#nazi putsch

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:

This past Saturday night—just days before the 4th anniversary of the Jan. 6 terrorist attack-- Donald Trump held an event at his exclusive county club to honor one of the lawyers whose election fraud lies helped fuel the insurrection. That was a despicable event—but not expected. After all Trump has followed Adolph Hitler’s playbook after his own failed coup to honor and celebrate those who helped him with his treasonous plot. And if history is a guide, by the 5th anniversary of Trump’s Jan 6 terrorist attack, we can expect Trump to have created a national day of remembrance to honor the sacrifice of the MAGA “patriots” who waged that deadly attack on our Capitol. There is little originality when it comes to fascist tactics and propaganda. That is why what Trump has been doing to rewrite the Jan 6 attack as an “act of patriotism” was foretold to us by history—and Nazi history at that. In 1923, Hitler waged a coup known as the “Beer Hall Putsch” where he led several thousand of his supporters in an effort to violently overthrow Germany’s Weimar Republic. Among those who marched with Hitler included Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Rudolf Hess and others who would later serve in very visible positions in the Nazi regime.

Hitler’s plot led to a clash with the Munich police that left 14 Nazis and four police officers dead—and scores of both injured. Hitler was arrested and served less than one year in prison where he wrote “Mein Kampf” and plotted his return to power. After Hitler’s release from jail, he saw the benefit of celebrating the so called “martyrs” of the coup as a way to rally supporters. Hitler even utilized a flag from the attack that had been stained with the blood of his supporters—known as the “Blood flag” --as a powerful piece of propaganda at Nazi events. Once Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he honored those killed by the police in his coup attempt with an annual event known as “Reich Day of Mourning.” And the city square where the Hitler’s loyalists had clashed with police became a key memorial for the Nazi Party. It was only after World War II did the German Federal Republic dedicate a plaque memorializing the four police officers killed in defense of the Weimar Republic.

In the case of Trump-- after first attempting to claim Jan. 6 was carried out by Antifa—he embraced Hitler’s playbook of celebrating the Jan. 6 attackers, sensing that this would help him excite the MAGA base. Less than a year after Jan 6, Trump began to make his supporter Ashli Babbitt--who was killed by a police officer when she jumped into a secured area against the officer’s command--into a martyr for the MAGA cause. Trump—just ten months after the Jan 6 attack--recorded a personal message for the Babbit family declaring, “There was no reason Ashli should've lost her life that day.” He added, “We must all demand justice for Ashli and her family, so on this solemn occasion as we celebrate her life.” Afterwards, Babbitt’s mother shared in an online video how Trump had personally caller her and that, “He said he talks about Ashli and he thinks about Ashli and that he has her on his heart.” That of course overjoyed MAGA core supporters who had already been celebrating Babbitt.

From there, Trump leaned into honoring the attackers who brutally beat up police officers—injuring more than 140--with four officers committing suicide in the months that followed. Trump hailed the MAGA terrorists at his rallies as being “great patriots” and “hostages.”

In 2023, Trump welcomed a fundraiser for the Jan. 6 attackers at his country club where he slammed the prosecution of the attackers. He told the audience, “You have firemen, you have teachers, you have electricians, you have great people, and they’ve been made to pay a price.” He even personally donated money to the cause. One of the most traitorous displays by Trump was his recording of a rendition of the national anthem with Jan 6 attackers who were in prison for savagely beating up police officers. This song titled, “Justice For All”—and produced by Trump’s pick to head the FBI, Kash Patel-- includes as singers, Ryan Nichols who pled guilty to assaulting law enforcement officers and was sentenced to more than five years in prison. Others singing include Shane Jenkins who was convicted of seven felonies, including assaulting law enforcement with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to seven years in prison. And it’s this song that Trump kicked off many campaign rallies with an announcer asking the crowd to “please rise for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6 hostages,” followed by the song being played. This is no different than Hitler’s use of the “Blood Flag”—but in this case Trump is celebrating MAGA terrorists he knows were the tip of the violent spear who attacked the police in his name.

