Ernst Röhm

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Ernst Röhm at an SS roll call at the Döberitz military training area , August 1933

Ernst Julius Günther Röhm (born November 28, 1887 in Munich ; † July 1, 1934 in Munich-Stadelheim ) was a German officer , politician ( NSDAP ) and Kampfbundführer . Röhm was for many years the leader of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and for a short time in the Hitler cabinet Reich Minister without Portfolio before he was murdered on the orders of Adolf Hitler , ostensibly in response to an allegedly planned putsch, the Röhm Putsch .

Live and act

Early years (1887-1914)

Ernst Röhm was the youngest of three children of the Bavarian railway chief inspector Guido Julius Josef Röhm (1847–1926) and his wife Sofia Emilie Röhm (* December 15, 1857; † January 6, 1935), born. Baltheiser. He had an older brother, Robert Röhm (born April 29, 1879; † May 31, 1974), who like his father went into railroad service, and an older sister, Eleanore Röhm (born May 14, 1880; †?), Married Lippert. His nephews, his sister's sons, were the diplomat Bernhard Lippert and the lawyer Robert Lippert .

In the parental home, Röhm was given a strict adherence to the Bavarian royal house , which he maintained until at least 1930. As Protestants , the members of the Röhm family belonged to a minority in Bavaria.

From autumn 1897 to spring 1906 Röhm attended the Maximiliansgymnasium in Munich, where he passed the Abitur . He then joined the Bavarian Army as a flag boy , following his youthful wish to become a soldier . After attending the military school in Munich and being promoted to lieutenant (March 9, 1908), he was assigned to the 10th Infantry Regiment "King Ludwig" in Ingolstadt . There he was considered a dandy and bon vivant in the pre-war years . In view of his later political activities as a military association leader in the 1920s and 1930s ( Reichskriegsflagge , Frontbann , SA ), the personal relationships with a number of fellow regiments he made during these years were to prove useful. Later he built them into the organizations he led as personal confidants in leading positions.

From 1913 Röhm was trained as an adjutant and in the winter of 1913/1914 he was given the task of updating the regiment's mobilization schedule.

First World War (1914 to 1918)

At the beginning of the First World War, the 10th Bavarian Infantry Regiment, of which Röhm belonged, advanced westward. After the German defeat in the Battle of the Marne, the regiment took part in the advance on the Côtes-Lorraines. On September 24, 1914, during the fighting over the town of Spada, Röhm was shot in the face that permanently disfigured him: he was transferred to a home hospital, where his torn nasal bone was replaced with a plastic , which was only partially successful. As a result, he had to learn to breathe through his new nose and undergo further operations due to breathing difficulties. Since the wound festered again and again, he had to struggle with health problems for the rest of his life.

On October 19, 1914, Röhm was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class; on December 3, 1914, he was promoted to first lieutenant.

On April 17, 1915, Röhm returned in the position of a regimental adjutant to the front troops of the 10th Infantry Regiment in Spada, where he was given command of the 10th Company on June 2, 1915. He later called this time the "most beautiful [year] of my soldier life". On April 18, 1916, Röhm was promoted to captain.

During the Battle of Verdun on June 23, 1916, when he stormed the Ouvrage de Thiaumont , Röhm was again seriously wounded when he was hit by fourteen shrapnel on the head, back, upper arms and left thigh. He spent the following six months up to December 1916 in various hospitals in Frankfurt, Munich and Hohenaschau, until he was released on December 2, 1916 as fit for garrison service. During his hospital time he was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class on August 12, 1916. He spent the following months of recovery as an employee in the Bavarian War Ministry in Munich, where he was employed from December 1916 to May 29, 1917 as an adjutant to the head of the Ministry's army department, Gustav Kress von Kressenstein .

After regaining the ability to use the front, Röhm was appointed Ordonnanzoffizier in the staff of the 12th Bavarian Infantry Division under Hugo von Huller or (from June 6, 1917) Karl von Nagel zu Aichberg on May 29, 1917 . This division was used in Romania until mid-April 1918 and then on the Western Front in the last months of the war. After the departure of the 2nd General Staff Officer of Division (Ib), Röhm was entrusted with the exercise of his duties. In this position he was responsible for supplies, accommodation, supplies and meals as well as the medical services of the division. In this capacity, he proved to be an excellent organizer , especially during the German withdrawal from Flanders in 1918.

post war period

After demobilization in 1919, he joined the " Freikorps Epp " under Franz von Epp . This Freikorps was involved in the violent suppression of the Munich Soviet Republic and was integrated into the 7th (Bavarian) Division of the Reichswehr in July 1919 . Together with other nationalist nationalist Reichswehr officers , including Karl Mayr and Beppo Römer , Röhm founded the informal officers' association " Iron Fist ". Here he met Adolf Hitler in the early autumn of 1919 , who was initially an undercover agent in the Political Department of the Intelligence Service of the Reichswehr Group Command, led by Mayr, and who had subsequently carried out political training for the Reichswehr. Hitler was already a member of the German Workers' Party (DAP) and Ernst Röhm joined the party that same year.

Röhm headed the weapons department of the Reichswehr in Bavaria and took over the so-called Feldzeugmeisterei (Feldzeugmeisterei) of the Reichswehr, which was newly established after the resident services were dissolved in 1921. The task of this illegal institution was to hide stocks of weapons and ammunition from the inter-allied control commission, which were prohibited by the provisions of the Versailles Treaty . With the power of disposal over this secret arsenal, the extensively networked Röhm gained an extraordinarily influential position within the right-wing national Bavarian defense associations. Röhm was therefore regarded as the "machine gun king of Bavaria".

