The Night of the Long Knives was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from June 30 to July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders. When Hitler rose to power in early 1933, he owed much of his success to the muscle of his Nazi Storm Troopers, the SA, a violent, ruthless army headed by Ernst Röhm, Hitler’s long-time friend. Röhm and his Storm Troopers brought Germany into submission by gaining control of the streets gangster-style and violently eliminating Hitler’s political enemies. However, a threatening, revolutionary force was no longer useful now...
