_
In late 1933,
Chancellor Adolf Hitler is one step away from total power.
Only Germany's elderly pesident, Paul von Hindenburg,
stands in his way -
the one man with the power to sack a Chancellor -
so it's vital for Hitler to keep him onside.
Believe it or not, Hitler can be charming...
..and he exercised this charm on Hindenburg,
I think, to probably quite good effect.
Von Hindenburg, he, perhaps against his better judgment,
becomes a little impressed by Hitler.
This is the story of how Hitler went from Chancellor
to all-powerful dictator.
To piece together how it happened, historians and experts have examined
this period - each from a different individual perspective.
You cajole, you influence,
you manipulate.
They'll take us inside the minds of those that fought fascism...
They realised that these people are after your heads.
They want to annihilate you from existence altogether.
..and the Nazis themselves.
Himmler genuinely believed that he would create a racially pure
Germany, where the Aryan race would reign supreme.
The moments when history hung in the balance
and the world's worst atrocities
could have been prevented.
Mass murder was no problem...
..but it was important to be socially acceptable.
Do people care about the truth?
Adolf Hitler will go on to oversee the murder of millions of people.
But, in 1933,
he is the outwardly respectable Chancellor of Germany,
the equivalent of Prime Minister.
But, just under a year into the job,
he's finding being in government a difficult balancing act.
He has two very different audiences to please...
..the aristocratic elite,
the president,
the generals
and his Vice Chancellor.
They're uneasy about the Nazis, seeing them as thuggish
and worrying they could destabilise the whole system.
On the other hand, Hitler has his base,
the Stormtroopers, the paramilitary wing of the Nazis.
Over two million angry young men.
They're waiting for Hitler
to deliver the Nazi revolution he promised.
None more so than the leader of the Stormtroopers.
For Röhm, the aim was a revolution in Germany
to change the political system.
Ernst Röhm was a trained officer.
He was military and ruthless.
Röhm is an adventurer.
He is not really a politician.
Hitler owes Röhm a lot and he knows
that Röhm is one of his oldest comrades.
Hitler promised Röhm that they would get rid of the old elites,
that they would get rid of the rich
and they would change the whole system.
Hitler couldn't hold his promises.
Unleashing violence against their left wing enemies,
Röhm's Stormtroopers have been useful to Hitler -
but now they could become a threat.
Their violent attacks are upsetting the public.
As Chancellor, Hitler wants things to appear calm.
Röhm's actions pose a problem for Hitler because Hitler
needed to persuade the elites.
He needed to persuade the conservative establishment.
He needed to persuade Hindenburg that he was to be trusted,
that he was a solid bourgeois statesman.
Hitler got increasingly concerned about Röhm's discontent,
as it were, and about his whole kind of persona as a rough,
soldierly, violent type.
But Hitler needs to placate Röhm and,
in a move that risks upsetting the aristocratic elites,
he brings the revolutionary Röhm into the political fold,
giving him a job in the cabinet.
He's minister without portfolio.
But Röhm isn't satisfied.
He feels he and his millions of Stormtroopers were promised more.
Röhm doesn't want to command auxiliaries.
He wanted an army.
He saw himself as a commander, the commander of the new Nazi army.
These are promises Hitler made before he became Chancellor.
In his view, Hitler...
..betrays his friends.
So, running out of patience,
Röhm makes a wild and bold move.
He goes behind Hitler's back and tries to take control of the army
from the aristocratic generals,
men who report directly to the army supreme commander,
President Hindenburg.
I suspect Hindenburg is pretty horrified at this.
The armed forces are the servants of that state and of its people...
..on a apolitical basis,
and there is no room for political manoeuvring
by the armed forces of any state.
They were just a load of bully boys and were, by no means,
an army which could, for example, attack France and prevail.
I mean, it is unthinkable.
That was the job of the army proper.
So Hitler can't afford to upset the generals and the president.
But, with Röhm, it's more than politics -
it's personal.
Röhm opened gates for Hitler.
Röhm was the one who had influence.
