Original subtitles

Powell: Adolf Hitler caused the deaths of 50 million people.

An entire nation followed him to ruin.

He was hated by those he persecuted,

and even by some of his own commanders --

yet in 25 years,

no one managed to kill him.

Winston Churchill had very few bodyguards,

whilst Hitler had thousands.

He needed them.

During his travels across Europe,

there were over 40 attempts on his life.

Now with access to captured original SS records,

the producers of "Churchill's Bodyguard"

can reveal for the first time

in this new series

how fate and a small number of hand-picked bodyguards

helped this evil genius to cheat death

on so many occasions.

Why did no one manage to kill Adolf Hitler?

Enough people wanted to --

but as this series shows,

it was not as simple as it sounds.

The infamous "Night of the Long Knives"

was Hitler settling old scores

like some Mafia boss,

wiping out most of his deadly enemies

in one long bloody session.

But it was also a test of loyalty

for his closest companions.

Would they step up

and commit murder for him?

He wanted everyone close to him to taste blood that night.

The "Blood Purge," as it was also called,

was the climax of a bitter rivalry

between the brown-shirted SA

and the black-uniformed SS,

over who could provide the best protection

for Hitler and his Nazi dynasty.

It was a battle of the bodyguards.

The Night of the Long Knives had its origin

in the extraordinary character of Ernst Röhm.

Born in Munich in 1887,

he came from a family of prominent civil servants.

Röhm joined the army

and served in the trenches of the Western Front

during World War I.

As a company commander,

he was severely wounded during the assault on Verdun,

receiving the scars that disfigured his face.

It was during active service

that Röhm developed a loathing

for the Prussian military establishment.

Man: "We have got to produce something new.

"Some new organization.

"The generals are a lot of old fogies.

They never have a new idea."

Powell: He was a natural revolutionary.

At the end of World War I,

the victorious Allies were determined to make sure

that Germany could never go to war again.

The Versailles Treaty slashed

the new Weimar Republic's army

to just 100,000 men.

Captain Röhm was one of the elite kept on.

But Rohm's life took a new direction in 1920

when the army instructed him to infiltrate

a small right-wing party --

the German Workers, or "D.A.P."

It was then that the 33-year-old captain

first heard a former corporal speaking.

Adolf Hitler articulated

the rage Röhm felt against the politicians

who had let down the troops,

and created the mess that Germany was in.

In July 1921, Hitler was elected leader

of what he renamed

the National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazis.

Within days, he had selected Röhm

to organize a unit to guard party meetings,

and disrupt those of opponents --

the Sturmabteilung, or SA.

But Röhm was not confirmed as its leader.

Hitler wanted someone with a higher profile,

and he found that in the popular war hero

Hermann Göring, who joined the Nazis in 1922.

An ex-fighter ace,

and winner of Germany's highest award for valor --

the "Pour le Merite," or "Blue Max" --

Göring was put in over Röhm's head.

It was the beginning of a feud

which was to have fatal consequences.

At the same time, a smaller group of SA men

was hived off to be a personal bodyguard for Hitler

called the Stosstrupp, or Assault Squad.

It was the beginning of the SS,

which was eventually to become

the most fearsome and sinister organization in the Nazi state.

As the SA grew in numbers

to become a paramilitary force that would challenge even

the authority of the regular German army,

the SS broke away to become an ultra-ruthless elite.

It dedicated itself

to the personal protection of Adolf Hitler,

and the destruction of all his enemies outside --

and inside -- the Nazi party.

The later rivalry between the SA and the SS

would explain much of the ferocity

of the Night of the Long Knives,

and the eventual fate of Ernst Röhm.

In 1923, Röhm took part in Hitler's Munich Putsch,

and was imprisoned when this collapsed.

After his release, Röhm waited eagerly

to revive the SA once Hitler was also freed.

But he was severely disappointed.

Hitler no longer favored armed revolution.

When he re-entered politics,

he wanted to pursue a constitutional path to power.

Hitler wanted the SA go back to being a political militia,

guarding meetings

and providing muscle on the streets.

But Röhm disagreed.

He wanted the SA to be

a paramilitary revolutionary organization,

capable of seizing power by force.

