Night of the long knives
|
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| Native name | Unternehmen Kolibri |
|---|---|
| Duration | June 30 – July 2, 1934 |
| Location | Nazi Germany |
| Also known as | Operation Hummingbird, Röhm Putsch (by the Nazis), The Blood Purge |
| Type | Coup d'état and purge |
| Cause | Conflicts between Strasserist and Hitler |
| Organised by |
Adolf Hitler Joseph Goebbels Heinrich Himmler Reinhard Heydrich |
| Participants |
Schutzstaffel (Hitler faction) Sturmabteilung (Röhm faction) Unorganized regime opposition |
| Outcome |
|
| 85 officially and upwards to 150–200 total | |
The Night of the Long Knives (German: 
Nacht der langen Messer ), also called Operation Hummingbird or, in Germany, the Röhm Putsch (German spelling: Röhm-Putsch), 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 extrajudicial executions intended to consolidate Hitler's absolute hold on power in Germany. Many of those killed were leaders of the SA (Sturmabteilung), the Nazis' own paramilitary Brownshirts organization; the best-known victim was Ernst Röhm, the SA's leader and one of Hitler's longtime supporters and allies. Leading members of the left-wing Strasserist faction of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), along with its figurehead, Gregor Strasser, were also killed, as were establishment conservatives and anti-Nazis (such as former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and Bavarian politician Gustav Ritter von Kahr, who had suppressed Adolf Hitler's Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923). The murders of Brownshirt leaders were also intended to improve the image of the Hitler government with a German public that was increasingly critical of thuggish Brownshirt tactics.
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