Donald Trump’s honoring of the domestic terrorists who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6th has disturbing echoes of Führer Adolf Hitler celebrating the Beer Hall Putsch as the “Reich Day of Mourning” in Nazi Germany.

[redjennies]

honestly I'm usually anti-death penalty, but if FDR had executed everyone involved in the Business Plot of 1933 (or The Wall Street Putsch, for a far more apt descriptor) for what was quite objectively treason, we could have probably avoided both Bush presidencies.

[pitch-and-moan]

Abendessen für Schmucks

The true-ish story of the first time Hitler tried to convince members of the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei to make him the leader of of the Sturmabteilung over a dinner at a beer hall in Munich, despite being a vegetarian and teetotaler. The film is shot as a slapstick farce, other guests brought to the dinner include a black German war veteran, a crossdressing former circus performer, a failed inventor who was a protégé of Nikola Tesla who believes he can communicate telepathically, a furry, and Ahasver the Wandering Jew.

[thatswhywelovegermany]

November 9, the fateful day of the Germans in history

Nov 9, 1313: Battle of Gammelsdorf - Louis IV defeats his cousin Frederick the Fair marking the beginning of a series of disputes over supremacy between the House of Wittelsbach and the House of Habsburg in the Holy Roman Empire

Nov 9, 1848: Execution of Robert Blum (a german politician) - this event is said to mark the beginning of the end of the March Revolution in 1848/49, the first attempt of establishing a democracy in Germany

Nov 9, 1914: Sinking of the SMS Emden, the most successful German ship in world war I in the indo-pacific, its name is still used as a word in Tamil and Sinhala for a cheeky troublemaker

Nov 9, 1918: German Revolution of 1918/19 in Berlin. Chancellor Max von Baden unilaterally announces the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and entrusts Friedrich Ebert with the official duties. At around 2 p.m., the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann proclaims the "German Republic" from the Reichstag building. Two hours later, the Spartacist Karl Liebknecht proclaims the "German Soviet Republic" from the Berlin City Palace.

Nov. 9, 1923: The Hitler-Ludendorff Putsch (Munich Beer Hall Putsch) is bloodily suppressed by the Bavarian State Police in front of the Feldherrnhalle in Munich after the Bavarian Prime Minister Gustav Ritter von Kahr announces on the radio that he has withdrawn his support for the putsch and that the NSDAP is being dissolved.

Nov 9, 1925: Hitler imposes the formation of the Schutzstaffel (SS).

Nov 9, 1936: National Socialists remove the memorial of composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in front of the Gewandhaus concert hall in Leipzig.

Nov 9, 1938: November Pogrom / Pogrom Night ("Night of Broken Glass") organized by the Nazi state against the Jewish population of Germany.

Nov 9, 1939: The abduction of two british officiers from the Secret Intelligence Service by the SS in Venlo, Netherlands, renders the British spy network in continental Europe useless and provides Hitler with the pretext to invade the Netherlands in 1940.

Nov 9, 1948: Berlin Blockade Speech - West Berlin mayor Ernst Reuter delivers a speech with the famous words "Peoples of the world, look at this city and recognize that you cannot, that you must not abandon this city".

Nov 9, 1955: Federal Constitutional Court decision: all Austrians who have acquired german citizenship through annexation in 1938, automatically lost it after Austria became sovereign again.

Nov 9, 1967: Students protest against former Nazi professors still teaching at German universities, showing the banner ”Unter den Talaren – Muff von 1000 Jahren” ("Under the gowns – mustiness of 1000 years", referring to the self-designation of Nazi Germany as the 'Empire of 1000 Years') and it becomes one of the main symbols of the Movement of 1968 (the German Student  Movement).

Nov 9, 1969: Anti-Semitic bomb attack - the radical left-winged pro-palestinian organization “Tupamaros West-Berlin” hides a bomb in the jewish community house in Berlin. It never exploded though.

Nov 9, 1974: death of Holger Meins - the member of the left-radical terrorist group Red Army Faction (RAF) financed in part by the GDR that eventually killed 30 people, dies after 58 days of hunger strike, triggering a second wave of terrorism.

