Victims of the Night of the Long Knives

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There were at least eighty-five victims of the Night of the Long Knives who were executed during the purge, although the number may have been in the hundreds. There were more than a thousand victims if those who were arrested are counted along with those who were executed. The Night of the Long Knives (German: Nacht der langen Messer) took place in Germany between June 30 and July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime executed at least eighty-five people for political reasons. Most of those killed were members of the "Storm Division" (SA) (German: Sturmabteilung), a Nazi paramilitary organization.

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[edit] Debate over number of victims

The precise number of victims of the Night of the Long Knives is disputed, and will probably never be known with certainty. Adolf Hitler claimed in his speech in the Reichstag on July 13 that sixty-one had been shot during "the action", thirteen had died resisting arrest and three committed suicide. This understates the number killed. The British historian Richard J. Evans, whose books on the subject have been called "the definitive study for at least a generation," said that at least eighty-five people were killed, and more than one thousand arrested.[1] The noted historian Ian Kershaw, author of a two-volume biography on Hitler, also cites the number of deaths at eighty-five. Kershaw also notes that "some estimates...put the total number killed at between 150 and 200."[2] The journalist and historian William J. Shirer writes in his Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, that "The White Book of the Purge, published by emigrés in Paris claims 401 deaths, but lists only 116 of them. At the 1957 trial in Munich the figure 'more than 1000' was used."[3] It must be noted that both of those figures are wildly higher than the ones most historians of the period rely on, and that Shirer himself was not necessarily citing the figures as accurate, but was simply relaying them in his book. Finally, it should be noted that many—but not all—of the victims had some role in bringing Hitler to power.

[edit] Partial list of victims

The list of victims was retrieved from the German Wikipedia unless otherwise stated.[4]

[edit] Citations

  1. ^ Evans, Richard (2005). The Third Reich in Power. Penguin Group, 39. “At least eighty-five people are known to have been summarily killed without any formal legal proceedings being taken against them. Göring alone had over a thousand people arrested.” 
  2. ^ Kershaw, Ian (1999). Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris. W. W. Norton & Company, 517. 
  3. ^ Shirer, William J. (1960). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Simon and Schuster, 221-222. 
  4. ^ The list of victims was retrieved from the German Wikipedia unless otherwise stated.Röhm-Putsch (German). German Wikipedia. Retrieved on 2007-06-17.

[edit] References

  • Evans, Richard. The Third Reich in Power. New York: Penguin Group, 2005.
  • Kershaw, Ian. Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.
  • Shirer, William J. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960.

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