Hitler is a frequent visitor to the Röhm family,
Röhm's mother and his sister, Eleonore,
so they became friends.
And therefore Röhm is someone who supports Hitler
not only politically, but, at the same time, personally.
And when Hitler's niece and rumoured lover killed herself,
it was Röhm he wanted with him at the graveside.
Hitler is stuck between the president and his friend.
When it comes to dealing with Röhm,
Hermann Göring has no such qualms.
For Göring, the problem with Röhm, I think,
is that Röhm has ambitions to be a second, perhaps,
to Hitler. You know, that's what Göring wants to be.
Is it possible, perhaps, that Röhm is thinking of launching some kind
of revolution, even putting Hitler to one side?
Now, for Göring, that would be unthinkable.
He's got to find a way of persuading Hitler that, you know,
this is a point at which he's got to break that friendship with Röhm.
He's got to recognise that Röhm is not just a companion
but he's a threat,
so all that Göring has got to do is to show Hitler evidence
that Röhm is not loyal.
So Göring orders his secret surveillance organisation,
the Research Bureau, to go after Röhm...
..building a file of everything Röhm says or does.
And Hitler publicly forces Röhm to back down from his demands
for the Stormtroopers to take over Germany's army.
He summons Röhm and the army leaders to a meeting,
where he makes it clear that the army,
and not the Stormtroopers,
are Germany's military force.
It's a devastating blow for Röhm.
He's even forced to shake hands
with the defence minister - General Blomberg.
Shaking hands with Blomberg meant nothing to Röhm.
He, er, saw...
..the Nazi Party, the Nazi militia,
now in the driver's seat.
Afterwards, Röhm makes a series of thinly veiled threats.
"Hitler is a ridiculous corporal"
"and should go on leave."
Röhm very openly criticised Hitler
for his decision to go with an army,
therefore he was, kind of, a dangerous person
because Röhm didn't let go. He doesn't accept it.
And he was a danger to this whole notion of Hitler as Führer.
Göring now makes a shrewd move in his plot against Röhm.
He enlists the help of his rival -
Heinrich Himmler.
Over the past year,
Himmler has taken over police forces across Germany,
but the biggest and most powerful remains outside his control.
In April, Göring gives Himmler the thing he wants most -
his Gestapo.
In exchange, Göring plans to harness Himmler's terror network
to bring down Röhm.
Himmler is pleased.
He's now inspector of the Gestapo, so he's almost there,
on his way to taking over control of all German police forces.
One character trait about Himmler that is the most important one
is his absolute careerism and his ruthlessness -
his ambition, his drive, to make it to the top.
Here is someone who prioritises rational procedures over emotions -
over human feelings.
As head of the Stormtroopers,
Röhm is Himmler's superior, a man he'd once hero worshipped.
But Himmler now dreams of destroying the Stormtroopers
and making his own SS Germany's only paramilitary force.
Himmler, in public, had to display some loyalty towards Röhm.
Behind the scenes,
Himmler had no qualms about getting rid of Röhm.
Himmler is collecting evidence against Röhm,
putting Röhm into a really bad light,
in terms of Röhm's private life,
in terms of Röhm's political activities.
Himmler makes sure that it reaches Hitler's desk.
Himmler hopes very much that Hitler will finally act
and eliminate Röhm.
Röhm has an Achilles heel
that Göring and Himmler are keen to exploit.
He is openly gay at a time when it's illegal.
He frequented Berlin's famous gay club, The Eldorado,
sipping cocktails with men dressed in drag.
Röhm lived a different life than all others.
He was a homosexual
and he lived this kind of life
more and more openly.
He met with male prostitutes.
In the view of his comrades,
he was not normal.
Since the Nazis came to power,
they have strictly enforced the socially conservative laws -
meaning Röhm could face imprisonment for his sexuality.
Defying his colleagues, Röhm has joined an organisation
campaigning for gay rights.
The Nazis wanted to transform society.
Everything should be clean, Aryan...
Er, no prostitutes.
No smoking, women...
..and Röhm...