Nov 9, 1989: Fall of the Berlin Wall - After months of unrest, demonstrations and tens of thousands escaping to West Germany, poorly briefed spokesman of the newly formed GDR government Günter Schabowski announces that private trips to non-socialist foreign countries are allowed from now on. Tens of thousands of East Berliners flock to the border crossings and overwhelm the border guards who had not received any instructions yet because the hastily implemented new travel regulations were supposed to be effective only the following day and involved the application for exit visas at a police office. Subsequently, crossing the border between both German states became possible vitrually everywhere.

[foone]

I want you to think about this as a writing exercise, not a poll about your personal morals/politics.

So imagine you find a crashed time travel attack drone. It's got enough fuel left for one last trip: you tell it when and where, it warps through time, and now it's got about the equivalent firepower of an helicopter gunship.

So you could shoot a person, a crowd, level a smallish building, take out an entire meeting room, sink a boat, crash a plane, or blow up a car.

Where, in all of time and space, do you think would be best to send this thing to change the past?

I was sorta assuming "for the better", but if you just want to see the world burn, feel free to suggest chaotic options.

Any ideas where you'd best us this power? I mean, the obvious one is blow up Hitler. Maybe fire on the Beer Hall Putsch? That'd get him and much of the Nazi leadership as well, and all before Hitler got national headlines.

But I'm wondering if there's was a meeting sometime in history with a bunch of particularly bad people where you could take 'em all out at once for a better "return on investment".

[whencyclopedia]

How Did Hitler Rise to Power?

The rise of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the Nazi dictator of Germany from 1933, was enabled by those already in power eager to take advantage of his popularity. Hitler promised to make Germany great again after the humiliation of WWI by restoring Germany's lost territories, returning to traditional German values, achieving full employment, and destroying 'enemies' like Communists and Jewish people.

Hitler's rise to power was a surprisingly long process, involving many steps and several significant setbacks such as his imprisonment following the failed coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923. Hitler's rise to power effectively took a decade, with the Nazi Party gaining just 12 seats in elections for the German Reichstag (Parliament) in 1928 (from a total of 491 in that election), 107 in 1930, 230 in July 1932, 196 in November 1932, and 288 seats in 1933. Once securely in power as chancellor, in 1933, Hitler quickly eliminated all opposition and established a totalitarian regime with himself as undisputed dictator, Germany's Führer.

Adolf Hitler in SA Uniform

Imperial War Museums (CC BY-NC-SA)

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power for the following reasons:

The harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles riled many Germans, especially the guilt clause for starting WWI, and traditional political parties were tarnished by association with the signing of the treaty. Hitler promised to overturn the treaty and restore German pride.

The fallout of the Great Depression led to mass unemployment and hyperinflation leading voters to turn to more extreme political parties.

The weakness and ineptitude of successive Weimar Republic coalition governments.

Hitler promised full employment through such programmes as road building and rearmament.

In return for their support, Hitler promised business leaders lucrative state contracts such as arms manufacturing. This idea was also popular with the German Army.

Hitler appealed to traditional German beliefs like the greatness of the nation, strong family values, and a classless society.

Hitler promised an expansion of Germany to find new lands and Lebensraum ('living space') where the German people could prosper.

Hitler used propaganda to identify what the Nazis described as common enemies of the state, such as outsiders and Jewish people who, he claimed, were holding Germany back.

A cult of Hitler was created, which promoted the idea that he was the saviour of Germany.

The establishment thought that by inviting Hitler to power, they could better control the Nazi phenomenon and benefit from its popularity themselves.

Once made chancellor, Hitler used his power to eliminate rivals. He ensured the German parliament had little power and began to establish a dictatorship with himself as the undisputed head of a one-party police state.

Historians continue to debate the weight of each of the above points in accounting for Hitler's rise to power.