Röhm and the NSDAP

Röhm (2nd from right) after the verdict in the Hitler trial on April 1, 1924

One year after joining the DAP, Ernst Röhm became one of the first members of the NSDAP ( membership number 623), which had emerged from the DAP under Hitler's leadership. With Röhm's help, Hitler made his first contacts with Bavarian military and politicians, many of whom Röhm was able to convince to join the NSDAP; Röhm also played an important role in the further organizational development of the party.

From the end of 1921, Röhm was head of the Munich branch of the Reichsflagge , a military association under Röhm's friend, Reichswehr captain Adolf Heiss . At Röhm's initiative, the Reichsflagge joined forces on February 4, 1923 with the Bund Oberland , the Bund Wiking and the SA to form the working group of the patriotic combat units. When Röhm's orders to the Reichsflagge , in which active officers as directors of military exercises were named by name, were made public, Röhm officially withdrew from the leadership of the Federation, but continued to work there unofficially. When the working group marched up on May 1, 1923, the participants received weapons from their stocks despite the Reichswehr's express ban. Röhm was made responsible for this and removed from the division staff. He met an announced transfer to Bayreuth with a bid to leave in the hope of being able to stay in Munich. In fact, the discharge was withdrawn and Röhm was on leave until further notice. After the establishment of the German Combat League on the German Day on September 1 and 2, 1923, Röhm ensured that Hitler could take over the political leadership of the league on September 25. The self-confident Röhm saw Hitler as a "drummer" with high publicity, but assumed the "primacy of the soldier over the politician" himself.

On September 26, 1923, Röhm asked again to leave the Reichswehr in order to forestall a transfer to Berlin. Still on leave, he concentrated entirely on his work in the Reichsflagge . Since he was not ready to take Röhm's course and left the Kampfbund with the Reichsflagge , Röhm split off with the local southern Bavarian groups in October 1923 and founded the Bund Reichskriegsflagge . With his union he supported Hitler's and Erich Ludendorff's initiative for a putsch action. On November 9, 1923, he was instrumental in the Hitler putsch , for which he had to serve a five-month prison sentence. He left the Reichswehr before the Hitler trial . The SA and NSDAP were banned as a result of the attempted coup. In recognition of his prominent role in this coup attempt, he was awarded the Blood Order with the award number 1 in 1933 . Along with Dietrich Eckart , Hermann Esser , Julius Streicher and Christian Weber, Röhm was one of Hitler's very few close friends.

Leader of the ban on the front and withdrawal from politics (1924 to 1928)

After his release from imprisonment , Röhm began to actually build up the SA to a preliminary stage of the paramilitary fighting organization that it was to become final after 1930 and again under his guidance. Röhm couldn't do much with the legality tactic proclaimed by Hitler after the failed coup of 1923, the arrangement within the parliamentary structure. Nevertheless, he entered the Reichstag in 1924 on the Reich election proposal for the National Socialist Freedom Party ; in the same year he joined the DVFP . His political stance remained radically anti-capitalist and revolutionary. For him there was no arrangement with powers that were corrupt for him, such as big industry or the Reichswehr. The SA was supposed to represent an autonomous power that was not subordinate to party politics. Röhm was thus partially openly in opposition to the party leadership of the NSDAP.

Also in 1924, Röhm founded the organization Frontbann , a defense organization with which he wanted to realize his militia idea and whose patronage Erich Ludendorff took over.

In February 1925, Hitler, who had been released from prison in Landsberg in December 1924, entrusted Röhm with building up and managing the newly founded SA. However, Röhm resigned his command after just under two months on May 1, 1925, due to fundamental differences of opinion between him and Hitler about the function and structure of the new SA. While Hitler only wanted to see an auxiliary force of the party in the military association, which was only supposed to take on hall protection and propaganda tasks, but not be a new military movement, Röhm demanded the primacy of the soldier over the politician and saw the political and military leadership of the movement as equal functions. In his thinking, which was still shaped by military activism, Röhm also viewed the legality course now pursued by Hitler with skepticism and did not want to lead an SA that had a purely subordinate relationship to the party organization. At the same time as he was in command of the SA, he also laid down the command of the front ban.

As a result of Röhm's withdrawal from the ban on the front, this organization quickly began to disintegrate. After the frontbann high command in Munich ceased to exist, the individual national organizations of the association initially became independent before they finally ceased to exist at the end of 1925 / beginning of 1926. Their members then joined various other organizations such as the SA and the Tannenbergbund or got lost.

In the years that followed, up to 1928, Röhm managed for a short time in various commercial positions and as a representative. He also submitted his autobiography under the title Story of a High Traitor .

In 1928, with the help of the so-called "Wehrpolitischen Vereinigung" (WPV), Röhm attempted again to become active within the NSDAP, but gave up this undertaking after a short time.

Activity as a military instructor in Bolivia (1928 to 1930)

In mid-1928, Röhm, who at the time was in a precarious professional situation and was largely politically isolated, learned from the former German captain Wilhelm Kaiser, who was now serving as military governor in the Republic of Bolivia, that the Bolivian government was looking for a capable German officer with war experience who, as a military instructor, was to take part in the reorganization of the Bolivian army. The German-born Bolivian chief of staff, Hans Kundt, guaranteed him the rank of lieutenant colonel and a monthly salary of 1,000 Bolivianos, which would give him a luxurious standard of living given the low cost of living in Bolivia.

