Editing Ernst Röhm (section)

==Career==
[[File:Hitler's_officers.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.35|Röhm, standing fifth from left, as member of "the staff of the Führer taken on the day of his appointment as Reich Chancellor" on 30 January 1933]]

At the outbreak of [[World War I]] in August 1914, he was [[adjutant]] of the 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment. The following month, he was seriously wounded in the face at Chanot Wood in [[Lorraine]] and carried the scars for the rest of his life.{{sfn|Hancock|2008|pp=18–19}} He was promoted to first lieutenant ({{lang|de|[[Oberleutnant]]}}) in April 1915.{{sfn|Hancock|2008|p=19}} During an attack on the fortification at Thiaumont, [[Verdun]], on 23 June 1916, he sustained a serious chest wound and spent the remainder of the war in [[France]] and [[Romania]] as a staff officer.{{sfn|Hancock|2008|pp=19–21}} He was awarded the [[Iron Cross|Iron Cross First Class]] before being wounded at Verdun, and was promoted to captain ({{lang|de|[[Hauptmann]]}}) in April 1917.{{sfn|Hancock|2008|p=23}}{{sfn|Röhm|1934|pp=50–51}} Among his comrades, Röhm was considered a "fanatical, simple-minded swashbuckler" who frequently displayed contempt for danger.{{sfn|Snyder|1989|p=65}} In his memoirs, Röhm reported that during the autumn of 1918, he contracted the deadly [[1918 flu pandemic|Spanish influenza]] and was not expected to live, but recovered after a lengthy convalescence.{{sfn|Röhm|1934|pp=56–57}}

Following the [[Armistice of 11 November 1918]] that ended the war, Röhm continued his military career as a captain in the {{lang|de|[[Reichswehr]]}}.{{sfn|Snyder|1989|p=65}} He was one of the senior members in [[Franz Ritter von Epp]]'s {{lang|de|Bayerisches [[Freikorps]] für den Grenzschutz Ost}} ("Bavarian Free Corps for Border Patrol East"), formed in [[Ohrdruf, Thuringia|Ohrdruf]] in April 1919, which finally overturned the [[Bavarian Soviet Republic|Munich Soviet Republic]] by force of arms on 3 May 1919. In 1919 he joined the [[German Workers' Party]] (DAP), which the following year became the [[Nazi Party|National Socialist German Workers Party]] (NSDAP).{{sfn|Zentner|Bedürftig|1991|p=807}} His membership number was 623.<ref>Joachim C. Fest (2005). Hitler. Eine Biographie. Ullstein Tb. p. 204. ISBN 978-3-548-26514-8.</ref> Not long afterward he met Adolf Hitler, and they became political allies and close friends.{{sfn|Manvell|Fraenkel|2010|p=135}} Throughout the early 1920s, Röhm remained an important intermediary between Germany's right-wing paramilitary organizations and the {{lang|de|Reichswehr}}.{{sfn|Siemens|2017|p=16}} Additionally, it was Röhm who persuaded his former army commander, Franz Ritter von Epp, to join the Nazis, an important development, since Epp helped raise the sixty-thousand marks needed to purchase the Nazi periodical, the ''{{lang|de|[[Völkischer Beobachter]]}}''.{{sfn|Snyder|1989|p=66}} In early 1923, he took part in the establishment of a federation of paramilitary organizations that was titled ''Arbeitsgemeinschaft'' and aimed at strengthening the army and combating Marxist influences.{{sfn|Gordon|1972|pp=191–192}}

During early September 1923, when the Nazi Party held its "German Day" celebration at Nuremberg, it was Röhm who helped bring together some 100,000 participants drawn from right-wing militant groups, veterans' associations, and other paramilitary formations—which included the {{lang|de|Bund Oberland}}, {{lang|de|[[Bund Reichskriegsflagge|Reichskriegsflagge]]}}, the SA, and the {{lang|de|[[Kampfbund]]}}—all of them subordinate to Hitler as "political leader" of the collective alliance.{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=52}} Röhm resigned or retired from the {{lang|de|Reichswehr}} on 26 September 1923.{{sfn|Zentner|Bedürftig|1991|p=807}}

In November 1923, Röhm led the {{lang|de|Reichskriegsflagge}} militia at the time of the Munich [[Beer Hall Putsch]].{{Efn|His involvement in such activities was very much in keeping with his persona, as Röhm claimed in his memoir—originally published in 1928—that "War and unrest appeal to me more than the orderly life of your respectable burgher."{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=43}} }} He rented the cavernous main hall of the [[Löwenbräukeller]], supposedly for a reunion and festive comradeship. Meanwhile, Hitler and his entourage were at the Bürgerbräukeller.{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=57}} Röhm planned to start the revolution and use the units at his disposal to obtain weapons from secret caches with which to occupy crucial points in the centre of the city.{{sfn|Dornberg|1982|p=20}} When the call came, he announced to those assembled in the Löwenbräukeller that the Kahr government had been deposed and Hitler had declared a "national revolution" which elicited wild cheering. Röhm then led his force of nearly 2,000 men to the War Ministry,{{sfn|Dornberg|1982|pp=84, 118}} which they occupied for sixteen hours.{{Efn|Röhm was not involved with the {{lang|de|Sturmabteilung}} until after he returned from a trip to [[Bolivia]], but he did work to create armed militia units. He was deeply involved in hoarding arms and shipping weapons into Austria in defiance of the terms of the [[Versailles Treaty]], but was never caught. See Röhm, Ernst (1928) ''Die Geschichte eines Hochverräters'' Munich: Franz Eher Verlag}} Once in control of the {{lang|de|Reichswehr}} headquarters, Röhm awaited news, barricaded inside.{{sfn|Childers|2017|pp=58–59}} The subsequent march into the city center led by Hitler, [[Hermann Göring]], and General [[Erich Ludendorff]] with banners flying high, was ostensibly undertaken to "free" Röhm and his forces.{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=59}}