The Treaty of Versailles

The First World War (1914-18) was formally terminated by the Treaty of Versailles, which dictated the terms of the German surrender. Germany lost a significant part of its territory, was obliged to pay reparations, and had to accept full responsibility for starting the conflict. The German people protested at these terms in 1919, and those German politicians who had agreed to it were widely referred to as 'the criminals of 1919'. This resentment was fuelled by the myth that the German people had been let down in WWI by the high command of their army, which had 'stabbed them in the back', otherwise, they might have won the war, many thought. Consequently, there was a feeling that the political and military establishment of the new Germany, the Weimar Republic (1918-33), could not be fully trusted.

Europe after The Treaty of Versailles

Simeon Netchev (CC BY-NC-ND)

The fascist National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP or Nazi Party for short) was founded in 1920. The party was neither socialist nor at all interested in workers, but Adolf Hitler had chosen the name to give his ultra-nationalist party as wide an appeal as possible. Hitler was able to exploit the anti-establishment feeling as the Nazis were complete outsiders. As early as 1925, in his book Mein Kampf, Hitler promised to abolish the terms of Versailles and create a new 'Greater Germany'.

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[verbotenlove33]

A Day in Adi’s Life: 3 November 1935

Adolf Hitler at the inauguration of the rebuild and widening of the Ludwigsbrücke in Munich. This particular bridge was on the route Hitler took during the Beer Hall Putsch and was always crossed during the annual commemoration march held on 9 November. Hitler named Munich the "Capital of the Movement" as the city was the birthplace of the Nazi Party. Every component of its architecture held a special place for him and was endowed with symbolic meaning in his creative narrative and in the building up his ideal utopian state. 

[charlesoberonn]

November 8 this year is gonna be the centennial anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch (Hitler's first attempt at a fascist takeover), so be prepared for Neo-Nazis and other fascists to try some shit.

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 9 April 1945, Georg Elser, a factory worker and folk musician who tried single-handedly to kill Hitler, was murdered in the Dachau concentration camp. Working in a weapons factory and then a quarry, he gradually built up an arsenal of stolen explosives, which in 1939 he planted in a pub in Munich, which he knew Hitler visited every year on 8 and 9 November to celebrate the Nazi putsch of 1923. Unbeknownst to Elser, that year Hitler left early and the bomb missed him by minutes, instead killed six senior Nazis, as well as accidentally a waitress. Elser was later arrested and tortured, but insisted he acted alone and refused to give up any other names, other than one of a communist who had already died. He was sent to the concentration camps, where he was killed on the orders of Himmler just a few days before their liberation. Learn more about German resistance to Nazism in our podcast episode 72: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/72-edelweiss-pirates-swing-kids/ Pictured: photograph of Elser, enhanced by WCH https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=605774411595778&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

[omg-lucio]

Fotografía de Dietrich Eckart, escritor nacionalista alemán y antisemita, de los años 1910 y 1920, que fue mentor de Adolf Hitler y a quien se ha llamado "el cofundador espiritual del nazismo". Eckart cofundó el Partido Obrero Alemán, precursor de los nazis, y participó en el "Putsch de la cervecería" de 1923

[asoulwithadream]

I find it so funny that Colleen Hoover wrote a book called November 9, taking into consideration all the shit that has happened on that day for the entirety of History:

The last day of the Stockholm Bloodbath trials

The Great Boston Fire of 1872

The murder of the last Whitchapel victim (Mary Jane Kelly) by Jack the Ripper

The US taking possession of Pearl Harbour

The Balfour Declaration

The abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II

The founding of the Fascist Party in Italy

The Nazi Beer Hall Putsch

Kristallnacht

Cambodia gains independent from France

The self-immolation of Roger Alllen LaPorte

THE FALL OF THE FUCKING BERLIN WALL

And most importantly, the release of Firefox

[dirjoh-blog]

November 8, 1939-Failed assassination attempt.

On November 8, 1939, Adolf Hitler narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in Munich. The attempt took place in the Bürgerbräukeller, a popular beer hall where he annually commemorated the anniversary of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, an early failed coup that Hitler had led in an attempt to seize power in Germany. The bomb was planted by Georg Elser, a German carpenter and anti-Nazi who was acting…

[gayrab]

I kept saying I was scared Jan 6th would be our version of the Nazi Beer Hall Putsch.