In mid-December 1928 Röhm left Germany, together with the young painter Martin Schätzl , who accompanied him as secretary, on board the steamer Cap Polonio for South America, where he went ashore in Buenos Aires on December 31st . On January 5, 1929, Röhm arrived in La Paz , the seat of government in Bolivia. There he initially took on duties as a lecturer at the country's military academy, which primarily served to give him the opportunity to learn the Spanish language, which he soon became fluent in. Protests against Röhm's employment by the French government were largely ignored by the Bolivian side.

In June 1929 Röhm was transferred to the position of troop inspector, which he held until September 1929. At the beginning of September 1929, Röhm was appointed chief of staff of the divisional command of the 1st Division of the Bolivian Army in Oruro under General Carlos de Gumucio . He remained in this position until August 1930. In Oruro, Röhm was initially entrusted with the supervision of the garrisons in Challapata , Uyuni and Potosí , which he prepared for the annual autumn maneuver of the Bolivian army in October 1929 (in which Röhm was the leader of one of the commandos involved won the day). He then led the training of recruits and at times led the 1st Division himself for a few weeks during Gumucio's absence.

During his time in Bolivia, Röhm never let the connections at home break. In particular, he followed the political events in Germany with keen interest. He subscribed to the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter and maintained intensive correspondence with old political friends, for example with the Bavarian Crown Prince Rupprecht , to whom he professed the monarchy, and with Heinrich Himmler , who at that time had recently taken over the leadership of the SS. In July 1930, however, he turned down an offer from the NSDAP to return to Germany to run for the Reichstag in the Reichstag election of September 1930.

According to his biographer Hancock, Röhm soon proved himself to be superior to the Chief of Staff Kundt, both intellectually and in his abilities as a practical army commander and organizer. According to Hancock, this may have helped to strengthen Röhm's belief that after the National Socialists took over the government in Germany, he could take on a leading role in the German army and thus combine his military and political aspirations.

The presumption, which appeared earlier in the literature, that Röhm had worked out the plans for the putsch against the Bolivian government under Hernando Siles in June 1930, which ended on June 28, 1930 with the formation of a new junta government under General Carlos Blanco Galindo , considers Hancock to be unfounded.

At that time, however, Röhm decided not to extend his contract with the Bolivian government, which was limited to two years (January 1, 1929 to December 31, 1930) and instead returned to Germany. However, he did not officially resign from the Bolivian army, but received the position of an active officer on long-term leave. Until the end of his life, Röhm kept the option of returning to the Bolivian military service open: in 1931 and 1932 he extended his position in the army at the Bolivian embassy in Berlin on time. Even during his disagreements with Hitler about the course of German military policy, he contemplated returning to South America.

Röhm's departure from Bolivia took place in mid-October 1930. After crossing the Atlantic with the steamship Sachsen on the Hamburg-America Line, he arrived in Munich on November 6, 1930.

Although he had expressly warned the Bolivian chief of staff in a memorandum against a war with Paraguay before his departure, after the beginning of the Chaco War in July 1932 he made his support for the Bolivian side public, despite Germany's official neutrality in this conflict.

Röhm as part of the " Harzburger Front " in Bad Harzburg on October 11, 1931

Chief of Staff of the SA (from 1931)

During Röhm's stay in Bolivia, parallel to the party's political upswing, the struggle for direction in the NSDAP intensified in 1930. In the summer of 1930, the SA leader Walther Stennes , who was responsible for Berlin and the East Elbe regions , called for members of the SA to be placed on the NSDAP's Reichstag electoral list. When the party leadership did not comply with this demand to the extent desired, a "mutiny" of the Berlin SA (1st Stennes Revolt) broke out, which no longer did its job and occupied the Berlin Gau office. Although Hitler succeeded in suppressing the revolt, he came to the conclusion that the SA needed new leadership. As a result, he called Röhm back to Germany. The leader of the SA, Franz Pfeffer von Salomon, who had been in office since 1927, resigned at this point. In the following months up to the end of 1930, the acting leadership of the SA was in the hands of Pfeffer's previous chief of staff, Otto Wagener .

When Röhm returned to Germany in November 1930, Hitler, who had made himself “ Supreme SA Leader ” in September 1930, offered (with which he had abolished the previous separation of the leadership of the NSDAP and SA and united the heads of both organizations in one person ), offered him the post of "Supreme Chief of Staff" of the SA. Unlike his predecessor Pfeffer, Röhm would no longer have the rank of Supreme SA Leader (OSAF) ​​as de facto commander of the SA (which was now with Hitler), but would occupy the position of a chief of staff subordinate to the new OSAF Hitler. Hitler's decision to take on the position of Supreme SA Leader himself was probably a concession to the SA leaders who did not want to be led by any politician, but instead claimed to have a "force in the hands of their own leaders" be. During his stay abroad, Röhm was not involved in the armed forces within the NSDAP and had a good personal relationship with Hitler.

At an SA leaders' conference on November 30, 1930 in Munich, Hitler finally announced to the assembled SA leaders that Röhm had been entrusted with the leadership of the SA, against which Stennes and the North German SA leaders protested violently.

