Editing Reinhard Heydrich (section)

===Crushing the SA===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 152-50-10, Reinhard Heydrich.jpg|thumb|left|SS-''Brigadeführer'' Heydrich, head of the Bavarian police and [[Sicherheitsdienst|SD]], in Munich, 1934]]
Beginning in April 1934, and at Hitler's request, Heydrich and Himmler began building a dossier on ''[[Sturmabteilung]]'' (SA) leader [[Ernst Röhm]] in an effort to remove him as a rival for party leadership. At this point, the SS was still part of the SA, the early Nazi paramilitary organisation which now numbered over 3 million men.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=306–307}} At Hitler's direction, Heydrich, Himmler, Göring, and [[Viktor Lutze]] drew up lists of those who should be killed, starting with seven top SA officials and including many more. On 30 June 1934 the SS and Gestapo acted in coordinated mass arrests that continued for two days. Röhm was shot without trial, along with the leadership of the SA.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=309–312}} The purge became known as the [[Night of the Long Knives]]. Up to 200 people were killed in the action. Lutze was appointed SA's new head and it was converted into a sports and training organisation.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=313}}

With the SA out of the way, Heydrich began building the Gestapo into an instrument of fear. He improved his index-card system, creating categories of offenders with colour-coded cards.{{sfn|Flaherty|2004|pp=56, 68}} The Gestapo had the authority to arrest citizens on the suspicion that they might commit a crime, and the definition of a crime was at their discretion. The Gestapo Law, passed in 1936, gave police the right to act extra-legally. This led to the sweeping use of ''[[Protective custody#Other usages|Schutzhaft]]''—"protective custody", a [[euphemism]] for the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings.{{sfn|McNab|2009|p=156}} The courts were not allowed to investigate or interfere. The Gestapo was considered to be acting legally as long as it was carrying out the leadership's will. People were arrested arbitrarily, sent to concentration camps, or killed.{{sfn|Shirer|1960|p=271}}

Himmler began developing the notion of a [[religious aspects of Nazism#Himmler and the SS|Germanic religion]] and wanted SS members to leave the church. In early 1936, Heydrich left the [[Catholic Church]] in favour of the ''[[Gottgläubig]]'' movement.{{sfn|Steigmann-Gall|2003|p=219}} His wife, Lina, had already done so the year before. Heydrich not only felt he could no longer be a member, but came to consider the church's political power and influence a danger to the state.{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=66}}