I don't like being right about things I don't want to happen.

[glvlvukcan]

What Could Happen

(SOPA Images / Getty)

 

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Ukraine is fighting for the lives of its people and its very existence, and it is running out of ammunition. If the United States does not step back in with aid, Russia could eventually win this war.

Despite the twaddle from propagandists in Moscow (and a few academics in the United States), Russia’s war is not about NATO, or borders, or the balance of power. The Russian dictator Vladimir Putin intends to absorb Ukraine into a new Russian empire, and he will eradicate the Ukrainians if they refuse to accept his rule. Europe is in the midst of the largest war on the continent since Nazi panzers rolled from Norway to Greece, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine is by far the most important threat to world peace since the worst days of the Cold War. In a less febrile political era, defeating Russia would be the top priority of every American politician.

The Republicans in Congress, however, remain fixated both on their hatred of Ukraine and on their affection for Russia. Their relentless criticism of assistance to Kyiv has had its intended effect, taking a bite out of the American public’s support for continuing aid, especially as the war has been crowded out by the torrent of more recent news, including Donald Trump’s endless legal troubles and Israel’s campaign in Gaza.

And so it’s time to think more seriously about what might happen if the Republicans succeed in this irresponsible effort to blockade any further assistance to Ukraine. The collapse and dismemberment of a nation of millions is immediately at stake, and that should be enough for any American to be appalled at the GOP’s obstructionism. But the peace of the world itself could rest on what Congress does—or does not do—next.

First, what would it even mean for Russia to “win”? A Russian victory does not require sending Moscow’s tanks into Kyiv, even if that were possible. (The Russians have taken immense losses in manpower and armor, and they would have to fight house-to-house as they approached the capital.) Putin is reckless and a poor strategist, but he is not stupid: He knows that he doesn’t need to plant the Russian flag on the Mother Ukraine statue just yet. He can instead tear Ukraine apart, piece by piece.

The destruction of Ukraine would begin with some kind of cease-fire offered by a Ukrainian leadership that has literally run out of bullets, bombs, and bodies. (The average age of Ukraine’s soldiers is already over 40; there are not that many more men to draft.) The Russians would signal a willingness to deal only with a new Ukrainian regime, perhaps some “government of national salvation” that would exist solely to save whatever would be left of a rump Ukrainian state in the western part of the country while handing everything else over to the Kremlin.

The Russians would then dictate more terms: The United States and NATO would be told to pound sand. Ukraine would have to destroy its weapons and convert its sizable army into a small and weak constabulary force. Areas under Russian control would become, by fiat, parts of Russia. The remaining thing called “Ukraine” would be a demilitarized puppet state, kept from integration of any kind with Europe; in a few years, an internal putsch or a Russian-led coup could produce a new government that would request final union with the Russian Federation. Soon, Ukraine would be part of a new Russian superstate, with Russian forces on NATO’s borders as “peacekeepers” or “border guards,” a ploy the Russians have used in Central Asia since the 1990s.

Imagine the world as Putin (and other dictators, including in China) might see it even a few years from now if Russia wins in 2024: America stood by, paralyzed and shamed, as Ukraine was torn to pieces, as millions of people and many thousands of square miles were added to the Kremlin’s empire, and as U.S. alliances in Europe and then around the world quietly disintegrated—all of which will be even more of a delight in Moscow and Beijing if Americans decide to add the ultimate gift of voting the ignorant and isolationist Trump back into the White House.

The real danger for the U.S. and Europe would begin after Ukraine is crushed, when only NATO would remain as the final barrier to Putin’s dreams of evolving into a new emperor of Eurasia. Putin has never accepted the legitimate existence of Ukraine, but like the unreformed Soviet nostalgist that he is, he has a particular hatred for NATO. After the collapse of Ukraine, he would want to take bolder steps to prove that the Atlantic Alliance is an illusion, a lie promulgated by cowards who would never dare to stop the Kremlin from reclaiming its former Soviet and Russian imperial possessions.