After Röhm took up his new office on January 5, 1931, he expanded the SA into a broad-based movement with which he significantly shaped the self-image and behavior of the NSDAP until the summer of 1934. Under his aegis, the strength of the SA increased significantly within a short time: While the total strength of the SA had been 77,000 men when Röhm took over as Chief of Staff, it had already exceeded the 100,000 mark in April 1931. Edmund Heines became Röhm's deputy as Obergruppenführer of the Sturmabteilung in 1931 . In January 1932 a strength of 290,000 men was reached and when the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933 the workforce of the SA was around 430,000 men. In 1932 he appointed his war comrade Robert Bergmann as his adjutant and SS-Standartenführer in the Supreme SA leadership. As a skillful networker, Röhm gradually occupied other important positions in the Supreme SA leadership, the central control instrument for the management of the SA, as well as in the management staff of the individual regional SA branches with personal confidants and in this way gradually created a powerful position in the NS Move.

Röhm demanded the dissolution of the Reichswehr in a "revolutionary people's militia" provided by the SA. He wanted to advance his vision of a second National Socialist "people's revolution". As a result, he got into another quarrel with Hitler and his followers from the SS and Reichswehr. Although there is written evidence from this time about Röhm's attempts to justify the need for the SA and SS to exist in parallel alongside the Reichswehr, such confessions are unlikely to have corresponded to his convictions. Röhm moved further and further away from the official party line and viewed the SA as “a National Socialist fighting organization alongside the NSDAP” that was “completely independent” of the party.

He also got into an open dispute with Hitler when he refused to rebuild the SA as a "defensive movement of the party". Röhm said on various occasions: “Hitler had to remain a drummer for the military associations. (...) Party politics is not tolerated in the front ban, even in the SA. (...) I strictly forbid any interference by the SA in party matters; I also strictly forbid SA leaders from taking instructions from party leaders. "

In April 1932, the SA was again banned by Chancellor Heinrich Brüning after violent attacks by SA members. In June the ban was lifted by his successor Franz von Papen . As a result, in the run-up to the Reichstag elections in July 1932 , civil war-like unrest ensued, with a total of around 300 dead and over 1,100 injured. Before the Reichstag election in March 1933 , the SA did not shrink from torture to intimidate political opponents.

Scandals about Röhm's homosexuality 1931/32

Hitler and Röhm at the Nazi Party Congress in 1933

In 1931/32 Röhm was the focus of a press campaign aimed at his homosexuality. Very different opponents of National Socialism hoped to be able to meet Hitler himself and to stop his political rise.

Röhm said he had discovered his homosexuality in 1924, had frequented nightclubs such as the Kleist Casino , the Silhouette, the Internationale Diele or the Eldorado since the mid-1920s and lived out his sexuality in the local steam baths. Details about Röhm's sex life from 1931 to 1934 only became known in the course of a trial before the Munich I Regional Court in autumn 1934 ( Granninger and comrades for fornication and pimping ), because Röhm had always taken care not to violate § 175 StGB and not to be blackmailed. However, the actual sexual relationships cannot be comprehensively reconstructed, since the surviving sources are predominantly judicial documents or press reports with the intention of political denunciation. Röhm's conception of homosexuality differed both from the sublimated homosexuality of Hans Blüher and from the notion of a “third sex” represented by Magnus Hirschfeld . Rather, she was fixated on the military man, combined camaraderie with self-sacrificing discipline and was clearly separated from femininity.

After Röhm's appointment as Chief of Staff, the press kept spreading rumors about Röhm's homosexuality. In particular, the social democratic Munich Post tried from the spring of 1931 to discredit the National Socialists politically and morally by reporting on the "warm brotherhood in the Brown House". In the run-up to the presidential elections in March 1932 , this campaign gained momentum again when the social democratic journalist Helmuth Klotz published three leaked letters from Röhm to the doctor Karl-Günther Heimsoth , which had been confiscated during a house search in July 1931. Röhm met several times in Berlin in 1928 and 1929 with Heimsoth, who had a völkisch-national mind, and wanted to win him over to the fight against § 175. In a letter, Röhm had not only assured Heimsoth that he would fight against § 175 in his own way, but also expressed his preferences in a confidential tone and confessed to his homosexuality. The campaign used stereotypes of homosexuality and appealed to homophobic resentment in order to discredit the Nazis. The campaign was politically controversial. The left-wing journalist Kurt Tucholsky, for example, criticized the Weltbühne in 1932 for saying that this public discussion of Röhm's private life was going too far: While claims by National Socialists that the customs of the Weimar were corrupted, one should definitely refer to homosexuals in their own ranks, but one should in principle “Don't go to his opponent in bed,” and it could not matter what kind of people Hitler replaced for his private army. But, as the historian Susanne zur Nieden notes, “[i] in a political situation in which the defenders of the republic seemed to use almost any means to hinder the National Socialists on their way to seizure of power, a scandalous policy was attempted primarily based on the sexual denunciation of Ernst Röhm to discredit the NSDAP. ”The historian Sven Reichardt warns against overestimating the importance of homosexuality in the SA. The press campaigns against Röhm said “more about the ambiguity of the sexual morality of the SPD and KPD than about the actual sexual practices in the SA”. In the long term, the scandal laid the foundation for a fascism theory that causally linked homosexuality and fascism.

In the Nazi movement, homosexuality was tacitly tolerated and taboo. The scandal caused a stir, but Hitler unequivocally stood before Röhm, on whose loyalty he relied. However, some National Socialists around Walter Buch were so appalled by Hitler's adherence to Röhm that they planned the murder of Röhm and his closest confidante. The project failed when Röhm found out about it. The press also learned of the plot and made it part of their campaign.

