sought out their `flaws or weak
points' and, finally, threatened them with the `emergency brake'. The
effect on his henchmen was total dependence, indeed subjection. If one
examined each member of the Nazi leadership in turn, exactly the same
pattern would emerge in almost every case: fascination, flattery,
corruption, coercion. In 1932, in a mood of profound resignation, Rohm
frankly admitted that his `vulnerability' had `delivered me into his
[Hitler's] hands ... I stick to my job, following him blindly, loyal
to the utmost'.
The second, and more important reason, for Hitler's action was to
insure himself against similar attacks. For rumours were circulating
that Hitler himself had homosexual proclivities, and some, including
Albert Grzesinski, the Berlin police chief, were convinced of their
authenticity. Yet Hitler refused to dismiss Rohm. Instead he preferred
to pose as a comrade and man of honour who profoundly abhorred such
scabrous attacks, as a man to whom `loyalty' was no empty word, and
thus as a man with absolutely nothing to hide.
On the emotional level, those on the left of the political spectrum
fought the election exclusively by campaigning against `Rohm and
associates'. They avidly fell on the documents that were fed them,
hoping that evidence of the SA chief's homosexuality would destroy
their hated opponent, and failed to see that Hitler was throwing them
this bait as a means of self-promotion. While his opponents were
concentrating exclusively on Rohm, the Fuhrer could pose as a national
Messiah far removed from such inter-party squabbles. Moral strictures
on the SA leadership simply bounced off Hitler's statesmanlike facade.
As a result his popularity increased during the scandal.
Admittedly Hindenburg was reelected, but Hitler managed to garner many
more votes than ever before. In April he succeeded in eroding the last
major bastion remaining to the defenders of the Weimar Republic, the
Prussian Land-tag; and in the Reichstag elections of July 31st, 1932,
the NSDAP gained a brilliant victory. It was now by far the strongest
political force in Germany.
Rohm Retaliates
Rohm's career might now have ended. Hindenburg is said to have
remarked in private that, in the Kaiser's day, an officer like Rohm
would have had a pistol left on his desk; and if the scoundrel had
refused to take the hint, he would have been hounded out of public
life in disgrace. But nothing of the kind happened to Rohm. Indeed he
was firmly back in the political saddle by the end of the year. The
next year, 1933, he was once more numbered among the most powerful
figures in the Nazi hierarchy. Official propaganda explained that he
had previously been the victim of the most disgusting kind of
character assassination from `Marxist circles' and `the entire Jewish
press'. In December 1934, Hitler even persuaded Hindenburg to appoint
Rohm a minister. To confirm the SA boss in office must have come hard
to the elderly Reich president, who had declared, only a year before,
that he had found it `positively nauseating' to shake hands with `that
breechloader'.
Nor did Hitler have any qualms about promoting Rohm's (former)
intimates. One such was Karl Ernst, whom he appointed to command the
SA's Berlin-Brandenburg detachment, thereby investing an erstwhile
`waiter' from the homosexual scene with a rank roughly equivalent to
that of general. Hitler is reported to have told Hermann Rauschning at
lunch in the Reich Chancellery in the early summer of 1933: `I won't
spoil any of my men's fun. If I demand the utmost of them, I must also
leave them free to let off steam as they want, not as churchy old
women think fit ... I take no interest in their private lives, just as
I won't stand for people prying into my own.' Rohm, who had been in
the depths of despondency in the summer of 1932, now had every reason
to exult that the `Damocles sword' of his homosexuality was no longer
hanging over him.
This surprising development requires explanation -- the more so since
it was followed, only a few months later, by the abrupt overthrow of
Rohm and his associates. The answer lies with Hitler. He rehabilitated
Rohm partly because he needed the SA for purposes of general political
intimidation, but also for far more personal reasons.