The clash culminated in 1925, with Hitler sacking Röhm.

He thanked him wholeheartedly for his early support,

but he could not tolerate

a revolutionary and semi-independent SA.

Disillusioned,

Röhm sailed to Bolivia to work as a military adviser.

It the meantime, Hitler gave command of the SA

to an ex-Freikorps commander --

Captain Pfeffer von Salomon.

Within five years,

Hitler had achieved his aim

of winning electoral support,

and stood on the verge of

gaining power in government.

This was largely due to Germany's plunge

into deep recession after the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

Thousands of unemployed and frustrated young men

joined the ranks of the SA Brown Shirts.

It soon became a massive force

which rivaled the power of the small Reichswehr army.

In its ranks were many left-wingers

who believed strongly in

the Socialist aspect of the Nazi Party.

One of these was Walter Stennes,

leader of the SA in Berlin.

In September 1930, he led a mutiny

accusing Hitler of betraying the Nazis revolutionary cause.

This uprising was quelled

with the help of the SS and the police.

But it was a dire warning for Hitler.

He took direct command of the SA,

and sent a message to Röhm in Bolivia,

asking him to come back

as his deputy and get a grip on it.

It was a tremendous gamble.

Hitler had already sacked Röhm once

because he wanted to turn the SA into

an independent band of revolutionary warriors.

But now Hitler had little choice.

The SA was getting out of control,

and he knew Röhm was a ruthless disciplinarian.

Events had moved on

since Röhm had last seen Hitler.

The Fuhrer had grown in stature

as a national politician --

surely that must mean that Röhm would toe the line?

[Speaking German]

Röhm was flattered and excited by the new task.

But as the Brown Shirt ranks

formed up behind him in their hundreds of thousands,

he got the same yearning to transform

this tremendous energy into a revolution.

It was exactly what Hitler didn't want.

But this time the SA was not

the only Nazi force in town --

Hitler could call on the SS,

and it was only too willing to square up to the troublesome SA.

The SS's ruthless leader, Heinrich Himmler,

had marched with Röhm during the Munich putsch attempt,

and was theoretically his subordinate.

But now he saw his boss as a rival

to be undermined and destroyed.

And as Röhm's power mushroomed,

there were plenty of other people

who would be only too happy to destroy him --

not just to prove their loyalty to their Fuhrer,

but also to further their own ambitions.

Ernst Rohm proved a brilliant leader of young thugs.

He organized the SA like a general,

and greatly increased its membership.

From some 100,000 men,

Röhm doubled the figure within a year --

and by the end of 1932,

he commanded over half a million Brown Shirts.

The potential threat from this horde

alarmed not only the government,

but other parts of the German establishment,

including the regular army.

The SA was now five times larger than the Reichswehr.

Generals viewed it with envy -- and fear.

Röhm made no bones

about his ambition to turn his Brown Shirts

into the real defenders of the Third Reich --

a people's army that would remove

the old-fashioned Prussian establishment.

Many years later, Walter Stennes described his ambitions --

Stennes: He wanted

the SA to be so powerful

that they could

control the army,

in time replace the army.

Powell: But Röhm had a major weakness --

he was a voracious homosexual.

He appointed many of his gay friends

to high ranks within the SA,

and the Brown Shirts were soon notorious

for their scandalous sexual behavior.

Hitler, at that time,

had no strong feelings

against homosexuality,

and ignored the behavior of Rohm and his comrades.

He said the SA was not a moral institution

for grooming young ladies, but a club for fighters.

But frequent sex scandals did not play well

among other more prudish members of the Nazi party.

Heinrich Himmler,

Röhm's subordinate and head of the SS,

considered homosexuality to be degenerate.

He wanted it rooted out.

This gave him ample excuses to act against Röhm,

as his aide, SS general Karl Wolff later recalled.

Interpreter: Excesses have always happened

and will always happen.

What is decisive is how the leadership reacts

at any given moment to stop these excesses.

We in the SS always insisted that action should be taken.

Powell: On January 30, 1933, the SA celebrated

as Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany --

but he headed a coalition government,

and many members of the political establishment

were wary of his brutal methods.

The SA helped complete his grip on power

by grabbing control of many government institutions

throughout the country.