..dismissed this.
It shows the stern character of Röhm that he openly
lived his homosexuality.
In a letter, he said, "I know it's a criminal act in Germany",
"but, then, I'm a criminal and they have to take me like this."
Röhm obviously felt very secure
because he was such a close friend to Hitler.
For years, Röhm's sexuality has been an open secret.
Hitler even defended Röhm when the press tried to expose him.
Hitler wasn't particularly bothered by Röhm's homosexuality.
He, as it were, forgave him because of his services
to the movement and his obvious loyalty to Hitler.
Hitler didn't really want to know about people's private lives,
I think.
Hitler had a certain kind of loyalty to old comrades,
which he certainly felt towards Röhm.
But now Hitler sees that Röhm's sexuality
could be a way to bring him down.
Meanwhile, Röhm is making his own moves.
In early 1934,
Röhm stages Stormtrooper manoeuvres across Germany.
Stormtrooper membership is growing fast
and Röhm now commands around four million men.
He publicly calls for revolution.
Unable to bring Röhm to heel,
Hitler's ability to pass himself off as a respectable statesman
is under threat.
The elites that surround President Hindenburg are getting nervous.
The aristocratic Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen
helped Hitler get into power.
Now he's dealing with the consequences.
Papen has been uneasy...
..because of the...
..the general lawlessness
is now becoming the talking point of the civilised world.
These Stormtroopers are intimidating diplomats,
people who are going to report back to their own country.
It is a troubling thing for him to see that this will essentially
end up by damaging Germany's reputation in the outside world.
Then news comes through that the president is on his last legs
and won't live much longer.
Hitler wants President Hindenburg to name him successor before he dies
so he can take complete control of Germany.
If the ruling class wants to stop that from happening,
it's now or never.
And the next move comes from an unlikely player.
Inside the Vice Chancellor's office is Papen's speech writer,
Edgar Jung,
a right wing intellectual, who is secretly plotting Hitler's downfall.
Jung belongs to the educated upper bourgeois
and he grows up steeped in their values.
He sees himself as belonging to the class that should be ruling.
He sees himself as a potential Minister of the Interior,
if not a Chancellor of a future Germany.
So, when the Nazis first come in, Jung is absolutely delighted.
He sees them as a very convenient vehicle for change.
They are very strong leadership.
They are bringing a new authoritarian sense
of direction to Germany.
1933, '34 is a very bad year for Germany.
There is still huge amounts of violence,
with the Stormtroopers on the streets.
There isn't the immediate economic miracle they had hoped for.
The honeymoon period for the Nazis is over.
I think Jung feels a real sense of responsibility and guilt
for enabling someone like this to then entrench themselves
at the leadership, at the very highest levels
of his country's politics.
Deep within Papen's Vice Chancellery,
Jung and others have formed a resistance cell.
He's working with people who have got connections in intelligence.
They are trying to warn people before they get arrested,
they're trying to get people out of the country when possible,
they're trying to get people out of prison when they have been arrested.
Politically, they're manoeuvring inside the Reichstag,
so they're doing really quite important
and very dangerous political work.
Jung had even made a plan to assassinate Hitler...
..but abandoned it in case it damaged his own political ambitions.
Instead, Jung plans to get Hitler removed from power.
He'll write a high profile speech for Papen
that will expose the violent truth about Röhm,
the Stormtroopers and Nazi rule.
The speech should be enough to force Hindenburg to get rid of Hitler...
..but it all hinges on getting Papen to deliver it.
Jung realises that this is a good moment,
both because we have public discontent,
we have the threat of violence turning into something more,
perhaps a political putsch...
..and we have Hindenburg's deteriorating health.
It's the time to act and, conveniently, at this moment,
Papen gets an invitation from the University of Marburg
to give a speech, which is perfect.
Jung is an intellectual and he's a communicator,
and he puts pen to paper, and what he drafts is basically
his alternative manifesto,
or at least his alternative path for Germany.
Jung doesn't trust Papen to deliver the speech,
but he has some insurance policies.