However, the internal NSDAP conflict about Röhm's homosexuality also spurred a conspiracy theory that ultimately became the basis of the National Socialist policy of persecution against homosexuals. SS and Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler, who was largely responsible for the later murder of Röhm, saw homosexuality as a threat to the state, which, in the sense of the philosopher Hans Blüher, he regarded as a man's domain. In his eyes, homosexual men strive to subvert state structures, which, however, does not strengthen them, as Blüher said, but on the contrary leads to the “destruction of the state”. In Röhm, who had actually installed some homosexual SA functionaries in his immediate environment, Himmler saw a kind of key witness to his conspiracy theory.

After seizing power, the SA developed a real personality cult around Röhm. The rumors about his sex life were denied or put into perspective through historical comparisons, for example with Goethe's promiscuity or Schopenhauer's misogyny . Hitler used Röhm's homosexuality in 1934 to justify its elimination, claiming he only found out about it in 1934. After Röhm's murder, the Nazis' persecution of homosexuals also increased dramatically. Section 175 was tightened in 1935, and afterwards gay meeting places were closed, raids and spying took place in almost all large cities. The German-language exile press commented almost unanimously on Röhm's murder with homophobic overtones and agreed with the Nazi regime in their disgust for his sexual inclinations.

Internal party plans to assassinate Röhm's environment (1932)

The public scandals surrounding Röhm's sexuality or the mortgage that Röhm's person threatened to become for the NSDAP as a result of these scandals led to a strong front forming against him in the party's Political Organization (PO): Zu Röhm's enemies in The party included in particular the party ideologist Alfred Rosenberg , the head of the party publisher Max Amann and the head of the Supreme Party Court Walter Buch . The hostility of these men to Röhm went so far that Buch finally even came up with the plan to remove the burden on the party, which he saw the chief of staff of the SA, by investigating the murder of Röhm's closest collaborators ( Georg Bell , Karl Leon Du Moulin-Eckart , Julius Uhl and possibly also Hans Joachim von Spreti-Weilbach ) and possibly also by Röhm himself: In the spring of 1932, Buch instructed an old friend, the former SA standard leader Emil Danzeisen , to assassinate the group to organize Röhm. These should be disguised as communist attacks. Danzeisen entrusted Karl Horn with the practical implementation. However, he shied away from such an act and instead informed Du Moulin of Buch's intentions towards Röhm and his colleagues during a visit to the Brown House. Once again it was the Munich Post that informed the public about these dramatic events within the Nazi leadership group. An article appeared on April 8, “Cheka Organization in the Brown House? What is cell G? ”, In which a secret Feme organization was reported which had the task of eliminating unpopular Nazis through murder. The dispute over the planned murder of the Röhm group was finally decided by Hitler, who (for the time being) prevented Buch and others from taking further measures against Röhm. However, Hitler also induced Röhm to part with his employees Du Moulin and Bell, whom he viewed as compromised due to the contacts with the left-wing press and the Munich police that they had cultivated in the course of the affair. In the subsequent "Danzeisen Trial", Danzeisen, who remained silent on the allegations, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment on July 5, 1932.

The hostility of the group around Buch zu Röhm, however, persisted subliminally: In a letter to Rudolf Hess from October 1932 , Buch's son-in-law Martin Bormann admitted that he was tolerant of sexual matters and stated that he was "heartily indifferent" to Röhm's homosexuality that this is unacceptable to him because of the damage he is causing the party through his lifestyle: “For me and all real National Socialists, only the movement applies, nothing else. But whatever or who helps the movement is good, whoever harms it is a pest and my enemy. The movement and only it is decisive. ”In 1934 the ongoing hostility of the" Munich party clique "for Buch ultimately contributed significantly to the bloody end of Röhm and his circle.

"Röhm Putsch" and assassination

Ernst Röhm (center) shortly after his appointment as minister without portfolio in the Hitler cabinet (December 1933; SA group leader Karl Ernst on the right, Franz von Stephani on the left )

The appointment of Hitler as Chancellor on January 30, 1933, celebrated the SA, which has now grown to over 400,000 members, with large marches and torchlight procession. In November 1933, Röhm entered the now National Socialist Reichstag again . In March 1933 Röhm was appointed Bavarian State Commissioner and State Secretary . In December of that year he was appointed Reich Minister without portfolio.

In the summer of 1934 Hitler took part in an internal event organized by the Berlin SA, from which the rest of the leadership of the NSDAP was excluded. In the course of this, Hitler marched with a strong SS contingent, including numerous flag and standard bearers. After an emotionally charged speech in front of the assembled SA members, there was a conversation between Hitler and Röhm. Röhm agreed with Hitler that he would send the entire SA on vacation for four weeks. On the morning of June 29, 1934, Röhm issued the staff order, sent his SA on vacation from July 1, and announced that he would take a cure in Bad Wiessee . On the afternoon of June 30, 1934, Röhm, other leading members of the SA and other opponents of Hitler were brought to the Munich-Stadelheim prison on the orders of Hitler and the instigation of the SS under Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Göring and Reinhard Heydrich . The SS had previously spread rumors about a putsch by Röhm and also about his homosexual tendencies. This had long been known, however, for example by the newspaper The straight path of Fritz Gerlich .

Ernst Röhm's death certificate

On July 1st, without a trial, Ernst Röhm was shot and killed by the commandant of the Dachau concentration camp , Theodor Eicke , on Hitler's orders in cell 70 of the Stadelheim prison. Roehm was previously the prompt suicide , not followed to commit. The actions were retrospectively legitimized by the “ State Emergency Defense ” law later initiated by Carl Schmitt . The alleged Röhm putsch was also used by Hitler to murder other political opponents (see Political Murder ). This action was also known as the " Night of the Long Knives ".