There is evidence to suggest that, after the campaign against him,
Rohm abandoned his hitherto steadfast loyalty to Hitler and decided to
pursue a policy of his own. For this he needed allies, spies and
informants. As early as April 1931 he had instructed the agent Georg
Bell to build up an SA intelligence service. All this entailed at
first was the intimidation of `politicians inside the NSDAP who wanted
to exploit Rohm's predicament'. But after the publication of the `Rohm
letters', he came to terms with opposition forces. Bell arranged a
meeting with a former Reichswehr comrade of Rohm, the one-time
intelligence officer Karl Mayr, who had since joined the SPD. With his
help, the SA commander tried to track down the real authors of the
campaign against him. He began to conspire with anti-Nazis like Kurt
von Schliecher and refused to be intimidated by Hitler. `If Hitler
shouted,' recalled his attorney, `Rohm shouted louder still.' Fritz
Gunther von Tschirschky, an associate of Vice Chancellor Franz von
Papen, unexpectedly overheard such an altercation from Hitler's outer
office at the Reich Chancellery early in 1934.
It was clear that a very heated argument was in progress in Hitler's
room. After a short while I said to Bruckner [Hitler's aide-de-camp]:
`Who's in there, for God's sake? Are they killing each other?' To
which Bruckner replied: `Rohm's in there. He's trying hard to talk the
Old Man (he always called Hitler that) into going to the Reich
President and forcing him to grant his requests.' So I waited. The
door was relatively thin, and one could catch isolated, particularly
loud, scraps of conversation -- indeed, whole sentences ... Again and
again I heard: `I can't do that, you're asking the impossible of me!'
But: I learned from the Reich President's palace a few days later than
Hitler had, in fact, submitted Rohm's requests to Hindenburg.
This highlights the way in which Hitler's spectacular `revaluation' of
Rohm should be assessed: as the result of enforced concessions. That
Rohm compelled Hitler to discuss the so-called second revolution and
the future of the Reichswehr, which was associated therewith, even
though Hitler's own position on the subject differed from his
entirely, points in the same direction. The SA chief had had to pay a
high price for his political naivety in the past; he now wanted
compensation. Rohm was not only acquainted with the shady beginnings
of Hitler's political career: he was also one of the very few people
who knew about his homosexuality. It must have been Hitler's nightmare
that he would one day launch a smear campaign.
The Night of the Long Knives
Hitler was in a quandary. Had he himself not been so vulnerable
because of his homosexual tendencies, he could have countered Rohm's
attacks by admonishing or dismissing him. Although his standing within
the Party would readily have enabled him to do so, this route was now
closed.
Hitler's political instinct for self-preservation, if nothing else,
compelled him to escalate matters. At the same time, he was urged on
by the prospect of concealing his own homosexuality forever by the
elimination of dangerous witnesses, and right at the top of the list
of potential blackmailers was Ernst Rohm. If Gestapo chief Rudolf
Diels is to be believed, he was engaged in spying on Rohm from January
1934 on. The Reichswehr is documented as having done so from February
of that year, and in April, if not before, Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich
Himmler -- freshly invested with new and wide-ranging powers -- and
his sidekick Reinhard Heydrich also took a hand. Finally, in mid-May,
largely with an eye to forthcoming events, a new `decree on the
imposition of terms of imprisonment' was issued. By abolishing the
judicial review of appeals against detention and placing other severe
constraints on the ability of defence counsel to intervene on their
clients' behalf, this opened the door to Gestapo tyranny.
Rohm and his senior SA officers posted their own sentries and armed
their men as best they could. According to his Berlin deputy, Karl
Ernst, Rohm began at this time to deposit `important evidence' in `a
safe place' because `we must be ready for anything'. So Rohm knew what
was brewing.
Nevertheless the SA's chief of staff had overreached himself, in
particular by planning to build up an army of his own. This conflicted
with the interests of the Reichswehr, which now became Hitler's
principal ally in his contest with Rohm. Moreover, Hitler got the
other Nazi big shots on his side. He had something for everyone: for
Himmler, who did not want his SS to be overshadowed by the SA any
longer; for Heydrich, who was banking on a meteoric career; for
Goebbels, who had had a score to settle with Rohm since the days of
Stennes; for Goring, who was intent on becoming the regime's number
two. In the early summer of 1934, having largely isolated his former
friend and patron from the rest of the Party, he was in a position to
lure him into a lethal trap.