He distributes advanced copies to the press...
..and gets Goebbels' propaganda ministry
to agree to a live radio broadcast
so that Hindenburg can listen from his estate.
And Jung doesn't give Papen the speech
until he is on his way to Marburg.
Papen is travelling towards Marburg in Hesse, in central Germany,
to give a speech to some 600 people.
Papen, as a leading representative, the Vice Chancellor,
is a representative of the government
sent out, essentially, to do...
..call it what you will, marketing or PR for the government.
And he reads the speech,
the words that are being put into his mouth, and he is alarmed.
He says that this speech could cost him his head.
But the speech has already been sent out, and therefore some members
of the press already have the speech. He can't go back on it,
so he reluctantly agrees to deliver the speech.
Jung knows that Papen...
..maybe he won't have the backbone to give the talk word-for-word,
as he's written it, but then also maybe he hasn't got the intellect
or the backbone to replace it with something else.
It's all very last-minute, so he's really on tenterhooks
to see what is delivered.
Jung is listening to the radio, incredibly anxious.
"What's going to happen?"
And Papen begins to deliver the speech.
And he gives is pretty much as given.
Because he gets on a roll, he responds to his audience.
This is revolutionary stuff.
It is a very dramatic speech, as well.
He uses this incredibly strong language,
so he talks about it being time to silence the fanatics
and, er, make room for the work of serious men to do the serious work.
There's thunderous applause in the hall and Papen adores being adored,
and so he gets on a real roll
and he delivers the whole thing word for word.
Jung can hardly believe it.
He's banging his hand repeatedly on the table,
saying, "He bought it! He bought it!"
So he's absolutely delighted.
Some of the Stormtroopers quite pointedly walk out of the room,
but essentially it's a huge success.
Papen seems to be delighted.
There's a wonderful photograph of him walking down the steps
of the hall afterwards and he really looks like
the cat that's got the cream.
He was the object of the adulation of the crowd
and that sort of thing probably goes to his head a little bit.
The Marburg speech sent shock waves across Germany
and the public rally in support of Papen,
who sees an opportunity to become President himself.
To topple Hitler,
all Papen needs to do now is seize the momentum and get to Hindenburg.
But when the Nazis order news of the speech to be banned,
Papen's ego is bruised and he decides to first visit Hitler.
Papen is furious and goes to complain to Hitler,
threatening to resign as Vice Chancellor of the Reich.
That was a big problem for him.
There's a danger that Von Papen would go to see Hindenburg
and get his blessing to become his successor.
So this is not the moment Hitler wants to see a rebellion
within his own cabinet.
Danger was that the army would link up with Von Papen
and the Conservatives because they saw very much eye-to-eye.
The senior generals themselves are political conservatives,
they weren't Nazis at this stage,
and the danger was there'd be some kind of Conservative coup.
Hitler convinces Papen to delay his visit to see Hindenburg,
suggesting they make the trip together instead.
He manages to run rings around Papen because Papen suddenly loses
that ability to see the urgency of the situation -
that he needs to get to East Prussia to talk to Hindenburg.
If he moved at precisely that moment,
he might be able to do something.
But, as it is, he loses that chance and fails to seize the moment
which might have been actually instrumental
in bringing Hitler down.
Hitler has played Papen cleverly.
Going behind his back,
Hitler arranges to meet with the president at his country estate.
Hitler himself hotfoots it up to Neudeck, in East Prussia,
to go and see Hindenburg and find out what sort of state
his health's in and whether he's likely to fall off the perch quickly,
or whether they need to do something about it fast.
Hindenburg and his generals issue an ultimatum to Hitler to bring
the revolutionary troublemakers under control or face martial law
and the transfer of power to the army.
Hindenburg is pointing to the Stormtroopers and saying,
"Enough is enough."
Hitler, now seeing that he is slightly pinched on both sides,
both by the rebellious nature of Papen...
..and the fact that the President, who can dismiss him,
is looking angrily at him about the Stormtroopers,
Hitler then decides to act.