Röhm was initially buried in the Perlach cemetery. On July 21, 1934, his body was exhumed and cremated. His (alleged) urn was later buried in Munich's Westfriedhof ; his grave is still a place of worship for right-wing extremists today .

Lore

A large part of the documents relating to Ernst Röhm in the files of the SA and NSDAP were destroyed after his execution in 1934 on the orders of the NS leadership. Much of the documents that were kept in Röhm's private apartment and in his office in the Munich Supreme SA leadership, the Berlin branch of the same, and in Röhm's office as Reich Minister, were confiscated in 1934 and are considered lost. Biographical research on Röhm has therefore always been confronted with the problem of getting as complete a picture of the person and his work as possible, despite these gaps that were forcibly torn into the sources. In particular, a personal diary that Röhm kept until at least 1923 was not found again later.

As a result, the Australian military historian Eleanor Hancock's first academic biography, Hitler's Chief of Staff , was only published almost eighty years after Röhm's murder , whereas previously only shorter profiles from the pen of authors such as Joachim Fest were available. The mentioned loopholes are partially compensated for by Hancock, who succeeded in gaining access to the privately held family papers of the Röhm family (which, among other things, contain Röhm's correspondence with his mother and sister). Furthermore, it is based on files about Röhm that are kept in remote locations, such as the documents about Röhm's time as a military instructor in Bolivia and files in German archives that escaped destruction, such as Röhm's military personnel files in the Bavarian Main State Archives in Munich about his military service until 1923 (BHSA: MA: OP 32380) and the files on the legal settlement of Röhm's personal affairs after his death by the Munich District Court, which has been preserved in the Munich State Archives (Munich District Court: No. 1934/1767).

Fonts

Main work


Side publications

  • Family tree of the Röhm family, completed June 1927 , Degener & Co., Leipzig 1927.
  • “Why I went to Stadelheim! A Document of Time “, in: Völkischer Beobachter of February 27, 1927.
  • "Heroes or Helots", in: Deutsche Zeitung of April 17, 1928.
  • Three letters from Ernst Röhm to Dr. Karl Günter Heimsoth, 1928-29, brochure, Berlin 1932. (published by Helmut Klotz without authorization )
  • "SA. and. SS. “: In: Wilhelm Kube (Ed.): Almanach der Nationalozialistische Revolution , 1933, pp. 64–71.
  • The National Socialist Revolution and the SA: Speech to the Diplomatic Corps and the foreign press in Berlin on April 18, 1934 , M Müller & Sohn, Berlin 1934.

literature

Biographies:

Biographical sketches:

  • Joachim Fest : "Ernst Röhm and the lost generation", in: Ders .: The face of the Third Reich. Profiles of a totalitarian rule , Piper, Munich 1963, pp. 190-206.
  • Conan Fischer: "Ernst Julius Röhm - Chief of Staff of the SA and indispensable outsider", in: Ronald Smelser (Ed.): The brown elite 1, 22 biographical sketches , Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1999, ISBN 3-534-14460-0 , p 212-222.
  • Marcus Mühle: Ernst Röhm. A biographical sketch , Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Berlin, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86573-912-4 .

Entries in reference works :

Essays on individual aspects of Röhm's effectiveness:

  • Heinrich Bennecke : The memoirs of Ernst Röhm. A comparison of the different editions and editions , in: Politische Studien. 14 / I, 1963, pp. 179-188.
  • Eleanor Hancock : Ernst Röhm and the Experience of World War I , in: The Journal of Military History. 60, 1996, pp. 39-60.
  • Susanne zur Nieden : The rise and fall of the virile male hero. The scandal surrounding Ernst Röhm and his murder , in: Dies. (Ed.): Homosexuality and reasons of state. Masculinity, homophobia and politics in Germany 1900–1945 , Frankfurt am Main a. a. 2005, pp. 147-192.
  • Dies./ Sven Reichardt : Scandals as an instrument of the power struggle in the Nazi leadership. On the functionalization of homosexuality by Ernst Röhm , in: Martin Sabrow (Ed.): Forms of public outrage in the Nazi state and in the GDR , Wallstein Verlag; 1st edition. Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-89244-791-8 .

Contributions to the significance of Röhm's homosexuality :

  • Susanne zur Nieden: Homosexuality and reasons of state. Masculinity, homophobia and politics in Germany 1900–1945 , Frankfurt am Main a. a. 2005, pp. 147-192.
  • Alexander Zinn: The social construction of the homosexual National Socialist. On the genesis and establishment of a stereotype. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-631-30776-4 .
  • Alexander Zinn: "Removed from the people's body"? Homosexual men under National Socialism . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2018, ISBN 978-3-593-50863-4 .