Reckless and emboldened, emotional and facing his own mortality, Putin would be tempted to extend his winning streak and try one last throw of the dice, this time against NATO itself. He would not try to invade all of Europe; he would instead seek to replicate the success of his 2014 capture of Crimea—only this time on NATO territory. Putin might, for example, declare that his commitment to the Russian-speaking peoples of the former Soviet Union compels him to defend Russians in one of the Baltic states. After some Kremlin-sponsored agitation close to the Russian border, Russian forces (including more of the special forces known as “little green men”) might seize a small piece of territory and call it a Russian “safe zone” or “haven”—violating NATO sovereignty while also sticking it to the West for similar attempts many years ago, using similar terms, to protect the Bosnians from Russia’s friends, the Serbs.

The Kremlin would then sit on this piece of NATO territory, daring America and Europe to respond, in order to prove that NATO lacks the courage to fight for its members, and that whatever the strength of the alliance between, say, Washington and London, no one is going to die—or risk nuclear war—for some town in Estonia.

Should Putin actually do any of this, however, he would be making a drastic mistake. Dictators continually misunderstand democracies, believing them to be weak and unwilling to fight. Democracies, including the United States, do hate to fight—until roused to action. Republicans might soon succeed in forcing the United States to abandon Ukraine, but if fighting breaks out in Europe between Russia and America’s closest allies—old and new—no one, not even a President Trump, who has expressed his hostility to NATO and professed his admiration for Putin, is going to be able to keep the United States out of the battle, not least because U.S. forces will inevitably be among NATO’s casualties.

And at that point, anything could happen. The world, should Russia win, will face remarkable new dangers—and for what? Because in 2024 some astonishingly venal and ambitious politicians wanted to hedge their bets and kiss Trump’s ring one more time? Perhaps enough Republicans will come to their senses in time to avert these possible outcomes. If they do not, future historians—that is, if anyone is left to record what happened—will be perplexed at how a small coterie of American politicians were so willing to trade the safety of the planet for a few more years of power.

From The Atlanic Newsletter Feb 9th 2024

[dionysus-complex]

'There was something especially devastating about the wave of anti–“PC” journalism in the absolutely open contempt it displayed, and propagated, for every tool that has been so painstakingly assembled in the resistance against these devaluations. Through raucously orchestrated, electronically amplified campaigns of mock-incredulous scorn, intellectual and artistic as well as political possibilities, skills, ambitions, and knowledges have been laid waste with a relishing wantonness. No great difficulty in recognizing those aspects of the anti–“PC” craze that are functioning as covers for a rightist ideological putsch; but it has surprised me that so few people seem to view the recent developments as, among other things, part of an overarching history of anti-intellectualism: anti-intellectualism left as well as right. No twentieth-century political movement, after all, can afford not to play the card of populism, whether or not the popular welfare is what it has mainly at heart (indeed, perhaps especially where it is least so). And anti-intellectual pogroms, like anti-Semitic or queer-bashing ones, are quick, efficient, distracting, and almost universally understood signifiers for a populist solidarity that may boil down to nothing by the time it reaches the soup pot. It takes care and intellectual scrupulosity to forge an egalitarian politics not founded on such telegraphic slanders. Rightists today like to invoke the threatening specter of a propaganda ridden socialist realism, but both they and the anti-intellectuals of the left might meditate on why the Nazis’ campaign against “degenerate art” (Jewish, gay, modernist) was couched, as their own arguments are, in terms of assuring the instant, unmediated, and universal accessibility of all the sign systems of art (Goebbels even banning all art criticism in 1936, on the grounds that art is self-explanatory). It’s hard to tell which assumption is more insultingly wrong: that the People (always considered, of course, as a monolithic unit) have no need and no faculty for engaging with work that is untransparent; or that the work most genuinely expressive of the People would be so univocal and so limpidly vacant as quite to obviate the labors and pleasures of interpretation. Anti-intellectuals today, at any rate, are happy to dispense with the interpretive process and depend instead on appeals to the supposedly self-evident: legislating against “patently offensive” art (no second looks allowed); citing titles as if they were texts; appealing to potted summaries and garbled trots as if they were variorum editions in the original Aramaic. The most self evident things, as always, are taken—as if unanswerably—to be the shaming risibility of any form of oblique or obscure expression; and the flat inadmissability of openly queer articulation.