Early in June 1934, Hitler extracted a promise from Rohm that he would
send the SA on four weeks' furlough. The relevant order clearly
betrays how uneasy the chief of staff felt about this step: `If the
SA's enemies delude themselves that it will not return from furlough,
or not at full strength, let us indulge them in that short-lived hope.
They will receive the appropriate answer at such a time and in such a
manner as seems necessary.' Hanfstaengl noted that an equally
belligerent basic mood prevailed when he encountered Rohm, `clearly
already drunk', at a soiree at SA headquarters on June 6th, 1934: `He
lapsed into the wildest bout of swearing I'd ever heard; he cursed,
shouted, threatened ... I wondered what sinister game was afoot behind
the scenes.'
By getting the SA sent on furlough Hitler had managed to deprive his
adversary of his principal means of protection. He also talked Rohm
into taking several weeks' vacation at Bad Wiessee on the Tegernsee.
Then he went over to the offensive. Only a few days after Hitler's
conversation with Rohm, Rudolf Hess ordered the SA intelligence
service to be disbanded. At Hindenburg's Neudeck estate on June 21st,
Hitler personally obtained the President's approval of his plan to
proceed against the SA leadership by force. Next, the SS under Himmler
evaluated its `incriminating evidence' and compiled death lists in
which other Party bigwigs like Goring and Chief Justice Buch also had
a say. On June 25th Goebbels delivered a long and menacing speech,
broadcast by every German radio station, in which he referred to a
virulent power struggle. But: `One person remains exempt from all
criticism, and that is the Fuhrer!' This completed the requisite
preparations. Within four days everything had been agreed, and without
involving the army in this civil war-like scheme. `The army has
nothing to do with the whole affair,' Hitler is said to have informed
a Reichswehr officer in Munich on June 30th, 1934. `We'll wash our
dirty linen by ourselves.'
Recent estimates indicate that Hitler had a total of some 150
`opponents of the regime' murdered between June 30th and July 3rd,
1934. Even while the operation was in progress, Hermann Goring decreed
the destruction or confiscation of all the relevant documents, and
immediately thereafter the Reich government enacted the `Law Relating
to National Emergency Defence Measures', which simply declared the
murderous operation to have been `lawful'. This deprived the legal
authorities of any grounds for investigations after the event.
The startled public naturally stood in need of explanation and
justification, however, so the National Socialists' most unscrupulous
demagogue after Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, was obliged to `enlighten'
them on the background to the massacre. On July 1st, while the murders
were still going on, he broadcast a speech whose length suggests that
most of it had been drafted before June 30th. Goebbels portrayed the
speed of the whole operation as a skilful tactic. What had been at
issue was the suppression of `traitors', but far from disclosing any
conspiratorial plans to overthrow the government, Goebbels strayed off
into stereotyped attacks on a `small clique of professional saboteurs'
which had refused to `appreciate our indulgence'. The Fuhrer had now
`called them to order' with due severity. `A clean sweep is being made
.... Plague boils, hotbeds of corruption, and symptoms of moral
degeneration that manifest themselves in public life are being
cauterised -- drastically'.
What had mainly prompted this deliberate escalation was, of course,
something else, something to which Goebbels alluded rather casually
but with remarkable directness when he claimed that the SA leaders
`were on the point of exposing the entire leadership of the Party to
suspicions of shameful and loathsome sexual abnormality'. We should
not be too quick to pass that sentence by. In the first place, no one
in the Third Reich had ever heard of any `suspicion' that the `entire'
leadership of the NSDAP might be homosexual. Second, who was supposed
to have spread such a rumour, if even the Social Democrats had failed
to do so while freedom of speech still prevailed? And what did `were
on the point of' mean? No, that sentence was no piece of sophistry, no
demagogue's punchline: it was a reflex reaction to a very real threat
-- one to which, in the summer of 1934, Hitler's only possible
response was lynch law.
The report that Hitler submitted to his cabinet on July 3rd, 1934,
conveyed his true motives for the murderous operation of recent days.
The `clique headed by Rohm', which had been `held together by a
particular disposition', had `slanderously attacked' him, and he
charged the former chief of staff with `insincerity and disloyalty'.