[Shouting in German]

They violently crushed opposition from the Communists.

They ran riot in the major cities,

imprisoning and torturing

rival politicians.

British journalist Hugh Greene

later recalled his first impressions.

Greene: When I started work as a journalist in Germany

in the winter of 1933,

I saw the stormtroopers

in the days of their glory --

the strutting bully boys of the streets

in every town and village,

sure that they, four million strong,

were the masters now.

Powell: Röhm was at the peak of his power.

But success was going to his head.

He wasn't content with

dominating the existing political system --

he now wanted

revolutionary changes.

The Reichswehr's generals were well aware

that they were a prime target,

and complained to the new Chancellor

about Röhm's parallel army.

Major-General Walther von Reichenau,

a senior officer in the War Ministry,

suggested that the SA might be combined with the Stahlhelm --

a massive reservoir of ex-soldiers --

to become a militia under the control of the Reichswehr.

Surprisingly, Röhm seemed to accept the idea,

but then ensured that

once the Stahlhelm had been absorbed,

the massively enlarged SA

remained under his control.

He was now in charge of a paramilitary army

numbering a startling 4.5 million men.

Outwitted, the generals appealed directly to Hitler

to curb the growth of the SA.

The Fuhrer seemed reluctant to confront his old comrade,

and attempted to cobble together an agreement.

Behind the scenes,

Röhm was contemptuous of the Fuhrer's peace-making.

At a dinner in March 1934,

drunk and surrounded by his SA cronies,

he let rip his true feelings --

Man: I have not the slightest intention

of me keeping this agreement.

Hitler is a traitor,

and at the very least must get out.

If we can't get there with him,

we'll get there without him.

Powell: This was high treason.

One of the SA officers present was Viktor Lutze.

Shocked by Röhm's words,

he traveled to Hitler's private residence, the Berghof,

to report them.

The Fuhrer listened to Lutze,

but still seemed reluctant

to take action against his old friend Röhm.

Hitler might hesitate,

but Röhm's growing power

had the effect of bringing two dangerous enemies

together against him.

Röhm's ambitious deputy, Heinrich Himmler,

had been engaged in a bitter power struggle

against Hermann Göring.

The Reichsfuhrer-SS

wanted to complete his control of Germany's police forces

by taking over that of Prussia, which was Göring's fiefdom.

But both men now realized that Röhm

and his massive army were a far greater threat.

Göring agreed that Himmler take over the Prussian force --

including its dreaded secret police department,

the Gestapo.

In return, Himmler would support

Göring's drive to command Germany's armed forces,

an ambition which was being blocked by Röhm.

In April 1934,

the two men persuaded Hitler to put the Prussian police force --

including the Gestapo -- under Himmler.

By combining the SS and the Gestapo,

Himmler now had a powerful machine

to take on the SA.

The Reichsfuhrer-SS instructed his ruthlessly efficient deputy,

Reinhard Heydrich, to draw up plans

to eliminate Röhm.

He was determined that henceforth he would control

the internal security of the Reich,

and be the man ultimately responsible

for Hitler's bodyguard.

In mid-1933, the threat that the SA

might pose to Hitler's safety

had seemed proven --

a Brown Shirt was spotted in the grounds of the Berghof.

SS security guards thought he was acting suspiciously

and arrested him.

A gun was found on him,

and he seemed intent on assassinating the Führer.

Now, nine months later,

the three most ruthless men in the Third Reich --

Göring, Himmler and Heydrich --

were determined to destroy Ernst Röhm.

Only their leader Adolf Hitler remained indecisive.

Himmler and Heydrich began to gather evidence against the SA.

But apart from a few SA arms dumps,

there was surprisingly little proof

of any plans to rebel against Hitler.

It was mainly unsubstantiated rumor.

Despite this, the plotters were soon rewarded.

For Hitler was now forced

to recognize the harsh political necessity

of acting against Röhm --

whatever pangs of guilt he might feel about betraying

his old street-fighting comrade.

On April 10, 1934, he went to Wilhelmshaven

and boarded the pocket battleship Deutschland.

The official reason was to review a naval exercise.

But while on board he held a secret meeting with

General Werner von Blomberg, the minister of war,

General Werner von Fritsch, commander of the army,

and Admiral Erich Raeder, head of the navy.