And now Jung has created the crisis and the man that capitalises
on the crisis is not Papen,
it's not Jung, it's Hitler.
And suddenly he realises that there is more to this man,
that there is a real potential problem here.
Papen has missed a historic opportunity to stop Hitler.
Realising his life may now be in danger, Jung starts planning
to flee the country.
Jung should have realised immediately
that his plan is unravelling
and that potentially he himself is personally in danger.
British intelligence has uncovered that he is likely to be arrested
and he is warned by a British journalist and a member
of the Reichstag that his arrest is likely to be imminent.
Eventually, he concedes that perhaps it is safer for him probably to get
to Switzerland at this point.
Hitler needs to now decide how to deal with the two impending
threats to his power,
Röhm and the Stormtroopers, and the aristocratic right
that could still yet persuade Hindenburg to get rid of him.
Ready for this moment,
Himmler and the SS have been busy inventing evidence...
..planting the seed of an idea that Röhm and the elites have in fact
joined forces to launch a coup against Hitler.
Himmler is working tirelessly in June 1934...
..cos Himmler knows that this is a now or never moment for himself,
for the SS, to win the upper hand against the Stormtroopers
and to retaliate against members of the conservative elite
who have expressed criticism of the Nazis -
people like Jung, people like Papen.
Himmler created this dossier about Röhm's alleged putsch plans
against Hitler. Röhm is planning a putsch aided by the former
German Chancellor, Von Schleicher, one of the archenemies of Hitler.
Himmler really manages to construct this image of a conspiracy,
of a coalition between the conservative right
and the Stormtroopers.
There was no such coalition.
All of these charges were completely trumped up.
All of these charges are completely trumped up.
Meanwhile, Himmler's Gestapo agents burst into Jung's apartment
just as his bags are packed for Switzerland.
When they arrest him, they do a thorough search of his apartment
and they discover papers negotiating the fee
he would get for writing that speech from Papen,
so that is their evidence.
It's now clear that he is the author of the Marburg speech.
He goes to the bathroom and he actually scribbles "Gestapo"
on the bathroom cabinet - to warn his friends what has happened.
With Jung in custody, Papen finally understands what's at stake
and just who he's dealing with.
Papen hears that Edgar Jung has been arrested and flies to Berlin
and demands an audience with Hitler.
Hitler refuses to see him.
At this point, Papen sees the urgency
of visiting Hindenburg and arranges to meet him
in Neudeck, in East Prussia.
This is a critical moment.
Hindenburg's health has taken a turn for the worse.
If Papen is to stop Hitler, he must get to Hindenburg immediately.
But news of Papen's meeting reaches Himmler, who is readying the SS
to strike against the aristocracy and the Stormtroopers.
Himmler summons SS leaders and he tells them that the Stormtroopers
are planning a putsch. Robust action must be taken swiftly, ruthlessly
and decisively, so Himmler and the SS are beginning to prepare lists
of Stormtroopers who are to be arrested, who are to be executed.
But even as the time to act draws near,
Hitler seems to remain loyal to Röhm.
And Röhm promises to lie low.
He takes leave at the Bavarian lakeside resort of Tegernsee.
Röhm leaves Berlin for Bavaria, Tegernsee,
where he stays in a nice hotel,
and Röhm feels...
..not very well.
He had has problems with his health and he is...
..very thoughtful during this time.
He is very, kind of, remote and this is definitely not a time for him
to party or to celebrate. He seems to think about his future.
Opposition inside and outside the Nazi Party
must now be annihilated...
..but Göring and Himmler still need word from Hitler
before they can move against their enemies.
On the 28th of June,
Hitler and Göring go to the wedding of a local Gauleiter.
It's a normal ceremony for Hitler to attend.
The conspirators have devised a plan
to psychologically prepare Hitler to take action.
In the middle of the wedding,
there's a moment of drama.
Himmler arrives and this is the point at which
they're going to tell Hitler about the dangers that he's facing.
Himmler comes in with the news that Papen...
..is about to see President von Hindenburg
on his estate in East Prussia.