Rohm had threatened him and that threat had been `nothing more nor
less than barefaced blackmail'. The `object lesson' he had now
administered would serve to make it clear to each of his men `that he
risks his neck if he conspires against the existing regime in any
way'.
The Victims
Hitler defended himself by going to extremes, so the few people who
knew that he, too, was homosexual had to be murdered or thoroughly
intimidated. This is revealed by a closer look at the individual
victims. Those who were murdered or locked up included the homosexual
SA commanders Rohm, Ernst and Heines, all of whom were on personal
terms with Hitler; Gregor Strasser, who had hitherto been `an intimate
friend' of Hitler and had even chosen him to be `the godfather of his
sons'; Karl-Gunther Heimsoth and Paul Rohrbein, who had been close
friends of Hitler's former intimates, even though they had long ago
distanced themselves from `Rohm and associates'; senior civil servants
privy to potentially explosive documentary evidence about Hitler, for
instance Erich Klausener, head of the police department at the
Prussian ministry of the interior, and his head of section, Eugen von
Kessel; Reichswehr Minister and ex-Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and
his right-hand man, Ferdinand von Bredow; the Munich police chief
August Schneidhuber; the attorneys of Rohm, Strasser, Karl Ludecke (an
associate of Hitler's during his early years in Munich) and of other
senior Nazis, who had learned dangerous things from their clients and
from trial documents; and, finally, the Munich journalist Fritz
Gerlich, who probably knew more about Hitler and his inner circle than
any other newspaperman of this period.
Anxious to prevent being compromised, Hitler took his revenge in a
positively fanatical manner, thereby endeavouring to cut the ground
from under any future conspiracy.
Potentially incriminating witnesses were also ruthlessly dispatched,
as a few examples will demonstrate. Karl Zehnter, thirty-four years
old, was the landlord of the Nurnberger Bratwurstglockl, a hostelry
situated a stone's throw from Munich Cathedral. Politically naive,
Zehnter belonged to Rohm's homosexual set and was also a close and
long-time friend of Edmund Heines. Both SA leaders were regular
patrons of his establishment, which Hitler, too, frequented on
occasion. An upstairs room in the Bratwurstglockl was permanently
reserved for private meetings between these Nazi dignitaries, and
Zehnter made a habit of serving them himself, so he inevitably
overheard things -- not least about Hitler. That, and that alone, was
why he had to die.
Also murdered was Martin Schatzl, a twenty-five-year-old Munich
painter who had accompanied Ernst Rohm to Bolivia. Although their
relationship did not blossom into a love affair, Schatzl had for two
years been Rohm's closest companion in a foreign land. Schatzl joined
the SA when Rohm assumed command and was appointed to his staff on
February 1st, 1934. The two men must have talked a great deal
together, not least about Rohm's friendship with Hitler. That was why
the young man could not, under any circumstances, be permitted to
survive.
General Ferdinand von Bredow, who had been living in retirement at his
Berlin home since Hitler formed a government, was bludgeoned to death
in a police van and his body thrown into a ditch. What proved his
undoing were his activities as head of military intelligence during
Heinrich Bruning's chancellorship. He had also been Schleicher's
right-hand man in the six months prior to Hitler's assumption of
power. As such he got to read some spicy documents, for instance the
report of a meeting of the Jungdeutscher Orden 169 on July 3rd-4th,
1932. This stated that the main subject under discussion had been as
follows:
Reichswehr Minister Schleicher supports the NSDAP because that
movement is
headed mainly and exclusively by homosexuals, and, according to
evidence
submitted by Otto Strasser, the Reichswehr minister is also
abnormally
inclined ... Furthermore, while Herr Hitler was spending a longish
sojourn
at his home, Otto Strasser observed things that lead one to infer
an
abnormal disposition in that gentleman too.
Hence this essentially irreproachable Reichswehr general had to die
like his boss, who was known to have taken a `precious possession'
into retirement with him, namely, copies of confidential files.
One last feature of the June 30th scenario was the cynical way in
which many survivors were informed that they, too, had been on a death
list and could count themselves lucky to have survived. Not even
Hitler's associate Rudolf Diels was spared this threat. Heydrich is
said to have told him to his face that Goring had unfortunately
crossed his name off.
