Hitler's creation of a dictatorship

Key learning points

1. Röhm’s radical SA posed a threat to the army, business elite, and Nazi Party unity.
2. Hitler then removed internal Nazi opposition in the SA along with other opponents in the Night of the Long Knives.
3. Hitler used the SA purge to gain the military’s trust and secure their loyalty.
4. Hindenburg’s death let Hitler merge presidency and chancellorship, becoming Germany’s supreme ruler (Führer).
5. A new oath made German soldiers personally loyal to Hitler, not the constitution.

Keywords

• SA (Sturmabteilung) - also known as Stormtroopers or Brownshirts; the Nazi Party’s paramilitary wing who protected meetings and used violence to intimidate opponents

• Socialist - a person who believes the government should own key industries to ensure wealth and resources are shared more equally among all people

• SS (Schutzstaffel) - a highly trained elite paramilitary unit, originally formed as Hitler’s bodyguards, later central to Nazi terror and repression

• Purge - the forceful removal of people seen as unwanted or threatening, often involving violence against political opponents

• Führer - meaning ‘leader’; a key Nazi idea promoting total authority under one ruler to end chaos, Hitler later adopted it to assert himself as Germany’s supreme ruler

Common misconception