Web links

Commons : Ernst Röhm  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Ernst Röhm  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hancock: Ernst Röhm , 2008, p. 18 f.
  2. ↑ Hancock: Ernst Röhm , 2008, p. 20.
  3. ↑ Hancock: Ernst Röhm , 2008, p. 22.
  4. ^ Kurt Bauer: National Socialism. Böhlau, Vienna 2008, p. 75.
  5. ↑ Joachim C. Fest: Hitler. A biography. 7th edition. Ullstein Tb, 2005, ISBN 3-548-26514-6 , p. 204.
  6. ↑ Christoph Hübner: Reichsflagge, 1919–1927. In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria . November 12, 2015, accessed January 20, 2016 . ; Hans Fenske: Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Vaterländischen Kampfverbände, 1923. In: Historisches Lexikon Bayerns . November 12, 2015, accessed January 20, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Peter Longerich: The brown battalions. History of the SA . CH Beck, Munich 1989, p. 35 f.
  8. ^ Hans Fenske: Conservatism and right-wing radicalism in Bavaria after 1918 . Bad Homburg vd Höhe 1969, p. 196.
  9. ↑ Peter Longerich: The brown battalions. History of the SA . CH Beck, Munich 1989, p. 39.
  10. ↑ Christoph Hübner: Reich War Flag, 1923–1925. In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria . November 12, 2015, accessed January 20, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Harold J. Gordon: Hitler putsch 1923. Power struggle in Bavaria 1923–1924. Bernard & Graefe, Frankfurt am Main 1971, p. 459.
  12. ^ Andreas Dornheim: Röhm's husband for abroad. Politics and assassination of the SA agent Georg Bell. LIT Verlag, Berlin / Münster et al. 1998, ISBN 3-8258-3596-0 , pp. 65 f.
  13. ↑ Sebastian Hein: Elite for people and leaders? The General SS and its Members 1925–1945 , 2012, p. 41; Longerich: Braune Bataillone , pp. 48–52.
  14. ^ Mathias Rösch: Die Münchener NSDAP 1925-1933 , 2002, p. 186.
  15. ↑ Hancock: Ernst Röhm: Hitler's SA Chief of Staff , 2008, p. 95 u. 98
  16. ↑ Hancock: Ernst Röhm: Hitler's SA Chief of Staff , 2008, p. 96 u. 99f.
  17. ↑ Hancock: Ernst Röhm: Hitler's SA Chief of Staff , 2008, p. 100 f.
  18. ↑ Hancock: Ernst Röhm: Hitler's SA Chief of Staff , 2008, p. 99 u. 101; Klaus Mües-Baron: Heinrich Himmler: Rise of the Reichsführer SS (1910–1933) , 2011, p. 446.
  19. ↑ Hancock: Ernst Röhm: Hitler's SA Chief of Staff , 2008, p. 100 u. 104.
  20. ↑ Hancock: Ernst Röhm: Hitler's SA Chief of Staff , 2008, p. 101.
  21. ↑ Hancock: Ernst Röhm: Hitler's SA Chief of Staff , 2008, p. 104.
  22. ↑ Joachim Fest: Hitler: Eine Biographie , 1973, p. 627.
  23. ↑ Hancock: Ernst Röhm: Hitler's SA Chief of Staff , 2008, p. 104.
  24. ↑ Hancock: Ernst Röhm: Hitler's SA Chief of Staff , 2008, p. 104.
  25. ↑ Dornheim: Röhm's man for abroad , p. 110; Longerich: Himmler , 2008, p. 128.
  26. ^ Peter Longerich: Heinrich Himmler. Biography , Siedler, Munich 2008, p. 129.
  27. ↑ Longerich: Himmler , 2008, p. 128; Höhne: Mordsache Röhm , p. 104.
  28. ↑ Peter Longerich : The brown battalions. History of the SA. C. H. Beck, Munich 1989, pp. 44 ff., 109 ff.
  29. ^ Wolfgang Mück: Nazi stronghold in Middle Franconia: The völkisch awakening in Neustadt an der Aisch 1922–1933. Verlag Philipp Schmidt, 2016 (= Streiflichter from home history. Special volume 4); ISBN 978-3-87707-990-4 , p. 257.
  30. ↑ Sven Reichardt: Fascist combat leagues. Violence and community in Italian fascism and in the German SA , Cologne 2009, p. 260.
  31. ^ Wolfgang Mück: Nazi stronghold in Middle Franconia: The völkisch awakening in Neustadt an der Aisch 1922–1933. Verlag Philipp Schmidt, 2016 (= Streiflichter from home history. Special volume 4); ISBN 978-3-87707-990-4 , p. 252.
  32. ↑ Susanne zur Nieden: The rise and fall of the virile male hero. The Ernst Röhm scandal and his murder . In this. (Ed.): Homosexuality and. Reason of state. Masculinity, homophobia and politics in Germany 1900–1945 . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 148 f.
  33. ^ Andreas Dornheim: Röhm's husband for abroad. Politics and assassination of the SA agent Georg Bell. LIT Verlag, Berlin / Münster et al. 1998, ISBN 3-8258-3596-0 , p. 262.
  34. ↑ Hans Peter Bleuel: The clean realm. Theory and Practice of Moral Life in the Third Reich . Scherz, Munich 1972, p. 122; Eleonor Hancock: Ernst Röhm. Hitler's SA Chief of Staff . Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2008, p. 89 u. 114; Bernd-Ulrich Hergemöller: Man for man. Biographical lexicon on the history of love for friends and male-male sexuality in the German-speaking area , Berlin 2010, p. 988.
  35. ^ Eleanor Hancock: Ernst Roehm. Hitler's Chief of Staff , 2008, p. 115.
  36. ^ Sven Reichardt: Fascist Combat Leagues: Violence and Community in Italian Squadrism and in the German SA . 2nd edition, Böhlau, Cologne 2014, pp. 679–681.
  37. ^ Sven Reichardt: Fascist Combat Leagues: Violence and Community in Italian Squadrism and in the German SA . 2nd edition, Böhlau, Cologne 2014, p. 683 f.
  38. ↑ Susanne zur Nieden: The rise and fall of the virile male hero. The Ernst Röhm scandal and his murder . In this. (Ed.): Homosexuality and. Reason of state. Masculinity, homophobia and politics in Germany 1900–1945 . Campus, Frankfurt a. M. 2005, p. 165 f .; Alexander Zinn: The social construction of the homosexual National Socialist: On the genesis and establishment of a stereotype . P. Lang, Frankfurt a. M. 1997, pp. 44-46.