This raises the alarm for Hitler.
Hitler is extremely concerned that, if he doesn't act swiftly
against the Stormtroopers, now that he knows that Papen
will be seen by Hindenburg, then Hindenburg might stop
supporting the Nazi regime, that Hitler might lose some of his power,
that the army might be given some more power.
To give him a final push, Hitler is shown documents that allege Röhm
and the Stormtroopers are plotting against him.
I think, for Hitler, it's a difficult moment, psychologically,
to confront the fact that Röhm could be...
..guilty of plotting against Hitler, plotting against the regime.
Having two people there prodding him, providing him with
what was in fact rather spurious evidence
about the possibility of a coup,
is, for Hitler, really necessary, you know?
He needs to have his indecision ended.
He needs somebody to prod him...
..but then it needs to be his decision.
So, he's prodded and prodded and prodded
and suddenly says, "Yes, that's it."
You know, "I've had enough."
And what follows is, you know, can be described only,
really, as mafia politics.
Hitler travels through the night to personally arrest Röhm at his hotel.
Röhm doesn't expect Hitler coming,
practically with all members of the inner circle,
to arrest him.
As far as we know, Röhm was really stunned.
He was very quiet during this time of arrest.
Röhm just sat there and it seems
as if Röhm still feels very confident...
..that there is no danger for him, personally.
Meanwhile, Göring and Himmler are poised for action in Berlin.
Göring and Himmler have returned to Berlin from Essen, from the wedding.
They lock themselves away in the Leipzig Palace,
they surround it with armed guards, just in case there really is
an attack from the Stormtroopers.
Himmler, in this situation, is very cool.
He's very calculated.
He is patient.
He knows that he needs to wait for the order
of the Führer to come through.
At 10.00am, Göring and Himmler receive the code word.
Then, throughout Germany, sealed orders are opened by SS men -
revealing lists of their victims.
Göring is the kind of impresario of the drama and Himmler, once again,
is the obedient secretary,
carrying everything out that needs to be carried out.
Himmler is coordinating the arrests and executions in Berlin
together with Göring. They go through lists, they go through lists
of who's to be arrested, of who is to be shot.
The killing begins.
Former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher is murdered at home,
alongside his wife.
Rebel Nazis, who once threatened to split the party,
are also taken care of.
The men in Papen's office are also on the list.
Papen is arrested and placed under house arrest.
He can't do anything to act, to save the members
of his own department, and various people in his entourage
are, essentially, murdered. He is lucky, in many respects,
to survive with his life.
All we know with Jung is that he is executed.
The place of death is left unrecorded,
which is a mark of disrespect, as well,
and sometime later his family receive his ashes
and his empty wallet.
That is the end of Jung.
It sounds very bizarre to us, but Himmler is guided
by a different moral compass.
Himmler believes that it is necessary for the survival
of the Nazi regime to act so ruthlessly against the people
on the list of those to be arrested, of those to be executed.
For Himmler, it is an office job routine.
For at least 100 people who were murdered
in the aftermath of the Night of the Long Knives...
..this was the end of their lives.
By the evening of June the 30th,
dozens have been executed.
Any possible conservative or Stormtrooper rebellion
has been crushed.
Still alive, though, is Hitler's friend -
Ernst Röhm.
Bizarrly, the day after the murders, Hitler hosted a party at the Reich Chancellery
almost as if nothing had happened.
It curiously resembled, I think, the way that some murderers,
when they've murdered somebody, they wash their hands,
they change their clothes, they want to put all that behind them
and then they can walk out into the streets -
as if nothing had happened.
This is a really incongruous scene.
Imagine that some of the bloodiest murders in the history
of the Third Reich have taken place on the previous day.
Now, Hitler has invited members of the Reich cabinet
and their wives to a party.
Himmler and Göring learned that Röhm has not been executed.
He's an old companion, old fighter,
and he just can't bring himself to order Röhm to be murdered.
So it's one of those occasions where Hitler hesitates and he needs
other people to prod him again into making that decision.