These histories of anti-intellectualism cut across the “political correctness” debate in complicated ways. The term “politically correct” originated, after all, in the mockery by which experimentally and theoretically minded feminists, queers, and leftists (of every color, class, and sexuality) fought back against the stultifications of feminist and left anti-intellectualism. The hectoring, would-be populist derision that difficult, ambitious, or sexually charged writing today encounters from the right is not always very different from the reception it has already met with from the left. It seems as if many academic feminists and leftists must be grinding their teeth at the way the right has willy-nilly conjoined their discursive fate with that of theorists and “deconstructionists”—just as, to be fair, many theorists who have betrayed no previous interest in the politics of class, race, gender, or sexuality may be more than bemused at turning up under the headings of “Marxism” or “multiculturalism.” The right’s success in grouping so many, so contestative, movements under the rubric “politically correct” is a coup of cynical slovenliness unmatched since the artistic and academic purges of Germany and Russia in the thirties.'

(Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, "Queer and Now," in Tendencies, 16-17 - published 1994)

[whencyclopedia]

Night of the Long Knives

The Night of the Long Knives (aka Blood Purge or Röhm-Putsch) of 30 June 1934 was a purge of the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) paramilitary group which continued through 1 and 2 July. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), wary of the growing power of the SA, embarrassed by its thuggish behaviour now that he was the chancellor of Germany, and in need of the support of the German Army, which saw the SA as a rival, ordered the assassination of the SA leader Ernst Röhm (1887-1934) along with many other key SA commanders and political enemies of the new Nazi regime. Justified as a purge of dangerous plotters against the state, the Night of the Long Knives revealed that the Nazi leadership regarded themselves as above the law.

The SA

Adolf Hitler became the leader of the Munich-based NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party) in 1921. The party was neither socialist nor at all interested in workers, but Hitler had chosen the name to give his ultra-nationalist party as wide an appeal as possible. Known as the Nazi party, it was also vehemently anti-Semitic and against the German establishment. The SA or Sturmabteilung paramilitary group had been formed in 1921 and was given various functions, such as protecting Nazi party meetings, distributing propaganda, intimidating voters, and attacking party rivals or those identified as 'undesirables', like Jewish people. As Hitler had said, "We must struggle with ideas, but if necessary also with fists" (Hite, 116). From 1924, the SA began to wear brown army surplus uniforms, hence their nickname the Brownshirts.

The SA's growing membership in the early 1920s had already put Hitler on the alert. He decided to create his own personal bodyguard, a much smaller but more loyal group called the Stosstrupp-Hitler (Hitler Shock Troop). Nevertheless, the SA was involved in the infamous Beer Hall Putsch or Munich Putsch, the failed Nazi coup in November 1923. After the failure of the putsch, Hitler and his leading associates were found guilty of treason and imprisoned, albeit for what turned out to be short sentences. The immediate fallout of the putsch was a setback as the Nazi party and SA were banned (temporarily), and the Stosstrupp-Hitler was disbanded. However, the publicity of the court case against Hitler and his excellent oratory skills did actually increase interest in both the Nazi cause and the SA. Temporarily called the Frontbann, there was a huge rise in SA membership from 2,000 in 1923 to 30,000 stormtroopers in 1924.

The SA's growth was overseen by its leader Ernst Röhm. A short, stocky, ruthless man, who carried impressive facial scars from wounds sustained in WWI, Röhm had been instrumental in forming the "gymnastics and sports" branch of the Nazi party, which had then morphed into the SA. As one of Hitler's oldest allies, Röhm had also participated in the Beer Hall Putsch.

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