  39. ↑ Susanne zur Nieden: The rise and fall of the virile male hero. The Ernst Röhm scandal and his murder . In this. (Ed.): Homosexuality and. Reason of state. Masculinity, homophobia and politics in Germany 1900–1945 . Campus, Frankfurt a. M. 2005, p. 171 f .; Alexander Zinn: The social construction of the homosexual National Socialist: On the genesis and establishment of a stereotype . P. Lang, Frankfurt a. M. 1997, p. 46 f.
  40. ↑ Susanne zur Nieden: The rise and fall of the virile male hero. The Ernst Röhm scandal and his murder . In this. (Ed.): Homosexuality and. Reason of state. Masculinity, homophobia and politics in Germany 1900–1945 . Campus, Frankfurt a. M. 2005, p. 154 f.
  41. ↑ Alexander Zinn: The social construction of the homosexual National Socialists: On the genesis and establishment of a stereotype . P. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 45.
  42. ↑ Ignaz Wrobel alias Kurt Tucholsky: Röhm . In: the same: Collected Works . Edited by Mary Gerold-Tucholsky and Fritz J. Raddatz . Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1987, vol. 10, p. 69 f. ( online , accessed December 1, 2017).
  43. ↑ Susanne zur Nieden: The rise and fall of the virile male hero. The Ernst Röhm scandal and his murder . In this. (Ed.): Homosexuality and. Reason of state. Masculinity, homophobia and politics in Germany 1900–1945 . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 173.
  44. ^ Sven Reichardt: Fascist Combat Leagues: Violence and Community in Italian Squadrism and in the German SA . 2nd edition, Böhlau, Cologne 2014, p. 681.
  45. ↑ Alexander Zinn: The social construction of the homosexual National Socialists: On the genesis and establishment of a stereotype . P. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 47.
  46. ^ Sven Reichardt: Fascist Combat Leagues: Violence and Community in Italian Squadrism and in the German SA . 2nd edition, Böhlau, Cologne 2014, p. 682.
  47. ↑ Susanne zur Nieden: The rise and fall of the virile male hero. The Ernst Röhm scandal and his murder . In this. (Ed.): Homosexuality and. Reason of state. Masculinity, homophobia and politics in Germany 1900–1945 . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 174 f.
  48. ↑ Alexander Zinn: Removed from the people's body? Pp. 243-265.
  49. ↑ Peter Longerich: The brown battalions. History of the SA . CH Beck, Munich 1989, p. 200.
  50. ↑ Alexander Zinn: Removed from the people's body? Pp. 265-279.
  51. ↑ Michael Burleigh , Wolfgang Wippermann : The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945. Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 188-191; Susanne zur Nieden: The homosexual public enemy - the story of an idea. In: Lutz Raphael, Heinz-Elmar Tenorth (Hrsg.): Ideas as a social shaping force in modern Europe. Contributions to a renewed intellectual history. Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, pp. 395-397.
  52. ↑ Dornheim: Röhms Mann fürs Ausland , p. 133 sums up this that based on the sources it “cannot be said with certainty” whether “Buch only wanted the clique around Röhm or also Röhm himself to be eliminated”. Röhm himself assumed that his life had been pursued, but there were some indications against it.
  53. ↑ Dornheim: Röhms Mann fürs Ausland , pp. 119–135; Bernd-Ulrich Hergemöller: Man for man. Biographical Lexicon. On the history of love for friends and male-male sexuality in the German-speaking area , 1998, p. 194.
  54. ↑ Peter Longerich: Die braunen Bataillone , 1989, p. 148. Before that, Bormann writes: "For my part, someone in back India may mess with elephants and in Australia with kangaroos, I don't care."
  55. ↑ Dornheim: Röhm's man for abroad , p. 192.
  56. ^ Allan Mitchell: Revolution in Bavaria, 1918-1919. The Eisner Regime and the Soviet Republic. 1965, p. 69. The same cell, the so-called "prominent cell", had the socialist Kurt Eisner during the First World War , then Count Arco auf Valley in 1919 , murderer of Kurt Eisner, who had meanwhile advanced to Bavarian Prime Minister, then Adolf Hitler in 1923 - after his failed putsch - and later accommodated Erhard Auer and Erwein von Aretin .
  57. ↑ Ian Kershaw : Hitler. Volume 1, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-421-05131-3 , p. 659.
  58. ^ Zdenek Zofka: The emergence of the Nazi system of repression, or: The seizure of power by Heinrich Himmler . ( Memento from January 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: Bayerische Staatszeitung. 01/2004, Bavarian State Center for Political Education .
  59. ↑ Otto Gritschneder: The Führer has sentenced you to death. C. H. Beck, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-406-37651-7 , p. 36.
  60. ^ Australian Center for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society, University of New South Wales: "Peeling Back Nazi Propaganda to find a Man. A scholarly biography of Ernst RÖhm, who was killed in the Nazis' 'Night of the Long Knives', reveals a person who was not nearly as radical as historians would believe. " ; and Hancock: Chief , v. a. P. 173, also p. 181, 220 and passim.
personal data
SURNAME Röhm, Ernst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Röhm, Ernst Julius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (NSDAP), MdR and leader of the Sturmabteilung
DATE OF BIRTH November 28, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 1934
Place of death Munich-Stadelheim