And for Göring and Himmler, it's really important.
You know, the whole thing was to get rid of Röhm!
So they've got to get Hitler to make the decision
that Röhm must be executed, too.
As with other major decisions,
Hitler has waited for the crucial moment to play his hand.
Hitler was always prepared to use violent action in the end.
He didn't have any hesitation about having people shot, killed,
murdered, robbed, beaten up or tortured -
it didn't really matter to him.
In that sense, the so-called Röhm putsch,
the murder of scores of people
he regarded as traitors to the cause,
that wasn't particularly something that he felt was bad.
He felt, by this stage, he was above the law.
In a sense, he'd always felt he was above the law.
Hitler's decision is to offer Röhm
the honourable way out.
At Stadelheim Prison,
Röhm is forced to make a terrible choice.
For Röhm, it must have been astonishing, then,
to see Theodor Eicke, who is the
commander of the Dachau concentration camp.
A pistol is put into Röhm's cell,
together with a copy of the Volkischer Beobachter Nazi newspaper,
with stories about the Röhm purge,
about Röhm's alleged conspiracy.
I wouldn't see Röhm as a victim.
He himself, and he says this very openly,
he himself would kill people, would kill his enemies.
Killing was no problem for Röhm.
Röhm does not want to shoot himself.
So, after ten minutes,
the commander of the Dachau camp, Theodor Eicke,
storms into Röhm's cell and shoots him at close range.
This is the end of the Night of the Long Knives.
This is the end of Röhm.
This is the end of the leader of the Stormtroopers,
who was, until then, Hitler's closest ally,
Hitler's closest supporter.
Hitler was always relieved after he'd made up his mind
on a difficult issue and taken action -
that gave him a sense of relief and fulfilment.
He knew, he felt in his bones, that he had solved
a really difficult problem.
This is it.
This is the end of this period of seizing power
and establishing power.
Now we can move forward as one united government, state,
people under my command.
Göring finally achieves his ambition.
As a reward for his brutality,
Hitler promotes him and names him as his successor.
He will go on to oversee many of the Nazis' worst atrocities.
Later on, at Nuremberg, when Göring is on trial for war crimes,
he's asked about Röhm, "What did you think? Why did you do it?"
He said, "Well, he was in my way."
For Göring, you know, it wasn't a question
I think he would have understood.
You know, "Did you have a guilty conscience afterwards?"
"No, of course not."
After the Night of the Long Knives,
Hitler makes the SS a fully autonomous organisation.
Under Himmler's watch,
it becomes one of the most feared institutions in Germany,
presiding over the systematic murder of minorities,
homosexuals and Jews.
One of the keys to understanding Himmler's personality
and Himmler's career is by reflecting about the word "decency".
Himmler thought that he had always been acting decently,
that, in organising the Night of Long Knives
had been decent, that killing Jews during the Second World War
had been decent. This is abhorrent.
Himmler thought that he had done the right thing
for the survival of the Germanic race.
By crushing the Stormtroopers,
Hitler wins the support of most of the German public,
the army, the elites,
and President Hindenburg.
Hindenburg was always frightened of instability.
So, when action is taken in this way, erm...
..I suppose, I don't know, a fit of relief or something
and pens a letter to Hitler, saying, basically, "Well done."
Having won Hindenburg's approval,
Hitler presents a new piece of legislation
combining the offices of President and Chancellor
to take effect on Hindenburg's death.
A day later, Hindenburg is on his deathbed.
When Hitler goes to pay his respects,
he finds Hindenburg drifting in and out of consciousness,
addressing him as "Your Majesty".
I'm dubious about his ability to make rational judgment
as he approached his death.
Might explain some of the very difficult questions
regarding his shift
vis-a-vis Hitler and the Nazi Party.
In his last rational moments,
what did he think of when he thought about Germany's future?
Difficult to answer that one.
He would want to vindicate his own decisions,
but he may be disturbed by...
..what has happened since Hitler took office.
So he might have died a...
..rather troubled man.
And so Hitler now had nothing left to restrain him.