Hitler agreed to curb Röhm and the SA

in return for military support

to make him president when Hindenburg died.

Nevertheless, Hitler still hoped to avoid force.

On June 4, 1934,

he had a five-hour private discussion with Röhm

in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin.

He tried to convince him

to scale down the activities of the SA.

Röhm agreed to take a break.

He would go to Bad Wiessee, a resort south of Munich.

The entire SA was ordered to stand down for the summer.

But the pressure on Hitler

continued to grow.

On June 16, in Venice during

his first state visit to Italy,

his fellow dictator, Benito Mussolini,

urged him to muzzle the SA.

And the next day, without warning, in Marburg,

Franz von Papen, the non-Nazi Vice-Chancellor of Germany

and one of the men who had miscalculated so badly

in bringing Hitler to power,

made a speech criticizing

the excesses of the Nazi regime --

by which he meant Ernst Röhm's Brown Shirts.

The Nazis managed to stop the speech from being broadcast

and seized all the newspapers which printed it,

but von Papen's action had wakened a more formidable foe.

On the June 21,

President Hindenburg summoned Hitler to meet him.

The aged head of state

told his chancellor

that unless he acted immediately against the SA,

martial law would be declared

and the army used to crush it.

Hitler now knew he must act quickly.

Time had run out for Röhm.

He was a sacrifice that must be made

if the Nazis were to remain in power.

Himmler's SS plotters went into action.

As his adjutant Karl Wolff later described,

secrecy was paramount...

Interpreter: Contingency planning was very secret,

nothing was done in writing,

all preparations were verbal.

One did not want to alert the SA.

Powell: Himmler, Heydrich, and Göring

were ready to use the opportunity

to settle old scores,

and death lists were prepared.

Interpreter: These lists were mainly drawn up

between Himmler and Göring.

Göring had to approve all the names.

Göring had been put in overall charge of the entire operation,

"Operation Hummingbird."

Powell: Sometimes, embarrassingly,

it was found that the lists included

allies of the other side.

Göring insisted that Rudolf Diels,

former head of the Gestapo, be saved.

He had served Göring well,

not least by opposing Heydrich and Himmler's plots.

In order to keep up the facade of normality,

Göring went with Röhm to the wedding of

the Berlin SA commander, Karl Ernst --

a man whose name he had already put on the death lists.

Like some Mafia Godfather,

having made his decision,

the Fuhrer wanted everyone close to him

to dip their fingers into the blood of the comrades

they were about to kill.

Everyone must demonstrate their loyalty --

and that included many of Hitler’s personal bodyguards.

On June 25, 1934, Rudolf Hess

delivered a furious speech aimed at Röhm.

Interpreter: Woe to him who breaks faith

in the belief that he can serve the revolution

by causing revolt.

Woe to him who sinks his flat feet

among the fine threads of the Fuhrer's careful plans,

hoping to force the pace.

He is an enemy of the revolution.

Heil Hitler! Sieg heil! Sieg heil!

Unaware of the cataclysm which was building up,

Röhm and his senior SA commanders now headed south

to the Pension Hanselbauer at Bad Wiessee.

They relaxed rather than plotted --

but meanwhile the plot against them

was coming to the boil.

On June 28, Hitler flew out of Berlin

for a wedding in Karlsruhe...

and then onto Essen

to begin a tour of work camps in the Rhineland

He stayed at the Hotel Dreesen on the banks of the Rhine.

On the afternoon of the 29th,

he cut short his visits and went back to the hotel.

That evening he was joined by senior Nazis,

among them Joseph Goebbels,

who warned him that an SA putsch seemed imminent.

Shortly afterwards, Göring telephoned to confirm

that Karl Ernst had put the SA in Berlin on alert --

the implication was that the coup had begun.

At 9:30, Viktor Lutze,

the SA officer who had revealed Röhm's boast

about removing Hitler, arrived,

and assured Hitler of the loyalty

of the bulk of the SA.

Then Hitler telephoned Röhm in Bad Wiessee,

telling him to meet him the next morning.

At the same time, Sepp Dietrich,

commander of the SS-Leibstandarte regiment,

was told to fly to Munich and take command of

the SS forces there.

