The Expendable Life of Ernst Röhm

Ernst Röhm was a true believer, right to the end.

Joining the Nazi Party in 1919, he was one of the first members, even before Adolf Hitler, with whom Röhm was so close that he was one of only two or three allowed to address der Führer as “Adi”.

Any fascist movement in its ascendancy needs violent armed thugs to do by force what they can’t do by ballot, and it was Röhm who founded, organized, and directed the dreaded SA, the Brownshirts, the muscle behind the Nazis’ rise to power. He built the organization from assorted bands of political street thugs to a paramilitary force of almost a million members.

SA members were not particularly effective as true military, but they did enjoy regalia and strutting and bullying. Effectively the militia of the Nazi party, they tussled with Communists, persecuted Jews, provided security, and instilled fear where needed. At the best of times they were never much more than a band of brawlers, partiers, braggarts, and yahoos. They loved a fight for the sake of a fight, they loved the show, and they had a disturbing tendency to make up wacko policy on the fly.

Röhm was useful, but he was also an embarrassment. He was loud and opinionated and unsophisticated and rude. Hitler knew that to take and hold power, he needed the support, or at least acquiescence, of the country’s real power classes of money, industrialists, clergy, and professional military. But these groups despised Röhm and his yahoos. As Hitler drew ever closer to power, the country’s elite were prepared to make a deal with him, but not if Röhm and his unruly mob were part of it.

So Hitler had to decide between power and his friend Ernst. As is always the case with autocrats, Hitler was not noted for his loyalty.

The choice was not difficult for another reason. If Hitler intended to rule with an iron fist, the last thing he needed was a freelancing band of footloose thugs with weapons and wild ideas. He was about to get a real, professional army and real, professional police forces, so almost overnight the SA went from asset to liability.

Thus, on the Night of the Long Knives (July 1, 1934), Röhm was hauled out of bed, taken to prison, and summarily shot. Röhm’s beloved SA was disbanded, most of its leadership suffering the same fate as Röhm.

Nazi propaganda went into high gear and told the German people that Röhm had accepted a large bribe from France to sell out the Fatherland (not true), that the SA was plotting against Hitler (not true), and that Röhm and many SA leaders and members were homosexual (true, but not news).

Having played a critical role in Hitler’s rise, Röhm and his SA became expendable. In fact, they were a liability. Useful in the ascendancy, but now a dangerous and inconvenient rabble, they were crumpled like scrap paper and thrown in the trash.

America today has its Three Percenters, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and QAnon activists, street rowdies and misfit wannabe militias spoiling for a fight, any fight, anywhere, any time, all ostensibly to give back to Trump what American voters took from him. A highly useful rabble, but a dangerous rabble nonetheless.

Donald Trump sees himself as an American Emperor, an aristocrat who prefers the company of “winners”– the ultra-wealthy, church leaders, and “His Generals”. Although happy to employ the mob as useful fools, neither he nor the privileged have the least affinity or affection for sweaty, tattooed bandidos who go off like firecrackers. If this motley mob showed up at any of the Donald’s country clubs or golf courses, they would be shooed off like the riffraff he believes them to be.

I’d venture to guess that none of the Donald’s rabble have ever heard of Ernst Röhm, but perhaps they’d do well to read some history.