While crowds cheered, egged on by [[Gregor Strasser]] shouting {{lang|de|"Heil"}}, Hitler's armed assembly, wearing red swastika armbands, encountered Bavarian State Policemen, who were prepared to counter the Putsch.{{sfn|Childers|2017|pp=60–61}} Around the time the marchers reached the ''[[Feldherrnhalle]]'' near the city center, shots were fired, scattering the participants. By the end of the gunfire, fourteen Nazis and four policemen had been killed; the putsch had failed and the Nazis' first bid for power had lasted less than twenty-four hours.{{sfn|Childers|2017|pp=61–62}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-00344A, München, nach Hitler-Ludendorff Prozess retouched.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|left|Defendants in the [[Beer Hall Putsch]] trial. From left to right: [[Heinz Pernet|Pernet]], [[Friedrich Weber (veterinarian)|Weber]], [[Wilhelm Frick|Frick]], [[Hermann Kriebel|Kriebel]], [[Erich Ludendorff|Ludendorff]], [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]], [[Wilhelm Brückner|Bruckner]], Röhm, and [[Robert Heinrich Wagner|Wagner]].]]

In February 1924, following the failed putsch, Röhm, Hitler, Ludendorff, Lieutenant Colonel [[Hermann Kriebel]] and six others were tried for high [[treason]]. Röhm was found guilty and sentenced to fifteen months in prison, but the sentence was suspended and he was placed on probation.{{sfn|Zentner|Bedürftig|1991|p=807}} Hitler was found guilty and sentenced to five years' of [[Festungshaft|fortress confinement]], but served only nine months at [[Landsberg Prison]] (under permissively lenient conditions).{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=147, 239}}{{sfn|Bullock|1962|p=121}}

In April 1924, Röhm became a ''[[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|Reichstag]]'' deputy for the ''[[völkisch movement|völkisch]]'' (racial-national) [[National Socialist Freedom Movement|National Socialist Freedom Party]].{{sfn|Siemens|2017|p=29}}  He made only one speech, urging the release of Kriebel. In the December 1924 election the seats won by his party were much reduced, and his name was too far down the list to return him to the ''Reichstag''. While Hitler was in prison, Röhm helped to create the ''[[Frontbann]]'' as a legal alternative to the then-outlawed ''[[Sturmabteilung]]'' (SA). Hitler did not fully support Röhm's  ambitious plans for this organization, which proved problematic. Hitler was distrustful of these paramilitary organizations because competing groups like the ''Bund Wiking'', the ''Bund Bayern und Reich'', and the ''Blücherbund'' were all vying for membership and he realized from the failed putsch that these groups could not be legitimated so long as the police and ''Reichswehr'' stayed loyal to the government.{{sfn|Siemens|2017|p=29}}

When in April 1925 Hitler and Ludendorff disapproved of the proposals under which Röhm was prepared to integrate the 30,000-strong ''Frontbann'' into the SA, Röhm resigned from all political groups and military brigades on 1 May 1925. He felt great contempt for the "legalistic" path the party leaders wanted to follow and sought seclusion from public life.{{sfn|Zentner|Bedürftig|1991|p=807}}

=== Bolivia ===
In 1928, Röhm was recruited by Wilhelm Kaiser, nominally the Bolivian military attaché in the Netherlands, to serve as an advisor to the [[Bolivian Army]].  The Bolivians were looking for a capable German officer with war experience who, as a military instructor, would play a leading role in the reorganization of the Bolivian army. In addition to army reform, ongoing tensions between Bolivia and Paraguay, which later erupted in the [[Chaco War]], were probably also a reason why the Bolivian government was interested in recruiting German experts. 

Röhm signed a contract with a term of service from January 1, 1929 to December 31, 1930, and the German-born Bolivian Chief of General Staff Hans Kundt assured Röhm the rank of lieutenant colonel and a monthly salary of 1,000 Bolivianos, which would give him a high standard of living given the low cost of living in Bolivia.{{sfn|Hancock|2008|pp=95, 98}}

Röhm arrived in [[La Paz]] in January 1929 and began work as a professor at  the Bolivian military college so that he could first "learn Spanish."{{sfn|Hancock|2012|pp=691–708}} From June to September 1929, Röhm served as a troop inspector, then until August 1930 he was chief of staff of the division command of the Bolivian Army headquartered in [[Oruro]]. While some historians claim Röhm played a prominent role in Bolivia in this period, more recent research suggests his role during this period of Bolivian history was relatively minor.{{sfn|Hancock|2012|pp=691–708}}

In the autumn of 1930, Röhm received a call from Hitler requesting his return to Germany.{{sfn|Zentner|Bedürftig|1991|p=807}}