In Berlin, the rest of Hitler's Leibstandarte

were made combat ready at their base at Lichterfelde.

Two final phone calls convinced Hitler

that he was taking the right action.

[Telephone ringing]

The first came just after midnight from Himmler in Berlin.

He said that Karl Ernst had now ordered a general mobilization

of the SA units in the German capital.

It was a lie.

The streets were quiet,

and most of the Berlin SA had gone on leave.

The second call was from Adolf Wagner,

the Bavarian Minister of the Interior.

He said that SA troopers

were protesting against Hitler in the streets of Munich

That was a lie, too.

But it was too late.

The Nazi party

had Röhm in its sights and would not let him go.

At 1:00 in the morning of June 30th,

Hitler left the hotel for Bonn airport.

Dietrich was telephoned in Munich

and instructed to take his SS units

to Bad Wiessee and await Hitler's arrival.

At Bonn airport, Hitler's personal transport,

a Ju-52, was warmed up.

Hitler's car took about half an hour to reach the airport.

Then at 1:50 the plane took off for Munich.

As it did so, Himmler and Heydrich in Berlin

were alerted that Hitler was on the move.

They went to the Gestapo headquarters

at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse.

As his plane flew south,

Hitler braced himself for what was going to be

the most deadly day of his rule so far.

This would be the test of his control of the Nazi party.

Would the men he most trusted stand by him?

Or would he end up being betrayed and killed?

At the Pension Hanselbauer,

his intended victims slept on --

unaware of the horror which was heading their way.

June 30, 1934,

Hitler reached Munich at 4:00 in the morning,

intent on murder.

He went first to the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior,

where local SA commanders

had been told to gather.

They were arrested and taken to Stadelheim prison.

Then he set out from party headquarters

for Bad Wiessee, to confront

the rebel Brown Shirts face-to-face.

For this dangerous mission,

he chose to be accompanied by his closest and oldest comrades,

among them former bodyguards, such as Emil Maurice

and Julius Schreck.

Erich Kempka drove -- he was Hitler's

personal chauffeur and one of the eight-strong

elite close escort, the SS-Begleitkommando.

Viktor Lutze and Joseph Goebbels

were also part of the hit squad.

They arrived at Bad Wiessee

at 6:30 am.

The Pension Hanselbauer was unguarded,

and the SS men burst in.

Then Hitler and two bodyguards, revolvers in hand,

raced up to the first floor where Röhm was asleep.

As the door was kicked open, Hitler shouted, "You traitor!"

Dazed and confused by the sudden appearance of his old friend,

Röhm meekly put on his clothes.

Then Hitler went to a nearby room and hurled open the door.

Senior SA commander Edmund Heines

had forgotten to lock it,

and was found in bed with his chauffeur.

Hitler's reaction was witnessed by a hotel employee,

Hans Hausjell.

Interpreter: And Hitler was screaming like a madman,

"You pigs, you should be shot."

[Continues in German]

Powell: The arrested SA men

were locked in the basement of the hotel.

Shortly after 7:30,

Hitler, Lutze and Goebbels set off back to Munich

with the arrested senior SA commanders.

Wisely, they chose to return by the longer route

round the south of the lake,

in case SA men loyal to Röhm

decided to attempt an ambush on the more direct northern route.

In Munich, the arrested SA chiefs

including Ernst Röhm,

were taken to Stadelheim Prison.

By 10:00, Hitler and his accomplices

had reached the Brown House party headquarters.

From there, Goebbels telephoned Göring in Berlin

and uttered the single word "Kolibri” -- "Hummingbird"

It was the code for the Blood Purge to begin.

Himmler and Heydrich now unleashed

the Berlin part of the murderous plan.

Karl Wolff was one of the key men in carrying it out.

[Speaking German]

Interpreter: I was alerted during the night of June 30th

at my flat in Berlin with orders to pack the minimum,

toilet things, a clean shirt --

and to report to Göring's private residence.

We were each given a room

equipped with special telephone lines.

We spent the next three days, up till July 3rd,

making telephone calls.

I think we made something like 7,000 calls --

the wires at one time were literally glowing.

