Editing Night of the Long Knives (section)

==Hitler and the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA)==
[[File:Hitler 1928 crop.jpg|thumb|upright|Hitler poses with a [[Nazi salute]] in [[Nuremberg]] with SA members in 1928. To his left is [[Julius Streicher]], and standing beneath him is [[Hermann Göring]].]]

[[President of Germany#Weimar Republic presidency|President]] [[Paul von Hindenburg]] appointed Hitler [[Chancellor of Germany|chancellor]] on 30 January 1933.{{efn|name=1932 parliamentary elections}} Over the [[Adolf Hitler's rise to power|following few months]], during the so-called ''[[Gleichschaltung]]'', Hitler dispensed with the need for the [[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|Reichstag]] of the [[Weimar Republic]] as a [[legislature|legislative body]]{{efn|name=Enabling Act}} and eliminated all [[List of political parties in Germany#Parties existing up to World War I|rival political parties]] in Germany, so that by the middle of 1933 the country had become a [[one-party state]] under his direction and control. Hitler did not exercise absolute power, however, despite his swift consolidation of political authority. As chancellor, Hitler did not command the army, which remained under the formal leadership of Hindenburg, a highly respected [[veteran]] [[field marshal]]. While many officers were impressed by Hitler's promises of an expanded army, a return to [[conscription]], and a more aggressive [[foreign policy]], the army continued to guard its traditions of independence during the early years of the Nazi regime.

To a lesser extent, the ''[[Sturmabteilung]]'' (SA), a Nazi paramilitary organization, remained somewhat autonomous within the party. The SA evolved out of the remnants of the ''[[Freikorps]]'' movement of the post-[[World War I]] years. The ''Freikorps'' were [[German nationalism | nationalistic]] organizations primarily composed of disaffected, disenchanted, and angry German combat veterans utilized by the government in January 1919 to deal with [[Spartacist uprising|the threat of a Communist revolution]] when it appeared that there was a lack of loyal troops. A very large number of the ''Freikorps'' believed that the [[German Revolution of 1918–1919|November Revolution]] had [[Stab-in-the-back myth|betrayed]] them when Germany was alleged to be on the verge of victory in 1918. Hence, the ''Freikorps'' were in opposition to the new Weimar Republic, which was born as a result of the November Revolution, and whose founders were contemptuously called "November criminals". Captain [[Ernst Röhm]] of the ''Reichswehr'' served as the liaison with the Bavarian Freikorps. Röhm was given the nickname "The Machine Gun King of Bavaria" in the early 1920s, since he was responsible for storing and issuing illegal machine guns to the Bavarian Freikorps units. Röhm left the ''Reichswehr'' in 1923 and later became commander of the SA. During the 1920s and 1930s, the SA functioned as a private militia used by Hitler to intimidate rivals and disrupt the meetings of competing political parties, especially those of the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democrats]] and the [[Communist Party of Germany|Communists]]. Also known as the "brownshirts" or "stormtroopers", the SA became notorious for their street battles with the Communists.{{sfn|Reiche|2002|pp=120–121}} The violent confrontations between the two contributed to the destabilization of the Weimar Republic.{{sfn|Toland|1976|p=266}} In June 1932, one of the worst months of political violence, there were more than 400 street battles, resulting in 82 deaths.{{sfn|Shirer|1960|p=165}}

Hitler's appointment as chancellor, followed by the suppression of all political parties except the Nazis, did not end the violence of the stormtroopers. Deprived of Communist party meetings to disrupt, the stormtroopers would sometimes run riot in the streets after a night of drinking; they would attack passers-by and then attack the police who were called to stop them.{{sfn|Evans|2005|p=23}} Complaints of "overbearing and loutish" behaviour by stormtroopers became common by the middle of 1933. The [[Federal Foreign Office|Foreign Office]] even complained of instances where brownshirts manhandled foreign diplomats{{sfn|Kershaw|1999|p=501}}

On 6 July 1933, at a gathering of high-ranking Nazi officials, Hitler declared the success of the [[National Socialist]], or Nazi, [[Nazi seizure of power|seizure of power]]. Now that the [[Nazi Party]] had seized the reins of power in Germany, he said, it was time to consolidate its control. Hitler told the gathered officials, "The stream of revolution has been undammed, but it must be channelled into the secure bed of evolution."{{sfn|Evans|2005|p=20}}

Hitler's speech signalled his intention to rein in the SA, whose ranks had grown rapidly in the early 1930s. Hitler's task would not be simple, however, as the SA made up a large part of Nazism's most devoted followers. The SA traced its dramatic rise in numbers in part to the onset of the [[Great Depression]], when many German citizens lost both their jobs and their faith in traditional institutions. While Nazism was not exclusively&nbsp;– or even primarily&nbsp;– a [[working-class]] phenomenon, the SA fulfilled the yearning of many unemployed workers for class solidarity and nationalist fervour.{{efn|name=Schoenbaum pp. 35–42}} Many stormtroopers believed in the [[socialist]] promise of National Socialism and expected the Nazi regime to take more radical economic action, such as breaking up the vast landed estates of the aristocracy. When the Nazi regime did not take such steps, those who had expected an economic as well as a political revolution were disillusioned.{{efn|name=Bullock p80}}

The action Hitler took would not only defang Röhm and the SA as a potential threat to Hitler's personal control of the Nazi Party, but would also serve to strengthen his relationship with the Wehrmacht &ndash; the German armed forces &ndash; which had long considered the SA to be their primary rival, the SA at times outnumbering the military in manpower.{{sfn|Kershaw|1999|p=435}}

The supporters of [[Ernst Röhm]] (Röhm-cult),{{sfn|Kershaw|1999|p=503}} like the [[Strasserists]], formed one of the ideological [[Political faction|factions]] of the Nazi Party at that time.