Video: '30th June 1934: Hitler purges the Nazi party in the Night of the Long Knives'

(Saturday, June 30, 1934, starting between 6:00-7:00 a.m. Central European Time) — Reich Chancellor of Germany Adolf Hitler launched a three-day “blood purge” of political and military rivals today in Germany in what came to be known as “The Night of the Long Knives.”

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Hitler, urged on by Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, ordered a series of political extrajudicial executions intended to consolidate his power and alleviate the concerns of the German military about the role of Ernst Röhm and the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazis’ paramilitary organization, known colloquially as “Brownshirts.”

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Nazi propaganda presented the murders as a preventive measure against an alleged imminent coup by the SA under Röhm – the so-called Röhm Putsch.