Powell: SS agents fanned out all over Berlin

to start rounding up the enemies on their hit lists

and taking them to the Leibstandarte headquarters

at Lichterfelde.

Over the next 24 hours,

scores of confused men

were taken from the cells and shot --

many of them still shouting "Heil Hitler,"

unable to believe that they were regarded as traitors.

The hit squads disposed of some important victims

more summarily.

General Kurt von Schleicher,

the last Chancellor before Hitler,

was enjoying a sunny day at home.

Two SS men entered his study and shot him dead.

When his wife ran in, she was shot, too.

The problem was

the General had nothing to do with any SA revolt.

Gregor Strasser, an early rival to Hitler

for the leadership of the Nazi Party,

was tortured by the Gestapo before being shot.

Hitler's vengeance reached back a long way...

Ritter von Kahr, the former prime minister of Bavaria

who crushed the Munich Putsch,

was found hacked to pieces in a wood near Dachau.

Like a mobster chief, Hitler was settling old scores,

and his henchmen lined up to prove their worth.

Back in Munich, ex-bodyguard Emil Maurice

was dispatched to kill Father Bernhard Stempfle --

a man who knew too much

about Hitler's relationship with Geli Raubal.

He was found with three bullets in his heart and a broken spine.

This murder helped rehabilitate Maurice in Hitler's eyes.

He was forgiven for being so unwise

as to also have a relationship with Geli.

Kurt Gildisch was another one of Hitler's bodyguard

who needed to prove his loyalty.

Just that month he had been sacked from command

of the Begleitkommando because of his drink problem.

Based in Berlin, Gildisch's first task

was to kill Erich Klausener,

head of Catholic Action and a critic of Hitler.

Having done this, he was sent by air to Bremen

to arrest Karl Ernst, whose wedding

Göring had attended just a few days earlier.

Ernst was leaving on a cruise for his honeymoon

when Gildisch intercepted him.

He thought it was a Nazi wedding joke

in extremely poor taste,

and submitted to

being handcuffed and flown back to Berlin.

Mercilessly, Gildisch escorted him to the Lichterfelde barracks

for summary execution.

While the blood flowed in Berlin,

back in Munich,

Hitler faced a crucial decision --

at the top of the list of senior SA commanders

now being held at Stadelheim was his old comrade Ernst Röhm.

Could he really betray a man who had stood by him

in the early struggles?

While Hitler struggled with his decision

about whether Ernst Röhm should die,

it was the turn of Sepp Dietrich to prove his loyalty.

He was instructed to select a firing squad,

and then proceed to Stadelheim prison

with a list of six senior SA officers

who were to be executed immediately.

Röhm's name was not on the list.

Dietrich arrived at the prison at 6:00 p.m.,

but was told by its governor

that the order for execution had not been signed.

Dietrich returned to the Brown House,

but Hitler had already left for Berlin.

Adolf Wagner, Minister of the Interior,

had to sign the list on behalf of the Führer.

As the first SA officer was led out

into the courtyard of the prison,

he asked Dietrich, whom he knew well,

what was going on.

Dietrich replied bleakly

that he had been condemned to death by the Führer.

An SS officer then confirmed the sentence,

and the Leibstandarte firing squad shot him.

But even Dietrich could not stand

seeing the entire massacre carried out --

he left before the last Brown Shirt was executed.

By the end of that blood-filled day,

the men who had been chosen to protect Hitler against attack

were no longer passive bodyguards,

but active assassins.

The final death tally for the Night of the Long Knives

was at least 85.

The families of many victims received letters

claiming that they had been court-martialed and shot

for treason.

German radio and newspapers

hailed the murders as the justified crushing

of an attempted coup against the government.

As Hitler flew back to Berlin

on the evening of the 30th,

the life of one of his oldest comrades hung in the balance.

Ernst Röhm was still alive,

and Hitler seemed unconvinced of the need to kill him.

Now that the threatened SA revolt had been crushed,

surely he could be let off.

But on his arrival he was confronted by

colleagues who had very different ideas.

It took several hours of argument

next morning at the Reich Chancellery

for Hitler to be convinced that Röhm must die.

The Fuhrer kept hoping

his old friend would spare him the decision

by committing suicide, but Röhm refused.

