Night of the Long Knives Trivia Quiz

Answer: Operation Hummingbird

After coming to power as chancellor, Hitler had to deal with a degree of political in-fighting within the Nazi party. At the end of June 1934, he ordered a series of arrests and political assassinations designed to consolidate his position and remove a number of prominent Nazis who represented a threat to his power.

Operation Sea Lion was the code-name for the planed invasion of Britain, and Operation Barbarbossa was the code-name for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Blitzkrieg is a military term given to a concentration of force to break through a defensive line.

Answer: Sturmabteilung (SA)

The Sturmabteilung and Ernst Röhm in particular, as its leader, were the main targets during the Night of the Long Knives. The SA were the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi party and had been prominent in the rise to power of Adolf Hitler.
Originally named the Gymnastic and Sports Division of the party, the members of the SA were largely working class and by 1934 far outnumbered the more middle class Reichswehr (the early name for the Wehrmacht), whose numbers were limited as a consequence of World War I. This caused problems for Adolf Hitler; the Reichswehr's loyalty was not assured and they were threatened by the SA's numbers.
By June 1934, the problems posed by the SA's numbers, tactics and most particularly its leadership far outweighed any loyalty Hitler may have felt for services rendered and he was forced to act.

Answer: Göring and Himmler

Although it was Göring and Himmler who were manipulating these lists, all four men mentioned feared Ernst Röhm's position of power as head of the SA. They saw Röhm as a potential threat to their power, allied as they were to Hitler. Röhm was outspoken in calling for more 'socialism' in the Nazi agenda and was openly critical of Hitler. The Sturmabteilung's reputation for violence and thuggery while once useful was now a potential hindrance as they sought to maintain their position of power.

Answer: France

The suggestion was that France had paid twelve million marks to Ernst Röhm to overthrow Hitler and seize control of the Nazi party and subsequently Germany. This false information was shown to officers in the SS to ensure their cooperation. The Night of the Long Knives has sometimes been referred to as the 'Röhm-Putsch' as a result, despite the fact that all evidence for this putsch was manufactured by Himmler.

Although no country plotted with Röhm to overthrow Hitler, it could be said that Italy did play a role in the Night of the Long Knives: Mussolini, acting at the behest of other German leaders, criticized the SA and their tactics when Hitler visited in mid-June of that year.

Answer: A threat that Hindenburg would declare martial law

There was no assassination attempt and Hitler was already aware of Röhm's sexual orientation. Vice-Chancellor von Papen did threaten to resign but this was not sufficient pressure for Hitler to act against Röhm who was a long-standing friend and ally.

Threats that Hindenburg would declare martial law were a very real threat to Hitler's power. That would have turned the government over to the Reichswehr whose loyalty was questionable and who had fears that they would be absorbed into the SA under Ernst Röhm's leadership. With the army in charge, Hitler's power would have been massively undermined, if not ended altogether.

Answer: Bad Wiessee

It was in the Hanselbauer Hotel in Bad Wiessee where Röhm was arrested. His deputy Edmund Heines, a veteran of World War I, was also arrested but was not taken into custody; instead he was executed in the grounds of the hotel. His younger brother Oscar who was also a member of the SA was arrested and subsequently shot at dawn on July 2, 1934.

With Röhm and various other SA leaders either arrested Göring received the order to go after other targets; the codeword 'Kolibri', the German word for hummingbird was used as the go-order.

Answer: Adolf Hitler

Joseph Goebbels was at the Hanselbauer Hotel but it was Hitler himself who placed Röhm under arrest. It was also Hitler who directly ordered Edmund Heines' execution after he was found in bed with a young man.

Hitler had actually met with Röhm at the start of June. It was this meeting which led to Röhm's presence at the hotel; he had ordered the SA to take leave for the month of July and had convened a meeting of the leadership at the hotel in the spa town. Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring were in Berlin, awaiting the code word to act against other enemies.

Answer: Heinrich Brüning

Heinrich Brüning, a former chancellor, escaped arrest and possible execution by fleeing to the Netherlands when, at the end of May 1934, he received a warning from friends who were members of the Reichswehr that his name was on a list of targets. Kurt von Schleicher, another former chancellor and Hitler's predecessor had received the same warning but unfortunately dismissed it.

He and his wife were assassinated on June 30, 1934. Gustav Ritter von Kahr had been instrumental in quashing the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 and was assassinated for 'treason'. Gregor Strasser was a member of the Nazi party and had been active in that Beer Hall putsch.

In 1932, he conspired with Kurt von Schleicher, who hoped to prevent Hitler's takeover, but this plot failed. Strasser was assassinated on Hitler's personal order.

Answer: False

Röhm was offered the opportunity to commit suicide and was provided with a pistol containing a single round. He refused, allegedly saying 'If I am to be killed, let Adolf do it himself'. Röhm was then shot in the chest at point blank range.

The significance of the Night of the Long Knives can not be underestimated. Over three days of bloodshed, Hitler removed the biggest threats to his political ambitions. The illegality of his action was overlooked; furthermore, it was made legal retroactively. On a speech given on July 13, 1934 Hitler described himself as 'the supreme judge of the German people' which was a title he adopted in later years.

Answer: Gustav III of Sweden's coup d'etat of 1772

Alexander Burnes was a Scottish explorer who was assassinated in Afghanistan as a result of British support of Shah Shuja as ruler.
The - possibly apocryphal - massacre of the British chieftains is known in Welsh as 'Brad y Cyllyll Hirion', which translates as the treachery of the long knives; these long knives were allegedly the instruments of slaughter.
In 1962, Harold McMillan dismissed a third of his cabinet ministers in a swift and dramatic reshuffle. Significantly, many of those dismissed were replaced with younger men, possibly in an attempt to invigorate an apparently failing government.
Gustav III of Sweden, concerned with the divisiveness of the main political parties and with the threat of a loss of independence to Russia, seized power from the government in 1772 and restored power to the monarchy.