It may readily be inferred from these few examples that the operation
carried out on and around June 30th was considerably more than a
pre-emptive strike against the SA leaders and a few of their
reactionary accomplices. It was a carefully planned campaign against
people who knew, or were suspected of knowing, too much about Hitler.
The violent imposition of a state of emergency was intended to enable
the authorities to gain possession, at a stroke, of documents
considered dangerous by Hitler and his regime. Of the more than 1,100
persons detained in the course of the purge, thirty-four were still
behind bars in the autumn of 1934. Their arrest made it possible to
seize private papers and sift them with the utmost care. Hitler's
speech to the Reichstag on July 13th, 1934, revealingly disclosed that
most of his time since the `Rohm putsch' had been spent looking
through countless files, diaries and other `shocking documents' -- in
other words, confiscated material.
Hitler's principal motive for taking action against `Rohm and
associates' was fear of exposure and blackmail. What additionally
confirms this is that the mountains of confiscated documents were not
to be used in trials of any kind but handed over to Himmler's Gestapo
and, thus, to Hitler himself. The elimination of witnesses and
evidence -- that was the real purpose of this act of terrorism.
The Aftermath
The press in exile was hard to control. On July 5th, 1934, for
example, the Paris-based Communist Deutsche Volks-Zeitung announced
that Hitler had eliminated `initiates who had become dangerous' -- men
privy `not least to the private life of the Fuhrer, who is himself
homosexual'. Nor, despite the passage six months after the Rohm
murders of the Malicious Practices Act, which penalised remarks about
NSDAP leaders which were `openly malicious, inflammatory, or
indicative of base sentiments', did all such statements stop. In the
summer of 1935 a homosexual engineer who had worked for the Nazi party
for ten years received the maximum two years' sentence for allegedly
importuning a young man with the words `Look at our Fuhrer -- he also
pleasures himself with gentlemen'. In 1937 an SA trooper who let slip
a remark to the effect that Hitler was `a 175er', like Rohm, spent the
next two years behind bars. A similar fate awaited the editor Hans
Walter Aust in 1942, when he claimed -- correctly -- that Hitler kept
a young girl (Eva Braun) `soley for the purpose of concealing his
homosexuality from those around him'. The following year, such
statements would carry a death sentence.
Clearly Hitler was mortally afraid that the homosexual milieu, which
he himself had experienced firsthand in Vienna and Munich, could at
any time yield up disreputable secrets -- even some, perhaps, that
might affect him personally. Hence he took further preventative
measures.
In 1937 drastic steps were taken to strengthen Paragraph 175. From now
on, mere suspicion of `indecent acts' was sufficient to justify an
arrest. This opened the door to arbitrary police procedures. Hitherto
still partly intact, the homosexual subculture of Germany's cities was
destroyed. A campaign of systematic persecution was launched. Around
30,000 persons were under surveillance by 1939. Many men were
imprisoned, and between 5,000 and 15,000 were permanently consigned to
concentration camps, where the death rate among inmates wearing the
`pink chevron' was exceptionally high.
The end result was that the dictator made homosexuality a privilege
reserved for certain chosen associates, and he was the only one
against whom legislation could never be used. Germany's `Fuhrer' had
become a `saviour' on his own behalf.
But Hitler was also pursuing a political policy. He had realised in
1934 that homosexual advances within his movement could no longer be
tolerated. The public mudslinging campaign against Rohm had shown him
that nothing could prevail over the stigmatisation of homosexuality.
He could see no alternative but to yield, more and more, to conformist
pressure; and once he had taken action against Rohm, his courage and
initiative were extolled. The fact that he had ostensibly crushed a
`putsch' enhanced his power-political standing, enabling him to polish
his image as `the saviour of the nation'. To this extent, the Rohm
affair not only consolidated Hitler's dictatorship but generated a
renewed surge of admiration that rapidly drowned the harsh criticism
levelled at his course of action by foreign observers.
Lothar Machtan is Associate Professor of Modern and Cultural History
at Bremen University. In 1988 he published the acclaimed book
Bismarck's Death and Germany's Tears.