He could not believe he had done anything wrong

to cause the wrath of his friend and leader.

Eventually, Hitler succumbed.

At about 2:00 in the afternoon,

SS Concentration Camp commander Theodor Eicke

was dispatched to Stadelheim prison.

With two SS gunmen to back him up,

Eicke arrived at 3:00 p.m. on July 1, 1934.

Röhm was sitting in cell number 474,

stripped to his waist and sweating heavily.

Eicke strode into the cell

and told Röhm that the Fuhrer had given him

one more chance to redeem himself.

He left a pistol on a table beside a newspaper

with a headline screaming that Röhm had been

dismissed and arrested.

But Röhm did not pick up the pistol.

His old friend had no reason to demand his death.

After 15 minutes, Eicke re-entered the cell

and two shots were fired.

[Two gunshots]

Although felled, Röhm was still breathing.

A third shot to the chest finished him off.

[Gunshot]

At almost the same moment

that his old comrade was being murdered,

Hitler was watching a march past

of the band of the Berlin state police.

Hitler the man claimed to be depressed

at the slaughter of so many

long-serving party members.

However, for Hitler the politician,

the Night of the Long Knives was a triumph.

As Albert Speer, his architect and confidant later reported --

Speer: Hitler was happy because he heard from Hindenburg

that he okayed

the whole action, and Hindenburg made a remark --

he said, "When history is made, blood must be shed."

Powell: The generals, too, were delighted.

They no longer had to fear the SA as a rival,

and rewarded Hitler's blood sacrifice

by pledging to support to him

when President Hindenburg died.

The power of the SA was broken.

Many Germans both inside and outside the Nazi party

breathed more easily.

Viktor Lutze, betrayer of Röhm,

became head of an SA cut down in size

and kept on mainly for

ceremonial purposes.

The other big winner was, of course, Heinrich Himmler --

his SS was now the undisputed master

of Hitler's security services.

Göring's Gestapo had already been absorbed

into the SS machine, and now Röhm was dead.

No one could rival Himmler,

and no one could resist his black-uniformed guards.

In a speech to the Reichstag on July 13, 1934,

Hitler justified his action by saying that

Röhm had planned to have him assassinated.

Himmler had eliminated this threat.

Some of Hitler's closest companions,

many of them his personal bodyguards,

had proved their loyalty by killing his enemies.

They now knew better than to step out of line.

Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934,

and his body was transported to a mausoleum at Tannenberg --

the scene of his greatest victory

in World War I.

With Hindenburg out of the way,

Hitler absorbed the title of President

into his own role as Chancellor,

making himself absolute head of state.

From now on, he was known simply as the Fuhrer --

the leader of his people.

The German army gave its ultimate blessing

to Hitler's dictatorship.

Everyone in the armed forces

took an oath of allegiance not to the nation,

but to Hitler personally.

Interpreter: I swear before God this sacred oath.

I will render unconditional obedience

to Adolf Hitler, the leader of the German nation and people,

supreme commander of the armed forces.

I will be ready as a brave soldier

to sacrifice my life

at any time for this oath.

Powell: By doing this, the German army

submitted completely to Hitler.

It created a whole new

army of bodyguards sworn to protect him.

It seemed Hitler had silenced all his enemies,

but Nazi in-fighting was not completely over.

Far from making Hitler more secure,

the Night of the Long Knives added angry, betrayed SA men

to the long list of his potential assassins.

Over the next year, assassins from their ranks

calling themselves Röhm's avengers

killed more than 150 SS officers.

Ernst Röhm's spirit at least had a bloody revenge.

There was another group of Germans

who took no pleasure at all

in Hitler’s rise to absolute power -- Germany's Jews.

Hitler had already made it clear that his regime was dedicated

to removing them utterly from German society.

Some Jews hoped that,

now that Hitler had what he wanted,

he might leave them alone.

He had used anti-Semitism as a crude electoral weapon

but now it might be dropped.

With this in mind, from 1934 to 1938,

Jewish emigration out of Nazi Germany

actually slowed down.

But other Jews saw this merely as the lull before the storm.

They believed that if German law and democracy

could no longer protect them,

then they would have to take their own measures

to defend themselves.

And that meant killing Adolf Hitler.

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